The next morning, early.
The day had only just broken when Leon finished washing up. As was his daily routine, he carried his Dragon Fang Sword, left his room, descended the tower, and entered the courtyard.
A faint smile hung on his face, and his eyes held a touch of pleasant excitement. Anyone could tell at a glance that he was in an exceptionally good mood.
Carrying this upbeat energy, Leon began warming up in the courtyard, practicing his swordplay while waiting for Finn to arrive.
After waiting for about half an hour, Finn arrived exactly as scheduled.
However, the moment Finn stepped into the courtyard, he cut straight to the chase.
"Has the new magic already been uncovered?"
Finn's direct, unfiltered inquiry caught Leon slightly off guard.
"You already know about this too, Captain?"
Leon was a bit surprised.
"Not just me, Gareth knows as well," Finn smiled and said. "Riveria mentioned the matter of giving you the grimoire to us before the expedition. Last night, when she took the grimoire and went to the archive to wait for you, we were the ones who watched her leave."
These three Familia leaders spent almost the entire day in the same office, so how could they possibly not know what each other was up to?
Furthermore, just as Loki wouldn't hide Leon's status values—feeling it was necessary to inform the leaders of a member's capabilities to facilitate proper strategic deployment—Riveria using a grimoire to uncover a new magic for Leon was an event that wasn't exactly trivial. She certainly needed to inform the other two.
If it were anyone else, gaining one additional usable spell might not require so much fanfare. But Leon was clearly an exception.
Back when he was Lv.3, he already possessed a magical firepower comparable to Lv.5. Now that he had reached Lv.4, his magical capabilities had naturally grown even stronger. If someone like him obtained a new spell, it was highly probable that this single magic could completely upend his current level of strength and his tactical role within the team.
Since that was the case, it was impossible for Finn not to pay close attention to this matter.
"Would it be convenient to tell me what kind of magic it is?"
Finn himself was clearly very curious, his eyes looking at Leon with intense interest.
Leon certainly didn't find it inconvenient.
It wasn't something that needed to be hidden from view. Even if he kept it a secret right now, there would be so many opportunities to fight side by side in the future over such a long span of time that it would inevitably come to light.
Coupled with the fact that he felt a strong urge to test it out himself, Leon spoke up directly.
"How about I use it right now so you can see for yourself?"
Leon's words made Finn raise an eyebrow.
"It seems it's not a high-output offensive magic then."
That kind of spell definitely couldn't be cast casually at home, and it wouldn't even be very convenient to use within the city limits.
Seeing Leon's eager-to-try expression, Finn had already guessed that this magic might not be an offensive spell at all, but rather some sort of utility or supportive magic.
Relying merely on Leon's attitude and a few brief words, the clever Pallum captain managed to deduce the general nature of the newly acquired magic with high accuracy.
However, Finn certainly could not have imagined just what kind of utility magic this so-called spell actually was.
Thus, when Leon actually manifested it, even someone as steady and composed as Finn widened his eyes in sheer astonishment.
"--- Fly swiftly like a comet."
As if he had been waiting for this exact moment for a very long time, Leon completed the incantation of his new magic in the blink of an eye.
"Comet Chase!"
The moment the chant fell, a spectacular anomaly manifested.
Zing—
The first thing to appear was a burst of soft, non-blinding starlight, gorgeous and radiant.
As the starlight flashed into existence, countless particles resembling fragments of stars floated upward, enveloping Leon's entire body. They caused his whole being to emit a stellar glow, making him look as dazzling as a humanoid star.
Immediately following that, Leon's feet slowly left the ground, floating up into the mid-air.
Yes.
He was flying.
"This is---"
Finn's eyes widened in surprise.
Forget about Finn; even the Familia members who happened to be passing by inside the surrounding towers, walking along the open-air corridors that offered a view of the courtyard, stopped dead in their tracks. Looking at Leon who was flying higher and higher, their mouths slowly fell open.
"What—what on earth is that?!"
"He's flying!"
Tiona and Tione just happened to be bickering as they passed through an open corridor. They witnessed Leon floating upward while bathed in starlight perfectly clearly, and both cried out in astonishment simultaneously.
