In the next few days, Illyan and Aurelia traveled together.

  However, they didn’t talk to each other as much as before. It was because Illyan was absent-minded most of the time as he started to remember things from his childhood.

  Once, he even let out a dry ugh out of sheer disbelief.

  Who would have thought that his problem with the endless growth of hair and nails was his own doing?

  Now that he knew about it, he obviously tried to stop it, but instincts like this were already deeply engraved in his bones, so he couldn’t.

  Probably only after a long time would he be able to control it at will.

  But that had to be put aside.

  “Kaoran, we will arrive at the first node in half an hour or so. Let’s stop and prepare our things and pn out the attack,” Aurelia called out as she stopped running.

  Illyan followed suit as they set up a small camp.

  They hunted down some game and made a small fire to cook a meal for themselves to be in peak state before jumping into the tiger's den.

  “To gain access to the citadel, we need to gain authority from each stele. These steles are supposedly made from Star Stones. Simir to mana stones, they were stones bathed in the light of the consteltions visible from this part of the world.”

  Aurelia, who had taken her portion of the meal and elegantly taken a bite out of the tender meat, began discussing their pn.

  “Yeah. I will entrust this to you,” Illyan, who sat across from her, nodded thoughtfully as he also ate his meal. The process of gaining authority was unknown to him, and it seemed deeply rooted in magical knowledge, so he wouldn’t be able to help even if he wanted to.

  “Yes. As I said to you before, we need a lot of energy to use as an offering to gain that access and use our blood as a catalyst for that.”

  “Is there a chance for the blood to be misused in some way?” Illyan asked seriously. In the st month or so, he had spent most of his time learning [Blood Ignition] because of Aurelia’s warning.

  He finally learned it thanks to his abundance of Blood Energy, diligence, and quick recovery, but he still couldn’t use it in an efficient way.

  It would take time to activate, and it would take time for it to take effect.

  However, Illyan still felt it was worth it. His safety came first. If he got stronger without considering his safety, he could end up miserable in the future.

  Unfortunately, the first thing he was supposed to do after he learned it was to give away a sample of his blood.

  How ironic.

  It was no wonder he was feeling uneasy about it.

  “Don’t worry. These steles belonged to the empire, and after its demise, there is no true owner. In fact, that is the only reason why we outsiders can get the authority. After all, these steles were important for the safety of the city. Thanks to that, everyone can get access as long as they know the way and have enough energy to activate the stele.”

  “Right. I have some Dark Stones. I don’t need them anyway,” Illyan said as he took out all the Dark Stones he had.

  But Aurelia shook her head.

  “Not nearly enough. You would need at least a few thousand of these just for you to gain access without doing anything else with it. And that’s only because it has weakened after millennia of abandonment.”

  Aurelia shook her head amusedly at Illyan’s naivety—or rather, ignorance.

  Illyan wasn’t disappointed, however. If it were so easy, then more people would search for these ruins.

  “I see. So we will steal from the gangs and acolytes, I suppose. They should have a source for themselves, after all.”

  “Right. However, it would be best for us to do it in a stealthy way. Having them after our heels would be inconvenient, especially since even if we can open the citadel, it would take a long time before we even get the opportunity to steal the inheritance.” Aurelia nodded at his words but warned him not to be careless.

  The inheritance wasn’t so easy to gain. This city was just part of the puzzle.

  “Haha…” Illyan suddenly snickered as he looked at her serious gaze.

  “What are you ughing at?” Aurelia asked in annoyance. However, she also couldn’t hide her curiosity since he didn’t smile or ugh often.

  “It’s just that I was right about you. You pnned to take the inheritance away even if I wasn’t here, right?” Illyan smirked.

  Aurelia clicked her tongue but didn’t deny or confirm his words. Illyan shook his head with a slight smile.

  “You say that we need to be stealthy, but how do you pn to do that? Do you think they won’t notice?” In the end, Illyan’s tone grew serious once again.

