After hours of listening to strange sounds, the meeting finally ended as King Zaragoza was the first to leave.

He glanced at everyone in the hall and told them that they'd take different roles in the war depending on their capabilities, unless they had somewhere more important than the kingdom to attend. Therefore, they had to make a small report about everything they were capable of doing to get their most suitable role.

All the saintess candidates were capable enough to enroll in the war. After all, a lot of resources were used on them to give them stats higher than the average human being.

As for the holy knight trainees, they were even more capable in that regard. They were mainly trained to fight.

No one complained. They wouldn't have faced any penalties if they didn't decide to go to the Holy Kingdom. They all returned with the thought of participating in the war in their minds.

Elizabeth shared only her abilities, not saying a single word about Fafnir. After two days, she was sent to a camp in a strategic area at the southern side of the kingdom, which was far safer than the western side.

Uldor was located in the Western Region, which caused the western side of the Holy Kingdom to endure most of the pressure.

Elizabeth's camp had only one job — observing any suspicious movements in the area.

If they saw anything suspicious, they'd have to report it.

If it were necessary, they'd have to fight.

If the situation were desperate, they'd have to run.

As for Elizabeth, she was the healer of the camp. Her job was taking care of everyone else if anything happened to them.

The camp was in the wilderness, so even if they weren't attacked by the giants, they still had to face the beasts sometimes.

And just like that, a week had passed.

¢¢¢

"Sir Dante… can't we have a ride? Please, my legs are screaming!"

"I can walk forever… but I'd generously give you the honor of letting the next duke rest on your mount."

"Stop dreaming, you both, and keep your distance!"

Jin and Ruby sighed as their request was rejected for the hundredth time since the start of this journey.

Dante stared at them from a distance, his back resting on warm shadowy fur.

'This is the best spell I have created so far.'

Dante smiled as he patted the giant shadow wolf he was resting on, even though it wasn't really alive.

Yes, Dante was resting on the back of a giant shadow wolf at this moment.

It was an inky-black dire wolf. Its fur was thick and warm like Dante's shattered relic. The fangs were sharp and durable-looking, looking like sharp daggers. The claws were able to cut through metals. As for the muscles, if the wolf was a human, it'd have looked like the perfect bodybuilder.

It had eyes, nose, ears, skin, tongue, and even organs. If the color were ignored, then it was definitely a real living wolf.

Unfortunately, it wasn't. That was a mimicking spell that Dante had created.

Why would he be satisfied by only mimicking aspects when he could mimic living beings!

He had been working on this kind of spell for a while now. He started by reading about them in the library, but as a sorcerer, he couldn't just chant to cast such spells. Thus, he had no choice but to improve his understanding and create them himself.

There were two things that helped him achieve this.

The first was Elizabeth's knowledge about them. According to her, Maxwell knew a spell that allowed him to create a bird that shares his senses. It was a common use of such spells that could create semi-living beings.

After understanding how Maxwell handled it, Dante focused on the second thing, which was his link with Fafnir.

By sharing senses with Fafnir, he was able to solve that part quickly. It wasn't hard to understand how to create a link when he had one already.

After that came the hardest part in creating that spell.

'Fucking biology and anatomy!'

He had to study everything about the beast he wanted to turn into a spell. And I mean everything!

The bones, the muscles, the organs, the movements, all the functions of the body, and every single thing about the beast.

In other words, to create that wolf, he had to know about its body more than the wolf itself knew. That was something that made the college students of some academic majors on Earth scream in agony.

But thankfully… he did it.

And a few days ago, he created his first shadow wolf. It was the only thing he could do after giving up temporarily on creating something related to time.

Of course, this spell had flaws.

The first was the fact that his wolf was weaker than the original, as it was, after all, a shadow. It could never replace a real wolf.

The second was obviously the condition of the wolf. It wasn't a real living being. Its blood wasn't flowing, its heart wasn't beating, the wolf wasn't truly breathing, and it lacked emotions and thinking abilities.

