As the team marched along the direction shown by the map drawn by the first scouting team, they sensed that the earth started shaking beneath them, while a huge thunderstorm was rumbling in the skies ahead.
"Well, they did say this place has really bad weather and earthquakes." Glenda Grimes chuckled and said: "Seems like this planet is quite new, I wonder if this is the center of the realm, or is it just a small entry point."
"The first scouting team was not able to move too far beyond the surface." Professor Kapur said as she carefully picked up a broken branch from the ground: "The density of all things here indeed feel a lot higher than they are on earth. This branch, for example, weighs like a spike of metal."
Josephine Wong and Glenda Grimes took the broken branch from Professor Kapur and felt it on their hands - the branch was indeed quite heavy for its size, and when Josephine Wong and Glenda Grimes tried to bend it with magic, the branch was able to bounce back like it was made of high quality steel.
"If we could enchant its seeds, we could probably get some pretty nice lumber out of it." Josephine Wong said, while trying to infuse it with some of her magical powers, the branch vibrated and emitted a gentle buzzing sound, and as she infused more of her powers, the branch started to glow in light purple.
"Nice affinity to magical energy. I wonder if it was elemental specific." Glenda Grimes took the branch back from Josephine Wong when she was done experimenting with it - when she infused her powers into it, the branch also displayed a similar behavior, just in her case, the branch was glowing in light green.
"Same with the rocks here." Tony Barnes started playing with a piece of rock in his hand, when he tossed the rock into the air, the rock glowed in golden light, and even displayed some kind of patterns: "I assume this was because the elemental volatility of this realm, all the substance in this realm, even organic life, seemed to have gained elemental affinity. This would make this realm a great source of magical material, but too bad it would be hard to find a place to place our portal."
"Let's go deeper and see. The first team mentioned that they found some relatively stable locations, but they were more or less guarded. So conceal yourselves." Professor Kapur stood up after examining the ground for a while.
Dorothea Clarkson used her magic to produce a few cracks on the ground in front of her, then she took the small pieces of chipped rock and dense dirt from the cracks and put them inside of a small bottle.
When thrown into the bottle, the dirt and the pieces of chipped rock started to glow in different colors and flew around inside of the bottle.
"Interesting, they seemed to be reacting kinda violently to the my Beckhom's bottle." Dorothea Clarkson frowned and said: "Looks like they're extremely resilient against powers and energy fields that are intended to break them apart. "
"It's probably what happens when things formed under this extreme elementable volatility." Professor Kapur walked over and took a look at the bottle in Dorothea Clarkson's hand: "Beckhom's bottles are gentle but, but it's only the case for the observer. For things that are placed inside, the energy fields are like thousands and thousands of high speed rotating grindstones trying to chip them into smaller fragments and particles. This would work fine for other kinds of material, but for things formed under this kind of conditions, it's only reasonable that they have a different reaction."
"When we find a place where the energy fields are more stable, the things in the fields would be easier to analyze. At least I hope." Josephine Wong shook her head and said.
"Sure, I would presume so as well, let's go?" Glenda Grimes picked up a small piece of white rock from the ground and put it in a cloth pouch.
A loud thunder crack exploded right above them, and pieces of ice started falling from the sky. And different from normal kinds of hail, these pieces of ice falling from the sky took the form of regular polyhedrons - it was as if they were crafted and shaped by someone intentionally.
"Well, they didn't mention this in their reports." Glenda Grimes caught a piece of the hail and said: "I'll keep an eye out for them. Maybe we can run some tests and analysis later."
The team continued to move forward, under the protection of their respective protective and concealing spells. The closer they got to their destination marked on the map, the more stable the energy fields became.
Their road was rocky and mountainous, and just when they were barely outside of the mountain forest. They found themselves at the edge of a small plain of swamps and tar lakes.
"This was not on the map." Professor Kapur frowned and said: "According to the map, this should just be a plain, a piece of grassland."
"Which means this is newly formed." Josephine Wong used a long tree branch she picked up from the forest and scraped some tar from a tar lake that was closest to her: "And just like things in the forest - the tar is really dense."
"So was the mud in the swamp." Glenda Grimes also tested one of the swamps with her tree branch: "And - be careful, the mud in the swamp seemed to have some sort of magical energy devouring and corroding properties."
"Careful. There could be something inside." Tony Barnes frowned as he walked behind the team in order to watch the team's back: "I don't like this - this place just reeks of potential existence of swamp creatures and monsters."
"I smelled something like blood in the air." Dorothea Clarkson was walking at the front of the team: "There might have been some fights amongst the creatures of this realm."
"Too bad we are in swamp land. The one who lost might have already drowned in the tar lakes or swamps." Glenda Grimes sighed and said: "Let's speed up. The blood might attract something else."