Chapter 230: Old AcquaintancesMidmorning, freezing rain started to fall. At first, I was suspicious of the weather, as I was tracking a water mage, but the compass indicated the target was still extremely far away. It was just bad luck. Fortunately, I had a large oiled cloak for myself and a similarly treated blanket for the mount. The terrible thing about the rain was that the noise of the icy drops hitting my hood deprived me of one of my senses as I moved through the wild.“You know I only took you to make Hercule walk back to the city,” I told the horse as we jogged along. “I usually name my mounts. How do you like Rusty? Your coat is reddish-brown and fits.” The horse didn’t seem very talkative today. I missed Ginger. She would have at least given me some response—or nudged me for an apple.Soon, the ground was coated in a thin layer of ice, making it difficult to use my earth speak spell form. This caused me to slow down and be more cautious as I moved south. My prey had at least a day’s head start and could be as much as forty miles further south. They might have traveled even more if the mage had some type of movement ability or if they had horses themselves. Hercule hadn’t mentioned it.As the sun faded, the rain turned to icy droplets, and the temperature dropped quickly. I pulled out my Hound thermal stone and secured it under my Hound jacket. When the sun disappeared, I put on my night vision goggles, channeling a constant thread of aether into them as I moved, and constantly wiping the lenses. Rusty was not happy with moving in the cold night, but I felt the compass pull slowly getting stronger. The quicker I finished my task, the better.The dense woods turned into rocky, hilly terrain, and the clouds kept the forest dark. Rusty started pulling back on the lead, unhappy with the darkness since he did not have the same night sight.I either (...)