After that hallucination trip, the old man promised to supply Michael with all the Morel Spores that he would ever need.
All in all, the new experience was definitely worth it. First, he was able to finally start his Darkwood farming journey. And second, he was able to speak with the mysterious bratty Goddess. She basically confirmed the Original Vampire's identity, and gave him clues about the
Dragonborns' true talents.
Although she didn't specifically tell him anything, she did tell him that they were very special. Through context clues, he was able to surmise that the Dragonborns must have had some special identity or purpose
in this world.
Are they related to the Ancient Humans?
There must have been a reason why she showed him a vision of the world a thousand years ago. Perhaps, they were descendants of the Ancient Humans. Perhaps they were their creations. He didn't know. The only way he'd have a clue was if they started to 'awaken' their true latent powers, as the Goddess called it.
Either way, he could only see that if he had enough GodForge pieces to advance them through the stages of Body Formation.
And the only way to do that was if he had enough Sand Dollars.
It's time for me to plant some Darkwood.
He immediately teleported himself back to the Nation of Reborn. Then, he travelled outwards, towards the desolate desert in the Parched Lands.
He made sure that there was absolutely no one near him in a twenty kilometer radius.
After all, he planned to travel back to the place where Kuno was imprisoned.
All signs pointed it to be a part of the Elven Kingdom, where he could get Elven soil.
That was his first goal.
Standing above in the middle of the desert, he looked around and saw no signs of Light mana in his vicinity.
Then, he took out his Drone and entered into its Pocket Dimension.
If he was going to transport himself to an unknown location, then it would be much safer if he was inside his Drone. If something bad did happen, or if he was suddenly attacked by a Zephry, then at least his Drone would be his first line of defense, giving him enough time to either escape or fight back.
Once inside the Control Room, he started the cast.
Mana suddenly swirled around the Drone, gathering on the shadows cast underneath its frame.
As Michael continued his spell, more and more mana got caught up in its enormous energy requirement, until a visible tornado of mana emerged in the desert.
If any mage were to see this, they would lose their mind. So much mana was being pulled from the environment that there was an obvious shift in the density of air, making it a lot harder to breathe. Michael concentrated hard until finally, the spell reached completion. The Drone's shadow grew outwards, enveloping its whole body before blinking it out of existence.Google seaʀᴄh novel·fiɾe·net
Then finally, the storm in the desert died down.
However, the change was still everpresent. The air grew staler, the sunlight grew dimmer, and the individual grains of sand stopped dancing in the air.
The low density of mana in the environment wouldn't get totally fixed until days later.
...
...
The shadow enveloping the drone soon recessed back underneath the frame.
And immediately, the Drone's very atomic structure started to spread apart, letting it have the ability to phase through solid objects.
Right now, the Drone was buried deep underground, with nothing
but pure, solid rock weighing down from above.
If Michael hadn't purchased this upgrade, the Drone would have been unable to move.
It's time to see where I'm at, he said as he started to pilot the Drone upwards.
[Current Elevation: 20.85 kilometers below sea level.]
[20.84]
[20.79]
[20.71]
Michael was surprised to see how deep they currently were.
Why did Kuno imprison herself so far underground?
Being so far down, he could definitely see why the Original Vampire had disappeared for thousands of years without anyone finding her. Aside from being chained up with solidified blood that only Unity could melt, she was also so deep underground that practically no human would ever accidentally stumble onto her.
At least now I know where to look when finding the rest of Kuno's solidified blood.
All he had to do was dig deep and hopefully find another gothic castle. Easy right?
Michael finally reached the surface, with the Drone phasing out of the ground, barely disturbing any blade of grass nearby.
This is definitely not on the Royal Continent.
The plants and vegetation around were completely foreign to him.
The fact that the majority of plants weren't colored green was the most glaring clue he could see. Not only that, but they all seemed to be growing weird tentacles that swayed like seaweed in the ocean.
[The Flora species of this place is consistent with those found in the Elven Kingdom,] said ChatJK5.
Thanks to the scrolls Braxton gave him, he was finally certain he was
in the Elven Kingdom.
But where exactly?
He quickly piloted the Drone to fly upwards, towards the clouds, to see a top-down view of the whole environment.
One of the books he got was a full map of the Elven Kingdom, which
meant that he could pinpoint his exact location as long as he saw a
familiar landmark.
As he rose up in elevation, he noticed that all he could see around him
was an entire forest filled with those tentacled plants.
This doesn't seem like anywhere in the Elven Kingdom. According to the maps, the Elven Kingdom was mostly flat, which
meant that one could see a giant tree castle from all the corners of
their continent.
But he couldn't see that anywhere he looked.
ChatJK5, where are we?
His personal Al assistant went silent for a second before answering,
[With 97% certainty, I am sure that we are located somewhere in the Forbidden Island.]
Michael couldn't believe his luck.
The Forbidden Island was a completely separate land away from the
main Elven continent.
But that wasn't the reason why they called it the Forbidden Island.
They called it that because this place was the breeding ground for
Zephyrs!
No Elf would ever come to this place given the dangers.
Am I lucky or unlucky?
He was wondering how he was going to get Zephyrs for his rollercoaster. And now, he just found their homeland.
I don't have a way to capture them yet.
For now, he wasn't in the mood for exploring.
His main objective for this brief visit was to simply obtain Elven Soil
for his Darkwood farm.
Thankfully, according to the Lazarus' Experiments, soil from the Forbidden Island was still viable to grow Darkwood.
He piloted his Drone to the ground and exited the Pocket Dimension.
Once he was out, he didn't dally around. He quickly used a simple Earth spell to get a huge block of soil from the ground.
He made sure to get just enough to fill the entirety of the Subspace
before finally entering back into the Pocket Dimension carrying the new soil.
Once he obtained what he needed, he quickly teleported back into the Parched Lands.