Healing System

Amanda seemed like she knew quite a fair deal about this city already; she led everyone towards some hotels and even struck up a few conversations along the way.

He didn't expect her to be a social butterfly outside of Vivum, but she was unusual from the start, so it wasn't that surprising.

The people of Elarion were relatively weak; most adults had not even reached level 20, and so far, he could only feel roughly 6 more people who had Mana Cores, and that was after scanning around the whole city.

Michael was aware that there were methods of masking one's mana; however, he assumed it would not be that conventional in this world. After all, it was considered a lower world.

The run-ins with powerful beings were coincidences, or so he liked to think anyway. He doubted that fate would play around with his life like that. But, having a rough guess of the powers people above Tier 10 possessed, it might actually be the case.

Maybe even the being who wanted to corrupt him—perhaps he was the one who caused his life to shift in such a way.

After they were settled in their hotels, it was time to move again. Amanda had mentioned something about meeting a mutual acquaintance, though Michael was not really sure who she was talking about.

'Fafnir maybe?'

Not quite, it is someone you might have gone to a dungeon with and almost died.

'..Shingen?'

Yup, it appears that he lives between Elarion and Vivum. I could feel some people who were hiding their presence near a few particular mountains we passed by. Most of them were swordsmen, just like him.

'Were they strong?' Michael asked. He could not feel those people himself or even see them on the map.

They have some kind of technique that converts mana into physical power. It's not bad. If you are a pure physical fighter, then it's perfect. Most of them are not Tier 1's yet, but their bodies are basically perfect for assimilating with the Dantian Core. So, in short, yes, for their current level, they are strong.

'Very short answer.' He scoffed and followed along. They headed to some sort of private plaza. It seemed strange to see an area that did not have people, considering the city was currently packed to the brim.

But nonetheless, even his map made it clear the place was empty. At most, he could see 20 scattered dots, 18 of which were green, and the remaining 2 were red.

'Is this the scheme she wants uncovered?' Michael could not help but think as they arrived next to some sort of glowing pillar.

Amanda glanced at everyone behind her and announced, "Come closer, we will be transported in a moment."

Everyone listened to her words and huddled closer. She placed her hand on the pillar, and suddenly, they began descending downwards at a rapid speed.

It was like an elevator, one that was going directly into the ground. He could feel the platform below him being held up with Mana alone.

Michael could also feel a little breeze coming up at him; he assumed that the affinity of the mana was wind.

As he turned to look above, he noticed that they hadn't descended as much as he thought. It felt like hundreds of meters, but from the looks of it, it was no more than 10 meters.

'System?' Michael asked out of curiosity.

It's some kind of mana tunneling, something similar to the wormhole theory, just not as perfect.

He raised his brow at the explanation. 'You mean two spaces connected across long distances?'

Something like that. If you don't understand, just think of it as spatial magic. It is similar in a way, so you would not be exactly wrong.

As he was about to speak to the system again, a large wave of mana washed over him, and in the very next moment, disappeared.

Michael was a bit confused, but as he looked upwards, searching for the hole from which he had come down, he saw a ceiling a couple of hundred meters up.

It really was a strange depiction of the wormhole theory, definitely not what he was expecting.

Nonetheless, upon taking a few looks around, he noticed that they were in some sort of cave.n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

The cave gave off a similar impression as the slums of Vivum, just on a much larger scale.

Taking a glance at his map, he could see a city not too far away, many people were gathered there.

However, even further inside of the city, there were the 20 people he had felt earlier. They were all gathered in some sort of large building at the highest part of the city; it almost looked like a cathedral.

They were fairly separated when he had seen them above ground, but now they were practically all right next to each other.

Amanda led them forward, and eventually, they arrived at what appeared to be a cliffside overlooking the entire city below them.

There was a mountain passage on the right of them that led directly down to the city. It was a bit more fancy-looking than the slums, at least.

As for the city? It looked almost identical to the upper part. He could feel mana all around; it just gave off a bit of a medieval feeling, much more than the architecture up top.

Medieval-looking Japanese architecture did not sound too bad, though.

They followed the mountain passage down to the city and were greeted by a few people who acted as tour guides.

It seemed like Amanda had not been down here before, as her eyes were showing traces of amusement every single time she saw something interesting.

But that brought up the question: What was this place? If she had been to Elarion before but not the underground part, then when exactly had it come to be?

Michael had assumed that Amanda was pretty old; she was an elf after all. From his knowledge of elves, he knew they lived for a couple of thousand years. If she was the daughter of a dragon, perhaps even longer.

She is not that old. From what I can tell, she is still around 700-800 years old, hard to tell with elves since they look the same no matter how old they are.

His eyes widened upon hearing that, and he took a quick glance at Amanda. She definitely did not look like a grandma.

"What?" She asked with a trace of annoyance.

"Nothing..." Michael answered and looked away. It was strange seeing someone so... old look so young.

She even acted like a teenager at times. Looks can definitely be deceiving...

After a couple of minutes of walking, their little tour finally ended, and they arrived in front of some fancy restaurant that would definitely cost thousands to even get on the reservation list.

However, Amanda casually walked in and showed the waiter her ID, and immediately, she was escorted to a luxurious table.

Michael and the others tried walking after her, as they had done thus far, but much to their surprise, the waiter stopped them.

"The miss told me to inform you all that you can do whatever you want until the tournament and that you know where your hotel rooms are. Good luck," the waiter relayed and walked back to his post.

Michael and the others were equally as stunned; she just went ahead and ditched them.

Better yet, he had not even cashed in his 1 million dollars yet. He had become the Saint, but there were still no opportunities to do any Saintly work.

Meaning, he was currently broke.

As he was busy solving his inner conflict, he noticed the others scattering. Kevin and Elizabeth went somewhere together, Michael's double and Ella went their separate ways as well.

And as for Chloe? She walked inside the restaurant, showed her ID, received a shocked expression from the waiter, and was led to an even more luxurious table than Amanda's.

'...' He was speechless at the turn of events.

'Is there an adventurer's guild or something similar?' Michael asked the system. He would make sure to take a tough request to earn a lot of money; being broke due to circumstance was becoming a little tiring.

Yes, there appears to be some sort of guild, the Association or whatever, similar to the one you encountered back in those villages.

Michael nodded, his next destination was clear.

'Perfect.'