Genius Mage in a Cultivation World

"Do you have everything ready?" Al asked while checking the straps of the bags that he intended to carry attached to his very own clothes. 

"Sometimes I wonder how could you become a lord of anything if you couldn\'t trust others with something so basic," Irea sneered at the man, clearly unhappy with the current arrangement. 

"I know you don\'t like the idea of the two of us doing the job, but this is the best possible solution," Al sighed in response, paying no mind to the girl\'s mood. \'Given everything that those two told me, it\'s better to not do anything that could anger this girl. Who knows what kind of shit she would tell Layn if... once he comes,\' Al thought, shaking his head. 

"It\'s not like I have anything against you. Just stop asking the obvious, and we will be okay," Irea replied, not even bothering to hide the anger in her voice. "Asking for stuff so basic makes me think you doubt my ability," she added, explaining the source of her anger to the man. 

"Isn\'t it better to be safe than sorry?" Al retorted before shaking his head and moving his eyes forward. "Either way, the time is night. Let\'s go," he commanded before moving forward. 

"Try to keep the atmosphere cool," Pavrien suggested in a small voice. Give how he was the one that talked the most with the girl ever since the leader of the camp left, two of the mercenaries started to circulate some unsavory rumors through the small camp. But the fact was, he sacrificed his own sleep time just to see the two of his companions off, while others preferred to either rest or were already busy with work. 

"Yeah, you take care as well," Irea nodded her head, grateful for the man\'s kindness. For some reason, she could accept simple advice from a man she knew the origin of, while Al\'s remark with the exact same meaning would put her in a bad mood. 

"Cut the small talk. We need to go," Al interrupted the two while cautiously looking at the rising sun. While it has yet to turn the entire area too hot for anyone\'s comfort, it wasn\'t long before it would start smearing the area with its unbearable heat. 

"Yeah, let\'s go," Irea nodded her head in farewell before picking up the pace and following after the man. She held a makeshift quill and a set of thin, wooden pieces carved out of the few pieces of wood that drifted ashore. 

In terms of writing utensils, the camp was in a gravely short supply. While it didn\'t seem to be a problem for now, given how small the camp was, it was bound to turn into a real headache as soon as more men would flock into it. 

At first, Al and Irea didn\'t bother to travel slowly. The direct surroundings of the camp were already mapped out from the memories of mercenaries that went to scavenge those lands. As such, there was no need to keep the tempo slow enough to let the girl take notes and draw pictures on the go. 

"This marks the last place any of our people reached," Al announced when the two of them reached a small patch of sand. As unnoticeable as it was to anyone who wasn\'t specifically looking for it, it was one of the very rare landmarks in the seemingly endless sea of grass. 

"Let\'s place the first mark, then," Irea replied to Al\'s notification before pulling out a weirdly shaped brick. 

In fact, the item only had one thing in common with the bricks that were used at the camp. It was the material it was made of. Its shape, thin for two fingers and as long as the tallest of mercenaries in the camp, made it entirely useless in construction. 

But it was the best possible thing to use for marking the terrain and making sure others would notice it. 

"Can you count the steps?" Irea asked as soon as she forced the bricky-stick into the ground. 

"Sure thing," Al replied before turning completely silent. While the trip was pretty pleasant for them so far, it was only a matter of time before the heat of the rising sun would turn it torturous. 

For the next thousand steps, neither of the two said even a single word. All of the potential discussion topics were already exhausted after two days of working near each other. And as small as the difference would it make, talking would only make their thirst grow quicker. 

Once Al counted a thousand steps, he waved at the girl. The two of them then made sure to check their surroundings for anything useful before nailing another mark into the ground and moving forward. 

This procedure, as boring as it was, continued for the next few hours. Only when the sun came pretty close to the peak of its journey through the skydome did the two make a short break. 

"I will get the tents done," Al announced shortly, not bothering to waste more words than necessary. 

"I will take care of the meal," Irea nodded her head in response, not willing to argue over the split of the duties. 

Their break lasted for roughly two hours. The two hottest hours of the day would make it too exhausting for them to travel, so they decided to use that time for rest even before they departed. 

"Out of everything, I miss the real food the most," Al complained while munching on the dried-out jerky a few moments later. While said jerky was already a luxury at the camp by itself, it was by no means tasty. 

"Isn\'t that why we are scouting the land?" Irea replied, too tired to argue for real. "If we find some herbs, not only we will be able to come up with some spicing to our own food. We might be able to replant them near the camp as well," she added. From the look on her face, it was clear that she couldn\'t understand the man\'s complaint. 

\'Wasn\'t he supposed to come from pretty primitive times?\' she thought while using her saliva to turn the stone-like fish-jerky into an actually edible piece. \'How come he is complaining more than me, someone who\'s used to live in a city?\' she asked herself, unable to figure out the answer to that question. 

"I can tell what you are thinking," Al sighed as he laid down in the shade of his tent. 

"Enlighten me, then," Irea requested, holding back the reins on her irritation. \'For some reason, he is also insanely annoying!\' 

"You believe I\'m quite annoying with how much I complain, don\'t you?" Al guessed with a smile. But even after waiting for a while, he didn\'t receive a response from the girl. "Don\'t take it personally. My people often told me that so I\'m aware of this problem of mine," he shared, looking up to the clear sky above them. 

"If you know that you have such a problem, why don\'t you do something to fix it?" Irea asked before turning away in her tent in a futile attempt to cut the discussion off. 

"You see, that\'s what normal people would do," Al replied with a proud smile, one that Irea couldn\'t see as the man was hidden in his tent. "Rather than changing the stuff people don\'t like about me, I decided to become important enough to force them to cope with it," he sneered, recalling some of the most pleasant memories of his. 

"Isn\'t that just asking for trouble down the line?" Irea couldn\'t help but ask. She even changed her position so that rather than her feet protruding from the small, primitive tent she had, it was her head lurking out instead. 

For the first time since the two came together, there seemed to be some sort of discussion the two of them could actually enjoy. 

"That\'s a whole other problem. Suppose people will not follow your orders as a ruler or chief only because they don\'t like you. In that case, it means you are not a good chief in the first place," Al explained his position on the topic. 

"I guess that makes sense..." Irea reluctantly agreed before snapping right back to her usual mindset of denying anything AL would say. "But wouldn\'t it be easier to just be... more easy-going?" she asked. \'Now I got him,\' she thought triumphantly, certain that there was no way Al could retort her attack. 

"In a sense, you are right. It would be easier," Al surprisingly agreed with her words before crawling out of his tent and looking at the sky. "But I prefer not to do so. If I change myself, people will start thinking that I can do it all the time. And then there will be no end to the things they would like to change about me," he added before shaking his head and starting to undo his tent. "The sun is already low enough. Let\'s go."

At first, Irea remained in her spot, digesting what Al just said. 

\'That... It\'s hard not to agree with that,\' she gritted her teeth before following the man\'s example and packing up her portable tent as well. For a moment, her jaws opened up, indicating that she wanted to say something. Yet, in the end, she remained silent. \'It\'s tough to disagree with this.... But why does it feel as if there is more to it?\' she thought while shaking her head, puzzled by this inner feeling of hers.