It was different from Fafnir. Fafnir was a loyal living shadow who followed all Dante's orders, while the shadow wolf was manipulated directly by Dante.

And the biggest flaw was the mana consumption. It needed a big amount of mana and spiritual energy to manifest. After that, it'd consume one point of mana every few seconds—that was a problem that Dante had to fix quickly.

Fortunately, the higher his mind stat, the faster he could restore his mana, which helped reduce the pressure on his mana pool.

'And it's worth every mana point. If I mastered this spell or learnt how to infuse the silver Ether with spiritual energy, I'd never need to tame or buy a mount. Hmm?'

All of a sudden, Ruby stopped walking forward.

"I… I…"

She squinted her eyes and stared at a specific giant tree. She ran toward it and started moving in a circle around it.

Dante frowned: "Are you tired or… the tree is the opportunity?"

Jin scratched his head: "Did we go this far for a tree? Wait, shall I cut it down? It might be a valuable tree."

Ruby sighed: "I don't know. Maybe it's the tree, maybe it's under the tree, maybe behind it, maybe under it, and maybe it's an insect or a beast hiding inside it. My ability is unable to help us any further, I only know that you both can do or have something that can show us the opportunity there."

Dante stared at her Wheel of Luck. As she moved in a circle, the third silver arrow always pointed at the direction of the tree. She wasn't lying.

"Well, let's see what we can do."

Dante jumped off the wolf and manipulated it to run toward the tree. Once it arrived, its claws turned into flaming claws as it started digging in the snow.

The shadow wolf was essentially a shadow that was controlled by Dante. He was still able to make it mimic the properties of the aspects like the heat of the Fire Aspect, turning it into a flaming shadow wolf.

After digging for minutes around the tree, nothing was found.

"Ruby, how deep might the opportunity be?" Dante asked, though he could already guess her answer.

It would be a real problem if the opportunity they were looking for was kilometres under.

"I don't know…" Ruby answered nervously before shifting her gaze to Jin: "Hey, Jin, can you check the tree itself with me? Tell us if you find anything suspicious. Oh, and carry me there."

Jin looked at his bag of alcoholic drinks in disappointment before leaving it on the ground with a sigh: "I have to work now…"

He expected himself to just watch, do a small thing, and take his share of rewards. In his drunk state, he hated all kinds of work.

Sighing once again, he carried Ruby over his shoulder and enhanced his body, causing golden lightning to dance around him, and jumped over the hole that the wolf was digging. Next, he put Ruby down and started examining the tree with her.

She examined the lower part of it, while Jin climbed the tree and started searching above.

"Wait, I think there's something here!" Ruby shouted happily as she called Dante and Jin.

Dante immediately dismissed his wolf and ate a mana crystal to restore his mana, still looking at them from afar. And Jin jumped down and looked at the thing that Ruby had noticed.

"Ohoho, I see why I was needed now." Jin smirked instantly.

The tree had a lightning mark engraved on it. Under the mark, there was a hand-shaped mark.

"Get away, I'm about to show my magic." He pushed Ruby away and placed his hand on the mark.

….

"Nothing happened. Try using lightning." Dante suggested while looking at Jin in anticipation.

Jin listened to him and started channeling mana infused with lightning spiritual energy.

"...!"

Golden lines of lightning suddenly formed across the tree. After a few seconds of glowing, the middle of the tree turned into a door.

Jin took a step backward as the door magically opened on its own, showing a path of wooden stairs that led under the ground.

"It worked…" Ruby muttered as she stared at the path with shimmering eyes. She could already imagine herself recovering from her latest loss.

As for Dante, he also looked at this opportunity with anticipation, but not as much as Ruby and Jin.

He didn't want to be a duke, nor did he suffer from a significant loss.

If he noticed any real danger, he wouldn't hesitate to run.

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