Adrenaline Junkie [Book 2 Complete]

"You're going pretty fast for a pair of humans," the dragon sprite commented, his body upright and wings beating steadily as he flew alongside Archie and Aoife. They tore through a small mountainous patch of land that, when cut through, should lead to a city within the Yndros Empire.

Interestingly, the Yndros Empire had no walls protecting its borders. Instead, numerous guards were stationed at intervals around the outskirts of the Greenpatch Forest, either residing in towers plain in sight, camouflaged within the surroundings, or, like some of the Netharim Sovereignty's Border Guards, hidden underground, masking their mana signatures.

Normally, they would have been an issue for anyone who'd wish to cross the borders, due to the sporadic placements of the guards; he'd caught a couple of them hiding inside tree trunks, ponds, animal dens, and he even caught sight of one in a giant beehive.

But then again, it could have also been a giant bee, and the angle I saw it from could have been bad.

Vital Sight truly was one of the most useful skills in his arsenal. It had proven itself time and time again, saving both his own and Aoife's lives on numerous occasions.

Not to mention, on top of being able to see the vital energy outlines of others from - an ability that grew stronger both in terms of intensity and size with each subsequent increase in his Perception stat - and the ability to categorize people as having ranged or non-ranged Classes based on the general shape and outline of their sparks of Vitality.

Vital Sight also possessed the ability to allow him to see all of this through walls, the ground, and any other obstacles that would have otherwise kept their outlines and sparks obstructed, such as the enchantments and arrays that protected the Netharim Sovereignty's Border Wall. Allowing him to perceive their outlines and sparks as clearly as if they were standing in broad daylight.

Honestly, he really should really be thanking the Verdant Serpent for nearly killing him, as well as Oliver for siccing it on him, as it allowed him to create Vital Sight. In a way, it almost balanced out Oliver's initial attempt to kidnap him and turn him into a thrall, though it did nothing to excuse him for the other things he'd done.

He was still on his shit list of people he planned on killing.

'I built this bad boy myself,' Archie signed. 'Haven't seen anything run faster than this guy.'

"Oh, is this the fastest you can go!" the dragon sprite asked excitedly, moving himself directly in front of the Mana Bike and fully turned to face Archie.

'This is just under the upper limit of how much my Mana Bike can crank out,' Archie lied. They were going around sixty percent of the bike's max speed, not accounting for the overclocking that came with Runic Amplification being applied onto the Nature-Attuned Runic Mana Engine, nor the rest of the bike.

That had been a pain and a half to re-etch and repair, even with Runic Mending and Gaze of the Forgefather.

Some of the runes had outright cannibalized themselves, breaking their inherent limiters and funneling their excess mana into overcharging the wheels, which, in turn, had damaged the caliper and fork tubes on both ends, forcing him to repair those as well.

To be fair, both had needed repairs the moment the Mana Bike touched back onto dirt and safely out of the sand, but he had put it off since they were both eager to leave Netharim Sovereignty soil as quickly as possible.

"Oh," the dragon sprite replied despondently before hovering behind him and plopping himself atop Aoife's head. "You made it right?"

Nodding once more in confirmation, the dragon sprite continued. "Then, when you upgrade it or the next one you make, you gotta make it faster. Being fast is so much fun."

"I believe this to be plenty fast already," Aoife commented, tilting her head to get a good look at the dragon sprite sitting atop her and keeping her tongue silent about Archie's lie. "None of the other creatures around us can catch up," she pointed out, turning to face the small group of rabid-looking alpacas a couple of hundred meters behind them.

"I mean yeah, but mostly everything here is pretty slow," the dragon sprite complained, tossing his head backwards as his claws gripped onto Aoife's hair. "You two included, and I wasn't even going at full speed."

"How fast are you?" Aoife asked. "I've never met anyone from the Dragon race before."

'Same here,' Archie chimed in, glancing down at the Compass of Desire's crimson needle, which pointed toward one of the many populated cities in the Yndros Empire.

They had both agreed that a densely populated city was a far better place to lay low in than a rural town where everyone knew each other.

"I'm super-fast, and so are the other dragon sprites," the dragon sprite perked up, now standing pridefully atop Aoife's head, with his arms propped atop his hips. "But I'm the fastest among everyone in my brood, I even beat the windheads in racing."

"Brood?" Aoife questioned, curious about the term being used in such a way.

"Yeah, a group of young dragons that grow up together is called a brood. A group of eggs is called a clutch, and a group of adult dragons is called a flight," the dragon sprite informed them, swaying his scaled tail behind him.

"This is all pretty basic information that I learned as a newborn. Why don't you two know this?" the dragon sprite asked before he stilled, and his eyes went wide. "Oh… Mom mentioned this might happen."

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Kneeling, the dragon sprite patted the top of Aoife's head before leaping onto Archie's headdress and similarly patting him. "There, there, I won't make fun of you for being slow. I'm not like the other dragons; Mom raised me with manners."

Scoffing slightly and grinning, Archie replied, 'We're not slow, we've never met dragons before, so this is all new to us. And words have many meanings, brood included. We were just curious.'

"It's fine," the dragon sprite hushed, patting Archie's head once more. "I won't make fun of you, I protect my friends."

"You consider us as friends? So fast?" Aoife whispered to herself in shock before tilting her head slightly to grab Archie's attention. "Is it normal to be friends this fast?"

In just a few days, she had gained more than twice the number of friends she'd ever had in her twenty-five years of existence. Growing up in the colosseum, there were no friends - only favors and debtors.

"Why not?" the dragon sprite asked, his claws digging into Archie's headdress and flopping himself backwards to stare into Aoife's eyes. "We've spoken to each other for the past hour or so, and we aren't killing each other."

