"Jumping straight down from this height would definitely kill us, right?" Orcini swallowed hard, watching the clouds rapidly recede below them.
Warriors and heroes always loved the high-altitude drop as an entrance—it was cool and dashing. But if they splattered against the ground like a pile of mud, they'd only go down in history as a joke.
"Don't panic. Let me teach you some basic common sense." Zenith switched his inventory to a water bucket. "As long as you land in water when falling, you'll take absolutely zero damage. That's the principle of the water bucket clutch!"
*What kind of common sense is that?!* Jumping from thirteen thousand meters up, even the surface of the ocean would feel as hard as steel! Besides, what the hell was one bucket of water supposed to do?!
Of course, just in case, Zenith handed them each a Flight Amulet. "If you aren't confident, you can activate the amulet right before you hit the ground to gain the power of flight."
*Thank god. If we activate it near the ground, we won't get hurt.* South Hero and Orcini exchanged a glance, then suddenly shouted in unison:
"Why not just activate the amulets from the start and fly down safely?!"
"Because that's way too boring, obviously!" Zenith threw open the cabin door, struck a JoJo pose with a 9.9 difficulty rating, and tipped backward out of the plane.
*Exhilarating!*
The howling wind roared in his ears, the turbulent air whipping his sleeves into a frenzy. The weightlessness, the racing heartbeat, the rapidly approaching ground—this was what it meant to be alive!
*Now's the time! Water bucket clutch! The ultimate test of a Minecraft veteran has arrived!*
"Clang—"
The Totem of Undying activated. Zenith lay flat on his back next to a single block of water, holding an empty bucket as he watched South Hero and Orcini slowly float down.
"He definitely just died right there, didn't he?" Orcini asked.
"Shut up. You didn't see anything," South Hero replied.
Zenith, in absolutely no mood to speak, dusted himself off and scooped the water back into his bucket.
"Let's go. I've never actually visited this Magical City before. I hear they have a lot of interesting spells and magic around here; I should learn a few."
Orcini and South Hero followed close behind. The shield-bearing berserker stayed silent for a moment before he couldn't help but whisper to South Hero,
"We came here to recruit a mage, right?"
"Probably."
"Sir Zenith is supposed to be our healer and priest, right?"
Even though he didn't look the part at all, that was indeed what he had claimed when they first formed the party. South Hero thought about it for a second and nodded in confirmation.
"Then why does he act more like a mage than an actual mage?"
Zenith suddenly stopped in his tracks. "What are you two conspiring about back there so loudly? I came here for Serie, obviously! Leaving a letter just to mock me was way out of line. I'm going to string her up and tickle her feet a hundred times!"
Orcini had no idea who Serie was, but South Hero knew all too well. She was practically the living god of magic.
When gods fight, mortals suffer. They might be heavy hitters among humanity, but in front of Serie, they were nothing. He just hoped they wouldn't end up as collateral damage.
"The magical atmosphere here is incredibly dense. I've seen more mages in this short amount of time than I have in the past six months combined."
Mage rank assessments had always existed, though the organizations conducting them varied depending on the era.
It would still be another half-century before Serie founded the Continental Magic Association, but that didn't stop mages from flocking to this Magical City.
Researchers, fortune seekers, merchants, and apprentices—all walks of life could be found in this bustling metropolis.
Zenith's goal was crystal clear: Serie. Even when she suppressed her colossal mana, the power she casually displayed was still equivalent to Frieren going all out.
If Zenith had to describe her, he'd say Serie sometimes reminded him a lot of Gilgamesh—especially right now.
She sat casually on a throne at the far end of the hall, flanked by towering magical golems, staring down at Zenith's trio with a condescending gaze.
"You made good time. But if you're here for Frieren, that child has already set off with Himmel."
Serie extended a finger, and an envelope quietly levitated above it. "If you didn't see the letter I left, I wrote a backup copy just in case."
"Thanks, but I'll pass." Zenith narrowed his eyes at the Serie before him. Something was different. That strange sense of temporal incongruity was completely gone.
This was definitely the Serie he knew, but the one sitting in front of him didn't have any traces of the Bird of Time arc on her.
"Did you drag your actual body over from the future too? Is that what gave you the courage to act so cocky despite being so pint-sized?"
Serie hopped down from the throne. Holding an aquamarine gemstone etched with strange patterns, she walked step by step over to Zenith.
"It's because of this, obviously. The coordinates of a world in the void cannot be memorized or deciphered by a mortal brain, so the Goddess sent this coordinate carrier back along with my true body."
The gemstone radiated a misty glow, bobbing gently up and down in Serie's palm.
It wasn't as if this ancient and powerful elf hadn't tried to decipher these so-called world coordinates herself, but it was exactly as the Goddess of this world had said. It was unimaginable and indecipherable. It wasn't a simple three-dimensional spatial coordinate or some sort of multi-dimensional vector, but rather a dimension that mortal lifeforms simply could not perceive or comprehend.
"So what you're saying is, this gemstone in my hand is the reason you're acting so tough." Zenith fiddled with the gem, which emitted absolutely zero magical aura. He couldn't figure out what was so special about the damn thing.
*Time Acceleration really is incredibly useful. Flaunting something I want right in front of my face and trying to use it as leverage against me? You old hag, you've really let it go to your head!*
Serie froze. It took her a full second to realize that the coordinate in her hand had been snatched away.
*Crap.* After returning to the future and being showered with compliments by her massive horde of disciples, all that "Grandmaster" and "Teacher" flattery had completely gone to her head. For a moment, she hadn't managed to switch her behavioral patterns back to reality.
*What do I do? Is he going to break our deal? Will the Goddess scold me? Will I still get to ship Himmel and Frieren?!* ...At this point, there was only one solution left.
Serie: "≡ω≡"
Zenith studied the coordinate for a long time but still couldn't figure out how to use it. When he looked up, he saw Serie making the exact same smug face Frieren always made.
*What the hell? This Serie is way too un-Serie! Just what exactly did she go through in the future?! Why is she acting like such a coward?!*
"...Forget it. Did your Goddess tell you how to use this thing?"
Serie: "≡ω≡"
He shook it, rattled it, and even bit it a few times. It wasn't until he accidentally chipped off one of the gemstone's corners with his teeth that a profoundly mysterious aura finally leaked out.
*So I just had to crush it. You should've said so earlier.* The world retrieved from the gemstone seemed vastly different from the worlds retrieved by the Minecraft system itself, which was obvious just from the naming convention.
It was no longer the title of a specific book, anime, or movie, but rather a standardized world name.
Zenith couldn't recall where "Arda" was from off the top of his head. When he looked back at Serie, he noticed she was still holding that exact same expression.
Activating his mana perception, Zenith extended his senses toward Serie, only to realize that the elf standing in front of him had been swapped out for an illusion at some point.
*No wonder she was stuck on ≡ω≡! You left a clone behind while your real body made a run for it!*
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