A strange scene appeared in the dark night.
Twelve assassins who rushed out of the woods to attack Xar and the other four stood there blankly. The spells and arrows from the hidden figures in the woods were blocked by Metal Dome casted by Wuryan at the first notice.
Even those eight assassins in the woods showed no sign of attacking again.
This strange silence lasted for only a few seconds before a tragic battle broke out among the assassins. The one who was talking earlier suddenly became the target of everyone's attack and the guy desperately counterattacked before dragging three more with him on the way.
As soon as the guy died, the remaining ones rushed back into the woods and started fighting the hidden eight. These incomprehensible turns of events happened within a short span of time. The five prodigies who were the target of those assassins only watched them coldly.
To be more specific, four of them were looking at Xar's handiwork, the mastermind behind the sudden infight.
"The path of illusion. Xar, you have quite the high attainment in this."
Ryonen praised generously. Though he preferred direct confrontations where he bashed enemies' heads into pieces, the current way of handling the matter was also okay in his opinion. Well, not as cool as his strength path.
"Turns out there's another guy hiding in the woods. Tch! This guy is out of range for my current limit. Irilea, I will leave this to you."
Xar clicked his tongue in annoyance and pointed in a direction. Irilea nodded casually and nocked an arrow on her wooden bow. During the short time when the assassins started fighting amongst themselves, everyone has long since upgraded their weapons to Top-grade First-order quality using the coins.
Golden lightning flashed through her body and the arrow turned into a thunderbolt. With a mild thunderclap it disappeared into the woods and along the path all trees were reduced to ashes.
Preston, who was waiting in the distance and came as a backup for this mission suddenly broke out in goosebumps all over his body. Without thinking about anything else he turned around and ran. His instincts as an assassin after working in this profession for decades has saved his life many times.
That's why, without any hesitation he fled when he felt something was wrong!
Unfortunately, his reaction speed and instinct wasn't as fast as the thunderbolt shot by Irilea. With the harsh sound of thunder and an unbearable scorching heat the "arrow" was already on his face as soon as he turned around to escape.
Boom!!
Preston's upper body disappeared into flying ashes at the moment of contact.
On the other side, the infight finally ended and all the assassins died from the hands of their own companion. Xar took out a mirror and tapped it on his forehead for a few moments before handing it over to Wuryan who was near his reach: "Take a look at this. I will go collect the crystal ball first."
He left towards the direction where a straight path of scorched earth appeared from Irilea's arrow.
Wuryan used a bit of Cosmium to activate the mirror after he notified the other three to see the information obtained by Xar. The golden lightning had already retreated without a trace when Irilea came over with a curious look on her face.
The four watched the collected intelligence from Lester's perspective.
"Assassin's Guild? So we were indeed targeted because of our identity."
Irilea muttered after seeing the conversation with the branch manager. She couldn't help but frown. This is very annoying! Nobles like them were actually implicated because of a commoner!?
"Just call that guy over and have him clean up this mess. It just so happens that he could answer the question regarding quick leveling."
Esmeria made a decision and took out another coin. With a slight intake of Cosmium it manifested some mysterious patterns before glowing with a white hue.
"Get over here as soon as possible."
She ordered in a cold tone before cutting off the connection. She had no interest in listening to the words of the other party. This coin can serve as a communicator regardless of the distance or spatial restrictions in this secret realm. It also serves as a locator of the other coin holder.
That being said, the commoners that came here can only wait for their side's initiative before being able to contact or locate them but the five of them could lift or place the restriction anytime they want.
Xar came back at this time and heard that Orion was summoned by Esmeria to come over for the follow-up matter. He only nodded and suggested: "Let's wait at the Hobgoblin settlement. I might find something interesting."
It started raining as they went back to the desolate settlement where only corpses and blood adorned the place. The rain washed away the stench of death and along with it came some chill from the cold wind.
Five of them took refuge from the wind and rain in the biggest hut they could find. Previously, inside this hut was a throne made of animal and human skulls. When Xar was checking before he also looked around this throne but he didn't find anything interesting that was responsible for the Dazzling White road.
He simply destroyed it and finally noticed a hollow place under the throne. The hollow was a small circle and from the looks of it there should be something that goes in it. Xar didn't have anything that could fit so he simply tried to pry open the hollow circle with force. Unfortunately the material was very sturdy. It was as strong as Top-grade First-order quality, the limit of this secret realm.
His current strength of Initial Stage was inadequate so he took a note of it and searched other places before returning empty handed.
Seeing no more clue, he simply decided to leave the place and come at a later date after finding the suitable key object but who would have thought that his team would face an ambush. The next chain of events helped him find the key object that should fit exactly in that hollow circle.
So, after returning to the hut he took out the crystal ball that served as the central storage device of recordings for those assassins and placed it on the hollow circle.
Click!
A sound of a lock being opened came from that place and the crystal ball rotated on its own before the floor opened a gap. Inside the gap was a black stone which exudes dark mist. Xar's eyes lit up as his intuition told him that he might have found the thing.
He didn't rashly contact it but used his longsword to pick it up.
Other four looked at the black stone which spewed dark mist continuously with some curiosity but none of them had the thought of snatching it. Finders keepers, this was the agreement they made after entering the Azure Planet. The main reason is that as the valued prodigies of Five Founding Families of the empire they had both seen and owned various mysterious treasures and far more expensive items.
