“Do you know where this place is?” Sorcerer Christian asked the group.
The others had never been to the Night Forest campus, let alone knew what originally lay within this tomb.
“Sorcerer Christian, have you ever been to Night Forest?” Abel inquired.
“Indeed, this is a forbidden area of the Night Forest. If my memory serves me right, what was excavated here was a four-meter-tall stele known to the sorcerers of the Night Forest as the ‘Twilight Stele.’
“A stele? Does it have any special purpose?”
“It connects to the resource secret realm of the Night Forest.” Discover hidden stories at empire
Sorcerer Christian carefully sensed his surroundings while turning to Ivan and asking, “Is there a way to find the location of the secret realm? Otherwise, we can only wait, wait for it to reveal a flaw.”
The bandits who breached the academy would surely go further to break into the Night Forest’s secret realm and plunder its resources. With the defensive protections of the secret realm damaged, there must certainly be flaws, which would reveal themselves in due time.
“That will not be easy,” Bernardson said, shaking his head slightly.
“Let me try,” Ivan said, stepping forward.
This wasn’t meant to be a challenge, but it was his responsibility to represent the Enchantment Group.
He extended his palm forward, and from the center, thick transparent strands burrowed out, probing slowly in all directions like antennae, while the other ends disappeared into the air.
All the strands swayed as if searching for something.
This scene caught the eyes of the others. When Sorcerer Christian saw the faint patterns emerging on the strands, a gleam of understanding flashed in his eyes.
As chief steward of the Hunting Team, his strength and insight surpassed that of the average sorcerer, and he naturally recognized that part of the pattern represented space energy.
An enchanter able to adeptly utilize space energy—he knew what this implied. It seemed that the greatest discovery this time was the man before him, someone they needed to recruit.
Not far away, Wayne also watched with a look of fascination.
The rest, having a less profound understanding of Enchantment Skiil, assumed Ivan was using some special spell for scouting.
Little did they know, this was one of the techniques Ivan deduced after an in-depth understanding of the “Multi-changing Star Runes Array” – something not just any Senior Enchanter could achieve.
“Ding!”
After a moment, one of the strands touched something, and the rest quickly followed, transforming into a chain of energy. One end was tethered to something,
the other in his hand.
Ivan gave a strong pull, and in the space above, ripples formed around the chain. Through the wave-like ripples, one could see a faint image of scenery behind them.
It was not difficult to discern that it was indeed the secret realm they were searching for.
Upon seeing this, the others prepared to make a move, ready to use brute force and spells to blast open the secret realm, a common tactic to breach such places.
“Wait,”
Ivan interjected, “This secret realm has damaged areas and has been breached several times. To avoid causing greater chaos, I’ll attempt to open it in a more gentle manner.”
Despites its purpose of nurturing resources, once a secret realm falls into imbalance and chaos, the lethal force it unleashes can also be terrifying. He did not wish to find himself trapped in such a situation upon entering.
In matters like these, it’s better to be safe than sorry.
The others also understood this and ceased their actions.
After taking on the task, Ivan did not act rashly. He had to locate the weakness in the secret realm’s defenses, using it as a pivot point to pry open a gateway.
Minutes later, the chain rang softly again, latching onto a protective flaw.
A rift slowly opened in the air, revealing a dimly lit secret realm before their eyes.
“Impressive technique.” The bloodless finesse of the method indeed drew admiration.
“Come, let’s have a look inside,” Christian said, still the first to step in.
The others trailed behind, filing into the secret realm one by one, and Ivan was no exception; he brought up the rear and casually sealed the entrance to the secret realm again.
It truly deserved to be called the core secret realm of the Night Forest, resembling a small world; the area was at least four to five hundred acres in size, creating a plain that looked exceptionally vast to the eye.
Scattered ruins of broken towers could also be seen.
After learning Advanced Enchantment Knowledge, Ivan knew clearly the function of these towers; there were Energy Gathering Towers, surveillance towers, and defense tower stations—all arrangements that a complete secret realm should have.
Theoretically, there should also be puppet protectors, triggered mechanisms, and traps at the entrance, but now they had been completely cleared away.
The sky of the secret realm was half blood-red and half pitch-black, with the red and black colliding from time to time, their colors intermingling, casting an ominous and oppressive feeling over those who beheld it.
“Look quickly, something was dug out inside the secret realm too; could it also be the Twilight Stele?”
In the secret realm, they found an even larger and deeper hole, with petrified soil surrounding it, which inevitably reminded them of the stele outside.
“Don’t ask me; how could a foreign sorcerer like me possibly enter another academy’s secret realm?” Christian said, seeing some people looking at him, indicating his ignorance.
“Does the Twilight Stele have any other uses?”
“Then you’ll have to ask the people from the Night Forest.”
If Christian didn’t know, then the others were even more clueless.
The group began to search separately.
Ivan constantly surveyed his surroundings, aware that to constitute a secret realm like this, a rare material was required—the space stone. Only with the space stone could such vast space and hundreds of acres of land exist.
With the presence of the space stone, the secret realm could be hidden within the academy.
“Forget it, it’s none of my current business; even the people from the Star Moon Alliance didn’t dare to pry it free.”
The space stone was hidden the most secretly and couldn’t be found in a short amount of time, so he immediately extinguished that thought.
Even if the space stone were found, he actually wouldn’t dare to act on it; without the space stone, the secret realm would inevitably fall into unprecedented chaos and involve space fluctuations; one careless move and a person could be gone.
If he found the space stone, he could at most satisfy his eyes.
“A souvenir.”
Ivan fumbled in his pocket for a moment, took out a pebble, and flicked it with his hand; the black stone buried itself deep in the soil. This way, if he wanted to come and look again, he wouldn’t have to worry about not finding the place.
This visit to the secret realm turned out to be in vain; resources had already been plundered clean, except for actually dismantling and removing the secret realm itself.
The secret realm was actually close to being scrapped; the high concentration of energy had obviously become chaotic, and other foreign energies had contaminated it; without undergoing a major repair, it was impossible to cultivate any qualified resources.
“Sorcerer Ivan, could you please make a move again?”
After a while, the seven of them gathered again.
It was easier to find flaws from inside the secret realm, and Ivan once again opened an exit.
After they came out, they realized that their current location was not the original tomb but another office, likely belonging to some vice dean.
It was normal for a secret realm to have multiple exits and entrances.
“Do we need to investigate other places?” Abel asked.
“We can’t just go back in less than half a day; let’s split into three groups and take a thorough look around. If there’s an emergency, remember to inform the others,” Christian instructed.
No one objected to his arrangement.
“Sorcerer Ivan, why don’t you join my group?” Christian added.
“No problem,” Ivan replied indifferently.
With each steward leading a group, Wolban scanned his chief steward with a speechless look and could only follow Bernardson.