CHAPTER 147: ENTERING

Entering

"... Eh?" All of them said in unison as they looked at the massive chasm and the mist below.

"Yup. As you all know, the college is situated inside a hidden realm. Which is down there." Mateo shrugged, and everyone stared at him incredulously before their eyes shifted towards the chasm once more, and they all shuddered unconsciously.

"So... how do we get down?" Sam asked in a hoarse voice, still recovering from the sickness wrought by teleporting so rapidly over a vast distance.

"Simple. We jump." Mateo said with a noncommittal shrug.

They all stared at him, and he stared back calmly.

"Can’t you... Teleport us down?" Irene asked nervously, and Mateo raised a brow.

"Huh, after your reactions, I thought you wouldn’t be keen on any more teleportation." His words made them all cringe, but before they could say anything else, he continued.

"Granted, I couldn’t take you guys down even if I wanted to." He shrugs. "The hidden realm is its own dimension, I won’t go into details, but let’s just say dimensional barriers aren’t easy to break through. Also, the mist down there is made up of pure Mana. It would mess up my trajectory, and we’d most likely teleport into the earth and get crushed to death. Well, you guys would anyway." He said, sounding unbothered by the entire situation.

"... Wait, you said the mist messes up your mana, is there anything that could happen to us physically if we were to pass through it then? Or perhaps something going wrong with our Mana?" Ellie asked worriedly as she got back to her feet.

"Unless you’re a being that uses corrupt Mana, not really." He scratched his head. "Look, I know you guys have a lot of worries, but trust me, if this thing was dangerous, then we’d have a hard time becoming a good college. Just... try not to think about it." Je sighed, and the group shared worried glances.

’Then again, he’s not wrong. And if he was trying to kill us, he could have easily done so.’ Osho sighed. ’Gale, what do you reckon?’ He asked and glanced at the bird, then frowned slightly when he saw how fixated he was on the chasm.

’Gale?’ He asked, and the bird spoke through their bond slowly.

’The concepts within that mist... they are strange.’ Gale’s words certainly surprised him.

’Concepts?’ He repeated, his frown deepening.

He knew about Concepts, they were a natural thing that became far more tangible after Mana descended. Moreover, Lady Haggai had talked about how Gale’s bloodline operated on a conceptual level. Still, for him to suddenly mention it here...

"Well, we’ve wasted enough time." Mateo suddenly said and snapped his finger.

Everyone suddenly found themselves being constricted by an invisible force, unable to move.

’Space?’ Osho thought as he looked around with his head, the rest of his body completely bound.

The same applied to everyone else as they were utterly unable to resist.

Except for a certain bird of course.

"Hm?" Mateo hummed as Gale struggled pretty fiercely, and everyone watched somehow, he started to resist the force of space itself binding him.

"Strange. It’s like space itself just... doesn’t want to work on you." Mateo said to the bird before regarding Osho.

"A peculiar beast you have there. I’m starting to believe what was said." He turned to the chasm. "Regardless, prepare yourselves." With that, he essentially used space to push all of them forward off the edge.

The feeling of weightlessness overtook them as they started falling a moment later. Kurt and Irene yelping while Sam held onto Blackie tightly.

Ellie tumbled in the air for a bit before stabilizing herself, and Osho stretched his hand upwards to grab the foot of Gale, who had his wings outstretched, but he didn’t fight the pull of gravity as they descended.

Mateo just had his hands in his pockets, his back straight and devoid of any fear or tension.

Osho huffed and looked forward, squinting as the wind whipped across his face. This didn’t ladt long, though, as awake promptly created a sphere around him and the others to stop the violent wind from disturbing them.

This once more drew Mateo’s attention, but he didn’t bother to comment on it.

After a few seconds, the mist rapidly began to grow closer, and Osho noticed how his Mana sense became murky and practically unusable as it was overloaded by the sheer amount of pure Mana.

It only got worse as they got closer, and the group tensed up subconsciously as the mist approached.

There wasn’t any suspense as they plunged in. As soon as they did, their vision was obscured by the sheer quantity of Mana, and Osho had to turn off his Mana sense as it was like someone had shone a light in his eyes.

Moreover, a strange tingling feeling went through his body in strange pulses, and while it didn’t hurt, it was certainly uncomfortable.

He did notice his Mana pool becoming full, though.

The group fell for a while, and the longer they fell, the more nervous they became.

One has to know that while they were stronger than the average human due to their ranks, they were still quite fragile compared to their beasts, and they were certainly still susceptible to fall damage, and if they hit the ground after falling for so long...

All of a sudden, a strange phenomenon occurred.

There were numerous multicolored sparks flashing in the mist around them, and the group was taken aback.

As they fell, the sparks increased in number, and soon, they were surrounded by a maelstrom of the sparks which served a purpose Osho couldn’t comprehend.

’Osho!’ Gale yelled from their bond, and he looked up to see a large number of these sparks gathering around Gale.

What’s more, a few of them seemed to be entering his bod–

The group broke through the mist and found themselves hurtling towards the ground at scary speeds.

Osho briefly caught sight of mountains and buildings in the distance, but his primary concern was the ground which was rapidly closing in.

He was about to tell Gale to use his wind and slow them down, however, his eyes widened with surprise as he suddenly felt... lighter.

It wasn’t just him, as the others also noticed this change, their high speed rapidly dropping.

By the time they reached the ground, their speed had dropped to the point where their knees didn’t even buckle from the impact.

"... What was..." Ellie trailed off.

"Gravity magic. Don’t worry about it." Mike said casually, and everyone stared at him with surprise.

’... I feel like he isn’t a simple Master Rank Beast Tamer. Then again, no beast tamer at that rank should be simple.’ Osho thought before he looked around and took in his surroundings.

The place they appeared was a large plain next to a series of hills. There were trees scattered around, and the place looked a bit like a savanna, just that the trees one would normally find there weren’t the same, and all the grass was green.

There was a small stream some distance away, the water flowing lazily.

Overall, the place looked like a serene area. However, that wasn’t all.

’The Mana in this place is... incredibly dense and pure.’ Osho thought as he observed himself using his Mana sense.

As he felt it, Osho judged the place to be at least three times denser than what was outside. However, it didn’t feel oppressive or uncomfortable. Instead, he felt like all his pores were being saturated by the pure Mana.

The air was also incredibly clean and rich with the pure Mana, making every breath he took invigorated him as his Mana pools would be replenishing if they were empty.

"Holy... guys look up!" Irene exclaimed and everyone looked up, then their eyes widened.

Somehow, despite falling downwards and through the dense mist, when they looked up, they didn’t see the mist. Instead, they saw a vast starry sky. It had everything and more as they could see immense nebulae trillions of light years away.

The sight was certainly something.

"Woah... how big is this place?" Kurt mumbled, and Mateo answered calmly.

"Eh, depends. The place we can access is about the size of the moon. But technically speaking, the hidden realm has no limit." He said casually, but everyone looked at him with shock.

"What? You think permanent hidden realms can form if they are small? Nah. They have to be self-sufficient if they want to be able to persist indefinitely." He shrugged.

"But none of that is what you should be concerning yourselves with. Come on, our ride is about to arrive." As soon as he said that, an aura washed over the group.

They all turned to face where the aura came from. And a moment later, they were taken aback as a large creature loomed over the hill next to them.

When they looked at it closely, most of them paled.

It was a creature that, even after Mana descended, was still notorious for its numerous feats and capabilities.

A T-Rex