Chapter 431 - Fourth Floor 1

With Cecil's lead, his group was able to quickly arrive at the trial's fourth floor.

When they popped out of the transfer gate and onto the fourth floor, they all experienced a feeling of weightlessness as they free fell from the sky.

Cecil was the first to quickly regain his bearings and he could already hear everyone else's frightful screams. He looked around and noticed that Ren already had his rifle out and aimed below him.

Cecil nodded in appreciation towards his disciple's quick-wittedness. He was already in position and ready to use the blast from his rifle to mitigate the downforce from his fall. It wouldn't completely erase the impact he would receive, but thankfully, below them wasn't the solid hard ground. Instead, it was a wide body of water.

When Cecil looked around, he noticed that everywhere was water. The entire floor was comprised of only water and nothing else.

"An ocean stage?"

Cecil didn't have any time to marvel at the absurdity of the trial's stage. He had more important things to worry about, like the people around him who were yelling and screaming from fright. He gathered his mana to keep him from falling and quickly conjured his clone. Using his flight capabilities, Cecil moved to grab the people around him.

"Grab ahold of each other and don't let go!" Cecil commanded after grabbing two people.

After forming groups which consisted of 5 people in each group, he made sure that the sixth member of every group had a water or wind elemental mage with them. From there, they should be able to understand what to do, but just in case these people were too stupid to realize, Cecil didn't forget to relay his intentions.

"If you're a wind mage, use your magic to slow down your descent! If you're a water mage then use your magic to raise the water level so that it will catch—"

Before he could say anymore, he saw his sister-in-law, Celestina, do something ingenious. She had created a large ice canopy above her head and by using the laws of physics, she was able to decrease the speed of their descent.

"Alright, you could do that too!"

Some people were still in a panic so they couldn't get it on the first try, but thankfully, after they recomposed themselves, no mishaps happened during the descent.

Cecil stayed high up in the air and looked around to see if he could see any sort of landmass, but unfortunately, there was no such thing within his scope of vision. Everything on this stage was only water. At least, that's how it looked like on the surface.

"...I'm sure this is a good stage to use Nessie again. I'll just follow after the lingering mana that Nessie left behind," Cecil mumbled before he quickly activated his Mana Eyes.

He looked around and quickly noticed the unique mana signature of his little sister's pet monster.

"What a cheat, it's like these trials were catered just for my little sister."

After taking in the route that his sister had taken, Cecil quickly made his descent and stepped onto the water's surface.

"Sister-in-law, hurry up and create an ice scaffold for everyone to get on," Cecil said after he quickly picked Celestina up by the arm.

"U-ugh...don't you know how to treat a lady delicately?" Celestina replied in protest at her brother-in-law's rough way of handling her.

Instead of picking her up gently, he just grabbed her wrist and raised her by the arm like she was some kind of object.

"I'm treating you politely right now though? Obviously, I wouldn't treat you like how'd I treat my wives, no?"

"..."

Celestina couldn't understand the logic behind his words and just gave up. She had just experienced something totally ridiculous just on the previous stage so she didn't want to question him any further.

She had already heard a few things from her future husband about how ridiculous this brother-in-law of hers so she shouldn't be too surprised about how he acted.

Celestina quickly created a large ice platform above the water and everyone climbed on top of it. Cecil quickly ordered for the people in his kingdom's group who had guns to quickly switch to the ice-elemental bullet and help thicken and widen the ice.

The mages in Karen's and Cecilia's group also helped with this and soon the platform had turned into a make-shift boat.

"Head in that direction," Cecil said pointing towards the direction that Nessie and his sister had taken. "I won't need to say this, but obviously you wind and water mages will need to make this 'boat' move, right?"

The mages quickly made themselves busy. They didn't want to anger this oddball that just plowed through an entire floor just because he had found traces of his family and wanted to quickly catch up with them.

Cecil also helped out the wind mages a little bit. He pulled out a long and thick tree trunk, plunged it straight into the middle of the ice boat. He then started crafting a sail using the spare monster hide and fur that he found inside his spatial ring.

