Chapter 87 - Twelfth Prince
"Damn bunnies"
Grey cursed while sitting in a crossed leg position inside a hole in a huge tree.
The bunnies surprisingly chased him for over one hour. He could swear the leader of the bunnies gave him a smug look, like, 'I thought you wanted to make bunny soup?'.
Looking at his bag, he felt a little excited about his harvest. Although he didn't take a lot which would have guaranteed him a quick advancement to the Ninth stage, they were still better than nothing. Since he was not an Alchemist, there was no way he could fully bring out most of the essence from the plants. The best he could do was just cooking them since unlike fruits, plants shouldn't be eaten directly because there are toxins present in them. There are procedures in extracting their essence, but he did not know of them.This chapter was first shared on the Ñøv€lß1n platform.
However, cooking them will only bring out at most ten percent of the herbal essence. But he'll have to do with that for now, he didn't plan on using all the plants since he didn't know most of them. What if some of them had poison? Thinking up to this point, he decided to only use the ones he was familiar with.
Since it was dark, he didn't cook the plants, instead, he went into the chaos space and started comprehending the water element.
The days passed by and before Grey knew it, he had been in the trial lands for one month now. This one month could be said to be fruitful since he had been able to advance quickly in his cultivation. Currently, he was just a whisker away from the Ninth stage of the Arcane Plane. The only thing that dampened his mood was that apart from the garden, he hasn't obtained anything good that boosted his strength.
He had searched multiple buildings but couldn't find anything could.
..............
"A castle"
Grey saw a castle in the distance from the hilltop he was currently on, and made his way towards it.
From the palace he entered the last time, he had big expectations for this castle. Although this place wasn't as big as the palace he entered the previous time, it should have good items inside.
It took Grey three minutes to get to the castle. There wasn't anyone outside the castle, which meant two possibilities, either they were inside, or there was no one here.
He cautiously entered the castle, and before he could walk any further, he heard sounds of battles.
'Someone's fighting? No, seems like a group'
Grey's attention was immediately drawn to the box which was placed not too far from the fighting group.
'There's an array protecting it, but it seems to have worn down due to time'
'They are probably fighting over who will acquire it. But from the aura radiating from the array, it has been attacked before. It's almost broken even'.
"F.u.c.k you all, this place was found by us. And we also defeated the beasts here, now you all want to claim the reward"
A youth from the other group yelled towards those from the Qilin empire.
The prince replied in a very cool and calm manner,
"It doesn't matter who finds it first, it's who has the strength to acquire what's inside that matters"
The group from the Qilin empire all laughed. They had been here before the other group defeated the beasts, but they hid so as not to alert them of their presence. When the group successfully killed the beasts, they immediately went over to the box but seeing it was protected by an array, they started attacking it. Luckily, the array didn't seem to have a self-repair function, or maybe it had, but it wasn't working properly. They were about to break the array when the group from the Qilin empire showed up and attacked them.
Grey looked at them for a while, the moment he saw the box, his interest was aroused, and he was already plotting on how to acquire it. He didn't care about any prince, if he's a prince, what does it have to do with him? Given his knowledge of arrays, although this array was more complex compared to the ones he knew, they all had the same outline. If he could figure out the weakest link, he could quickly destroy the array and escape with the box.
But he wasn't in a hurry, even if he finds the link now, he couldn't attack since he had to make sure he moved at the best time. The group from the Qilin empire already had the upper hand, and he estimated they would most likely win the battle since the other group was already exhausted from the previous battle with the beasts.
"You should just give up. Some of you are already injured, and there's no way you can contend with us"
The prince tried convincing the group.
It would be better if they didn't have to waste their energy fighting a prolonged battle.
The other group all looked dismayed, they had worked so hard just to get here. Even defeating the beasts wasn't easy, but now, someone wants to take the fruit of their labor. They didn't want to accept it, they couldn't. They would rather fight it out with them, what if what was inside the box was a life-changing item.
The battle soon entered the crucial stage with both groups attacking more fiercely.
Grey knew his time had come since there was no way he would wait for them to finish battling before he makes a move. Now that they were more focused on their opponents, they would not be able to notice him as he sneaks towards the box. He had already picked out the weak link in the array.
'Now'