  “The amount of energy needed for the activation fluctuates based on the consteltions' positions. The more these consteltions are visible, the less energy should be needed. But they needed to move sooner than expected. Because of that, the energy will be higher than they had pnned when it would be at its lowest. They just don’t know how high. So they will probably take a lot more resources than needed to be sure. The access is something only a few will need, like Korin, Ezekiel, Varel, and my father. That means they should have at least twice as much. If we take these and activate the steles without them seeing us, they will be none the wiser since we will have the same authority, and they shouldn’t know about us.”

  Aurelia concluded.

  “What about Aziro?” Illyan asked curiously.

  “Aziro will die within a few days,” Aurelia said with a cold countenance, exuding confidence in her words.

  “What?” Illyan was truly surprised by this.

  “They definitely didn’t want it to end like this, but it seems they need to speed up their pn. Did you know I mentioned Vanda, right? She met with my father too. Half a year ago, she came to Winterfrost Town to tell the news.”

  After saying that, Aurelia toned down her voice a bit.

  “The Darkstone War is rumored to end in the next few decades. That sounds like a lot of time, but not for magic users. And especially for those who have spent several decades on this inheritance. They are in a hurry because of this. And Aziro, who was their veil before, has now become a hindrance. Vanda is also the protector in the capital responsible for reying information to higher-ups, so even if he dies, they could hide it for some time. Not to mention that he and his subordinate acolytes would be a perfect source of energy for these steles.”

  Illyan’s heart turned cold.

  ‘Ezekiel, that bastard.’ Illyan finally realized what Ezekiel wanted him for.

  His life force should also be a good source of energy.

  “Wait, were the bodies you took back then for the same reason?”

  Illyan asked with sudden realization.

  Back when he met Aurelia for the first time, they made a deal where she would take the bodies of their enemies while he would take everything else.

  He didn’t know why she needed them nor did he ask, but now he felt he had found the answer.

  “That’s right,” Aurelia nodded as she took out a few vials.

  “As the granddaughter of my grandfather, I learned ways to purify any material. With that in mind, I started collecting the bodies after learning about this and purified them into the purest energy source I could make. But it would be barely enough for gaining access to only two of the steles at most.”

  Illyan’s eyes lit up at the sight of these vials. He felt a sudden urge to gulp down the contents. It would definitely nourish his body to a great extent.

  Of course, that would probably count as cannibalism, but Illyan’s mental inhibitors had been gone for a long time. Something like this wouldn’t hinder his craving for power.

  With the confirmation of their objective, they could now set off.

  They extinguished the fire and hid the traces of the camp before disappearing into the harsh weather.

  “The stele is in a small stronghold’s keep. It was made that way to prevent any intruders like us. Fortunately for us, the walls colpsed and any protective magic that permeated the stronghold has been gone for a long time. They should have set up their own camp there. We’ll need to find the opportunity to steal their energy source and sneak inside to activate the stele. It would be best if we weren’t exposed.”

  Aurelia spoke in a tense voice. It was no wonder, as they were already close to their destination and would need to dive into danger. They didn’t know who was at which stele at the moment, so they could encounter anyone there.

  “Don’t worry, I have some poisons that could help incapacitate a rge number of people,” Illyan said confidently.

  Aurelia frowned at that.

  “Don’t be too confident. Acolytes with good mana circution can dispel harmful substances from their system. Moreover, normal poisons won’t affect people with vigorous blood energy.”

  The warning came from her heart.

  Actually, not many people in the Vanaras Kingdom used Blood Energy. Mana was the mainstream magical energy, while Blood Energy was more of a specialized energy needed for Body Temperers and Sorcerers.

  But these were rare even among magic users.

  Especially in pces like the Vanaras Kingdom, which cked talents.

  However, in the Heart Bearer Gang, there were some who learned Blood Energy. Their gang, or rather cn, had existed for a very long time and had quite a good heritage of knowledge.

  They managed to obtain a few techniques for Blood Energy Accumution to supplement their blood rituals, allowing them to create stronger spells.

  One such spell was the blood barrier Aurelia had created with her own blood.

