Chapter 339 - Chosing a thread (Patreon)

Before Ninleyn could talk about the clues he had available, Blue and Alex returned, making the group take a small break. They had brought food for everyone, a few buckets of fried chicken and some fried rice, along with some salad for the elf. Despite having some light snacks in the dining room, the food was more than welcome.

Everyone gathered in the new dining room and had a pleasant meal while chatting. Helena had to push the chicken away from Ninleyn a couple of times since the leader of the order seemed keen on eating it, but the mage wasn't going to let him stink up the entire house again. A couple of hours went by until Blue and Alex left the rest of the group and went to their rooms. Letting the members of the order talk among themselves again.

After Bonnie and Hera finished cleaning the dishes and returned to the dining room, Ninleyn asked, "Hera, for how long can you keep that soundproof bubble?"

"Depends on the size. If I'm doing this for the entire room… maybe half an hour, forty minutes," Hera replied after double-checking the spell cost and her current maximum mana.

"And how long it would take for you to recover all your mana?"

"Twenty minutes more or less, a bit less if I can focus just on that."

"Would you mind using it? I understand that you might share some if not all this information with your friends in the future, but I rather not give them a chance to eavesdrop. I know you trust them, but I ask you to humor an old man," Ninleyn explained.

Hera nodded while noticing a small frown on Bonnie's face. With everything that went down with Shane, the researcher was still sensitive about people being accused of being untrustworthy.

"Here, sweetie, use these to maintain the spell," Helena took off her earrings and passed to Hera.

They were small silver frames with light blue rocks in the middle. It seemed like they were created to stay in the earlobe to avoid having any part of it dangling around. The back of them was also made to be very secure. You could screw the stud in two parts. One would screw on the pin and another on the stud for security. They were simple but very pretty.  Hera triggered her [Inspect] on the pair of earrings to know how much mana she could use.

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Mana core earrings

A pair of earrings that have a small mana crystal embedded into them. Each earring has its own mana pool.

Right earring mana 20 000/20 000

Left earring mana 20 000/20 000

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"Sweet system, are those the ones the guild gave you?" Hera gasped.

"Yeah, I know it's not that much mana, but it helped a lot during those months. I couldn't use magic," Helena nodded with a smile.

"Not that much? Lena, this is about five times my maximum mana! If I use these, I should be able to keep the bubble up for six hours without even touching my own mana."

"That's even better then," Helena replied.

"Yeah, sure, but we are going to have a talk about these earrings. I want to borrow them or at least know how much they are," Hera replied while putting the earrings on. She never thought about going after her own items that could store mana. Even the poison mana crystal she had was barely seeing use lately. It might be time to change that.

"As much as having a spare mana pool can be useful. I recommend you avoid using crystals all the time. Using one of those tools to cast spells hinders your mana growth," Ninleyn said.

"I think I read about that too, but still, it's good to have something like this for a backup or to make big moves," Bonnie nodded.

"That is a fair point. However, we will have plenty of time to discuss equipment and other tools to improve your lives in the MAZE. May we start talking about the leads?" Ninleyn looked at Hera, who activated her soundproof spell.

"Right, before we start. There was one thing that I wanted to talk to you about," Helena turned to the leader of the order.

"Am I in trouble?" Ninleyn snickered.

"Sure, you forgot to make your bed," Helena rolled her eyes, "What I wanted to talk about is about my lead. I know you left it with me for a long time since not many people are keen on chasing the court, but honestly, that's not something I want to do. Going to ruins and running around as we did with Shane is not something I enjoy doing."

"Are you sure? According to the painting we found showing your lead, it should be something that fits you very well," Ninleyn said.

"I'm sure. Honestly, I was always more interested in how to create a legacy than to find one, and even then is more like something that seems cool but not something that I want to actively work towards," Helena continued.

"Really?" Hera asked. The idea of getting a legacy seemed incredible. After all, why would someone not want to be stronger?

"Really. Look, if I had a legacy, people would expect more of me. It would be harder to make spells that everyone can use. Not to mention that if the guild ever finds out about it, they will keep pestering me to help with everything they need. I know. I had to make some of those requests myself. I intend to retire someday, and I doubt I will have peace if I have a legacy," Helena sighed.

"Well. If you are sure, I can add your lead to the ones they could pick. I would say that it would be a shame to lose someone looking for the legacies but well... You never actually went looking for your lead, so I wouldn't say this is exactly a loss. In fact, having you in the support team might be a great asset," Ninleyn was organizing his thoughts as he spoke.

"I'll be more than glad to help with other stuff. Research and whatnot. Just the actual tomb searching that I didn't enjoy," Helena nodded.

"Really? I couldn't tell. I thought that you were enjoying our trip," Bonnie turned to Helena.

"I noticed that at times you had a weird expression, but since you would take one of Risli's potions right after, I thought it was just the phantom pain acting up. That's why I stayed close but didn't say anything. I know you don't like to show when you are hurting," Hera touched her shoulder with Helena's trying to comfort her friend.

