"Is he up?" Alice asked Nick who just came out of the medical room.
Alice, Alex and Ann were in the guild right now, standing in front of the room in which Frank was admitted. They had decided to sort out Frank's matter first, then the three of them would go and clear the gate.
Yes, Ann had decided to join them on this odyssey after she heard about the bloodlines from Alex and the probability of her being able to increase her power without using an awakening potion or mana core.
"No, it's just like I said, his mind is refusing to wake up. I was thinking of waking him up forcefully, but it might have had an adverse effect, so, I decided against it." Nick spoke with a sigh of helplessness.
He had been trying anything and everything he could so that he could get a response from Frank, but all of his attempts were for nought as Frank subconsciously resisted his healing, making him unable to do anything.
"It's all right, we will take it from here," Alice spoke reassuringly, secretly looking at Alex who seemed to be talking with Ann about the gate they were going to raid.
"Un." Nick nodded and let them enter while he went towards his office. He doesn't think too much about the situation as to why Alice thinks she can do something about Frank's situation.
He knew that every guild leader keeps at least 2 or 3 high-grade healing items, he knew that Alice also had some items like that, so, he thought that maybe she was going to use them on Frank.
He wanted to stay and watch the scene unfold in front of him as it's not every day you see a high-grade item being used, but he could easily catch the meaning of Alice's words and it meant for him to leave them alone, so, he did just that.
...............
Inside the medical ward.
"So? How is it done?" Ann asked in an inquisitive tone, she was curious how this commanding was done and so was Alice.
They thought that maybe Alex had to fulfil some kind of condition or something, but if they thought carefully about Alex's words when he spoke about his bloodline abilities then they would understand everything.
Alex had already told them that his bloodline lets him command any human with a bloodline level lower than his, there was no condition or something, it was just their conscience making things up so that Alex's ability looked more believable to themselves.
Alex didn't reply to Ann's question, he just smiled as he understood what was going on, so, he decided to just show it to them.
"Wake up." He commanded Frank and even before the girls could say anything or ask anything, they opened their eyes wide as they saw Frank sitting straight on the bed.
However, they could still see the unwillingness in Frank's eyes as he looked at Alex, which caused them to turn to Alex as well.
"I can command him, but that doesn't mean I can control him."
Alex just shrugged nonchalantly.
He decided to hide the fact that he could control Frank if he removed the suppression on his bloodline since they would not take it positively, so, he made his decision for now.
"Ohh…"x2
Both of the girls had a look of realisation on their faces, but Alex could see very clearly that they were relieved as well.
He could understand their problem as well, with a person who can control their mind, anyone would think this at least once – 'Am I being controlled right now?'.
That is why Alex decided to wait for them to trust him enough not to have this kind of thought in their minds and then he would probably tell them everything.
"You are never going to think of revenge or anything like that and stay like the vice president you are supposed to be," Alex spoke again prompting the girls to look at Frank.
They could see Frank's expression become wary, then frustrated, then regretful, and at last resignation, they looked at Alex who was observing Frank's expressions as well.
"It's good that you finally understand that you won't be able to go against my commands even if you try with every ounce of your power," Alex spoke calmly though his eyes held indifference as he looked at Frank.
As the girls understood what his words implicated, they understood why Frank's expression turned into resignation in the end, though they were also relieved as they knew that a potential betrayal was stopped with this turn of events.
..................
"So, this is a Gate, huh?" Alex muttered as he stood before a blue mass of contorted space with some green grasses at its base, it looked like a portal and Alex also felt that he could control the gate somehow if he tried.
"Yeah, it's an A-rank gate called 'Forest of the Orcs'," Alice spoke and Alex nodded his head even though he already knew about the gate since Ann had told him about it.
The time Gates appeared on Gaia, there were different types of Gates and every one of them had unique features. The Raiders still don't know if there are some types of Gates that are yet to be discovered, but they know how to classify a Gate and how to rank them.
The ranking of the gates starts with an F-rank which is white in colour, and then the gates from rank E to S follow the electromagnetic spectrum from red to indigo, leaving violet out.
However, this made many scientists and researchers speculate that there might be gates with ranks higher than S.
But because of not being able to find any gate that is higher than S rank, any item higher than S rank or even a Raider higher than S rank, people slowly stopped thinking about those things and thought that maybe S rank is the highest.
Some people, however, still believe or know that there are gates ranked higher than S rank.
Alice and Ann are also included among these people after they got to know about the rankings after the S rank, even without Alex telling them, they knew that if a human can go up to EX rank, then the chances of an EX-rank Gate appearing is not impossible.
The Gates ranking can be found out by colour but then comes the way to identify a territory. There will be some kind of indication at the bottom of the Gate that shows what kind of terrain the Gate has.
Right now, the green grasses at the base attest that this Gate had forest or grassland-type terrain and from the little moisture on the grasses, a keen observer could tell that it is something like a rainforest.
There are many types of terrains such as the land of ice, lava mountains, underground mazes, cursed forests, etc.
The identification of terrains helps people be prepared for what climate they are going to face, guess what kind of monsters they could face, and also helps in understanding what kind of loot they could get from the said Gate.
Loot doesn't always mean the drops of monsters, if it were just that then the guild would not wait for days before they start hunting seriously.
The loots are also the things that could be extracted or excavated from the Gates, for example: Various herbs from tropical regions, unique minerals from the underground mazes, different types of metals in rocky planes, etc.
"Let's go in without delay," Alice spoke to which Alex and Ann nodded, they also had Noctura with them and she was resting on Alex's shoulder.
But just then Alex paused as he saw something that surprised him...
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