The distance between the settlement that had been rebuilt and the main base was about five hundred miles. With such a distance, these survivors would need three to four days to travel on foot to arrive, while for the acolytes it was about six hours by flying on the orbiter.
However, it wasn't a difficult distance for Emery to travel to. He could easily reach it with five successive casts of [Spatial Gate]. Unfortunately, this time it wasn't just any jump and was definitely far from how he used to do it.
He created a modified Spatial Gate about 30 meters wide, so the survivors would have more space to enter the gate and further shorten the time to transport them. But even with this arrangement, it would still take around 2 hours for 300,000 people to pass through one Spatial Gate.
In order to keep the Spatial Gate active, Emery expended all the spirit energy he could muster to the point he was forced to dispel all 50 Mineralized Warriors he summoned to offset the expenditure. Even with that, he was barely hanging on. It was only natural that his Spirit Pool was completely empty by the end.
He would then need to rest for half an hour to fully refill his Spirit Pool with [Nature Grasp], before he could cast another [Spatial Gate]. So, in the end, they still need 12 hours to reach the main base.
It was such a tiring endeavor that, by the time he finished, Emery felt as if all the strength in his body was gone. In the end, he was forced to stay at the main base for a period of time to rest his exhausted mind and body.
"Mister, I brought you water."
Emery opened his closed eyes when he heard someone calling him. There, he saw Jim and his friends approaching him with a tray filled with food and drinks. Even though he didn't really feel hungry or thirsty, he still accepted the tray and thanked them. He was grateful for their considerate act.
After they left him and went to their own business, Emery had a pensive expression on his face. Finally realizing how difficult the task was, he thought deeply and decided not to wait until the 8th and 9th days to start transporting the survivors.
To that end, he made a slight adjustment to the overall plan and allocated more acolytes to guard the northern settlement, while he started moving towards the other settlements.
Emery made his way towards the west of the continent, which Anas was in charge of. He went there to transport the gathered survivors as well as to get more manpower. Fortunately, when Anas heard his request, the man didn't make things difficult and gave a few acolytes to help him and the three Zaiou acolytes were among them.
"We are glad to help."
"Help you we are glad."
"Glad we are to help."
Emery smiled at the three and asked for their cooperation. He then left to check on the survivors who had gathered at the West forwarding base.
By this time, a total of 400,000 survivors had gathered at the West base and Emery decided to transport 300,000 people first. This was because the time and effort that would be spent transporting this batch was distinctly different from the first, as the distance between the two bases was further, needing him to cast seven [Spatial Gate] instead of five.
This time it took him a total of 18 hours to finish transporting the 300,000 survivors from the West base. By the time he finished, the mid-test had arrived on the 7th day.
Unfortunately, Emery couldn't rest, or rather, didn't have time to rest, because if his calculations were correct, he would barely have finished transporting all the survivors gathered by the end of the 10th day.
Without further ado, Emery went to the East base where Julian was.
When he arrived at the place, he was delighted but at the same time conflicted to see there were more survivors who had gathered here. At a glance, he counted 500,000 people. If that wasn't stunning enough, from the top of the wall, he could clearly see thousands of survivors flooding the plains trying to enter the base.
While he was still in a daze looking at these many people, Julian came over to him.
"You look like shit," Julian said in a serious tone. "Take a break, will you? You can't save anyone if you hurt yourself."
"I know…" Emery said, clearly exhausted. "Don't worry, I will, but only for a couple of minutes. I don't have much time to transport them all."
Emery quickly took up the lotus position and closed his eyes before continuing to use [Nature Grasp] to refill his Spirit Pool once again.
Seeing this, Julian just sighed. He had been friends with Emery long enough to know he couldn't change his mind in a situation like this, so he just sat next to him in silence.
When his Spirit Pool had finally filled up again, Emery opened his eyes and stood up. He was ready to bring these people to the main base, however, at this time, a group of people could be seen running towards the East base, attracting both his and Julian's attention.
Squinting his eyes, Emery saw that those people were Roran and Lyndell's squad. All sixty of them had returned, which meant they had probably completed their task of clearing the Abyss nests assigned to them in the past 7 days.
Seeing that Roran was present, Emery decided to spend a little bit more time at the East base. Not only would he be able to rest a little more, he could also ask the questions he wanted to the Harlight Prince.
It turned out that Roran had something to report too.
Roran along with Lyndell, a privileged acolyte who always stuck close to him, approached Julian saying they had lost one of their members in the Abyss nest.
It was a piece of bad news indeed. Still he wasn't too surprised by this, as Emery understood accidents could still happen even to those who were prepared. However, it turned out that that was not what Roran really wanted to report.
"Lyndell here is known for her expertise in healing. At that time, she was ready to treat the half-dead acolyte, but when we lost his heartbeat, the whole body was instantly gone."
"Gone?" Julian asked. "What do you mean gone? Are you sure you didn't see wrong?"
"No, rather than gone, I think it would be more correct to say his body was teleported." Both Emery and Julian were stunned when they heard Roran's words. Still, the Harlight Prince continued his hypothesis.
"I'm 90% sure the culprit is the weird suit they forced us to wear. I should have known Delbrand wouldn't be so crazy as to send us - the future generation - on a real, fatally risky mission without any safety measures."
Upon hearing that, an elated look appeared on Julian's face. "Ah, if that's the case, then it's good news. In fact, it will make things much easier."
The black battle suits they were wearing had a special device for absorbing spirit stones, the ability to self-regenerate, and were set to force teleportation when the wearer's heartbeat stopped.
In conclusion, the Magus Alliance had sent their brilliant rookies to gain a lot of spirit energy, while ensuring there was less risk of death.
Upon realizing this, Emery was a little conflicted. He couldn't help but feel the mid-test felt more like a playing ground for the alliance, while on the other hand hundreds of the Andora natives were dying.
He turned to Roran and asked, "Do you know what is really going on on this planet? Do you know what a Primordial Wisp is?"