The mark of existence for another source of Divine Spark was not exactly welcome, especially since it pushed an already-complicated situation to a new level, making Aviada’s disappearance an even bigger puzzle to solve.

Like things weren’t difficult enough with the elements acting wild and women disappearing behind the reach of the system.

Naturally, I didn’t leave the area immediately after discovering the divine spark. I stuck around, spending the next couple of hours doing my best to discover some new evidence. I had analyzed the ground to understand how the out-of-control mana affected the area, did my best to take samples of the weakening shadow of the Divine Spark — which was particularly hard as the System had already devoured most of it — and recording other extraordinary details, no matter how insignificant they sounded.

I even took the risk to shift back to the Arcana dimension a couple of times to see if I could get any more clues — only after setting several guidance beacons to ensure I could return without a problem, naturally, no matter how much mana those temporary beacons burned — but the twirling magical energies was even worse in terms of retaining evidence.

Ultimately, all my extra work was in vain, yielding no new clues.

Aviada was gone, lost in a place where I strongly doubted the System didn’t work, leaving nothing other than a bunch of clues too complicated to properly decipher, from wild elements to the ghost of a Divine Spark with a mysterious sharp nature.

Even worse, I couldn’t even understand the weird reaction of the elements. The easiest assumption about their nature was to say they were real elementals, but that wouldn’t be correct. First of all, elemental beings were denoted by their excessive purity, and those rainbow-fires and chaotic water were not exactly pure.

They were strong, far stronger than any elemental I had read about in the library, but they weren’t exactly pure in terms of their nature.

More importantly, elementals were feared because of their great intelligence, even the weaker ones having the survival instincts of animals — particularly mercurial and disobedient ones, even — which made them very difficult to control.

There was a reason I had used faux-elementals that worked strictly under my control despite burning a lot of mana rather than risking to summon real elementals.

Unfortunately, even there, I wasn’t able to come to a conclusion, because everything I knew about true elementals, I had learned from the books and notes of the other mages rather than my own experience — a direct consequence of lacking time to properly experiment with everything that was going on.

Yet, I also remembered the panic Janelor had shown when I dared to summon a faux elemental as a ride, which conflicted greatly with my direct experience until that moment. Ultimately, the existence of the wound in the Arcana dimension, together with the clear link between those out-of-control elements with the mysterious world behind the Dome, was a more reasonable reaction.

There was nothing else to be done,” I decided, not in the mood to take yet another mystery about why elements might work differently under the control of the System compared to outside.

I had more than enough problems already.

With a sigh as I summoned another air elemental mount for myself — though not before summoning a much smaller one, just to test whatever that made the elements go crazy was certainly gone — grabbed Carla, and went back to Silver Spires.

[-1190 Mana]

With the meeting with the headmistress coming closer, there was no point wasting time. While traveling, I kept Carla unconscious. Only when I arrived, I woke her up.

“Huh, we’re back,” she murmured sleepily as she glanced around, realizing the danger was truly gone.

“Yes, we are,” I said. The sleep clearly helped her after her close call with death.

“What about Aviada?” she asked, though this time, she didn’t panic as much despite the worry tinging her tone, clearly encouraged by my display of skill.

“She’s far away, so it’s going to take a while for her to return,” I explained once again rather than dismissing her. I needed her calm, after all. The last thing I needed was for her to go around, poking things unnecessarily.

“What should I say?” she asked.

“I’ll handle informing the school, you just need to explain the fate of your patrol. If they poke, tell them you were already too far away to notice anything. Try not to talk about the rainbow nature of the fire, though,” I said. If that was as extraordinary as I assumed, revealing that would only make things more complicated.

“But what about the other survivors. They had escaped quickly, but the flames were too big for them to miss,” she countered.

It was a good point. In the mess, I had neglected that part. I thought a bit about the merits of finding them and ordering them to silence using the authority of the headmistress, but after some time, I decided against it.

Unless I killed them, one of them would definitely leak it, and while it was something I wanted to keep secret, I didn’t want to keep it secret by killing several innocent people.

Even if they were cowardly enough to abandon Aviada.

“You can talk about it,” I finally said. After all, I had no real reason to put that much effort to keep that secret, especially since doing so had the risk of alerting the others to more than a few inconsistent reports from a lost patrol.