He had his kingdom's people work on the sail while he pulled out a few more tree branches of some magical trees he found during his travels and started carving out oars. He then handed these oars to the groups' warriors and said, "Make yourself useful and help them move the boat."

Everyone could sense the urgency in his words so they quickly did what they were told. It wasn't like they could reject him for that matter and no one in the group wanted to antagonize this human-shaped weapon.

Once everything and everyone was ready, the group started to sail through the fourth stage following the route that Angelia, Gabriel, and Kira had taken.

"How do you know this is the way?" Cecilia walked over to Cecil who was sitting down on a large fur mat and asked.

She sat herself down next to him and waited for his answer.

"...My eyes are special," Cecil curtly replied after giving her a slight glance.

"They sure are. They're the cursed eyes that no human should normally have."

"Is that so?"

"Even the Mystic Eye Demon tribe doesn't have eyes as special as yours. Their race is unique because of their unique demonic eyes that have various effects, but even those who are born with your eyes can't survive past the age of 12..." Cecilia followed up.

Cecil lightly smirked and didn't reply to her words. This was the first time he heard that there was a demon tribe that had powers focused in their eyes.

"I'd like to hear more about this Mystic Eye Demon tribe if you don't mind?"

"Hmmm, I'd personally like to hear more about your unique pair of eyes, but I'll let it go."

Cecilia gave up asking for more since Cecil took the initiative to change the topic. She then started explaining what she knew about the demon tribe she brought up from before.

"That's interesting. So their powers are focused around their eyes."

"Yes, they have strange and sometimes powerful ocular prowess. Some say that a single look from a demon of the Mystic Eye tribe would cause you to blow up in flames, slowly petrify, or even freeze in place. There's even one ocular power that lets the user see into the future, a rather enviable ability, I must say," Cecilia said with a good hint of envy in her voice.

"Seeing into the future...isn't that similar to your church's ability?"

Cecilia didn't reject his words. Instead, she agreed with him.

"It is, in fact, some say that the church's original founder was a demon who had abandoned his tribe because of his compassion towards his human wife~"

"Huh?"

"Romantic isn't it? It's a love that transcended two completely different races?"

"...This is just a legend, right? I mean, it'd be pretty blasphemous if you say the gift that came from your 'god' actually originated from a demon..."

Cecilia laughed and said, "My, don't you know quite a lot of my kingdom's religion?"

"It's only natural that I had to do some research about a place I had once wanted to visit."

"Oh?"

"I was looking for my family a while back. If I couldn't find them, I wanted to go over to your kingdom and asked for a high priest to look into the future and find their whereabouts."

"...Our 'future sight' doesn't work that way..."

"Probably not, if it's the same as how Providence's future sight works..." Cecil mumbled the latter half of his words so Cecilia didn't quite catch what he had said.

"What was that?"

"Never mind about that, get ready. I sense there are monsters coming."

Cecilia stood up and quickly alerted everyone else about the incoming monsters. Unlike on the third floor, Cecil didn't take action this time.

They progressed through the fourth floor just like this, leisurely sailing one moment before quickly getting into battle formations once Cecil alerted them of any incoming dangers.

They spent a few days sailing on through the fourth floor, but it wasn't only the dangerous monsters that the group had to be wary about. The treacherous elements and the abrupt change in climate also threatened everyone's lives on the ice boat.

There were times when sudden hurricanes and storms hit them. There was even one time when a large tsunami almost struck them. Thankfully, Cecil was there and he had cleaved the large wave of water in two and the group was able to safely pass through that ordeal.

They spent a few more days on this treacherous journey and eventually, they were able to arrive at the end of Angelia, Gabriel, and Kira's travel route. The trail ended in the middle of the ocean. It ended in the middle of nowhere yet there was no transfer gate around.

Cecil even took the liberty of searching the skies, yet he couldn't find any transfer gate around.

"This is weird...just where did they disappear to? Since the trail ended here, doesn't that mean they passed through the transfer gate?"

Cecil deduced that the transfer gate was probably located somewhere in the sky since that was where the entrance gate to the fourth floor was located at. He couldn't find the transfer gate no matter how far he looked so he couldn't come up with an explanation as to why it wasn't there.

"The only explanation would be...if it's a mobile transfer gate..."