Mage Manual-Chapter 1475 - 1075: Searching for the Sky Gate

On the afternoon of April 1, 1669, spring had still not arrived in Jiale City. Snowflakes fluttered in the sky, adorning the city in a pure white bridal gown.

It wasn’t just Jiale City; extreme weather had been appearing throughout all regions of the Dazzling Star—either scorching heat or torrential rain, with earthquakes and tsunamis even occurring. The wind, water, and earth mages from the Griffin Corps and Fortress Corps were urgently dispatched, rushing to aid various regions across the country under the command of the Meteorological Hall. The disaster messengers, who used to equate employment to retirement, suddenly found themselves becoming temporary commanders of cities, baffled but leading mages nationwide in fighting natural disasters.

Sometimes, the dividends of an era, when they fall on one person, turn into great achievements.

Logically speaking, Jiale City, as the capital, should have been a key focus of the Meteorological Hall, but the issue was that other cities were almost all functional cities—pure industrial cities, pure agricultural cities, even pure entertainment cities; these were the most precious production resources, and not saving them would indeed mean huge losses.

In contrast, Jiale City, which almost no production company would set up shop in due to its costly land prices, was simply a consumer city. Even if not rescued, it wouldn’t harm the national interest. After a vote, the council unanimously decided to downgrade Jiale City’s disaster relief level to the lowest.

To put it bluntly, even the disaster relief level of Sonia’s hometown, purely an agricultural town, was higher than that of Jiale City.

Therefore, the weather in Jiale City would only be regulated to an acceptable extreme range, that is, to the extent that it wouldn’t harm public transportation. As for freezing to death... sorry, the poor who can’t afford clothes don’t even qualify to reside in Jiale City. Even an ordinary One-winged Mage, without connections, couldn’t stay in Jiale City after graduation.

Ash walked along Queen’s Avenue, wearing a trench coat and mask, passing by modest yet lavish pawnshops, opposite the largest gambling venue in Jiale City, whose vulgar gold and silver façade couldn’t conceal its pristine snow. Warm air gushed from the entrance, as if bundles of gold were burning inside. Even across the wide four-lane avenue, Ash could feel the fervor inside.

Even if he couldn’t feel it, just seeing those two bunny girls at the door should indicate how warm it was inside. In fact, it wasn’t just at the door; right in front of Ash, a catgirl draped in a fuzzy coat was handing out flyers, whether because Ash appeared naive and moneyed, she decisively blocked his path and quickly said: "To celebrate the inclusion of four subordinate countries under Dazzling Star, the ’Holiday Illusion’ offers every customer 1,000 chips, plus free buffet and all-day heating, get it upon entry, don’t miss out!"

Ash took the flyer and glanced at it, which aligned closely with what she said. Because the four nations were about to join the Dazzling Star family, becoming the four brightest stars in the sky, even the casino owner couldn’t help but feel proud, generously rewarding new and old customers with a day of free food and play, which was indeed very tempting.

Ash looked at the catgirl again, in the biting cold, wearing only a furry coat, with a skirt and black silk high heeled boots, occasionally blowing into her hands to keep warm.

"Take it back."

The catgirl was about to say that he could keep the flyer even to make paper planes, but Ash casually flicked it, and the flyer accurately flew into her coat.

A thin flyer radiated a soft warmth in her embrace, dispelling the catgirl’s coldness, feeling more comfortable than a hot water bag. Realizing something and quickly turning around, the seemingly absent-minded young man had vanished... She wasn’t intending to lure him to gamble, just thought that guy, wandering around alone on such a cold day, appeared a bit pitiful, so she struck up a conversation... He ran so quickly, does he look down on my part-time job at the casino?

Ash naturally didn’t know there was another girl on earth worrying about gains and losses; he was using his feet to measure the length of Jiale City, carefully sensing the spatial ripples around.

It wasn’t just him; at this moment, the Sword Maiden and the others were also strolling through various city areas, searching for the Permanent Void Gates being constructed by the Dazzling Star.

They were preparing to leave the Kingdom of Stars.

But leaving the Dazzling Star wasn’t simple, in the past one could only wait for the void passage to suddenly appear, now the only controllable method was through creating sky gates.

Originally, creating specific sky gates was a simple task for the Witch aided by the Gospel Divine Being’s calculations, but whether due to the destruction of the Distant Realm or the birth of the Void Realm’s seventh layer, space was extremely unstable. The sky gate created by the Witch could at most last for one second, and they had no interest in gambling their lives on that.

Moreover, they had to consider one thing: although they were escaping the Dazzling Star, they weren’t fleeing from the crisis. Once the Five Nations unite, the Dazzling Star can easily muster elite troops from all five nations to hunt them down, and although Ash and his team weren’t afraid, they didn’t relish the idea of a life of being pursued.

The Demigods came to a conclusion: they must leave using a sky gate constructed by the Dazzling Star, and destroy it to cut off pursuit.

The foundation of the Five Nations’ connectivity is the establishment of Permanent Void Gates; Ash and his team didn’t aim to destroy all sky gates, they merely needed to destroy the gates connecting Dazzling Star to their target nation in order to gain temporary peace. Constructing a Permanent Void Gate wasn’t that easy.

Surely, battles would inevitably occur, and their hands would be stained with the blood of innocents, but everyone was mentally prepared—seeking peace always involves conflicts with others pursuing the same.

However, a second problem arose: they couldn’t find where the Dazzling Star was constructing the sky gate.

Diya used up three Source Crystals, letting the Gospel Divine Being scan the entire Kingdom of Stars, yet it yielded no clues. There is only one possibility—that the Dazzling Star placed counter-prophecy and counter-reconnaissance Miracles on the sky gates, so conventional searches couldn’t uncover them.

But under Weiser’s reminder, they adjusted the Gospel Divine Being’s filtering criteria to search for areas with spatial fluctuations. Establishing Permanent Void Gates indeed would continually twist space, and the resulting spatial ripples simply couldn’t be concealed, thus where large-scale spatial ripples appeared was likely the construction site of a sky gate.

The result was beyond anyone’s expectations; across the entire Kingdom of Stars, spatial ripples only appeared around the Jiale City region, meaning all sky gates were being constructed near Jiale City. Precisely because the gates were too densely positioned, the spatial ripples were too chaotic, preventing the Gospel Divine Being from pinpointing any specific sky gate.

Forced by circumstances, they had no choice but to resort to the most basic search method: thoroughly strolling through Jiale City!

Including Dedarose and Felix, everyone’s Space Faction had reached the Silver Level; if they approached the vicinity of a sky gate, they would surely feel the shift in spatial ripple flow, thereby confirming the sky gate’s exact location. But this search method required full concentration on details, ruling out travel by vehicle, leaving only slow, steady walking.

Because of this, everyone had to act separately, or it would take at least ten to fifteen days to circle the entire city. Although it seemed like a perfect opportunity for a date, none of the girls showed any inclination for a romantic escapade... when it came to business, they always displayed the professionalism expected of operators, reminding Ash of the trust and reliance he had for these companions before he even developed affections for them.

But perhaps it was also because when arranging specific search zones, the girls secluded themselves in a room for a private chat, excluding Ash. Only when they emerged was Ash’s search area decided—any meeting involving decisions on Ash’s task allocations never granted him participation rights.

Actually, it was probably for the best, since Ash wasn’t really in the mood for dates these days.