Magical Ascension Chapter 22 (Patreon)

Disregarding Lalatina being a degenerate, I took out the more publicly available maps of the Great Lake that I brought on my own. "Well there is still the public maps and we have a full week to be out in the wilderness to gather as many special resources. So we can still do the mining trick in some older mines. Or we can hunt for those micro realms that have been popping up in the Great Lake." I spoke asking for the other three's opinions.

After a moment Keqing nodded and with her arms crossed over her chest. She then spoke with in confirmation. "It would be for the best if we first found some micro realms as they will have more raw resources for us to collect. To say nothing of the monsters within the micro realms we will kill and collect their corpses as well."

With Furina added on petulantly as she huffed and looked out the window. "Utterly ridiculous... Making a noble doing hard labor like mining.

In response Keqing took out the ladle I gave her and Furina made loud 'Eep!' noise while covering her head with her arms as Keqing looked at the blue-haired french woman with the clear intent of bonking her over the head with the large soup spoon ladle.

'Actually, why does a soup ladle hurt so much when you get hit over the head with it? Is it because its curved shape makes a vibrating secondary attack or something?' I thought wryly as I remember the few times I did the normal stupid shit like lying in front of my mother to get Taihou out of trouble and my mother would punish me instead of Taihou.

Shaking those painful memories away even though I fondly remembered Taihou kissing my bruises away I coughed and spoke up. "Anyway, so we will just hunt for the micro realms once we hit the fog lands of the Great Lake alright?"

Lalatina then piped up to agree with Keqing also agreeing with Furina obviously accepting the game plan.

With an actual plan in motion, I looked at Keqing and asked. "Did your master Makoto give you hints or anything that we need to worry about?"

Keqing's face became dark and for a moment she remained silent before she said slowly. "Due to the surge in micro realms opening up. There have been more foreign adventurer teams, combing the area for riches so we have to worry about weaker mages possibly attacking us. Thankfully the stronger mages were told of our presence and the stronger mages of our city will keep them from doing anything to bully us."

I raised an eyebrow as that was just the norm but Keqing continued with her voice turning dark. "But with a bunch of foreigners, there in lies the possibility of running into dark mages like the Black Vatican."

Ah the Black Vatican... Basically, what happens when you bring out all the religious dogma of extremists and then turn it up to eleven and then give them magical powers along with them having ties to the strongest monsters and even some beings in the upper realms they worshipped as some kind of god.

The ride was more quiet with that knowledge hanging over us until Lalatina broke the generally quiet atmosphere as we left the city and entered the Fog Lands that preceded entering the depths of the Great Lake. "Are we going to work together with other groups from our generation? Or are we going to try to rob them or something?"

But as she asked about the robbing bit, I could see a flush entering her cheeks and I cut in and stated flatly. "No Lalatina, we will not be stealing people's clothes or anything perverted."

Her face went dark in embarrassment and for a moment Keqing and Furina both looked at me weirdly before looking at the flushed Lalatina's face before they made an expression of understanding combined with disgust as they looked at the blond.

-

A couple of minutes later we had driven well into the thick blinding fog of the Fog Lands and Keqing called out to the driver through the partition. "Alright, this should be far enough. We can walk from here."

Getting out of the armored car I instantly wanted to get back into said car as the fog was so thick that I couldn't see literally anything more than twenty meters from me. 'Oh hell no... I didn't sign up to live the. The Mist movie irl.' I thought with a shudder as I shook my head and took a breath as a purple glyph formed under my feet as I summoned Nahida in front of me and she popped out of the summoning glyph in her Kirlia form.

"Alright, you stick with us Nahida." I said with her happily nodding and sending a burst of affection my way as she took reached up to hold my hand as she walked beside me.

The five of us now with Nahida included walked over the road and began walking off to the west toward a series of thick forests that we knew would clear up a bit of the over-thick fog but the forest was also noted as being a haven for weaker monsters as of late.

But even before reached the forests themselves Nahida's head tilted to the side as she sent me a mental thought instantly. "Bugs incoming."

Wordlessly I activated my water magic with the blue glyph forming under my feet and everyone paused seeing the dark blue water of my heavy water shield forming as I spoke out. "Bug monsters coming."

Keqing nodded and while we continued to walk I saw her lightning spell forming and being held under her feet as the purple glyph filled with power until with a shrieking noise. A large grey-skinned spider the size of a larger dog jumped through the thick fog towards us and its leaping form was instantly fried as a blinding bolt of fist-sized lightning struck it with a thunderous noise.

A series of hisses rang out and Keqing groaned and said with disgust. "Communal spiders... Be careful of the nest queen, it will likely be an actual Soldier tier monster."

Even though that spider was an unranked monster who wasn't even a soldier-tier monster, I grimaced as from the edge of the fog view, in the underbrush of the thick foliage of the field we were walking through, came a couple dozen spiders around the size of the previous ones leaping through the air and charging through the thick underbrush!

I began forming my astral spell as well as I spun my Heavy Water shield spell around us and the multi-ton weighing wall of water smashed the leaping spiders into a paste as they basically leaped face first into a wrecking ball swinging at high speed.

But then I noticed my water shield became bigger as my form was filled with power and my thoughts were confirmed as Lalatina said quickly. "Boosted everyone!" And then Furina snapped her fingers elegantly and my face twitched as from her own water shield spell as she was still a Novice mage myself.

Solid water ghosts or apparitions of other unranked monsters began fighting the slower spiders as Keqing threw lightning bolts at the biggest and fastest spiders. 'Huh, so her undead monsters she can summon with her water probably is only unranked monsters with how she is still a novice mage.' I thought before a loud hiss rang out as the broodmother of this spider clan dashed through the foliage and I shuddered seeing the horse-sized spider rushing towards us.