"All ready back there?" Robert tasked as he started up the Fluttershi. It was the early morning of the next day, and everyone was on the vehicle getting ready to set out.
"Yeah, everyone is good back there," Sydra said as he sat down in the seat next to Robert. Cidre was lying on the floor in the back with a headache, and Erich was already passed out on the bench.
"Good, so what way are we heading?" Robert asked, looking at the map in Sydra's hands. Sydra was looking at the map closely and then glancing at the trade map Robert had brought with him. This way he could figure out where the ruins map matched up with the map of current times and pinpoint their location on it.
"Head towards the ruins that we have already uncovered. We will start from there, but I also want to let someone know something," Sydra said, deciding it would be easier if they were to start from the ruins they already found.
"Okay," Robert said, swiping up the speed controlling rune up and turning the vehicle towards the ruins. Since a path had already been forged through the forest and people had found out that using plasma weapons to cut down the trees was able to keep them down, the journey to the right ruins was a simple one. Around fifteen minutes later they had arrived, and Sydra hopped out of the vehicle to try and find Nate.
"Excuse me, I'm looking for Nate. Do you know where he is?" Sydra asked a passing elf who was wearing the same green armor Nate wore.
"Nate? I believe he was in the armory the last time I saw him," the elf said before walking away.
"Thanks," Sydra said, before running off to the armory to find Nate. Arriving there, Sydra saw Nate walking out of it and down the stairs.
"Sydra? What are you doing here?" Nate asked as he finished descending the stairs and walked over to Sydra.
"I came here to find you and give you a direction to head in once you leave these ruins. Do you have a map?" Sydra asked as Nate rummaged through the pack at his side for a map he had attained.
"Will this work?" Nate asked, handing over a map of the temple ruins with a bit of the outside forest on it. Taking the map from Nate's hands, Sydra studied it for a second before drawing an arrow on it pointed to the upper left direction.
"You guys should head in this direction when you leave, and you might be able to come across something interesting," Sydra said as he handed the map back to Nate. "Anyway, I have to get going now, so I'll see you later," Sydra said, before running back to the Fluttershi.
"Finished with what you needed to do?" Robert asked as Sydra sat back down in his seat.
"Yeah, it's all good. Alright, we need to head to the upper corner of the ruins and head right from there. Once we get out of the ruins, we should head in the North-eastern direction and we will reach the first temple in a few days," Sydra said, as he pulled the map back out and showed the direction they needed to head in once more.
"Finally, let's get this show on the road," Robert said, as they finally started on their journey. When they reached the woods Robert activated the Void Obsidian and a purple light encased the Fluttershi. Going full speed towards the trees, everyone braced themselves in case the vehicle ran into the forest. A few seconds later they saw the vehicle moving through the trees as if they were fabricated out of water molecules. After being amazed at the effects of the Void Obsidian, everyone became bored once more and started doing their own thing. Erich and Cidre went inside the Arbor Sanctum to spar with each other and grow stronger, while Robert just let the vehicle continue to travel forward while he brought out a book on war hammer techniques to use in battle. Sydra took this time to activate his Shadow Void Cloak to raise his connection rate with it.
While sitting in the shadows, he was also studying the map trying to figure out what ruins they might come across. Each ruin was marked by its symbol, and the ruin they had just left had the mark of the spider that he and Cidre had faced. Underneath the spider was an E that seemed to represent its rank. The other nine marks on the map all had a rank that was higher than the rank of the spider, but none of them went above the Emperor rank.
"Looks like we will have to increase our strength before we reach the fifth set of ruins. Maybe I should activate my other powers to increase their rank as well," Sydra said aloud as he activated his bone armor to cover his body. Now covered in armor, Sydra activated his heat manipulation beneath the bone armor to lightly burn his skin, before quickly regenerating it with his regeneration. While this was happening he started creating spiders before zapping them with his lightning. Since each spider was created out of aura, they didn't burn and smoke when destroyed.
'What is he doing?' Robert thought to himself, glancing over at the flickering shadows that hid Sydra from his view. Every few seconds he would hear a zapping sound before something popped, and this continued for the next few hours. Once Sydra had exhausted most of his aura he turned off the shadow cloaking and ended up scaring Robert.
"Ahh!" Robert yelled when he saw a grim reaper appear next to him. The creature was covered in bone armor that was glowing red, and its face was hidden beneath a dark hood. When Sydra glanced at Robert he felt his heart stop while looking inside the eyes flickering with ashgold lightning. Sydra's incredibly pale face from aura exhaustion enhanced his luminous eyes and caused Robert to mistake him for a demon.
"What's wrong with you?" Sydra asked, looking at the terrified look on Robert's face. Looking around, he couldn't see anything that could cause Robert to look like this.
"Sydra? Is that you? Why do you look like your here to take my soul to the underworld?" Robert asked, slowly gaining color back in his cheeks, while feeling g slightly embarrassed that he thought Sydra was the grim reaper.
"Oh, sorry about that. I was training my powers and used up a little too much aura in the process," Sydra explained, as he put the bone armor away and released the steam that had accumulated underneath. Pulling out some water, Sydra downed around three bottles of water before feeling rejuvenated once more.
"We're you able to gain any progress in your powers?" Robert asked, taking a bottle of water and settling back down.
"Yeah, but it was only a small increase in my overall strength. I need real-time battles, that put my life on the line, to gain a real increase in my power," Sydra said, as he checked on the progress of his powers. "By the way, it is getting late, did you want to head into my Arbor Sanctum and rest? There are a lot of beds in the palace that you can use," he asked, noticing the light in the sky was diminishing.
"Sure, will you be staying here to watch over the vehicle?" Robert asked, slowing down the vehicle but not stopping it.
"Yeah, I'll make sure everything is fine here. I have yet to reach a connection rank with my cloak that will allow me to travel to the island with my physical body so I wouldn't be able to rest there anyway," Sydra said, before sending Robert to the Arbor Sanctum. Once he was gone, Sydra sped the vehicle back up and sat back. Watching the screen in front of him, Sydra began getting a bit sleepy and ended up falling asleep.
'Screech!!!' The sound of the Fluttershi coming to an abrupt stop woke Sydra up out of his slumber. Trying to gain a sense of what was going on, he looked at the screen in front of him only to see a humongous gash in the ground. The vehicle had applied its auto brakes to keep itself from falling into the gash and had managed to stop a few feet away from it. Turning off the vehicle, Sydra hopped out and sent it into his Arbor Sanctum. He couldn't see the end of the gash either way he looked, so it probably meant the gash would take too long to drive around.
"Well, I guess I'll have to jump this myself. It doesn't look too hard to get across, but I will have to be going at full speed," Sydra said, looking across the wide gash before walking half a mile back. Activating his lightning aura in his legs, Sydra began running at the edge of the gash with full speed. If someone saw him they would think it was a lightning bolt racing across the ground, before leaping as high as it could over the gash. As Sydra flew across the gash, he looked down into it and saw glowing lights waving back and forth at the bottom of it.
"I wonder what those are," Sydra said, as he landed on the other side of the gash and skidded to a stop.