“What about the sword?” Carla commented. “Should I talk about how extraordinary it was?”

“The sword?” I asked, my thoughts coming to a halt as she mentioned it. “Why don’t you explain to me first what exactly happened, and why the sword is important?” I said, as a frown appeared on my face. Up until now, she didn’t mention the sword.

I wanted to be angry at her, but considering I had magically calmed her down before putting her to sleep forcibly as I dealt with more urgent things, it would be a bit hypocritical to do so. Ultimately, it was my oversight.

That didn’t prevent annoyance from rising, of course. It was just pointed inwardly.

“It happened when the creature attacked. When she first started fighting, it didn’t look like she had a winning chance, so the surviving members of our patrol started running away. I stayed, trying to support her from a distance, but the defeat seemed inevitable…” she said, trembling softly as she remembered just how close she had come to death.

“Then?” I asked, prompting her to continue.

“She shouted, and her sword started glowing. Just like that, Aviada started swinging her sword faster and faster, each swings pushing the creature back. But when the creature attacked her with some kind of flame attack…”

“And…”

“I don’t know,” she murmured. “That part is a blur. I remember Aviada swinging her sword, and with its glow, the sword managed to cut the flames. But when she cut the flames, it turned into an explosion. When the flames fell, Aviada was nowhere to be seen, and the place was covered by those rainbow flames. Then, you arrived.”

The sword had clearly reacted with Empowerment perk, I thought even as a frown appeared on my face, not sure whether I would be surprised or not.

In a way, it was not surprising, because I had used the sword, and knew it was superior to anything I could craft without improving my skills even further. It was a complicated weapon, with many mysterious enchantments limiting its usefulness to anyone but the designated wielder. For it to hide such a mysterious feature was not impossible.

Yet, I was also surprised, because the last time I had used and analyzed the sword, I was significantly lacking in terms of crafting knowledge, and assumed that while it was a very good sword, ultimately, its mysteries wouldn’t stay ahead of me.

Aviada had always been the focus. The sword had been just an afterthought.

However, Carla’s story, along with the evidence I had collected told me a different story. Aviada’s mysterious victory, the disappearance of Empowerment after usage, the wound on the Dome, even the existence of that wild elements…

If her story was accurate, Avaida’s sword somehow forcefully took the Empowerment, and somehow used that not only to kill the monster, but also to create wounds in the borders of the system.

A temporary one, but I doubted that trivialized the extent of the achievement.

It wasn’t the worst of it, however. It wasn’t hard to guess that the sudden ability the sword had displayed was tightly linked to the sharp Divine Spark I had managed to discover.

I had worked so hard to find a source, only to miss the one next to me.

Of course, there was no guarantee whether the sword itself was the source. There was much circumstantial evidence against it as well. I had examined the sword several times, and while I clearly missed several important details about the sword, both me and the System failing to detect Divine Spark hidden in the sword was a stretch.

Ultimately, however, it was impossible to make a decision.

“Do not mention anything about the sword, it’ll only make her a target,” I said to Carla. I had no idea whether the sword had the Divine Spark, or it was an indirect effect created by Empowerment that I was reading inaccurately.

Still, before I could delve into it, it was best to keep it secret.

Even if Aviada was currently lost in the distant lands.

Luckily, I had two sources I could subtly question about the mysteries behind the event. Conveniently, I even had a meeting with the headmistress a few minutes later.

I just needed to find a good excuse to question her without revealing the truth of the event.

[Level: 32 Experience: 499110 / 528000

Strength: 46 Charisma: 63

Precision: 40 Perception: 42

Agility: 40 Manipulation: 45

Speed: 39 Intelligence: 49

Endurance: 39 Wisdom: 51

HP: 6528 / 6528 Mana: 8000 / 8000 ]

SKILLS

Master Melee [100/100]

Master Tantric [100/100]

Master Biomancy [100/100]

Master Elemental [100/100]

Master Arcana [100/100]

Master Subterfuge [100/100]

Master Craft [77/100]

Expert Speech [75/75]

PERKS

Mana Regeneration

Skill Share

Empowerment (0/1)

Teleportation

COMPANIONS

[Cornelia – Level 22/26]

[Helga – Level 22/26]