Radiant Shadow

-Radiant-

I watched Lucky as he went down on one knee, after defeating the last Water Elemental on the ice platform we were on. He took deep breaths and reached out to pick up the cracked core lying on the ground.

I had refrained from helping him out after I had finished off the Water Skaters, whose territory we had run through while riding on the ice platform. I did think about helping out, but that might've hurt more than it would've helped. We weren't super familiar with each other, since we had only teamed up today, so I figured it was better to allow Lucky to fight on his own instead of surprising him.

Lucky stood up and said, "That was more exhausting than I thought. I had to keep running around the Water Elementals to be able to keep hitting the same spot on its ice armor."

I asked, "Do you need help next time, or would I just be interfering?"

Lucky walked over to me and handed me the cracked core saying, "Well it would certainly help. I think having another person there would stop the Elemental from spinning its ice armor as much."

I nodded, "Alright, I do have a sword that I can use. I'll get it out before fighting the Elemental."

"Sounds good. What about the Water Skater legs that we're supposed to get? The corpses are just floating on the water, but I don't have a net or anything to throw out and collect them, what about you?"

I pondered for a second before saying, "Hmm, well I have a rope. I could always just swim out and get them, and have you pull me back with the rope so I don't get left behind."

Lucky's eyebrows leapt up, "Huh? You want to swim in this freezing cold water? Are you crazy?"

I shrugged, "No, actually, I have some experience dealing with the cold. And this armor we have floats in the water, so there shouldn't be any problem right?"

Lucky looked dubious, "Well I guess if you're confident. Are you sure there isn't a better way?"

The truth was that there was a better way. I could always just use my spatial manipulation to pull the Water Skater corpses towards us and pick them up out of the water, but that wasn't an option due to the strange Proctor following us. I had initially just been wary of him because of the weird aura surrounding him, but as time went on I couldn't help but feel increasingly suspicious of the man. There was a lingering sense of familiarity whenever I looked towards him, but whenever I looked away that feeling went away like it was never there.

However, I didn't feel any hostility coming from the man, so for now I just tried to focus on the test.

So I pulled out a long rope from my spatial pouch and tied one end around my waist.

Lucky held onto the rope with the job of letting out slack and pulling me back, and he said, "If you get too cold just say the word and I'll reel you back in."

I smiled, "Well that's not going to happen. I'll holler when I've collected all of the corpses, pull me back in then."

"Alright, if you say so."

With that vote of confidence I leapt into the ice cold water and immediately felt my body heat try to flee from my skin. I had been using my [Mana Conversion] to stay warm above the water, but in the water my passive [Mana Conversion] wasn't fast enough to turn the surrounding mana into enough heat.

Water was just so much more capable of transferring heat than the air was, so although this water was nowhere near as cold as the icy death level in The Dungeon of Tribulation, I was starting to lose my body heat to the environment despite my mana conversion.

So I started actively converting my own mana and heating up my body just like I had in The Dungeon of Tribulation. Immediately I felt much warmer, just as my head broke the surface of the water. My body armor helped me to float in the water without much effort, and I quickly went about collecting the three Water Skater corpses that I had killed with my increasingly adept use of my Frozen Water Lance spell.

This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

I called out to Lucky, and he started reeling me in like my life depended on it. After pulling me back to the ice, he reached down and grabbed my hand to help lift me out of the water like I was dying.

After pulling me out he was surprised and said, "Wow, your hand is actually warm. Are you using some kind of heating spell or something? I heard about a girl in my town who tried to use a spell like that once, she apparently had internal burns that took a long time to heal."

I shook my head, "No it's not a spell. It's more like converting my mana into heat."

"Huh, I wonder why more people don't just do that. Why would they need to use a spell if they could just turn their mana into heat like that?"

"Uh, well…"

I was at a bit of a loss for words, since I had never really been taught magic formally or anything. So I wasn't really sure what reason I should give Lucky. After all, there could be any number of reasons I wasn't informed about.

But the Proctor must've seen my confusion or something and stepped in saying, "Converting mana into heat like that isn't something that everyone can easily do. Someone with ice mana would have an incredibly hard time doing such a thing, though they would have a much easier time cooling themselves down instead."

Lucky nodded in understanding, "Ah, I see. By the way I don't think I got your name."

The proctor seemed surprised at Lucky's question for some reason, "You can just call me Proctor, I doubt we'll be seeing each other after this test after all."

Lucky shrugged, "Well alright Mr. Proctor. Thanks for the information." He turned back to me, "I'll harvest these legs then. Only a few more and we'll be done with this test. The Water Elementals are the hardest to collect, but it shouldn't be too long until we're finished with those too, then we can finally get out of this Dungeon and become real Adventurers!"

I nodded along with Lucky's enthusiasm. However I couldn't help but feel a bit strange as I felt that the Proctor not giving out his name was the most natural thing in the world. I looked back over at him and once again felt a strange sense of deja vu.

Something strange is going on with that guy, but as long as everything is being recorded there shouldn't be any funny business. I just need to remember to be extra careful after I leave to make sure I'm not followed. My next destination after this test isn't somewhere I want anyone to know about.

-Proctor-

As I walked along behind the two potential adventurers, I observed them. I didn't usually volunteer to be a proctor for the adventurer's exam, but when I did it was because I was supposed to be looking out for candidates with specific qualities that I could pass along to the Leader, where it would be used to do whatever it was that the Leader needed such information for.

However, unlike every time before this, I had been given unusually specific instructions to look out for certain qualities. I didn't have much hope that I would actually find anything specific though, since I had been trying to keep tabs and gather information on this 'Experience Silver' ever since I had run into him at the train station a couple days earlier, and it hadn't been going very well.

I mean, people with a high mental Tier or mental skills are exceedingly rare in adventurers, so I don't know why the Leader is looking out for those qualities specifically. If he had those qualities, he would have more success looking for a job in one of the Wizard's towers. Though, funnily enough, Experience Silver is actually a Wizard, but he doesn't have a Wizard Tower insignia anywhere that I can sense. Either he is a freeform Wizard, or he is hiding his affiliation for some reason.

Given that he might have something to do with the future prediction anomaly, I'm inclined to suspect that he's just hiding his affiliation while infiltrating this city for some reason. The Leader probably suspects the same, which is probably why he asked me to look out for those specific qualities.

As I had gone along, acting as a proctor and following the two potential adventurers, I started to pay more attention. Usually I wouldn't have to be very cautious about disguising my abilities and maintaining my cover as I was following someone this low Tier so close, but as I walked along behind Experience, I began to notice that he was starting to look back at me more and more often.

I frowned. Although my Skill [Mental Haze] wasn't perfect, it required extremely high mental Dexterity or Strength to overcome. The fact that Experience seemed to be adapting or breaking through my Skill was troublesome. However, on the other hand, it meant that the Leader was right once again, and this kid was more than meets the eye.

I hadn't really been paying attention before, but it became clear to me from then on that the wizard was actually using some sort of mental ability to slowly adapt to my Skill. However, it didn't seem like it was very fast, which meant I wasn't worried about being found out before the end of this Dungeon. So I was content to just follow behind and act natural for the recording.

Following behind the two as they traversed icy platforms and took down Water Skaters and Water Elementals, I took note of Experience Silver's high reaction speeds. They were high enough that I was certain his base mental Tier was also fairly high.

I wasn't sure what the Lord needed this kind of information for, and it shouldn't have been any of my concern, but I was a proactive person. Although this was all just another day's work, and hopefully I would get some sort of reward for bringing the Leader this information, what I really wanted was to understand all the intricacies of the Leader's plans so I could determine the best course of action moving forward.