Masteria Online: Shattering the Dark God's Grand Scheme

Leaving the celebrating pixies behind, Lumi and Lena set out to search for the ancestral vault.

The airship lifted off, climbing higher into the canopy as they began their search. Lumi took the controls, steering them toward the general region where he believed the vault might be located.

He had a rough idea of where it was, which gave him a direction to search in, but it wasn’t perfect.

In his past life, he’d heard about the vault’s location only in passing. Apparently, it was deep in Elenora’s uncharted territories, somewhere in the northeastern quadrant of the forest. That was helpful, but "northeastern quadrant" covered thousands of square miles of dense, vertical forest.

Finding one specific portal in that vast expanse would be a challenge.

"So where exactly are we going?" Lena asked, leaning over the side of the airship to look down at the endless sea of branches below. "Like... where is this thing? Aren’t we just moving randomly? Moving... wrongly?"

Lumi was about to answer, but then he saw that she paused, then furrowed her brows. She seemed deep in thought.

Lumi blinked. "What’s up?"

"Okay." Lena put her hands up to gesture as she spoke. "You know how like, when you walk across the street in a way you aren’t supposed to, that’s J-Walking?"

"...yeah?" Lumi was unsure where she was going with this.

Lena grinned as if she had come up with something genius. "So, we can say that J-Walking is walking wrongly. Therefore, we can take J to be a modifier that means wrongly. Which means..."

"..."

Lena suddenly exclaimed. "We’re J-Moving!"

Lumi was thoroughly, utterly, stunned. "N-no..."

He had to stop and think. "Why... why does that make sense?"

Lena grinned. "See?"

"But like..." Lumi wanted to argue against it but had no idea how to go about it. The logic was... airtight?

Wait a second, no it wasn’t! She-

"Lena!" Lumi suddenly broke out of his stupor. "What are you making me think about? The vault, let’s focus on that. Alright, we’re going Northeast, past the mapped regions."

Lena blinked. "That’s not very specific."

Lumi gave her a snort nod. "I know."

Lena tilted her head. "How are we supposed to find one vault in all of this?"

Lumi gestured at the forest surrounding them. "We look."

And so they began searching.

The first problem was that Elenora was fundamentally disorienting to navigate.

Lumi had to navigate by memory and estimation, comparing what he saw against mental landmarks he’d established during previous trips.

They flew for an hour, scanning the area carefully. And yet, there was nothing.

They descended to a lower altitude and flew the same route again, checking a different vertical layer of the forest.

Still nothing.

Lumi adjusted their course slightly northeast and they flew for another hour.

He spotted a cluster of wooden platforms that looked promising. He made sure to give it a through check, yet it was just an abandoned pixie settlement. No vault.

They took off again.

Lena was starting to get bored. "Are we just going to fly around randomly until we stumble across it?"

"Basically, yes."

"That’s a terrible plan."

"I’m open to suggestions," Lumi said.

Lena thought about it for a moment, then shrugged. "I got nothing."

They continued searching.

The problem was compounded by the fact that this was mostly uncharted territory.

At least in other regions of Elenora, there were established paths and places of importance. Places that could serve as reference points.

Out here, there was nothing. Just endless forest in every direction, with no clear markers to distinguish one section from another. It wasn’t as if anyone had marked down everything Pixie territory had on a map. Here they were lost.

The other problem was this. The pixies didn’t help the search process at all.

So Seyen was the queen now. Big deal.

That didn’t stop pixies from being what they were. Pixies.

Did anyone actually think that just because Seyen gave an order, pixies would follow it? The idea was laughable.

Her orders had weight, sure, as in "If you don’t do this, there will be consequences." But that only mattered if Seyen actually found out about the disobedience.

Loyalty among pixies was near nonexistent.

Few pixies would care about breaking Seyen’s orders as long as the queen never discovered their violation. And in a forest spanning thousands of miles, with pixies scattered across countless vertical layers, how would she ever know?

