When Aran reached the inn, Elissa was sitting at a table drinking wine. Aran didn't mind, since it was very common for royal family members to drink wine from a very little age. As he walked towards her and sat close to her, aran realised that there is more to it than just the bandits' base. To know everything, he decided to act as if he didn't know anything at all.
" What happened? Why did you just leave?" He asked but she didn't answer. She had drowned in her own worried.
" Are you going to say something? or not? " Aran asked a little louder. Hearing that Elissa gave him an empty look and said
" We are aborting this mission "
" This again? are you going to tell me what happened?"
"Let's not talk about this! "
" What do you mean? Do you think I don't deserve an explanation? "
" There is nothing you will achieve by knowing that. So it's better not to know. "
" Well then, we can drop this mission. But let me at least know the reason! "
Hearing aran, Elissa thought, " Now that he has accepted to drop the mission, there won't be a problem in telling him the truth " and continued to talk.
" The base we just saw today, It's not a bandit's base but a cult base. It belongs to a cult called the Dark Creed. It is one of the biggest cults in the heavenly continent.
The cult had hundreds of cult bases and only the members of the cult enters there. It has four towers around it, so there must be people keeping track on the base."
After hearing that, Aran got sure that Elissa doesn't know anything about the defensive formation. He guessed that the formation might have recently been installed. Since the defensive shied there, was invisible and only strong cultivators could see it, it made sense why she didn't know about that. But looking at Elissa it seemed, there is more to it than what she said.
" So, you want to drop this mission because we can't infiltrate the base. Right ? " he asked.
" Yes!"
" Is that the only reason?" Aran asked as he gave a doubtful look at Elissa. She remained silent for a while thinking if she want to tell him everything or not and finally decided to explain everything.
" There is one more thing. I don't think you are interested in this but I'm going to tell it anyway.
A year ago when I first joined the guild, I came to this town with a mercenary team to catch some bandits. The team brought me with them because it was a simple mission, so they thought there won't be any problem.
We had information about where exactly the bandits were and we easily caught them alive. But when we were about to leave, the cult members surrounded us in the town. Because the bandits we caught were the members of the cult.
We got surrounded and the team members realised that there was no way they can escape, so they decided to fight them to the death to save me. I insisted saying that I will also help them to fight but In the end, they tied me up and hid me inside a house. After that, they tried to break through and fought the cult members to death.
Although they died saving me, I couldn't do anything about that. When I asked my family for revenge, they just said they can't waste any more soldiers just for some dead mercenaries.
That day I swore that one day I will become strong enough and take revenge on every single member of the cult."
As Elissa explained it her eyes were already filled. She was expressing the greatest desire of her life. Unlike the last time, Aran was genuinely interested in hearing her story this time, because for him it seemed more like a good reason to manipulate her, to get what he wants.
It's not that aran didn't have any emotions, it's just that he knew, the less he cares about others, the faster he can achieve what he wants.
Aran was going to get what he wanted, one way or another. Because he was done with being weak and others telling him what his limits are. As he looked at Elissa, he knew exactly what he should do.
" How much time do you think it will take for you to get strong? "
" What?"
" You said you wanted to take revenge when you get strong. So when do you think that day will come? "
" What do you mean? "
" I mean, you think you lost your comrades because you were weak but is that the truth? I think you lost them because it was an ambush. They surrounded you out of nowhere and you weren't prepared. So you didn't have a choice! "
" What are you saying ?"
" I am saying, you don't have to wait until you get stronger. What if there is a way to get your revenge faster?"
" Have you lost your mind? Did you hear what I just said?"
" You said they are a cult. So there must be hundreds of cultivators in there. There might be people in the tower, keeping track of people outside and inside. But what if there was a way to enter the cult base safely without anyone noticing and get the bandits? You will get your revenge and I will get my mission done! "
" I had a doubt. But now I am sure that you have lost your mind! "
" Yeah I know that's what you think but at least listen to my plan. "
Aran said and explained the plan to Elissa. He also promised her that they will only do it if it seem safe.
Although it wasn't a great plan, and she also thought it might not work, aran regularly brought the mercenaries who died for her into the conversation and made her feel like he is doing all that for her revenge. That way it seemed like a chance for Elissa to get revenge and she started to believe more and more, that the plan is great until she finally accepted to test it out.
***
The next day, both of them made started to make their preparations. They constantly went back there to observe. From hundreds of different houses in there, aran pinpointed the houses where the bandits he was looking for were staying. Out of eighteen bandits, only fourteen of them were there.
After that, they bought a pair of black clothes and masks to easily blend in the dark. They also made sure that they can easily run away in that dress if needed.
After three days, on the night of the planning, After thinking about the plan one more time, they decided to do it. But before that aran asked the manager of the inn if he can look after his horse for the night and the manager accepted it.
When Elissa asked about that he said if the horse got out by accident and the others saw them the people might find out that it is the horse of the Wilford family since the horse had the symbol of the family in its armour. He also told her to do the same.
Although Elissa found the reason so stupid, by then she had seen a lot. So she wondered what bad can happen and she also left her horse there with the manager and both of them left the inn.
It was eleven in the night and both aran and Elissa had taken positions a mile away from the cult base as planned. Aran had shown her a path towards the base that undetectable. Since he had told her to wait Elissa was waiting for aran's signal to move.
The cult base was protected by a ten-level defensive formation. To activate the formation, with thousands of spirit stones, they used four Primordial stones in four towers and one of them was a pure primordial stone.
Pure Primordial stones were a unique kind of mana stones that was only available in the deep oceans. To get a pure primordial, the cultivators had to fight thousands of sea beasts and it was an almost impossible job to do.
After obtaining a pure primordial stone, most people sell it in an auction for almost a million high-tier spirit stones. Some people create many refined primordial stones out of pure stones with the help of a powerful alchemist and sell them. For a powerful alchemist, it was possible to create almost thirty refined stones with just one pure stone.
The refined primordial stones were the same as the pure stones but the difference was, the pure stones used to last for nearly a hundred years, whereas the refined stones only lasts for less than five years.
When a cultivator creates an array formation, he will have to use hundreds or thousands of spirit stones to activate it, but if he has a pure primordial stone, then he can activate most low and mid-ranked arrays without any spirit stones and he can activate high ranked arrays with less than half of the spirit stones than what needed.
Unlike pure stones, refined stones can only be used once since they will get destroyed after one use.
The cult was using three refined stones and a pure stone in their defensive formation. After almost five years when the refined stones break, the pure stone alone will keep the formation stable for a while, before the cult can just replace the stones. That way the cult can save the spirit stones they needed to use, to create the formation again.
Since aran knew how precious a pure primordial stone was and he used to regularly create many array formations, he thought by getting it, he can benefit from it for years. That is the reason why he was risking all that on that mission.
As Elissa was waiting for aran's signal, Aran was looking at the base. The bandits he wanted were still busy with their cult work and he was waiting for them to come back to their houses so that they can fight them individually without others finding out.
Although Elissa thought that plan was stupid since they will have to face hundreds of the cult members if something goes wrong, she agreed to the plan after aran showed her the safe passage to run away if they got found.
After waiting for a while, the bandits finally came back to their rooms, finishing the cult works and aran immediately signalled Elissa and Arrax to move.