'I can't really deny it, this cultivation thingy isn't half bad,' Theo thought as he pushed through the shallow waters of the lake.
After experiencing quite the... less than pleasant flight and nearly a disaster of a landing, Theo's body should be nearing its limits. The crushing acceleration of the start, constant crashing into the air of the high-speed flight itself all the way to sudden deceleration, and then drop into the water...
All of those things would be enough to kill any mortal or even any cultivator of up to Theo's level, with Theo himself surviving only by stacking up various spells on top of his cultivation-reinforced body.
And yet, after all of this and then several minutes of swimming over to the lake's shore, when it ca to pushing his feet through the shallow waters of the lake's edge... Theo hardly felt any exhaustion at all!
"With that said," he muttered once the water no longer reached beyond the level of his ankles, "I still have quite the trek to complete."
On one hand, overshooting the city by as much as Theo did ant that he would not only have to waste ti crossing this distance back on foot, but he would also enter it from a different gate than he was supposed to.
That, given the lack of any sort of identification papers existing in the kingdom or anything of the sort, could make the entry into the city quite a lot harder if any of the gate's guards were in a mood to play around. After all, given the direct ties the Slevian sect had with the Vistra city, it was no secret Theo was in their ranks.
And with that said, just what could've prompted him to enter the city from the wrong side? A question all the harder to answer with how there were no roads bypassing the city nor any records of Theo crossing through Vistra in the recent past!
'While there certainly might be so issues, it's not like there are no positives to it,' Theo thought as he finally reached the dry land... only to stop right as he stood there, as he took a mont to construct a simple glyph.
A bit of a wind combined with heat turned into a perfect spell for drying off his outfit, removing the most questionable part of his current appearance. Yet, as Theo reached up and ran his hand through his hair...
"I guess there's nothing I can do about this ss," he muttered to himself before shaking his head and then jumping in place a few tis to air out the spell-induced heat.
With all the preparations done, Theo locked his eyes on the nearby farms, split into two by the road leading directly to the city.
Just like it was the case in his sect, the farms reached only so far out from the city, with the existence of an invisible border no farr dared to cross.
Even though a bit closer to the kingdom's interior, Vistra still lay right on the country's outskirts, in the region commonly accepted as frontier. That's why, with the appearances of monsters uncommon but not unheard of, the farrs only dared to set their houses and farms as far out as the reach of the towns' warding formation.
Sure, a powerful monster would be able to break through it... but it would still need the ti to do so, the ti the farrs could use to hurry back behind the safety of the city's wall while the city's garrison would be dispatched to deal with the issue.
All in all, even though it wouldn't be until a few more hours before Theo's scheduled arrival, he was now only a thirty-minute jog away from the gates at most... And five minutes of sprint at speed restricted down to the level that left him with enough maneuverability to prevent any accidental crashes into innocent farrs just walking down or crossing the road.
Yet, right as he locked his eyes on the outline of the city in the distance and dug his feet into the ground to jumpstart his dash... Theo reached out to his pouch, only to then furrow his brows.
'Is it just , or is it just a little... lighter than before?'
His head turned, his eyes locking on the nearby lake. And while his eyes were of not much use in regard to this issue, just by focusing on his mana perception, Theo quickly confird that his worry was indeed true.
'Ugh...'
Apparently, his landing was violent enough for one or two of the spirit stones to slip out of his pouch, ending up sowhere on the lake's bottom.
Yet, now that he stood on the dry land, his clothes properly dried out, his attention already locked on the city ahead, Theo found the idea of going back to the water and then diving around to find just where those stones sank down extrely unappealing.
"I guess so lucky kid might find a treasure beyond their greatest hopes, one day," he muttered to himself, a small smile appearing on his lips as he imagined the scenario for a second.
The stones in Theo's possession would be still more than just enough to serve his purposes. And that made any attempts at recovering the one or two pieces he lost simply too costly ti-wise for him to bother.
And when adding up the issue of getting wet all over again, possibly attracting even more attention than he already did, wasting ti by diving around...
'Yeah, no way,' rolling his eyes over his own carelessness, Theo turned his eyes back towards his true target before starting his peaceful, relatively relaxed jog.
And it was right at this mont that his adrenaline finally wore down, unleashing the full might of the pain it held back upon Theo's brain.
In a single instant, the pleasant jog turned into a torturous exercise, one painful enough to make Theo reconsider just how desperate he was to reach the city in advance of his planned schedule.
A hesitation that he ended up dismissing in favor of just gritting his teeth, clenching his butt, and then speeding up his steps instead.
'No rest for the wicked,' Theo sumd up his situation in his mind as he tried to force himself to adore the pleasant, relaxing scenery of the sprawling farms hugging both sides of the dirt highway.
A mindset he couldn't hold for more than just a few seconds, before his mind switched right back to planning mode in a bid for him to make the absolute most of the ti he was already wasting by doing sothing as simple as running up towards his goal.
'And no rest especially for . Not until I go back and close the damned loop of that spell!'
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