The cold beauty eyed him suspiciously.
If not for the fact that there's a five-circle spirit warrior of the assassin path was following her in secret under her father's order, she would have even rejected such a hunting trip.
After all, she doesn't trust the third prince.
So, instead of just keeping the doubt to herself, Lin Xue directly confronted him.
In response, the prince chuckled, "we are going to Nurwhir after my business is finished."
"Business?" Along with Lin Xue, the other two also turned their heads towards him. While the handmaids of Song Yue kept quiet, they too glanced at the prince from the corner of their eyes.
All of them were curious as to what does the prince has business in a region that is considered a wasteland for ether crystals.
Only people who wanted to capture wild boars and warthogs go to Festhorn.
Feeling the gazes on him, the third prince smiled mysteriously, "All of you will be surprised when we get there. Just trust me and follow."
Everyone looked at each other for a moment before Lin Xue shrugged her shoulders, "fine. I hope you won't waste my time…"
After an hour of rest, the team continued their journey.
Soon, they met two warthogs that are roaming around. As soon as they smelled the scent of humans, the two beasts rushed towards the team.
As the soldiers raised their swords, the third prince raised his hand, "move."
Heeding the order, the soldiers moved aside.
He then conjured a fireball on his palm. After it became as big as the size of a cannonball, he threw it at one of the incoming beasts.
As the fireball hit the warthog, the latter was blasted away and crashed onto the tree.
The second didn't care about its acquaintance as it rushed towards its prey.
"hmpf, livestock…" The third prince once again started to summon a fireball.
However, this one was twice bigger than the last. Just as it was about to form completely, suddenly, a slender back of a familiar girl appeared in his sight.
The girl swung a sword and cleanly cleaved its body vertically into two parts.
The warthog that just stood on its feet appeared scared at the moment. It turned around and started to run.
However, before it even made a step forward, Lin Xue already covered the distance between them and killed it with one swing.
Putting the sword back to the sheath, she returned to the team.
"Oh! That's amazing, Sister Xue." Song Yue's eyes lit up in excitement as she saw such an amazing feat.
"Indeed, she isn't called a genius swordmaster for nothing." Zhang Kong also nodded in agreement, well, at least on the outside. However inside, he was deeply ashamed.
Both of them are at the circle-3 realm and yet, he felt like there's a huge difference between their combat capabilities.
In the meantime, Shang Wei dismissed the fireball and commented, "You are fast, Lin Xue."
"More like you are too slow." Lin Xue commented coldly as she stopped beside Song Yue.
"I'm a mage. What do you expect…" The third prince mumbled to himself.
In fact, the third prince was strong enough to kill it in one move. After all, he's a mage with destructive power.
However, the drawback is that the mage's skills take too much time to be unleashed, unlike the melee warriors.
The higher the destruction level, the more it consumes ether energy as well as time.
The team proceeded to walk further deep into the forest under the lead of the third prince.
On the way, they have met with various circle-2 wild boars and warthogs but Lin Xue took care of them all without giving a chance to either the soldiers or her fellow nobles.
She felt like these actions of hers will hurt the pride of the prince but on the contrary, the third prince was only enamored with her further. He was now more determined to make her his.
After hours of walking, the group of ten reached some kind of ruins. There are damaged concrete houses and broken statues everywhere.
"I have heard that the Emperors used to banish the people to this forest when this entire southern land is ruled by Ancient Xia dynasty." Zhang Kong commented as he opened the fan, looking around the houses.
The third prince nodded and then, looked at his crush, "What do you know about the last emperor of Xia, Lin Xue?"
Lin Xue nodded, "Of course. It said that Emperor Xia Jie was extremely corrupt in nature and is said to be the most reckless emperor in history.
He is said to be lived a lavish lifestyle and treated his people as slaves. His style of ruling was filled with s*x, luxury, and entertainment.
If the commoners disobey his order, he would punish them to death.
If the nobles disobey his order, depending on his mood, he would either send them to the dungeons or exile them to this forest.
If his vassals disobey his order, he wouldn't hesitate to destroy their kingdoms.
With the support of six clans, King Shang Yating rebelled against the Xia dynasty.
It took twenty long years for the Shang clan to gather a majority of the support and overthrew Emperor Jie and later, founded the Phoenix Empire, bringing peace to the land.
Those people who are exiled or escaped to the forest formed several human settlements until one day Emperor Shang Yating managed to abolish the act of exiling to the forest.
The successful rulers made everyone abandon the towns and migrated back to the Empire."
"Yes." The prince nodded with a smile. "But, there are a few important things that weren't recorded in the history, well, at least for the public. Recently, I acquired an ancient parchment from 18th-century BEE (Before the Era of Ether).
He took out a parchment made out from some unknown skin, "One of my servants accidentally found this in the hands of a skeleton when he was exploring a cave."
Everyone's interest was piqued as soon as they heard about a 3500-year-old parchment.
However, to their disappointment, he put it back into the pocket, not intending to show the contents.
Shang Wei then continued, "It is stated that the rulers of Xia dynasty originally sent people to the forest after one found a bunch of scarlet crystals which upon contact, one would absorb the energy into their body and die."
"Eh?" Even the soldiers who are putting up a poker face from the start seemed surprised after hearing his story.
Lin Xue was also no exception to it either. "Do you mean?"
The third prince nodded with a smile, "Yes. They found the Ether crystals."
"But, how's that possible?" Song Yue expressed her confusion. She was clearly in disbelief.
Zhang Kong also voiced his suspicion, "The presence of the ether crystals and the emergence of the first spirit warrior have been known only for 1786 years. Our current timeline is called Era of Ether and the timeline is called for a reason."
The third prince shrugged his shoulders, "well, it seems the ether crystals have been founded long ago unlike we imagined."
"But, what does this parchment have to do with this place?" Lin Xue frowned as she looked around. For her, everything seemed normal. There are no caves nearby to think there's a crystal mine here either.
"I said there were a few important things that were hidden from the public, didn't I?" A mysterious smile appeared on the third prince. "This is the hideout of Xia Jie before he died of old age."
"What!"