"Very well then. Adding Helena's lead in the mix, I have four options for you to pick. You may only pick one, but no rule stops you from helping each other with this lead. However, we do have a gentleman's agreement that if you are helping someone else and find the legacy, the 'owner' of the lead should be the one to get it. Well, I say that, but let's say Helena had shared her lead with someone, and that person had found it. Since Helena didn't make any effort, the legacy would go to whoever found it, but if both were working towards it, the priority would go to whoever originally had that lead," Ninleyn explained.

"I don't know if I like that rule that much. I mean, if I work my ass off to find something and the other person didn't, shouldn't I be the one to get it?" Bonnie crossed her arms.

"That's why I'm saying it's a gentleman's agreement. Not to mention that you might find the legacy while fighting something at times, and it's not like we will ask you not to defend yourself when you are being attacked. Asking you to give up a legacy is not something we do either. After all, that would be too harsh since you are going to get a permanent hit too, well... Everything."

"Well, I don't think that we have to worry about that. I mean, I wouldn't steal your legacy unless it was a life or death situation," Hera turned to Bonnie.

"Yeah, same. I just find that rule weird. Then again, most 'gentleman agreements' are sketchy at best," Bonnie sighed.

"Either way, we can talk about this later. Give me a moment," Ninleyn pulled up his tablet and tapped it a few times before placing it with the screen down on the table. From the camera, a small light appeared, and a hologram was projected above the tablet. The picture was of a small envelope, "Now, if you allow me a little bit of theatrics. Let me show you the four options you have to pick from."

Ninleyn placed his finger on top of the holographic envelope, and it started moving as if playing a pre-made animation. There was a tear on the side of the paper, and four white sheets of a mix between paper and cloth came out of it. As if it was dropped in the wind, the envelope fell and vanished while the four new objects stood side by side.

"As a rule, you cannot pick which lead to follow based on the actual clue. Instead, I will show you the members of the Court of Heroes, and you must pick based on what their apparent abilities are," the first sheet spun and revealed a baroque painting of two people. One had a purple glow coming from his hands, a glow that spread around the area and even lifted a couple of trees from the ground. The other had a two-handed sword that seemed slightly out of focus, almost like it was the only part of the picture that required glasses to be seen, "We don't know his name, but this lead is related to the warrior with the sword. What we know is that despite him not being able to use long-range spells, he was able to be even more effective than a mage in large-scale combat."

"Nothing about the other person on this painting?" Bonnie asked.

"Unfortunately, no. They are still a mystery," Ninleyn shook his head, "Moving one, this next piece, we have only pictures in some pottery, but I can say that the little we found says that she can befriend monsters and control them to a degree. Some texts call her a shepherd while others call her a witch," the second sheet turned around, revealing two clay pots of different designs. One seemed to be almost greek in structure but with drawings and characters that reminded Hera of feudal japan, while the other had markings that looked like they were from a Native American tribe. In both pictures, there was a woman with long hair and flowery clothes petting creatures that had to be monsters.

"Do you have any more information? Like, could she bring monsters along to other rooms or something like that?" Hera kept thinking about how awful it would be to have a pet, only to abandon it every time you changed rooms.

"I don't, sorry. This is the extent of information that we have, but the lead about her is solid. More so than the rest," the third sheet revealed its contents. It was the picture of a statue depicting a man with the head of a bull surrounded by something that spun around it almost like a hurricane, "This one we don't have a description, only a title. The Hidden Wind. I believe it's safe to assume that this legacy is about wind, and if it's a pure legacy, we can guess that it will be as strong as Undine's."

"What's a pure legacy?" Bonnie asked.

"It's what we call a legacy that has a pure element on it. Using wind as an example, if your legacy is called 'Hurricane,' you will have a hard time making a light breeze, or if it's called 'Icy wind,' it will be a mix of wind and cold. However, if you have simply the legacy of 'Wind' or maybe the Court of Wind, in this case, you should be able to use wind mana in its entirety without any difficulties no matter what you want to make. We call it pure simply because it deals with a single element. It doesn't necessarily mean that it is stronger or weaker than any other. However, having a legacy on par with one of the great heroes is something exciting, is it not?"

"I mean, it would be very cool," Hera nodded.

"Finally, we have the last lead. The one that Helena had. Did you ever looked into it, or is it all the same information we have?" Ninleyn turned to the mage.

"I can tell a few rooms that don't match with what we are looking for, but that's about it.

"Well, this is better than nothing, I suppose," Ninleyn touched the last paper sheet making it turn around, "This one I really thought it would work well with Helena. We have both the picture and the name people gave her," the paper changed and revealed a couple of drawings. Most had monsters and someone fighting them, but there was one with a single beastfolk with rabbit ears bathed by the moonlight with some of the stars in the sky shining brightly, "We have found some texts referencing this picture as the Astral Witch Ritual."

Hera stared at the holographic paper sheets for a few moments, thinking about what she could pick. Ninleyn made it clear that these were the ones that actually had a possibility of bringing some results and wouldn't end up as dead ends. Still, this was a big decision, and she would have to be careful with what to pick.

##### Author's Note ####

It took me way longer than it should have, but here is one of the 2 extra chapters I promised. Enjoy!

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