Only Wisdom Awakened - Chapter 170

Chapter 180: A Different View
Lastly…

Clara.

She was always quiet and didn’t speak much with anyone apart from the people in that group.

When they weren’t training, she spent most of her time on her phone and followed many celebrities online.

‘That’s how she knew about me huh… luckily, as she said, none of these guys have a clue about who I am.’

“So… do you all not attend school?”

Hans asked the right question because all of them replied:

“No, we dropped out altogether”

Replied Gideon.

“Yeah, they weren’t teaching us anything useful”

Added Sadie.

“That’s not true, school is important, but we decided to pursue another path in life”

Christina said.

“Yeah, she’s right, maybe if we hadn’t dropped out of school Gideon’s brain might have been fixed a little bit”

Said the other girl, who, as usual, tried to pick a fight with him.

“Huh? Say that again”

The boy fell for the provocation and their discussion lasted till the end of the meal, when they all got up from their table.

“How much do I owe you”

Asked Hans to Gideon while the others were already walking away.

The boy sighed before replying with a smile on his face.

“Forget about it, it’s been a while since I’ve seen Clara talk so much, take it as a thank-you gift for making us pass such a pleasant lunch.”

The boy also got up, leaving Hans alone at the table.

‘Wow… it’s my first time meeting someone like them.

They are so… unique’

As soon as he snapped out of his dozing off, he got up and began running towards the others, afraid of staying behind and losing himself in the unfamiliar city.

When he reached them, he asked:

“And where are you going now? If I’m not wrong this isn’t the way to the training hall”

Cathrine replied to him:

“Yes, between 2 pm and 6 pm is the worst time to go there because there’s a lot of awakened, so we usually either go back home or raid a gate during this time.

We made a raid just the day before yesterday, so today we’ll just relax at home, maybe go to the beach for a bit.”

“You… you all live together?”

They all turned toward him and nodded before continuing to walk.

“Alright then, I guess I’ll be seeing you later”

“Why? You’re not coming with us”

Clara asked.

“Woah, I can’t believe it, Clara asked someone to stay with us”

“Right? That’s crazy, maybe tomorrow the sun will rise from the west.”

“Yeah, something’s up”

“I-i just asked a question, what are you all surprised for?”

“Nothing, nothing,” said Sadie shaking her answer off.

“I’m sorry but I have something to do right now, maybe we’ll see each other later in the training hall”

“Alright, but give me your number, I will write you our address so you can pass by later if you change ideas”

“Alright”

Hans gave Christina his number, and they headed their own ways.

Stretching his arms, Hans said:

“It’s time to try another one… let’s see if I can do two of them in three hours”

Without wasting any time, Hans opened the app and searched for a gate to raid.

A few minutes later…

[you have entered the gate: gloomy cave]

As he stepped inside the gate, he was surprised by the pitch-black environment that was waiting for him, apart from the gate, nothing else could be seen.

‘Even with my heightened senses… I can’t see anything, meaning that there isn’t any source of light apart from the gate.

Fortunately, the scouts already visited this place, so I was aware.

Hans opened his hand, and mana gathered in the middle of his palm before producing a little ball of light.

{lume}(tier-0)

‘That’s better’

As he looked around the cave, he couldn’t find anything but rocks and dirt.

This reminded him of what was written in the mission’s description.

There wasn’t any information about what kind of monster inhabited those caves, probably because the scouts didn’t dare venture too deep inside them.

“Whatever, I’m sure I’ll figure it out”

Hans was interrupted by a ‘squeak’ that resounded from afar.

Even with his heightened senses, it was extremely difficult to perceive.

“This sound…

Only one animal came to mind when he heard that noise:

“It’s bats”

‘This is bad… Bats are known for always being in colonies that can vary from just a couple of dozen to hundreds or even thousands of them.

To deal with bats easily some kind of area-of-effect spell is needed, meaning it’s best for a mage to handle it.

I am a mage, but that’s not what I came here for, I wanted to train with my body at least these few days to improve my movements during battle even while using spells, and to do that, it’s better if I don’t just rely on high ranking magic.’

Hans was faced with a tough decision, he could either continue down the path of those mines and eventually face a colony of bats, or leave the gate and search for something that would’ve been easier to handle as a hunter and not a mage.

But he concluded that if he wanted to learn how to utilize his body better, he would need to face difficult situations, such as that one, and decided to proceed with the gate raid.

As he ventured deeper into the caves, the squeaking became more frequent and louder, to the point where Hans could barely handle it.

“Squeak” “squeak” “squeak”

‘This sound’s been killing me…

I’ll move on and get this done with

Hans covered his ears with a {mana barrier} to block off the sounds and continued moving forward.

However, now that his sense of hearing wasn’t working, he didn’t have a way to locate those monsters.

‘It’s better this way…

I have been thinking about this for a few hours, ever since that fat monkey made me lose almost two hours of my time.

I need… a way to sense things from afar.’

I do not have either a skill or a spell that allows me to locate targets, all I am doing right now is similar to a sonar radar, the one submarines used before all the seas were closed off.

I simply release my mana and wait for It to bounce and come back to me.

If the mana that comes back from a certain direction isn’t steady, that means something is moving.

However this technique has many flaws, so many that it’s not even acknowledged by the system as a spell.

And as if it wasn’t enough, it wastes a ton of mana, If I tried to use it all the time, even with all my mana reserves full I wouldn’t last two hours.

Now… it’s time to develop something better.’

Hans laid his hand on the dirt floor with his eyes closed.

Mana flowed from his body into the terrain and spread out like the roots of a plant.

He redirected the mana in all directions, covering every single spot with at least a string of it, and he then retracted it into his body.

Where mana was the thickest, where wind mana was dominant, and where earth mana resided…. All those things, gifted Hans with everything he needed to map the place.

“I see”

He said confidently, and yet his eyes remained closed.

“This is what it really means to see the world from another perspective.”

{you have unlocked a new spell: {mapping}(tier-2)}

{due to your {mapping} spell and your mana control being tier two and above, you will be able to create a map physically with mana}

Hans opened his eyes and saw the prompt of the system.

“I can create it? Like… this”

Hans handled a crude strand of mana while thinking of the map he had just created in his mind, and just like a brush’s stroke, it slowly formed that figure in the real world.

It was now in front of him… the whole map, with the precise tracking of all the little tunnels and the entities residing inside it.

“This skill, {mapping}…

it’s crazy”

‘How come it’s only considered tier two? Maybe because the consumption is high and the range low, or maybe because it took me almost five minutes… whatever, I’m sure it’ll be upgraded as time passes, for now, this is plenty”

Hans now knew where he needed to go even without hearing, and had added a useful skill to his ever-growing arsenal.

‘Let’s see… the place where those monsters are hiding… here’

Hans circled around the map a few times to save himself the trouble of remembering it in his head and then pointed at a massive room in the middle of all the tunnels.

It was at least a hundred meters high, and it had the shape of a reversed cone, with the widest part at the top.

And right there at the top… almost three hundred entities seemed to reside.