Lucy started to walk around the artifact and record the engravings on the pillars. "Uncle, I think people used to use this place to worship. It was probably used as a shrine during the years without mana."
After studying at the palace for a bit, everyone headed to bed. Leo laid near Lucy as his job was to protect her. He laid there thinking about how great artifacts are. Over thousands of years and they're still standing. Thinking about who or what built this place, Leo drifted off to sleep.
Everyone woke up and had breakfast. As soon as Lucy was done, she ran straight to the Palace to study it some more. Team Blood mostly patrolled the area, while Leo sat near the Lucy and meditated. His goal was to reach Tempered Viscera by the end of the trip. Ever since the last mission, a passion to get stronger was in Leo's eyes.
Now and then Lucy would look over a Leo and watch him sit there still as a rock. She would smile and continue back at studying engraving. The days slowly started to go by quickly.
Leo was always in deep thought. He was meditating on a rock he was making float using Earth Control. He started the understand what it meant to grasp the level of Control the law of Earth.
He thought back to when he used yin and yang to manipulate the earth similar to the buffalo he watched. The conversation with Joe and analyzing them helped him understand that the buffalo used what was convenient.
Now after learning the move Earth Control and Metal Control. Leo's understanding of how the elements interact with each other and how they shape nature. For the last three days of meditating near the Palace, Leo watched as the ground was burrowed through by an animal, then the wind blew through the next day, and the hole collapsed, and finally, it was dug out again by a different animal. What Leo thought to himself, "The planet is always steadily changing." Leo felt that he needed to be that way too.
He needed to be tough, but changeable. He pondered on a few new ways to fight using earth and metal until the communicator went off.
"Panthera Knight, are you there?"
"Yes, Blood Knight?" Leo asked Reiner.
"Draconians are inbound. It looks like three ships are headed this way. I need you to get Lucy to a safe place." After he said that, the radio went silent.
*KABOOM!*
An explosion, a kilometer away, destroyed the forest. Leo saw the three ships in the distance. One of them was making a beeline straight for them.
"Lucy! We have to get somewhere and hide," Leo yelled while running towards her.
"Leo, what did you say?" Lucy yelled back. She was so concentrated on studying the pillar that she didn't hear what he said.
A plasma blast was fired from the spaceship and landed a few feet from Lucy. The explosion incapacitated her. Leo ran over and grabbed her.
"Lucy! Lucy, wake up. Damn it." Looking around Leo ran behind a pillar to hide from the ship.
The giant spaceship landed where Leo was training at. Many draconians left the ship followed by a blue-scaled one, clad in golden armor. Leo saw the man and his instinct from fighting Core Builders told him he was one. This was a feeling that was hard to shake off.
Leo knew there was no way to shake off the pursuers. He looked around and saw no way to escape. Then an idea came to him. If only Mana Fighters and below could enter the Palace, then essentially that was the best hiding spot.
Leo started to gather mana into his legs. He would have to dash to the door carrying Lucy. "One, two, three!" Leo whispered to himself and ran for the door.
The draconians opened fire on him blasting the area with plasma blast from their rifles. Leo was nicked once, but he leaped for the door and touched it. As soon as he did, the blue aura around it enveloped him and Lucy. The golden door cracked open and sucked the two of them in.
The draconians were surprised by this. Their blast pummeled the area but did no damage to the palace. The blue draconian looked at the mansion and instantly knew that this was an artifact. "Report back to our leader we found a powerful artifact. You three go touch the door and find out if it is dangerous."
Three draconians, two Mana Fighters, and one Early Core Builder walked over to the door. The blue aura enveloped them when the three of them touched the door. The first two were sucked into the door, but the third was blasted with a mana attack to his soul, blasting him unconscious.
"For some reason, only the Mana Fighters could follow. Very interesting," said the blue draconian.
Leo and Lucy had multicolored lights flashing by them. At the end of the trippy tunnel ride, Leo and Lucy landed with a hard thump on a meadow.
Leo got up and looked around. He saw a sizeable multi-colored dome over the entire area. In the center of the meadow was a replica of the Palace Leo saw outside. Around the palace, Leo saw something he thought he would never see. There were multiple shacks, no hundreds of huts surrounding the building. Leo saw at least half a thousand humans walking around and mediating.
Never in his life outside of the Renegades did he think he would see so many humans. One the edge of the makeshift town, he even saw mermanians walking about and training too.
Leo heard a loud sound, and two draconians dropped out of a portal themselves. They landed with big thump themselves and looked at the humans before them.
"Kill them!" The first draconian got up and yelled. He attacked Leo with his claws extended. When he was about a few inches from Leo, an aura enveloped him similar to when he touched the door.
A man with four heads and four arms descended upon the four of them. Each head was smiling and had a bushy and beautiful beard. A calm and soothing voice came from one of the heads.
"Draconian fighting is not permitted. You shall be punished for sinning in this domain." A golden light enveloped the draconian and drilled through him to his core. The flash destroyed his dantian and his cultivation with it. In a split instance, he was reduced to peak Tempered Body.
The draconians fell to the ground in excruciating pain. Leo watched this all happen within a few seconds. He stared at the four-headed man and asked, "Sir, where am I?"
"Blessed human, you are in the first domain of Bahman's Palace. I am its guardian and protector. I modeled myself after my master Brahma, and he named me Lankani after his guard who he cursed."