Pixies really just did whatever they wanted.

So yeah, pixies had attacked them several times during the search.

Random pixies who either didn’t know about Seyen’s deal with the humans, or knew and simply didn’t care. They’d spot the airship, decide it looked like fun to attack, and dive in with spells blazing.

They couldn’t possibly win. Lumi and Lena were both significantly stronger than the average pixie. Every attack ended with dead pixies and no damage to the airship.

But that didn’t stop them from trying.

That was why pixies were classified as monsters despite their intellect. They had the capacity for reason, for complex thought and for social organization. But they lacked so many other things such as survival instinct that would make them stop attacking clearly superior enemies.

It made them dangerous and annoying in equal measure.

Lumi descended again, this time to a mid-level altitude where thicker branches formed natural platforms. He spotted what looked like intentional construction, wooden posts arranged in a circle.

They landed and investigated.

It turned out to be a shrine of some kind, dedicated to a forest spirit. Offerings of fruit and flowers were scattered around a central altar.

With a sigh, they went back in the airship

They flew northeast for another hour, methodically covering grid sections of the forest.

Lumi marked mental notes of distinctive trees or unusual formations, anything that could help him track which areas they’d already searched.

The sun was starting to descend toward the horizon when they finally found something different.

A clearing appeared ahead, unusual in itself since the forest canopy was normally unbroken. As they approached, Lumi could see pixies flying around the area, more concentrated here than anywhere else they’d searched.

"There." Lumi said, pointing.

"Finally!" Lena jumped up excitedly, nearly tipping the airship.

Soon enough, they found the vault.

Mainly because there were pixies that kept messing around near it, drawing attention to the area.

Now, it was called a vault, but what they actually found was a portal.

The portal itself was relatively small, only three meters in diameter. It hovered in midair, suspended between two massive tree branches. The surface shimmered with energy, showing no clear view of what lay beyond.

Around the portal, there was some construction. There were a few tiny huts, remnants of a blacksmithing station, and trash scattered about.

The portal led to a sealed pocket dimension. That was where the actual vault existed, where the ancestral spirits guarded their treasures.

They arrived just in time to witness something interesting.

A pixie suddenly materialized from the portal, bursting through from the other side. It was flying desperately, its movements panicked and uncoordinated.

"No no no!" the pixie screamed. "I didn’t mean to! I was just looking! I didn’t touch anything!"

Then it got smitten.

An invisible force struck the pixie with overwhelming power. There was no warning, no visible spell, just a sudden impact that reduced the pixie to ash in an instant.

The remains scattered on the wind, disappearing before they could even fall.

Lena watched with wide eyes. "Whoa." Lena was unusually excited despite witnessing the instant execution.

Her eyes were practically glowing as she stared at the portal. "Treasure! Ancient pixie treasure! Artifacts! Magic items! Maybe gold! Probably gold! Do pixies even use gold? Who cares, there’s definitely something good in there!"

Lumi couldn’t help but smile slightly at her enthusiasm.

Then she paused, a question occurring to her. It wasn’t too important to the current mission, but her curiosity had been triggered.

"Hey," Lena spoke with a confused tone. "If pixies have such a disregard for their own lives, how exactly are they still around? Like, as a species?"

Lumi considered her words. It was a fair question. Pixies threw themselves into suicidal fights constantly. They ignored danger, attacked superior enemies, and generally acted like they wanted to die.

By all logic, they should have gone extinct centuries ago.

Lumi had wondered the same thing in his past life, so he already knew the answer.

He explained it to her. "They reproduce extremely efficiently. Pixies are born pretty strong. They’re talented at magic from birth, and they mature into adults in less than a year."

Lena closed her eyes, did a half-yawn, half-choke, and then smiled. "Less than a year? That’s fast."

Lumi saw her reaction and chose not to comment on whatever he just saw. Instead he focused on his explanation. "That’s right, it’s very fast compared to humans. And when they do reproduce with each other, they give birth to about a dozen offspring at a time."