Even Ais heard the commotion from this side. Stepping out of a tower, she entered the open corridor, and upon seeing Leon flying into the sky, she froze completely on the spot, remaining motionless for a long time.
Flight. This was a capability that, even when placed upon the adventurers of this world, still belonged to the realm of miracles.
There were indeed plenty of monsters in the Dungeon that possessed the ability to fly, such as avian or dragon-type monsters, which fundamentally possessed wings capable of flight. However, even if adventurers received the Grace of God, they still fell within the category of lower-world lifeforms. They had no way to casually throw off the shackles of gravity and the earth to soar freely into the sky.
Even Ais's wind magic only granted her a brief ability to stay airborne by leveraging wind currents; it was still a far cry from true, unrestricted flight.
In the original records, an adventurer possessing the ability to fly had only appeared once across the entire history, and that was the Captain of the Hermes Familia, the Lv.4 second-tier adventurer—Asfi Al Andromeda.
She was a master item maker who possessed the 'Mystery' developmental ability—which less than five people in the entire city had learned—and had earned the title of 'Perseus' due to her proficiency in crafting magical items.
She had manufactured numerous magical items, including but not limited to a helmet that could turn its user invisible, and flying shoes that allowed the wearer to fly at will.
That was right; even someone possessing the 'Mystery' developmental ability had to rely on the magical items she invented to obtain the capability of flight.
Those flying shoes were her ultimate trump card, which she would never use lightly unless absolutely forced into a corner. Consequently, every time she utilized the flying shoes, those who witnessed it with their own eyes would be utterly astounded, showing just how rare and precious the ability to fly was among adventurers.
Yet at this very moment, Leon had obtained this exact capability solely through a single magic spell.
This was the flight magic—Comet Chase.
Boom!
Flying into the air and breaking past the boundaries of the Twilight Manor, Leon suddenly shot forward. A loud sonic boom rippled through the atmosphere as he dragged a long tail of stellar light behind him, flying toward the distant horizon.
That sight, true to the name of the magic, resembled a comet chasing after something as it sliced across the sky.
Furthermore, its speed was incredibly fast.
"So this is what it feels like to soar above the sky?"
Having transformed into a comet, Leon, whose entire body was bathed in starlight, couldn't help but spread his arms wide. Looking at the landscape of the earth rapidly receding beneath him and the boundless, vast sky, he felt a surge of profound exhilaration in his heart.
The howling gales buffeted against him but completely failed to touch his skin. Like waves crashing against a reef, the moment the wind struck the starlight surrounding Leon's body, it was instantly parted.
Under these conditions, Leon flew out of Orario in the blink of an eye, entering the wilderness outside the city.
"I didn't expect that my first time leaving Orario would actually happen under these circumstances."
Looking at the circular fortress city fading into the distance behind him, Leon felt a touch of sentimentality.
One had to understand that if an adventurer within Orario wished to leave the city, they could absolutely never walk out without undergoing layers of scrutiny and obtaining approval from the Guild.
This was because Orario also worried that the city's military power would drain into the outside world, particularly its high-end combat forces. The departure of every single one was a tremendous loss. Coupled with the fact that this city had the obligation to function as a fortress to prevent Dungeon monsters from escaping to the surface, they would not allow high-level adventurers to easily leave the city and head outside.
Leon was already a Lv.4 now, a mere step away from being a first-tier adventurer. Furthermore, he was a super genius capable of shocking the entire lower world, having achieved successive level ascensions in a mere two months. If someone like him wished to leave Orario, the Guild would absolutely never permit it without an entirely legitimate and necessary reason.
Everyone knew that Leon's future would never be simple, which was why the Loki Familia attached extreme importance to him, and the Guild had long placed him at the very top of their watch list, constantly monitoring his growth and actions.
If Leon ran off outside Orario and never returned, they wouldn't even have a place to cry about it.
Under normal circumstances, if he wished to leave Orario, the difficulty would absolutely be higher than that for most first-tier adventurers.
Leon himself had thought he would remain within Orario the entire time, with hardly any chance to go outside. Who could have foreseen that the appearance of a flight magic would completely alter this reality?
Possessing the Comet Chase magic, he could now go wherever he pleased. The fortress walls of Orario, which were sufficient to block countless people and monsters, were effectively non-existent to him.
