-You think I am also getting… Nah. I barely absorbed…

  -So what? It’s not like you’ve been changing your mind constantly and felt absolutely normal recently, right?

  -I… Huh.

  -Yep. Maybe slower, maybe faster, but whatever it is, it’s the same.

  He paused again. Now for a bit longer.

  -While I am not against that… I feel like it’s not the right moment… or rather the right place…

  -I am pretty sure we have time. If not here, then where?

  -Wait… you are serious?

  -Of course. What else do we have to do - I shrugged.

  -Maybe finding a place to actually stay? I don’t know about you, but I’d rather not be a hermit…

  -Ah. I forgot.

  -Forgot what?

  -That you, all this time, was a pampered king.

  -”Pampered”, pff.

  -Well, I literally had no home to speak of and had to literally live in the forest.

  -What about the Edge?

  -I don’t count that prison as a home.

  -”Prison”, my ass. You essentially owned the place. Thanks to your deal with For.

  -It was a long time ago.

  -That’s true. But that’s a fair point, why don’t we go back there?

  -If you tell me how - I replied. - And besides, it’s back on the “prison island” or whatever. You want to go back?

  -Why not? The barrier is down.

  -Along with the people inside… - I pointed out.

  -So?

  -I don’t think I’d… You know, screw that. It’s not like we have a way to get there anyway.

  -I mean, there’s still the targeted teleportation…

  -Don’t start with that. You know we’ll end up in the next century or something weird like that.

  -Not like it mattered.

  -Well… Maybe it would be even better… Eh, no matter.

  -Better? That’s new.

  -As I said. Doesn’t matter. I still would rather not do it.

  -Since when do you care about the problem with that kind of teleportation? Weren’t you the one who abused it?

  -I didn’t “abuse it” - I scoffed. - I just didn’t know.

  -That doesn’t make it better.

  -Sure doesn’t.

  -Relax. I get it - he sighed. - And besides, we don’t need to use those dubious methods. I think.

  -You think? Didn’t you say you don’t have any more anchors that were usable?

  -Well… I don’t… it’s… What if I tried using myself as an anchor, though?

  I stopped and glared at him.

  -Doesn’t that give us the same problem, though? Sure, you might work as an anchor, but we’re still dealing with the time dilation.

  -Er… I am not sure, really…

  -”Not sure”, huh? Also, why do you want to leave this place so much? I mean, I get it, it's empty…

  -More than empty - he said. - Okay, maybe we aren’t being pursued any more, but we should at least be a bit more… civilized…

  He was clearly struggling to find some arguments.

  Something was off him.

  But, then again, that was the whole reason for this discussion in the first place. Although…

  -You’re hiding something, aren’t you? - I straight up asked.

  -I haven’t the slightest idea what you’re talking about.

  -Aha.

  Both his face and tone of voice were telling me something else.

  Completely out of character for him.

  Not lying, that was completely normal. Rather the fact that I was able to tell so easily or him hiding it so poorly.

  If that was anybody else, I would’ve said that it’s just my senses being sharper than usual, but with him, I sort of didn’t think that was the case.

  At least not entirely.

  -Whatever. So, what do you want to do?

  -...

  -Come on. Out with it.

  -I’ll open the way.

  That was barely an answer and only made me suspicious.

  He had a place in mind?

  Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.

  He stepped up to a tree and extended his hand towards me.

  -What?

  -I need a hand. Can you cut me?

  -Can’t you just cast a spell? - I asked, even more suspicious.

  -...

  -Oh, fuck you, fine.

  With one thought I sharpened my fingers and grabbed his hand.

  -Ouch! Can you not…?

  -What?

  -...

  Since when he’s been a delicate lady, huh?

  Well, whatever the case, he got what he wanted.

  -Nothing. Okay, give me a moment.

  He clasped his hands together and then pressed them both to the trunk in front of him.

  The tree trunk cracked and split in half, inside housing a familiar oval opening full of swirling, nondescript space.

  It definitely looked like a regular portal… I mean, the method he was using was pretty similar to what I’ve seen before.

  -So, I assume the time dilation is not an issue?

  He didn’t reply, just urged me to pass through.

  -Okay, okay…

  I passed through, expecting everything and anything, but the travel was as boring and as mundane as ever. No gravity fluctuations either, but I should’ve expected that since we were using a vertical plane…

  I was greeted by a rather loud noise of the sea.

  I expected for him to not pass through and leave me behind, but just a moment later he was right next to me and the gateway closed.

  -So, where are we? - I asked, taking a look at the surrounding sea.

  We were standing on a rather large plateau. Made out of solid, pretty magical rock, or at least I assumed so. I couldn’t really tell from the look alone what I was looking at thanks to the fact that most of the stone was covered with algae, ferns and other strangle and overgrown plants. Some looked quite out of place in the middle of the sea like that.

  He looked at me, confused and gestured towards our back.

  -Don’t you recognize? We’re just…

  As he turned, his voice trailed away.

