Only Wisdom Awakened - Chapter 96

Chapter 96: ‘Improbable Gate’
‘That’s.. Fricking crazy’

Thought Hans astonished while staring at the two shiny golden scales.

“These… belong to ‘that’ golden dragon don’t they?”

“That’s right” replied proudly the dean.

“The only SS-rank boss monster killed by humanity, Golden dragon Zahara, the disastrous gate break, that brought together more than a thousand high-ranked awakened greedy for the loot in its lair.

These are the only drops left behind after it blew itself up to avoid getting its body ravaged by humans”

” where’s the catch? You wouldn’t have something so good when a thousand high-ranking awakened fought a deadly battle over them.

And even if you did, you definitely wouldn’t just hand them over to me like this”

The woman smiled before continuing:

“I guess you aren’t slow after all.

There is a catch indeed, No one has managed to refine them yet, and only one person on this planet is probably able to do so.”

“Then what would I ever need these for?”

“Well, you might be able to get an incredibly powerful artifact with these if you manage to commission it to Hephaestus”

This changed everything, Hans took up the box and thanked the woman.

“Well then, I guess we have a deal”

He said, walking towards the exit.

“Pleasure doing business with you”

Said the dean, smiling to his back.

She was now sure of it, Hans had to be part of the night market.

That’s what she thought at least.

A last phrase was told to him before completely leaving the room:

“I’ll send you the plan by e-mail later, make sure to check it”

“Alright alright,” said Hans.

Once Hans wasn’t in her office anymore, she managed to take a break and reorganize her thoughts.

“Will we be fine? Let’s hope so…

He seemed pretty confident so I must be guessing he’s got something up his sleeve.”

Hans, back in his room, was searching for further details about the ‘ improbable gate’

One year prior…

In July, the inhabitants of Greenland experienced a strange phenomenon.

The temperature, which should’ve been about 0 degrees Celsius (33 Fahrenheit), was currently attaining a new lowest peak, which was unusual even during winter.

An electronic measuring device wrote this:

Temperature outside: -54° (-65 Fahrenheit).

Beside the number on the screen was the image of a frozen penguin.

A young man pushed his back against his chair, making it bend.

He looked to the side and saw the number of the meter signaling the incredibly unusual temperature.

Almost falling off his chair, he just remained petrified.

“D-daaaadd!!!”

“What is it brat?!” screamed an annoyed voice from the other side of the house.

“Come!! Quick! You have to see this”

“Agh! What is it?! I’m coming but it better not be one of your stupid jokes!”

The old man walked to the son’s room and said, quite bothered by the fact that his son didn’t even spare him a glance:

“What is it this time?”

Seeing that his son was still staring the same way, he couldn’t help but follow his gaze and saw the object of his surprise.

“Wh-what the hell?

Did you mess up the thermometer again?!”

Asked angered the man.

“No, I swear it wasn’t me this time”

“Hum… you sure about that?

Well then, wait a minute I’ll go to fix it right now”

He dressed up with only two layers of clothes since the weather shouldn’t have been really cold, and the sun shone in the sky.

As he opened the door, however, a violent current of wind created, and the freezing air that was outside blew upon him, freezing the hair in his nose.

While shivering, he watched the little village covered in a layer of ice.

“What… is happening”

That day, an incredible amount of cold mana was released all over the nation, making the temperature plummet.

And that wasn’t the end of the usual disaster, as just a few days later countless villages and houses were attacked and razed to the ground by unknown beasts.

The monsters ravaged the nation uncontrolled for a whole week before the association finally had the chance to notice some of the monsters with satellites.

These monsters were soon known worldwide as the snow slaughterers: the glacial yetis.

In the hope of obtaining the precious materials on the monsters’ bodies, like the fur and teeth, an American A-rank guild organized a huge expedition.

The name of the expedition was: project Mexa.

Over forty awakened, leading them was a top A-rank Hunter, and there were also about ten B-rank.

Icebreaker trucks and even a helicopter were all rented by the guild.

On the sixth day after the start of Project Mexa, not a single one of the hunters was alive.

Starting from the first day, the monsters had been quietly observing the intruders in their white territory.

On the second day of the expedition, an ambush had taken place, forcing the guild to slow down to let the injured rest.

Just the third day, seeing that the condition of his guild members wasn’t getting any better, the leader made the decision to retreat and try once again a few days later.

On the fourth day, among the countless snow storms and blizzards, the expedition members had to leave behind the trucks to speed up their retreat.

When the fifth day, their desperate retreat was once again interrupted by the beasts’ attacks, the leader completely gave up on the expedition and called in aid the helicopter.

Two of the members had already died, and his comrades’ lives were more important to him than money, so it was better to get them back safely.

Just as the helicopter was approaching, the temperature in the air fell even lower, hitting minus 100 Celsius (-148) Fahrenheit.

The mechanism of the engine almost froze, and unable to bear the cold, the two pilots couldn’t direct the machine anymore.

Just four hundred meters away from the rescue target, the helicopter fell.

After five days of restless attacks and ambushes from the Yetis, the leader fell to the ground breathless, becoming nothing more but food for the hungry and ferocious Yetis.

The situation was all caught by the satellite, but no one had the courage and the strength to step forward and rescue the unfortunate adventurers.

Elijah was still reserving what was left of his ten attacks, and couldn’t attack the Yetis since there were so many of them, and the other awakened from all over the world deemed the situation as an American problem.

It was truly a disaster.

Five months later, a guild with a low S-rank awakened entered the field where the gate had broken, hoping for better luck than the previous visitors.

Contrary to the ones who had come here first, they didn’t bring with them any truck or helicopter, but just an artifact with space-retaining magic, that could hold all the spoils from their battles.

The plan they had in mind wasn’t complicated:

First of all, they would’ve cut the territory of the Yetis, passing right through it and killing the boss, and afterward, they would’ve hunted down all the remaining dispersed monsters.

Unfortunately, the expedition didn’t go as planned, and after entering the innermost part of Greenland, where thick blizzards made it impossible for the satellite’s cameras to be of any use, they were never seen again.

The difficult transport conditions for the monster’s bodies, the incredibly low temperature in the place, and the low population of the whole country were all factors that made it unprobable for anyone to try and clear it, hence the name:

‘Improbable gate’

Now, it was the Academy’s teachers’ turn to attempt to clear it and free the barren frozen lands from the dominion of the glacial monsters.

“Are we going to be able to do this?”

Asked himself Hans staring at the information displayed on the screen in front of his eyes.

“Four months, I’ll make sure to use this time as efficiently as possible to prepare for that day, I’m not entirely sure, but I might just be able to become a tier-7 before we raid that place.”

Even if clearing gates would’ve made him improve faster, wisdom wasn’t what he was really lacking right now, since more than anything else, he needed spells.

Wide-range spells, single-target spells, environment-targeting spells, close-range spells.

These could all turn out really useful in the raid, giving him a higher adaptability and chance to survive.

He couldn’t develop all his elements to that level of adaptability, and since he was about to face off against monsters used to the freezing cold of Greenland, it was the best choice to train in fire spells, as suggested by a really famous videogame and cartoon.

He also decided to train his body again since during the fight with the unexpected attackers it was his sturdiness that saved his life.

“From now on, my nights will be spent meditating, and my mornings training my body, while in the afternoon I’ll research spells and improve my mana usage, otherwise it’ll be tough surviving for long without any mana.”