So, anything interesting found in a small place like this secret realm where only Top-grade First-order quality material could be produced didn't cause much desire in them.
Irilea, on the other hand, looked thoughtful. She remembered the crystal goat head she found previously. There sure are a lot of interesting things in this Azure Planet. She decided to look out for such items in the future.
The rain stopped after some time and the temperature became a bit cold. The night sky was still cloudy and occasionally the rumbling of thunder could be heard high above the clouds.
Esmeria leaned on the wall as she looked at the distance. She was recalling the memories regarding the strange stone her future husband found just now,
"We were still unaware of the value of this black stone at this point in time. When Xar finally found a method to filter out the dark mist this stone helped him complete four profound realizations about himself. One of the biggest harvests in Azure Planet was finding the source of this black stone later named as Insightful Stone."
"The Empire was able to have a steady channel of this resource suitable for permanently strengthening the new Grandmasters of five families in a short period of time thus increasing the overall strength of the human race in the Cosmic Sea. This stone thus became a strategic resource. But the problem is that the filtering method was found because of that woman..."
Esmeria's eyes became sharp as a hint of coldness flashed by. She pondered for a while before making up her mind.
When the clouds cleared up and the moonlight brushed the earth, Orion finally arrived at their location and kneeled on the muddy ground to plead, "Forgive me, esteemed nobles!! It's all my fault. Because of conflict of interests with some people I have implicated the nobles. Please forgive me!! Please don't execute my family!!!"
Orion's face was pale and his pleas were desperate. He had seen the corpses of those assassins so he figured out the cause and effect on his own.
Wuryan, the reincarnated earthling, frowned as he watched a middle aged man kneeling and begging for mercy for his family. He opened his mouth to say something but finally sighed when he glanced at the other four who were indifferent to Orion's pleas.
"Different world, different values. I shouldn't stand out too much or who knows if my reincarnation would be exposed. That being said, the commoners of the Pangaea Empire are really pitiful. In a class-based society they can only be exploited endlessly."
He lamented in his heart but his face showed the same indifference as the other four.
"Whether you will be punished depends on how you handle the subsequent matter. I will give you a chance. Here's the information of those assassin's hidden base: track them, interrogate them, find the mastermind and eradicate the roots of trouble. There better not be another situation where we faced complications because of your misdeeds."
Xar threw the mirror and ordered in a cold tone.
Orion didn't dare to dodge and let himself be hit on the face. He kept kowtowing and profusely thanked them for showing mercy. His heart was filled with rage. He wasn't resentful towards them as the status of Five Founding Families has long been exalted in the cognition of the human race but instead he was angry at the mastermind who almost ruined his life by targeting these five nobles.
This time he was lucky enough to meet a merciful one who gave him a chance to repent but if it were some other nobles then his fate would be grim and so would be his family's who was at the empire.
"Anyways, we noticed that regaining our strength by following the rules of this realm would take too long. Now that you have entered the highest position among the Azure Planet's humans, is there any better way to speed up the leveling process?"
Wuryan changed the subject. He really didn't want to keep watching this scene so he indirectly gave a helping hand to this unlucky commoner.
Orion hurriedly nodded as he got up from the mud to reply properly so as not to breach any etiquette: "Yes, Lord Sol. A week ago the World Reclamation Council's joint exploration team found a labyrinth where monster hunting is greatly simplified and rewarded with an additional amount of experience points as long as certain achievements are made. There will be an announcement about the quota for entering this labyrinth three days later. I have investigated and found that it should be able to meet the requirement for shortening the time needed to regain the strength of five esteemed nobles."
"Oh? Explain in detail."
Irilea raised an eyebrow of interest and flatly ordered. Orion had a humble smile on his face as he explained, "The exploration team's S-rank wasn't aware of the entry rule so he ended up damaging such a precious labyrinth. Only hundred adventurers below S-rank can enter the labyrinth and because the core crystal of this labyrinth was damaged due to forced entry at the initial discovery this might be the only chance before this labyrinth is automatically cleared out by the inevitable decay as more time passes."
"It's estimated that the core crystal will self-destruct in three months so during this period the council is determined to squeeze all value out of it. There will be a competition of same rank adventurers within the countries of human race. Fifty spots for A-rank, twenty for B-rank, C-rank and only ten spots for D-rank. Council obviously hopes for more S-rank to appear but there are also descendants and disciples of the S-rank strongmen who wanted the quota so this was how the hundred spots had been distributed."
"Only the strongest adventurers of each country's four ranks are eligible to participate in the global competition that will be held at the headquarters of the council a month later. So the domestic competition of City-states Coalition will be announced three days later and the match will begin in a week earliest. All the domestic competitions are to be held in the capital of each country so as long as the five nobles show up in Ziviria Capital City within a week I will surely handle all the procedures of registration and match schedules in advance."
He bowed to express his willingness to serve them to his utmost capability.
Xar was too lazy to listen to this commoner's flattery so he waved his hand to dismiss the guy out of here. He looked at the other four and asked, "This seems like a good opportunity. Is there anyone who doesn't want to participate?"
Seeing nobody refusing the next plan of action was thus decided.