  I am pretty sure he didn’t expect to see… well, nothing.

  The only thing on the plateau other than plants were just pieces of stone, pretty often weathered down to just small pebbles. Not sure how most of them were even still here, since the wind was pretty strong.

  As if to confirm that, a rather strong gust pushed some of them off the cliff and down towards the rocky cliff below us, scattering them in the water.

  -I don’t think that’s much of an improvement after where we were - I pointed out. - But I guess that’s not what you’ve expected. Time dilation is a bitch.

  -That’s not possible! - he barked. - I am sure that spell was perfect, and the anchor… no, that didn’t matter!

  -So something COULD go wrong.

  -The most could fail was me missing the location. And we are here…? I think?

  There was no mistaking it. It was indeed Edge.

  While the stone was weathered and no longer as full of mana, there were enough to tell the familiar presence.

  -Well, I don’t know what to tell you. That’s the Edge alright. Just a lot has passed, that’s it.

  -How…

  -We’ve been teleporting a lot - I said, shrugging. - It’s not that strange that some of those were garbage.

  -We weren’t really using the first class ingredients… - he agreed, but almost instantly shook his head. - But that doesn’t matter! This place was full of mana! It’s not like it will vanish so soon.

  -”Soon” is a relative term - I replied.

  -...

  -Look, instead of complaining, let’s get downstairs. Maybe there we will still find something useful.

  He didn’t reply, so I just started walking.

  Yeah, the place was a wreck.

  Anything that was above the regular courtyard level was completely gone, without a trace. It sort of looked like some earthquake happened here, the walls failed and let the weight of the building crush everything in its path.

  I spent a bit here, but even then it wasn’t that easy to find some path. But, I found something akin to a staircase. Hard to tell which one, though.

  I started moving the ruined pieces of stone and crystal aside and uncovered it to the point of usability.

  During that, I managed to tell that rocks were indeed the Origin Crystal. Sure, they weren’t exactly charged much, but the dormant energy was still there. Maybe that’s why some of those weren't yet turned to dust.

  Just to check, I tried absorbing a small piece, and it indeed was resisting my drain. Just as the Origin Crystal should.

  That doesn’t mean it wasn’t just releasing its mana into the air.

  I guess without something holding it together the energy was just… dispersing.

  I was about to head down, when I realized that Mike was still standing there, unmoving.

  -You coming? Or just rather wait?

  -Ah? Yeah… Coming…

  Again with this…

  I was about to complain and maybe try to snap him out of this… whatever that was, but instead got preoccupied with what was in front of me.

  The stairs down were mostly buried.

  It didn’t take us even three steps to encounter problems with descending. Between the two of us, we managed to kick the rubble away, or rather make it crumble to dust. Despite the fact that we were dealing with the Crystal, the time it spent here managed to do a number on it. Hell, in comparison to what I’ve seen upstairs, this was even less durable: one good squeeze was enough for me to turn some pieces to dust.

  Still couldn’t drain them directly, though.

  Mike didn’t have that much grip strength, but was able to crack some of them too: the longer and thinner pieces were as brittle as it gets and it easily crumbled if you put some strength into it.

  -I just hope this place won’t crack under my weight… - I mumbled, breaking yet another piece.

  -Don’t even say it.

  After a couple of minutes Mike apparently managed to get back into his own groove.

  Still, he was a bit more silent than usual.

  At least we were making progress.

  After about five meters of stairs, I started wondering how deep were those going?

  If I remembered correctly, and it was hard to judge, really, those stairs looked similar to ones that led towards the jail where I was being kept once. Or was it somewhere else?

  Honestly, it could be anything: there had no discerning features to begin with, and especially not now, when everything went to shit. No light either.

  What was lighting up the place the last time…? Ah, the stone itself. Well, not like it mattered anyway, I could still see fairly well thanks to my enhanced eyes and Mike's small light that he conjured when we went down.

  When I was about to ask him why he was even using that, since I was pretty sure he could see in the darkness at least as well as I, he extinguished his spell.

  I froze on the spot.

  Did he feel someone?

  I quickly spread my senses, just to be sure, but as expected, the only mana I felt was the remaining embers lingering in the crystals around us and the two of us.

  But there was also another thing that caught my attention.

  -Ah. Well.

  He extinguished his light because there was nothing to be found here. Especially since it was the end of the staircase.

  Literally.

  I kicked a few remaining pieces of rubble away and took a step back.

  The rest of the crystals shifted and slowly started moving downwards… falling from the edge of the last step.

  -Sea - I stated the obvious.

  Right. The staircase didn’t end, rather it was cut off. Destroyed by whatever happened here, or maybe it was just water eroding this piece of stone. It was just below us, maybe not even a meter lower.

  -That’s a thing… - I mumbled, scratching my head. - Maybe there’s still something upstairs we missed…

  -There’s nothing out there.

  -We can’t be sure until we check. Let’s go back.

  He didn’t reply, but didn’t resist either.

  But, he was right.

  There was no point.