"That's like a five hundred percent increase in friendship qualities compared to the other people who invaded my forest," the dragon sprite exclaimed, his arms splayed out above his head in exasperation. "They just wanted to kill me because I was 'intruding' and 'ruining the ecosystem', whatever that meant. They just wanted to kill both me and my tenants," the dragon sprite groaned and creating air quotes with his claws.

"We don't even know your name?" Aoife pointed out, confused. This was just like how she had become friends with Archie. "You don't even know our names, what we do, or… anything. We just met an hour ago."

"I know the slow one is Archie," the Dragon Sprite said, pulling himself up to sit atop Archie's head, facing Aoife. "I don't know yours, but you smell fine, so that has to mean something. Mom always said instincts are very important."

"She even said mine were the best - and the major reason as to how I passed the dragon rites," he proudly claimed, creating small tufts of yellowish golden flame from his nose. "I beat those other stupid, fat dragons and proved myself to the Flight Wings."

Aoife mulled over the dragon sprite's words, lost in her own thoughts. Was it really this easy to make friends? She had initially thought Archie was the only one who would be willing to befriend someone like her - that he was a unique case. But…

"My name is Aoife," she replied, looking up at the smirking dragon sprite.

"Nice ta' meet cha'!" the dragon sprite greeted, leaping off of Archie's head and zipping around her own for a few rotations before stopping in front of her.

"My name is Tizalz Iskarion Malzeth, but like all my other friends, you can call me Tim," he proudly stated, smirking as he stuck out his right hand for Aoife to shake. "If you find any Solar-infused stuff, I'd be happy to take it off your hands, and I'll do the same for you if you want anything."

"Nice to meet you, Tim," Aoife smiled as she raised her finger for Tim to shake. "I'll be on the lookout for any Solar-infused metals while mining."

'And I'd be down to make you things with said Solar metals if you want,' Archie chimed in with a mana constructed sentence that floated in between Aoife and Tim.

"Perfect!" Tim shouted, flipping himself mid-hover and landing once more atop of Archie's head and pointed forward, toward the enormous city, filled with spiraling towards and Hovercarts. "Onwards, my friends, thus begins the next arc in our Journey on this planet, my Mother groun- sent me to!"

"You see any changes?" a gruff voice asked. He lounged atop a hammock, arms propped at his sides, holding a thick, worn, ink-covered book above his face. His muscular, tanned forearms were covered in scars, and his left eye was milky white, a crisscrossed scar cutting through it.

"For fuck's sake," the slightly younger sounding voice grumbled, his voice resounding throughout the small room. It was already a pain enough as it was to remain completely still under the harsh twin suns, Syjun and Ryjun, in enemy territory for days on end, but this dwarf.

He knew the dwarf was messing with him, and there wasn't a damn thing he could do about it - his superior officer held all the power, and he needed the money. His and his wife's anniversary was four months away, and after forgetting last year, he had to go all out for her this time.

I swear to the System, if this dwarf doesn't shut the fuck up, I'm gonna wring his neck with his stupid beard and pop a slug in his chromed dome, the young Holo Mirage spy internally promised himself.

"It hasn't even been ten minutes since you last asked, and just like ten minutes ago - nothing," the younger voice grumbled into his communicator, his words muffled by various skills and illusions. "The temple is still in ruins, no signs of life either entering or leav… What the fuck?"

The young elf's usual annoying tone shifted, curiosity and concern creeping in as he caught sight of a contained sandstorm rising from the rubble. It ascended until it stopped, hovering roughly five hundred and twenty-five meters above the ruined Temple of the Handlers.

The elf pushed his ocular and observational skills to their limits, trying to discreetly identify and understand what had emerged from the ruined Temple of the Handlers. They hadn't seen anything for days - not since they first heard of its destruction.

Surprisingly, ever since the temple became completely destroyed, the earthquakes had begun to subside. Now, they occurred only once every sixteen hours and were much quieter - a massive improvement from their previous frequency of once every twenty to thirty minutes, as reported by the unit previously stationed in the quadrant they took over.

"Oi, kid!" The dwarf blurted out, tumbling himself out of his hammock and onto the hardened sand floor with the book he held, hitting the back of his head. "What are you seeing out there?"

"I-I," the elf muttered, his eyes widening as within the hovering sandstorm, he could see the faintest outlines of a figure that constantly kept shifting and twisting. "I don't know, I think it's a-" was all he said before his communicator shorted out.

"Oi! Kid, I swear if this is because of my jabs, this isn't the time," the dwarf complained before becoming silent as a flatlining beep was echoed from his communicator.

Chills ran up the dwarf's back as a scratching, metallic scraping noise screeched out of the communicator that belonged to the elf.

"They granted us vision when we could not see."

The scant remains of the temple, scattered across the desert, began to sink into its depths - from the largest pillars to the smallest grains of sandstone brick - as though the sand had become liquid, with not a ripple created by their descent.

"They granted us legs when we could not walk."

What the frigging hell is going on? The dwarf swallowed, trying to move himself forward, toward the earthen ladder he created, but found himself fixed in place.

"They brought us from the brink of death when it was our time to pass."

Spies in the hundreds, from the many kingdoms and organizations, both hidden and known, found themselves frozen in place. Those below D-Grade had their brains liquefied from the sheer pressure of the constantly shifting figure's emergence.

"For they shall take us to enlightenment."

A surge of mana exploded from the figure's inverted golden trident tattoo, emblazoned upon their forehead. The pulse rippled outward, sweeping across the entire expanse of the Netharim Sovereignty, affecting all within its domain.

"THE TIME FOR REBIRTH IS NIGH!"