Days passed as the weather improved even further.

  The temperature was the highest in the st few decades, and for once, the sky wasn’t overcast.

  However, nobody was celebrating, as they couldn’t rex.

  Everyone worked hard on their mission, whether it was the academics who were studying or the bandits who didn’t want to allow anyone to leave the town. Because of that, a gloomy atmosphere permeated the ancient city.

  The merchants who came with the convoy decided that it was time to start selling some entertainment items, with prices as high as ten times the market value.

  But the soldiers and academics didn’t care, as they bought these things eagerly.

  Only the veterans, who knew how to maintain their mentality, remained calm.

  Normally, nobody would bring useless things on expeditions like this. However, as time passed, people became bored.

  There weren’t many things to do except drinking, but even that had its limits, especially since the merchants sold it for a higher price as well.

  Because of that, many chose to buy trinkets like cards to py with their comrades.

  Others, on the other hand, chose to vent their frustrations by paying for a prostitute.

  Some of the merchants, who were also pimps, were prepared as seductive women with makeup appeared.

  They had been on the expedition the whole time, but since they hid most of their beauty by removing makeup and provocative clothes, nobody gave them a second look. But now, all of the frustrated men were salivating with lust.

  This was especially true after each csh with the bandits. The main army of the expedition returned every week to resupply and promised to help with the bandits, but nothing changed.

  In the end, there were too many bandits hidden in the mountains and too many colborators aiding these so-called bandits.

  In this manner, an entire month passed.

  This meant that the expedition had already taken a quarter of the year, at the very least, and should end very soon.

  Several days ago, part of the army finally returned and even brought a troll in a cage with its limbs thoroughly pierced by steel stakes and bound to heavy lumps of iron. Even if the cage were opened, it wouldn’t be able to run away.

  With this, there was no need to stay in the mountains, but the vice-mayor announced they had found a very rge nest of gremlins that needed to be annihited as soon as possible.

  They would leave the city soon, leaving the chaos they had created behind.

  Of course, it didn’t matter to them, as it was time to sacrifice most of the people inside.

  Only a few people were calm, and those were the ones who knew about the pn.

  Illyan was among them. He stared at these people and wondered how they pnned to survive the array’s effect.

  Since he had already finished all his work with the door diagram and was just pretending to dey their pns, he trained furiously st month.

  He and Aurelia made a pn, but Illyan refused to just barge in recklessly without preparation.

  “Without a blood ignition, I will not go, even if I need to give up on the pn.” Blood ignition was extremely important to him, as spilling blood was too common in his fights, given the nature of his regeneration.

  However, spilling blood in front of magicians was a death wish.

  Aurelia agreed without hesitation and decided to focus on this spell.

  Illyan trained this spell the entire month. It was difficult, and the expenditure of his blood energy was unbearable, but thanks to his quick recovery, he could train harder than anyone.

  In his spare time, he also trained in his flow, as he wanted to reach the battle potential it had.

  The first thing noticeable was the fact that flow could be controlled with just thoughts and will. It was as easy as moving his limbs.

  It was understandable, considering it was energy meant for knights who usually didn’t have any supernatural talents. Anyone who had some wouldn’t be foolish enough to waste their time on a lesser path with a dead end.

  Only a few talented people that didn’t lose time learning it, or those who had reached a bottleneck in magic and wanted to find some way to either strengthen themselves further or gain some inspiration.

  However, despite all of this, Illyan was very satisfied with it. As someone who used only bits of spiritual energy until now with all his willpower, this flow was amazing in his eyes.

  This thought passed through Illyan’s mind as he infused a dagger he held in his hand with flow. He used the knife to pierce a piece of meat and then put it into his mouth.

  He was sitting in the camp, thinking about their pn, as it was time to implement it soon.

  “Hey, Kaoran! Are you done with the door yet?” Vanda, who had temporarily returned to the city to check up on everyone, came close to him and showed an anxious expression.

  Illyan found it amusing that he could make such a woman anxious despite her teasing him all the time.

  After that day, Illyan learned from Aurelia what a monster this woman was.

  She was a descendant of a witch. Or at least, such rumors spread through the mouths of numerous acolytes. Whether it was true or not was up for debate.

  Illyan knew only about witches from the stories he heard when he was small, but in most of them, they were evil, ugly hags who practiced witchcraft.

  Fortunately, Aurelia said she didn’t know what real witchcraft looked like, but Vanda definitely didn’t wield it.

  She was only slightly more talented than regur people when it came to mana.

  Her control over mana was especially good.

  She gave up on training her mind power because of that, since she wanted to become a true Magister, and focusing only on one path was the right way.

  Unfortunately, her mana absorption wasn’t as fast as one would expect.

  In the end, she was truly close to becoming one, but something had happened, and she ended up in the main city of Vanaras as guardian of the portal until recently.

  This was what Aurelia managed to learn about her. It was difficult to learn more, as Vanda gained her ‘fame’ in the Arkravav Empire.

  But Illyan was still impressed.

  It also made him much more wary around Vanda. However, cutting contact after doing the deed with her would seem suspicious and inefficient.

  He decided to spend more time with her to learn more information about the moves their people would make.

  Surprisingly, she didn’t make another move on him. Instead, she even gave him some body-nourishing herbs, as if fattening her livestock before sughtering it.

  Illyan soon realized that she believed his life force was spent, and without him opening the door, it was unwise to drain him completely.

