"So, what else do you have to say?" Zephyr asked a follow-up question.
The chief glanced at the map once again, not daring to meet his eyes.
"I think we should find out why the crabs are behaving unnaturally. For that, we have to send someone to look into the anomaly."
As the chief was speaking, Zephyr felt his chest tighten. For some reason, a foreboding feeling began to envelope him.
'Don't tell me…Is he going to ask me to…'
Zephyr, as the only mage in the entire village, was required to do certain things. As a registered mage of the Storm Tower, bearing their honour, he couldn't just walk away when the entire village was threatened.
If he did walk away, he would probably be kicked out of the mage tower.
*Gulp*
'The main reason a mage was considered an equal to a noble was also because of their duty to serve the people of the land.'
'If they asked me to help them, I can't possibly refuse. Rejecting them means being kicked out. And hence, losing the little safety I have.'
Although the storm tower treated him like literal trash, being affiliated with them did give him a sense of safety. Being a rogue mage, with basically no way to protect himself, was the worst outcome that could happen.
Zephyr didn't want that.
So, he desperately prayed in his heart that the chief wouldn't ask him to do anything dangerous. After all, from the looks of it, the people of the village were overestimating his ability.
For them, Zephyr, a mage, was an unbeatable god. But the reality was very different.
'I am too beatable. Any cat or dog could beat me in my current condition.' Zephyr gloomily said to himself.
Seeing Zephyr frozen in place, the chief hesitated.
He wanted to ask if Zephyr was willing to go to the island and confirm why the crabs were acting out. But he stopped sensing the chill spread around him.
He quickly changed the sentence he was about to say.
"Of course, I will send someone to check what's happening on the island. Maybe a fierce beast had appeared amongst the crabs, a crab king perhaps. Anyway, once we know what is happening, we should decide on what to do next. We cannot let the crabs gather together. So, I hope we can meet again tomorrow, Sir Zephyr."
The chief said, waiting to see how he reacted.
As expected, Zephyr felt relieved. The chill he was exuding decreased by quite a bit. Even the chief could sense the change in the atmosphere.
"Okay," Zephyr said, took one more glance at the map before turning around.
"If that's all, I am leaving."
He left behind the word, walking out of the village hall.
The chief stayed put, not daring to say anything else. At least, Zephyr had agreed to meet tomorrow. That in itself was a boon, he thought.
Meanwhile, Zephyr said in his mind.
'God damn! I need to make a mana gathering spell asap.'
While running away was an option, he would lose any bit of power he had. And living the life of a fugitive, hiding away from the eyes of the tower, was not exactly thrilling. Thus, it was better to complete his plan to grow stronger quickly.
'A fierce beast is a type of mana beast that can use magic. They are known to be driven by instinct and are often perceived as less intelligent. In a gaming sense, they could be considered a mini-boss. I would have to face a crab-type mini-boss soon. I hope everything works out.'
Zephyr prayed to the RNG gods for the stats of the mini-boss to be low. It was the only way he could survive.
'Now that I think about it, the real Zephyr was known to be a one-armed mage when the evil organisation kidnapped him. Did he lose his arm to the crabs?' Zephyr wondered.
'I don't want to be one-armed.' He said firmly in his mind while swiftly walking away from the village hall.
The people around the village hall saw him and stepped back.
—--
Breathing heavily, Zephyr reached the comfort of his home. The clean but sparsely populated garden was still present near the dilapidated house.
'The house is barely holding up.'
Zephyr commented.
In the entire village, there existed only a few houses with tiled roofs. The house he calls home was among the few. Although it looked ugly, it was still better than the thatched houses of the villagers.
'I should be happy that I have a home. At least, I don't have to pay rent for it.'
The house was something all storm keepers of the past used. It was the property of the storm tower and thus, he was not required to pay rent to use it.
It was a nice perk of being a storm keeper.
'Anyway, I don't have time to waste my brain power on useless thoughts. I have to make the mana gathering spell and engrave it on my core.'
'After that, I need to try and find a way to upgrade the core.'
'If that's not possible, I should make more cores. Alternatively, I could create more cores, even if I can upgrade the original one. Either way, I need to find a way to grow stronger.'
Zephyr walked into the kitchen, grabbing the bread placed on a wooden box. He ripped apart a small portion before returning to the table near his bed.
For the next few hours, he was going to test the runes directly on his core.
Initially, he planned to use mana conductive writing material to draw and test the spell. But he has no time to waste trying to find the right material.
So, he decided to draw the runes directly on his core to find their properties before shrinking the dozens of large rune mana gathering spells to something he could fit on his core.
'There is limited space in my core. But I can erase and draw as many runes as I want because of my unnatural control of mana. While tedious, this is certainly doable.'
He thought confidently and moved on to his experimentation.