An Owl's Rise

With a proud expression and her body puffed up Evelyn told Rehni and Bylur about the stable magic spring.

She had grown to trust them quite a bit during their time training and going up the ranks together.

And now that they had broken into the top five thousand teams, she felt that allowing them to use the magic spring was a perfect reward for all their hard work.

However, this also served another purpose.

As much as Evelyn was far less distrustful than she used to be, she wanted to make sure that Bylur and Rehni truly could be trusted.

To this end she was going to show them the magic spring and see if they could keep it to themselves.

If they leaked the information on it or brought anyone else to it, then she would know that she could not trust them. Though after getting to know them better and forming fairly strong bonds with them she doubted that either of them would betray her at this point.

"Um what is a magic spring?" Bylur said not long after Evelyn's reveal.

This quickly deflated her, and she looked at him like he had a screw loose in his head.

Frankly she had figured that just about any awakened rank owl within the Roost would at least be vaguely aware of what a magic spring was since they were so valuable.

'What about Reni?'

Turning her head toward her other teammate, Evelyn wondered if she also was in the dark about magic springs, but her stunned expression said otherwise.

"Evelyn are you serious! That is something that could be considered a true treasure. Should you even be telling us about it?" Rehni said, visibly shaken by this bit of information.

Being far better read and having utilized the records hall much more frequently than Bylur, she had information on just about any phenomenon like the forming of a magic spring that might help her advance through the ranks.

Rehni then turned her head to Bylur, and said, "Do you seriously not know what a magic spring is? It is a fairly common occurrence where magical energy fills into a body of water that is easy to absorb. You could think of it as a better version of an advancement chamber. It is not as harsh as taking in the gaseous magical energy and since it is not in an enclosed area will not smother you as easily even if the amount of energy is more than you can normally take. However, they are normally just one-off situations. Magic springs rarely ever appear in the same location twice, but I have heard that some of them can even allow you to raise your tier all in one go. Finding an active one can be considered among the luckiest encounters. Yet Evelyn has located a stable one. From what I have read the number of stable magic springs that the Roost has learned about is in the single digits. And all of them were destroyed in battles to try and possess them."

Hearing Rehni list all this off, Evelyn was taken back.

She knew that Rehni often went to the records hall to study, but apparently, she had done extensive research and had a profound knowledge Evelyn had not expected her to have.

It also seemed that her explanation got through to Bylur and he now realized how amazing the stable magic spring Evelyn had found really was.

With it they could all advance far quicker than normal, and it was the secret behind Evelyn reaching the mid-tier of the awakened rank before them.

"Evelyn, as Rehni said, are you sure that you should have told us something like this? It sounds like the kind of secret you should not divulge to anyone."

"Certainly, it is not something to publicize, but you two are my comrades. As much as it does not come easily to me, I can trust others, I believe that the two of you have earned my trust. I think of you both as friends and if we are to continue fighting together, I need both of you to keep up with me. If I used the spring but left you both out, then I would soon leave you both behind. Honestly, I have enjoyed being able to fight together with the two of you and do not want to get too far ahead that we can no longer rise up the ranks together."

After hearing Evelyn's speech both Bylur and Rehni were quite moved.

They could remember how distrustful Evelyn was of them when they first met. Especially Bylur.

He had helped her out when she was being assaulted by a group of eagles, yet afterwards she had treated him as a major threat.

At the time her wounds were still fresher, and her suspicions were more prominent. She thought that everyone was out to get her and anyone being nice was just looking to get her guard down.

"Thank you for revealing this to us. I promise that I will not tell anyone about this magic spring." Rehni said resolutely.

A moment later Bylur also gave his assurances, and Evelyn thanked them both for being willing to keep the spring a secret.

"Now it will become active again in around two weeks. We will want to leave a few days before then to make sure that we arrive on time so clear your schedules."

Nodding their heads, Bylur and Rehni agreed to leave in eleven days to follow Evelyn to the magic spring.

The three of them then left the Ranking Hall in high spirits and made their way to a restaurant to celebrate their victory.

Once they had finished there, they all went their separate ways and prepared for their trip to the magic spring.

'I am going to need to work as hard as possible in these next few days. I need to earn a stupid number of credits to purchase the storage magic toll that I promised to give to Lucia.' Evelyn thought when she returned home.

Immediately she got to work on brewing potions, pills, salves, and other such items. She was going to have to work herself to the bone if she wanted to purchase the specified storage item.

…

In the blink of an eye the eleven days had passed, and it was time for Evelyn to meet up with Bylur and Rehni to show them to the magic spring.

'It was close, but I just barely managed to scrap the credits together.' Evelyn thought as she looked down at the new cuff on her leg.

This was the storage item with a three thousand cubic meter storage space that she had promised Lucia.

Buying it for eight million credits had left her completely destitute with only a couple hundred credits left to her name.

She had even had to empty out the team funds that they had been building up and get a loan of a million credits from Melisandre, but she had managed to get enough to purchase the expensive tool.

The thing had cost far more than she was expecting it to, but that made sense as only tyrant rank owls or above were the ones that normally could even think about purchasing such a thing.

The seller in the inscription hall was actually surprised to see Evelyn coming in to purchase it.

'Ah there they are." Evelyn thought, seeing Bylur and Rehni flying towards her.

Quickly they exchanged their greetings and then entered the warp hall where they purchased the tickets, they would need to go to the nearest warp point to the Elmot Gorge.

'Gah I am down to the double digits now.'

After purchasing the tickets Evelyn found that her credits had hit pretty much rock bottom, and she now had fewer than when she originally came to the Roost.

Still money could be gathered again, and she was fine with spending it when it was to help her continue advancing on her journey.

With their tickets ready, they moved over to the specified warp platform and were whisked away.

When their vison returned, they found themselves in a field around twenty kilometers away from the Elmot Gorge.

"Follow me. There is an errand I need to take care of fist before we head to the magic spring."

Talking to the air the three of them fly towards the Elmot Gorge and descend when they reached it.

Flying high over the top of the place was a bad idea, and one liable to get anyone stupid enough to do so killed.

Being extra careful, they flew into the gorge down around two hundred feet and then flew across.

Luckily, they did not encounter any sort of enemies and made it to the other side without incident.

'It should be about here.' Evelyn thought as she scanned the area.

She certainly did not remember the entire route that Lucia had taken to go from the bottom of the gorge to the top, but she had made sure to memorize where the exit point was.

Having reached that location Evelyn activated the magic item that Lucia had given her to get in contact and then waited for eh to arrive.

Around a half hour later they all spotted a figure rapidly ascending the side of the gorge.

They were clearly humanoid in shape, and Rehni and Bylur began to panic when they realized that a tyrant rank beast was coming right for them.

"There is no need to worry. That is the individual I told you both about. She saved my life and now I am paying back the debt I owe her."