  Illyan smirked in his mind.

  “I am ready,” Illyan said calmly to Vanda, who was fidgeting.

  Hearing this, she brightened.

  “Really? Can you open the door now?”

  “No. What I want to say is that I need a st trip outside to see the stars. This time, however, I need to leave the city. There is no good pce for the st step. I need to go to Galdur Mountain,” Illyan said without batting an eye.

  In the st month, he went out several times for stargazing. Not for fun, but to figure out the mechanic diagram.

  With the bandits, it was a pain in the ass as he had to ask for protection from the soldiers, even though the bandits would never attack him. He was one of the keys to opening the door, as Korin was activating the steles.

  The steles had to be maintained at the same time when the door was opened.

  Thanks to that, the bandits wouldn’t attack him.

  But still, the soldiers wouldn’t leave the city with him and just helped him climb onto some building while Neddard lent him a telescope, as if they were prepared for this.

  Vanda frowned, hearing this, as she hesitated.

  “But…”

  “No buts. I am not able to see the sky from the right angle in this pce. I actually think it was made on purpose that way. Without it, the final piece of the puzzle won’t fit,” Illyan said confidently as he smiled ‘gently’ at Vanda.

  “You don’t need to worry. The bandits won’t be able to attack me since our people will fend them off.”

  Of course, Vanda wasn’t worried about that. The bandits worked for one of her colborators, so there was no need to fear their attack.

  However, the variables this brought upon their pn were considerable.

  Unfortunately, since the completion of the puzzle depended on it, she couldn’t say anything.

  “Sigh… Alright then. There is nothing else I can do except wish you success. Unfortunately, I can’t help you as there are some things I need to do.” Vanda sighed ‘forlornly’ before saying goodbye to him, leaving him in the middle of the camp.

  While she didn’t say what she had to do, Illyan could easily guess. As she was part of their group, she would probably go to help activate the four steles.

  ‘Heh, her acting is truly fwless,’ Illyan thought amusedly as he watched the receding figure of the woman…

  ……..

  That day, Illyan packed some supplies and necessities.

  And especially, his weapons.

  While they had a basic pn to follow, he didn’t know how long they would be gone or with whom they would fight.

  It was also because of that that he decided to wait until he learned blood ignition.

  Fortunately, he learned it within the time limit since Korin and others had started to make a move recently.

  The blood ignition, albeit difficult to learn, wasn’t impossible to master in a few months if you were willing to spill your blood infused with blood energy as often as possible.

  Thanks to that, Illyan could finally cast his first spell. It was a utility spell in most people’s eyes, but Illyan felt that he could use it in some clever ways if he tried.

  Before leaving, he also left some warnings to his acquaintances.

  “You guys should converge closer to the citadel. It should be safer there.” Terren and Garren were confused, but Carer and Nord felt that something was wrong and chose to listen without asking.

  After finally borrowing some soldiers to act as his guards, he left the vicinity of the city.

  There were ten guards surrounding him in total, but most of them were from the Heart Bearer Gang and the Venomous Viper Gang, since the mayor’s side didn’t know about the inheritance.

  While they were mostly polite when dealing with Illyan, he could still sense that they looked down on him with a certain derision. Illyan wasn’t surprised, as he knew that hot-blooded warriors didn’t look favorably upon weak schors. Not that he cared, as he thought it was an ignorant view of imbeciles.

  He mostly ignored them as he used a compass to navigate his way up the mountain while they silently followed him.

  The snow was still harsh in the mountains, and Illyan had to slowly tread through its depth.

  Of course, it wasn’t a problem for him to move during this kind of weather, as he had lived through much harsher hail and snowstorms in the north.

  “Dr. Kaoran! Let’s hurry up before the bandits catch up to us!” As he was reminiscing about his old days, one of the guards annoyedly interrupted his thought process.

  Illyan turned his eyes on him with an empty gaze before shifting them away as he quickened his pace.

  The guard clicked his tongue in annoyance but didn’t say anything.

  He couldn’t offend Illyan without facing consequences.

  On the other hand, Illyan didn’t bother with such simpletons either, as they wouldn’t live past the next day anyway…

  ……..

  The next day, Illyan and the guards reached the mountain he was aiming for. The mountain itself wasn’t that high, so it wasn’t difficult to climb. The traces of paths that animals had made over time also helped a lot.

  The mountain was insignificant when considering the entire mountain range, but Illyan still chose this particur mountain for a reason.

  Firstly, because it had the best view for stargazing, and secondly, because of the valley next to it.

  As for the reason the valley was important to Illyan…

  According to reconnaissance, this pce had a higher popution density of trolls.

  Illyan smirked to himself as he id out the telescope at the peak of the mountain.

  ‘Your sneaking skills are quite good, but they fall short when the target expects you,’ Illyan thought as he continued tweaking the telescope before looking at some parchments.

  Several hundred meters away from his group of ten guards and himself, another group of secret observers watched his every move. They weren’t enemies. They were just another group of guards who watched from afar for any unforeseeable events, since Illyan’s research was important to them. Korin could do it too, but he was away with the main force, and it would take him too long to start from scratch.

  In the end, Illyan was quite important to the pn now.

  He didn’t look in the direction where the other guards were hidden. He wasn’t inexperienced enough to do that.

  He just worked on his task. Despite all of his pns, he still wanted to finish it tonight when the skies cleared up, as he still needed to open the door.

  Everything else could wait for now…