Long Chen had found out from Prince Alton the location where the Banshee tribe kept their orb. It was a temple behind the Royal Palace and it was heavily guarded. Long Chen learned from him that the whole temple was completely surrounded by the Royal guards. One could only enter after going through a thorough check; that too only if they had been given a token by a Royal family member. Only members of the Royal family could enter without any checks or formalities.
Long Chen continued walking in the direction which would lead him to the exit. Every time he noticed someone ahead of him, he would change his looks to that of a normal servant, walk by and quickly turn his face back to save the usage time of the mask. On his way to the exit, he also passed by the queen; who didn't even glance at him as she just saw a normal servant. Just to exit the palace, he had already used the mask for over 5 minutes.
After exiting the palace, Long Chen immediately found an empty spot as he swapped his clothes with the prince's and used the mask to alter his look to that of Alton's as well.
His hair turned snow-white while his face changed, looking a little pale. After a few seconds, there was practically no difference that could be seen between Long Chen's looks and the prince's.
All the royal guards saluted as they got down to one knee as soon as Long Chen reached the entrance of the temple. To them, it looked as if their prince had come to visit.
'It feels good.' Thought Long Chen as he smiled and entered the temple. Without wasting any time, he ended his transformation. Long Chen saw that there were two doors in the hall. He decided to enter the right door and found himself standing in a cold room covered with snow, of which at the center resided a white orb giving a chilling feeling.
''This must be the orb for the law of snow that the banshee tribe practices. The orb for the law of slaughter must be in the second room. Since I'm here, I might as well take it.' Long Chen immediately kept that orb in his storage time as he exited the room.
Without thinking much, he entered the second room, only to find a transparent crystal lying there. This whole room felt completely different from the previous room. There was no cold, no hot, no wind and no sound. Long Chen felt like he was in a completely isolated space.
"Hmm... it seems different from the previous time. It's not the law of slaughter but-" Xun said
"We can talk later once we're back in the room. For now, we need to get out of here immediately. If someone comes in, we'll be in deep trouble!" Long Chen interrupted her as he immediately kept the orb inside his ring and hastily exited the room.
He used the mask and altered his face back to Prince Alton's as he exited the temple and left. The guards continued guarding the temple as usual without knowing that someone stole their tribe's treasure. The guards usually checked every person who came out of the temple thoroughly so that this kind of theft doesn't happen, but this didn't apply to the Royal family since, well, they ruled all the land, hence owned this tribe's treasures. There was no need to worry about them stealing what they owned.
Long Chen returned to his room soon after. He opened the doors with the key he had and found the maid soundly sleeping on his bed. He closed the door and walked towards the bed.
Soon after Long Chen left the temple after stealing the orbs, Queen Mia arrived and entered the temple.
"Everything feels weird since the last few days, I can't even feel the tiniest bit of Qi now. Since I can't cultivate at the moment, maybe I should instead improve my understanding of the law of ice. Everything might just return to normal by the time I come out." She muttered as she entered the right door inside the temple. But as soon as she saw the empty room, her face turned red with anger.
"Guards!!!" She screamed with killing intent clearly embedded in her voice.
The guards immediately rushed in as soon as they heard their queen's voice.
"Who stole my snow crystal!!! Why the hell am I keeping you all here if you can't even do your job properly!!!" Roared the queen in rage.
She suddenly thought of something as she quickly ran towards the door on the left. She entered it, but to her misery, she found it empty as well.
The guards kept staring at her in fear as she came out and gave them a deadly glare.
"Who was the last person that entered this place?" The Queen asked in a heavy tone.
"Your highness, half an hour ago, Prince Alton entered and left soon after." One of the guards said
"Are you trying to say that my nephew stole my crystals?" The Queen said with anger written all over her face.
"Y… Your highness, you can ask anyone here, Prince Alton was the only one who entered the temple before you came. I don't dare say that he stole the crystal, it's just that he was the last person who entered." The guards continued. All the other guards gave her the same statement. Although the queen simply couldn't believe them, she couldn't call all of them liars either.
"Go and stay in the prison, I'll punish you myself when I'm done with this!" The Queen said as she left.
She walked towards Alton's room. The Queen knocked only once on the door as it was soon opened by Alton.
"Little Alton, why did you go to the temple today?" Asked Queen Mia with a gentle smile.
"Temple? What are you talking about, Aunt? I didn't go there today. In fact, it has been months since I last stepped there." Prince Alton answered with a confused expression.
"Oh, that might've been someone else. I guess they mistook someone else for you. You can go back to what you were doing," She said as she turned back and left.
Instead of going back to her room, she started walking towards the guards on the corridor and asked them if any of them saw Alton leave the room. All of them denied.
'Alton didn't leave his room. Furthermore, he had absolutely no reason to steal the crystals as he could've accessed them anytime he wanted. The only one who would do this is that human! Since I denied him access, he chose to steal the crystal for himself! The guards said that Alton entered the temple half an hour ago, it's possible that what they saw was a fake Alton if that human has an ability to create illusions or shapeshift! Who knows what kind of strange ability he used! I'll only get answers there from him!' Her mind raced as she walked towards Long Chen's room.
As Long Chen entered his room, he intentionally made some noise to wake up the maid who immediately woke up, startled, and immediately apologized for falling asleep. After a while, the maid exited the room and Long Chen was left alone.
"We need to get out of here since our work here is done," Long Chen muttered with a smile.
'I should tell the people that I'm leaving or they'll think that I stole the orb and escaped once they find out about the missing orb. Although they'll doubt me when that happens, they'll doubt me even more if I sneak away.' thought Long Chen.
Long Chen opened the door, but just as he was about to leave, he found Queen Mia standing right in front of the door.
"Queen Mia, What're you doing here?" Said Long Chen with a smile on his face.