The next day, Vaelorian along with Lavinia and her possible 'suitors' made their way towards the North Gate which was near the Celestal Haven. They saw several hundred people scattered around in groups of fives and sixes.
"Man, I am getting so excited!" Theo rubbed his hands together.
"For some reason, I am a bit scared. Will the elders be able to monitor so many people successfully?" Vaelorian spoke observing his surroundings and gazed at the two elders that were observing the students.
"Why the hell did we even bring this spineless idiot with us?" Marcus glared at him.
"I am sorry," Vaelorian looked down on his feet in defeat.
"Don't be! They don't know how to talk." Lavinia glared at Marcus and Theo.
After everyone gathered, one of the elders began, "The people who have successfully learned one offensive spell are going to be on the front followed by those with one defensive spell. Light and Nature mages are going to be at the rear. Engineering and Technology team are joining us and they will be in between to inspect the place and items if we find any. We are going to form 2 groups which will follow this formation. We both are going to be at the front and will guide the groups. Elder Solon is going to lead Group A and I Osiris Group B."
After the instruction, they divided the group accordingly and aggregated the strongest between those two equally. There was a shortage of defensive spell users so Group A ended up having the majority. Vaelorian was put into Group B and no one suspected anything because people were free to leave and join the team as they pleased and the Elders obviously couldn't recognize everyone by their face. Though the formation was decided, in both the groups many of them broke it so that they could be with their friends and Lavinia was no exception.
Vaelorian, Lavinia, Theo, Marcus, and Emeric were at the rear because Vaelorian didn't budge when Lavinia called him to the front. So in the end she followed Vaelorian and the guys had no option but to follow her. The jungle got denser as they all traveled deeper. Vaelorian was looking everywhere and observing the path they were taking. He could see the faint ground in thick grass, so he guessed that the exploration team used this path often.
"I wonder what are we gonna find in that building." Theo looked around in excitement.
"If it is the scrolls I doubt the elders are gonna share anything." Marcus frowned as he let his thoughts out.
"Well it doesn't matter, a small peek is all I need and my system is gonna scan it. In the end, it all depends on my Intelligence stat."
Vaelorian was stunned again. 'A peek was all they needed? And this stat again. How many stats are there?' He was lost in his thoughts when Lavinia lightly elbowed him. "Your Intelligent stat must be very high since you have the wisdom skill."
Vaelorian observed her for a moment before casually laughing, "I am not gonna tell you." He stuck out his tongue and moved faster.
"Tsk" Marcus clicked his tongue watching Lavinia chasing after Vaelorian.
After another hour of traversing the dense jungle, the landscape unexpectedly transformed into an expansive grassland. Before them sprawled not just a 'destroyed building', but a haunting city in ruins. A multitude of collapsed buildings stretched as far as the eye could see, entangled with strong green vines.
Vaelorian looked in awe and so did everyone else. He looked at Elder Osiris and noticed that he was trying hard to contain his content. Elder Solon had the same expression. 'There must be something special about this ruined city?' He thought and followed the members as they made their way further into the city.
Both the groups were scattered once they entered the city, smaller groups were made consisting of ten individuals but the Elders made sure that they all stayed within a certain range. The task was to check out each building and report everything.
Vaelorian didn't make any extra effort and just followed wherever his group was going. Most of the things were destroyed and all they saw were rocks and a large pillar that once supported the structure.
"Let's split up," a member of their group suggested. "We will stay within hearing range of one another and in this way we will cover more buildings in a short time."
Vaelorian wanted to protest but he noticed no one had any problem and many of them nodded. He copied them and was left alone, Marcus dragged Lavinia with him when she was thinking of asking Vaelorian to accompany her. Vaelorian walked to the closest building and made his way inside the ruin. Half of the ceiling was gone, he saw several empty cabinets. They were intact with a few occasional scratches.
"So here you are," Vaelorian heard a voice and turned to see Theo.
"What do you want?"
"Stay away from Lavinia."
"Okay, I will. I don't like her anyway." Vaelorian shrugged but Theo was not buying his bullshit.
"This will be the last time I am warning you." He spoke and left before glaring at him a few times.
Vaelorian blew out smoke as he carefully watched Theo walk out. He turned and got closer to the cabinet, the scratches looked as if they were made by a weapon rather than an animal's claw.
"Finally, I found you." A familiar voice spoke.
Vaelorian turned again and his eyes widened. Li Han was staring at him. "Who are you?" He asked.
A simple question, yet Vaelorian couldn't answer, he kept staring at the guy in front of him. Li Han mumbled something and several vines spurted out from the ground and grabbed Vaelorian's leg and arms.
"What are you doing?!" He asked in a panic.
"Unless you shout out really loud no one is going to hear you. Stop your acting and get straight to the point. How do you know me? Why are you speaking about me as if we are good friends?" Li Han narrowed his eyes.
Vaelorian immediately understood the situation. Maintaining the same expression he spoke, "Well they all were pestering me just because my tongue slipped! I won't tell the King about the system. It's pretty obvious."
Li Han simply observed him, not speaking anything. The grip got tighter and Vaelorian gritted his teeth, "Do you think you are a protagonist!? I am not gonna let you steal my power and land!" Vaelorian shouted and immediately the grip loosened and the vines went back into the ground.
"So you are just another greedy bastard." Li Han sighed before getting out of the building, not sparing him another look.
Vaelorian sighed with relief. Fear filled his heart when he thought that Li Han had found that he was responsible for the murders. This was the first time he had felt the fear and that too from someone his age.
'At this point, I will really get behind everyone. How can I beat an entity with mana bullets? Mother won't see my face and I don't want to attend the sessions with King Maximus anymore. Is this really as far as I can go?' Vaelorian blew out smoke and watched wind emanating out in small patches from his palm.