"If there's an opportunity in the future, I can actually travel around and check out various places across the world."
Carrying this thought, after catching sight of the ocean and flying to the edge of a harbor city, Leon reluctantly turned around and flew back in the direction he came from.
Boom!
The atmosphere surged as Leon once again transformed entirely into a speeding comet, streaking across the sky.
Before long, Leon arrived back in Orario and returned to the Twilight Manor, descending toward the courtyard below.
By this time, the courtyard had become lively to the extreme.
Not only was Finn present, but the rest of the Familia members had also flocked to the area, including Ais, Tiona, Tione, Lefiya, and others.
"He's back, he's back!"
Tiona looked as though she had been straining her neck waiting. The moment she spotted a comet flying in from the horizon, she let out a ringing shout, sparking a wave of clamor across the clearing.
"Why did you all come out?"
Leon deactivated his flight magic when he was still a short distance from the ground, dispelling the starlight across his body as he dropped from mid-air. As he landed firmly, he spoke out in surprise.
Yet in the next second, a massive crowd of Familia members, spearheaded by Tiona, swarmed over and surrounded him.
"You're finally back, Leon!"
"What on earth happened just now?"
"How can you fly?"
"The Captain said that's a new magic you acquired, is that true?"
"Flight magic! This is my first time seeing this kind of spell!"
"Where did you just fly to? Did you go outside Orario?"
"That's way too enviable, isn't it?"
The crowd chattered away, a barrage of questions ringing out in rapid succession, making the area rowdier than a marketplace.
Among them, Tiona, Raul, Line, and several others were the most excited, with even Anakitty and Alicia joining the fray, appearing highly unsettled.
Ais stood quietly on the outer perimeter, her gaze fixed on Leon, while Lefiya stood beside her with a complex expression.
"Alright! Quiet down for a moment, all of you!"
Gareth spoke up. This dwarf warrior had also arrived in the courtyard at some unknown point, standing right beside Finn and Tione.
Naturally, Riveria was also present.
"I didn't expect your second magic to actually be flight magic. It's truly surprising."
When Riveria looked at Leon, her eyes still held a trace of marvel.
She had originally assumed Leon's second magic would be an offensive spell, just like his first one.
Because Leon possessed the 'Magic Attack' developmental ability and his magical output was exceptionally powerful, Riveria had felt that he should be like Lefiya, particularly specializing in offensive magic.
But thinking about it carefully, Leon was still different from Lefiya.
Leon's skill, Eternal Star Soul, enhanced magical effects, the effects of the 'Mage' developmental ability, and the basic 'Magic' stat value; it wasn't strictly limited to offensive magic.
In contrast, Lefiya's Fairy Canon skill, while also enhancing magical effects, would directly double this enhancement output only when it came to offensive magic, proving that she was destined to be more brilliant with offensive magic than with any other spells.
Aside from his 'Magic Attack' developmental ability which specifically boosted the destructive power of his spells, Leon's remaining Magic parameters and magic-enhancing skills were highly versatile.
For someone like him to learn a spell outside the offensive category didn't seem all that difficult to understand.
Of course——
"Although this spell is a flight magic, its effects aren't limited merely to flying," Leon said with a smile toward Finn and Riveria while handling his excited companions around him.
"It has no duration limit. From the moment it is activated, it will continuously drain mind, remaining active until his mind is fully depleted or the caster himself cancels the spell."
"While the magic is active, it will gradually accelerate over time. Theoretically, as long as one has sufficient mind, there is no upper limit to its speed."
"At the same time, it also possesses a protective effect. The starlight enveloping the entire body will protect the user, preventing external forces from interfering with the flight."
As he spoke, Leon willed it, and starlight suddenly burst from his entire body.
Like Meteor Dance, Comet Chase was a star-attribute magic. Its characteristic was an extremely high degree of freedom and exceptional ease of control, to the extent that even discarding the incantation to cast it instantly was entirely achievable.
However, the initial flight speed and protective capabilities of Comet Chase activated under this chantless state would be considerably weaker.
Nonetheless, this still could not obscure its powerful utility.
"Flight, acceleration, protection——this magic possesses three distinct functions simultaneously."
It almost perfectly aligned with the subconscious desires Leon harbored when he utilized the grimoire.