An hour later, the entire squad regrouped and headed to a special room within the Royal Knights Headquarters. It was guarded around the clock by two knight squads who, upon recognizing Sol and his team, opened the large doors and let them in. The room was empty, save for a raised five meter wide platform in the middle. It was carved with runes in a circular pattern, with eight dark blue lines extending off the platform and into the ground. Using his [True Sight (Variant)], Sol could see an incredible amount of mana coursing through these lines, feeding the central rune formation.
There were two people also present in the room: Commander Zaman and a royal mage, identifiable by his formal attire.
"Just on time. Come over," Zaman said in a friendly tone, gesturing for them to approach.
"Commander," Sol said respectfully, saluting. The squad behind him mimicked the gesture, except for Lazuli, who hadn't noticed the salute in time.
When she finally did notice, she tried to copy their actions, but it was obvious. The Commander knew of her situation and wasn't going to reprimand her over something so minor.
"At ease," Zaman said before pointing at the platform next to him. "This is a focus point. It serves as an anchor for space mages to teleport large groups over vast distances. With it, we'll travel to the Orna Mountains."
Unlike normal focus points, which tended to be much smaller, this one could connect to the other side of the continent. All a space mage needed were the correct coordinates and the right sequence to access it. Even with the security measures in place to prevent unauthorized connections, knights were stationed around the clock to guard against the possibility of an enemy army portaling into the headquarters.
The squad had various reactions, most lukewarm or slightly interested, except for the two mages, who were intensely focused on the formation, trying to understand how it worked.
Nataly mumbled to herself without realizing it, "It has an advanced mana condensing array and its own mana storage, just in case the primary supply is cut off. I wonder how long it can maintain a portal using only its mana storage…"
The royal mage, overhearing her, eagerly responded, "Well, depending on the size of the portal and whether it's one way or two way, it varies. But with a medium one way portal, it can maintain the space tunnel for just over sixteen hours!"
"Sixteen?!" Lazuli exclaimed, shocked. A medium sized portal could allow 20 people to cross at a time, and over 16 hours, a small army could easily pass through. The mana storage must contain an astronomical amount of mana to sustain the portal for so long.
"You can discuss this later; we need to meet with the orc forces, or we'll be late," Zaman said, causing the two mages to feel slightly ashamed for forgetting where they were.
Sol nodded. "We're ready to go whenever."
"Then let's begin. Open the portal."
The royal mage nodded and began the chant for [Spatial Tunnel]. When the incantation was complete, a purplish blue portal formed. Those standing near the entrance could feel the air being slightly pulled inside by the one way tunnel.
The Commander was the first to step through, with the squad following closely behind. As Sol passed through, his vision was engulfed in purplish blue light, and he felt a strong force pulling him along. The next moment, he touched the ground and looked around, taking in the familiar sight.
"We're already here..." Aron said in awe as he gazed at the fort surrounding them.
The trip through the tunnel had only taken a few seconds, but they had traveled a distance that had previously taken them a week.
"Things sure have changed since then," Duncan commented as he observed the fort, now bustling with soldiers and personnel attending to daily tasks and preparing the exploration team. The broken walls and overgrown foliage they had seen before were gone. If not for having been here themselves, they might not have believed this place had been abandoned for years.
As they took in the drastic renovations, a high ranking soldier approached them and saluted. "Welcome to Fort Chill Haven. I've been assigned to show you to the team you'll be leading to the ancient dwarven city."
"Fort Chill Haven?" Sol asked. He had always heard it referred to as the abandoned fort and hadn't known it had a proper name.
The soldier nodded and explained, "It's a name the townsfolk of Chilton began using after they took refuge here while rebuilding their town. It was originally called Fort Blendal's Path, but the new name caught on so quickly that it became the official name."
The squad smiled, glad to hear the people of Chilton were doing well. Sol thought about asking after those who had been crippled during the conflict but held back, knowing the answer wouldn't be pleasant.
'Best not to ask and ruin the mood. But I wish I could help them...' he thought to himself as they followed the soldier to the fort's main building.
Inside, they were guided to a large room where many people of various origins were eagerly discussing the upcoming expedition.
"Aren't you excited? We're finally going to explore inside the city!" an explorer excitedly told the scholar next to him.
"How could I not be? The tunnels alone were incredible with their cognition obfuscation enchantments and whatever alloy was used to make them, an alloy that only an A-Ranker could break. Imagine the city itself!"
The men and women were all excited at the prospect of being among the first to explore the ancient city, but none were more excited than one man who was on the verge of tears.
"Finally... after so many years of studying various ancient and dead languages, I finally have the chance to translate something new!"
Those around him gave a sympathetic smile upon hearing his words. Linguists were pitied in this day and age as the most unfortunate scholars. With everyone speaking and writing in the System's common language, their skills had become almost useless, as everyone already spoke the same tongue. Their only remaining value was in translating ancient languages that had long since died out, but the problem was that most ancient texts had already been translated, and there were next to none undiscovered ruins left. This left linguists with little to do but retranslate ancient books and verify that previous translations contained no errors or misinterpretations.