Extra's Ascent

Aldrich had Trevor on his back, Camelia walking beside him, and the disgruntled Ian lagging behind on purpose.

'Should I just leave them behind and go on my own?!'

Ian wrestled with his conflicted thoughts about his role with the three... or rather, two.

He didn't consider Trevor worth his time, seeing him as nothing but an unnecessary burden.

One whose only luck of ever finding his way to the crew was that the two were familiar with him.

If that was not the case, Ian wouldn't hesitate to do away with him.

Even if it meant going alone.

'No. I shouldn't be too hasty to jump to conclusions.'

To hear that Trevor was the reason Aldrich was even here only solidified Ian's belief that Aldrich, too, was blinded by emotionality and incapable of prioritizing what was truly important.

But then, when Aldrich evaded Ian's wind razor with such swift, precise movements, Ian hesitated.

Maybe Aldrich had more to offer than he'd initially thought.

Even though Ian knew Aldrich was somewhat driven by emotions, he was beginning to realize that Aldrich might back his up with skill.

'Clairvoyant, was it?'

Ian remembered the subtle shift in Aldrich's pupils when he'd evaded the wind razor. The way they changed shape and colour!

The clover eye, an influential bloodline technique introduced by Dwayne, who had awakened his eye to the third clover, demonstrates the vast difference between a one-clover wielder and a three-clover wielder.

'His is the one-clover... but he's using it so skillfully?'

Ian's curiosity was piqued, and he found himself eager to see more of Aldrich's clover eye in action.

A sense of realization dawned on him, perhaps Aldrich wouldn't turn out to be the burden Ian had initially thought him to be.

'Hmm...'

Ian paused, his eyes scanning the sky.

A realization struck him.

"We should probably stop walking now and focus on finding the shade you both mentioned," he said, noticing the darkening sky.

The clouds were rapidly thickening, signalling that rain was about to pour down.

Camelia and Aldrich agreed immediately, both understanding the need to find a safe place before the rain set in.

It was already nearing dusk, so whatever shelter they found, they could use to pass the time until the storm passed.

But before they could locate the shade, the rain came down in one sudden, heavy sweep.

It was shocking how quickly it went from merely cloudy to a full downpour.

Within moments, the rain-drenched them all, and the surroundings became difficult to navigate.

The world around them was rapidly turning into a blur.

"Crap!" Aldrich muttered as he felt the rain soaking him through, with Trevor still slung over his back.

The downpour created a sudden sense of urgency.

Visibility was becoming poor, and the ground was getting slippery.

"We won't find any shade at this rate," Ian assessed.

The others agreed with him.

With the rain pounding down and the darkness creeping in, the trio was now faced with the challenge of finding a safe place, but their chances were slim.

They couldn't even see far enough ahead to make sense of their surroundings.

"Camelia, you're an earth owner, right? Can you conjure up a roof over our heads?" Ian asked, his tone tinged with impatience.

He had seen Camelia use the earth element before, and it seemed like an obvious solution.

There was a specific way that one could easily harness their element, an unmistakable signature that signalled the element was their own.

"I am, but conjuring up a shelter zone?" Camelia's voice was hesitant. "That's a complicated task."

Ian raised an eyebrow. "What's difficult about it? You used an earth wall inscription earlier, right? You can just do the same. Make an earth wall on all four sides but make it tall enough?"

Camelia looked at him, understanding what Ian was trying to suggest.

The idea wasn't as far-fetched as it might seem.

While creating a full-fledged shelter might require an intricate inscription, Ian's approach was simpler.

With a deep breath, Camelia began inscribing the air.

She quickly conjured up four towering earth walls, each standing twelve feet tall, four feet higher than the last time.

She arranged them in a spacious square large enough to fit all of them inside.

"Aldrich, can you come out here to help me?" Ian called.

Aldrich dropped Trevor onto the ground, making sure the injured boy was safe, then stepped out from inside the protective walls.

"Can you use the basics of wind elemental control?" Ian asked, eyeing Aldrich with a raised brow.

"All my primary element ranks are at E rank," Aldrich replied casually.

"Everything?" Ian repeated, momentarily stunned by the revelation.

That included Aldrich's own wind elemental control.

"You don't have to sound so surprised," Aldrich retorted, a playful tone in his voice. "It's like that because I haven't really focused much on elemental control or elemental use... Or elemental anything."

He found it ridiculous as well. The thought of what has he been doing all this while passed his thoughts by.

Nonetheless, Aldrich shrugged, as if it were no big deal, but Ian was left wondering how someone with such low elemental control had made it to S-Class.

"Sigh! The wind Art I'm about to use is an attack-type Art that requires at least a D-rank mastery. I was hoping we could share the workload to conserve mana, but I guess I have no choice." Ian lamented, realizing he'd be taking on the responsibility himself.

"You can go back in. I'll handle it alone," Ian added with a frustrated sigh.

He began inscribing the air.

The darkening sky made it hard to see anything clearly, but when Ian finished the inscription, it glowed, sending a dim light that illuminated their surroundings, cutting through the encroaching darkness.

The light was faint but enough to reveal their immediate surroundings.

A wind razor shot out from the inscription, through the air.

The blade of wind was longer than sharp, and it easily sliced off four feet of the earth wall, shaping it like a brick.

The wall was now unbalanced.

The brick, now detached, began to tip and fall.

"Not good!" Camelia exclaimed, noticing the danger as the brick tilted dangerously toward them.

Ian quickly reacted, conjuring up a gust of wind to alter the fall, forcing the brick to tumble in the other direction, toward the inside of the protective wall.

"It won't hold!" Camelia worried. Her quick glance confirmed that the brick wasn't stable, and it might collapse at any moment.

Without hesitation, Camelia rose to her feet.

She quickly inscribed a new earth spell on the ground, summoning a long pole of earth that stabilized the falling brick.

"Sorry about that," Ian muttered. "I thought the sides would hold, but I was wrong."

He had calculated that the friction between the long sides of the brick would keep it upright, but it hadn't worked as he expected.

Thankfully, Camelia's quick thinking had prevented disaster.

"Heads up, another one's coming," Aldrich warned, having sliced through another part of the wall using the same method Ian had used.

Camelia's quick thinking kicked in again, and she acted swiftly, saving the shelter once more.

"You did it?" Ian asked, still in disbelief. "I thought you said your primary element mastery was E rank?"

Aldrich shrugged nonchalantly. "I thought so, too. But then I saw you do it, and I decided to record your movements while you inscribed the spell with my clairvoyant vision. And then... I did it."

His explanation was brief and left much to be desired, but Ian understood the gist of it.

He looked at Aldrich and saw those silvery pupils of his, the unmistakable sign of the clover eye.

'The clover eye?!'

Ian muttered to himself, conflicted.

It was clear now, that Aldrich had far more potential than he'd first realized.