  In the end, while Aurelia was unique in creating her own scripture, it didn’t mean she was the only one to learn such a technique.

  “Don’t worry. While most of the poisons I can create won’t be useful, I got the sleeping powder from an acolyte that was supposed to be strong enough to put even a troll to sleep!” Illyan said as he expined the situation.

  “You stole their Dream Spring Powder? That’s great!” Aurelia widened her eyes when she heard his story and became excited. If they had the opportunity to use such strong sleeping powder, their task would be much easier to accomplish!

  With an uplifted mood, they moved faster, prepared for the conflict in the near future...

  ……..

  “What do you mean ‘we should continue looking for the troll’? We lost contact with the second group before, and now even the group within the city isn’t answering because of these deplorable bandits! Are you pnning something?”

  A man with a cold countenance veiled under a gray robe stared at the people across from him.

  Close to him stood several acolytes with arrogant faces. However, when they looked at this man, there was respect in their eyes.

  The man wasn’t Aziro but one of his trusted subordinates.

  If Illyan were here, he would immediately recognize him as the man who had climbed the cliff to kill the goblins when they were still on their way to the city of Faruin.

  He was talking to a group of people with crude appearances.

  Most of them had either scars or tattoos covering their faces, and their speech was filthy, as whatever they said was either lewd or vicious.

  At this point, they were in one of the st buildings still standing within the stronghold where the stele was located.

  However, the location of the stele was secured by the members of the Venomous Viper Gang, who were part of this particur team.

  The entire expedition party that left the city of Faruin had separated into three different groups to cover more ground during their search for trolls. There were supposed to be at least four groups because of the steles, but Aziro, who didn’t know about them, opposed this heavily.

  Especially since he would need to thin out his forces even more with people he didn't trust.

  To avoid making him suspicious, they agreed in the end, while acting reluctant. But they still managed to divide themselves into three groups.

  One of these teams consisted of part of the Heart Bearer Gang’s men, the mayor’s soldiers, and Aziro with his undead creatures.

  The second one was made up of the rest of the Heart Bearer Gang, Venomous Viper Gang’s men, and Korin. Brynjar was the leader of this group.

  The st one, which was this one, consisted of Aziro’s subordinates and the rest of the Venomous Viper Gang. Varel and the acolyte who was currently speaking held the highest authority here.

  However, they lost contact not long ago with Aziro and Faruin city, which made the man uneasy.

  Little did he know that Aziro was now trapped in one of the abandoned mines where one of the steles was, as the subordinates of Heart Bearer Gang members ambushed Aziro and the mayor’s men inside while Brynjar took the second group and Ezekiel’s reinforcement to attack from outside!

  It was almost impossible to survive such an onsught.

  However, such a miracle could definitely happen if it was someone as capable as Aziro.

  Because of a small mishap, Aziro once again managed to turn the tide, killing many of his enemies before using the mayor’s men as decoys and running deep into the mine. That was also the reason Vanda had to go help track him down.

  But it was useless, as there were no traces of Aziro...

  Vanda and the others knew this would take a long time, so they pnned to cut off Faruin city’s communication with the second team and eliminate them since they would have no help…

  Unfortunately for them, this also caused a huge dey in reying the information about the ‘acolytes’ who used a troll to murder the physician Kaoran and their possible danger to the mission…

  On the other hand, Varel cursed in his heart hearing about Ezekiel and Brynjar’s incompetence when it came to ridding off that snobby guy. Despite that, he didn’t show any of that on his face as he smirked at the acolytes while leaning on the chair as his men spoke for him.

  “Heheheh, Svanor, you think too deeply about it. There’s no way that both the Heart Bearer Gang’s leader and Sir Aziro would be in danger, right? Even if they encountered a group of trolls, they should be able to escape easily. Trolls are stupid, after all. Maybe they entered one of the ruins just like this one, where it would be impossible to communicate with the outside world.”

  One of the gang members said with a sly smile, trying to calm Svanor down.

  However, Svanor only frowned as he felt even more uneasy...