Chapter 236: The Urgency

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12 Mid-day.

5,976,600 Essence harvested.

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'Huh?'

Through the barren lands, Lee was walking spaced out when this notification popped up. A black umbrella in his right hand safeguarded Lee from the scorching twin stars up above. Seeing the panel, Lee halted his steps.

Glancing at the screen, the change was visibly evident to his gazes. The steep increase in the harvest made Lee ecstatic.

'That is 5,505,000 Essence from the coffin alone. I expected a raise, but this is above my anticipations!'

[That is not it. The Tubian of Dark Sentience became silent the moment the coffin appeared inside the EsGen.]

'Oh....did something like that happen? Elaborate it D.'

[It is unknown as to what triggered the Tubian to go silent, but according to my assumption, the endless energy spat out of the coffin had scared it deep.]

Lee continued to walk towards the city with his right hand behind his back. His fingers fidgeted rapidly and reflected his train of thoughts.

'Any preliminary diagnosis results of the coffin?'

An unexplainable silence was the answer. Both D and Hudson conveyed their helplessness through this nonverbal act. But for the sake of answering, Hudson spoke-

[There are a few aspects of the coffin that seems otherworldly, and I suggest you see it for yourself rather than hearing it as a narration.]

Somehow, Hudson sounded remarkably serious and in distress. The absence of D's voice assured Lee that his words were not hollow.

'Let's get back to the city first.'

----

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1 PM.

5,976,600 Essence harvested.

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Just like how he exited, Lee Shen used the same method to enter back inside. Due to the higher power consumption of the Light Affinity, he was quick and silent in crossing over the walls. What's more, the guards did not sense his presence more than 4 kilometres above their head.

Descending in the nearest alleyway, Lee deactivated the affinity and Flight and walked out of there. Before entering the streets, Lee cautiously dusted himself off to not look dirty and unpleasant.

The streets of the city were noisier than usual. Loud chattering and murmuring filled the air and the atmosphere was strange to Lee Shen. The density of people on the streets was higher than the normal and most of them had a distressed expression.

Lee could see chefs, blacksmiths, alchemists and almost all range of common folks in the streets. From their attire, they were in the middle of their daily schedule when something made them to abruptly halt their activities and come to the daylight.

Through the Map, Lee saw that the shops and buildings were strangely evacuated. The group of people densely gathered at the open areas of intersections piqued his curiosity. Countless sect disciples were almost running linearly. Those numerous cultivators with their swords, sabres and spears ran in the opposite direction of Lee's movement.

Finding the situation clueless, he asked a shop vendor about what had occurred. The old man sized Lee Shen from top to bottom and laughed at him.

"Hahaha..... were you asleep till noon, kiddo? Or did you not sense the tremors that shook the city an hour ago?"

Lee Shen furrowed his brows at the reply of the old man. The shop keeper laughed at his clueless expression and went back to his business.

'Open Map.'

While slowly stepping towards the Alaqvier academy, Lee summoned the Map hologram. Walking steadily in the narrow shadows of the buildings enabled him not to bump against the frantically moving cultivators.

[Although the underground chambers did tremble and cave in, they could not have transmitted the waves over such large distances.

And the cultivators are moving towards the grasslands west to the city.]

[Something had happened while we were out of the city.]

'And the cultivators in the city are enough to take care of that.'

The duo expected Lee to set on an investigation journey, but their expectations remained imaginary. Lee closed the Map and silently paced towards the Academy.

D and Hudson did not question his actions and remained soundless. But their curiosity did not go dormant as they opened Map inside the System Space and probed into the commotion.

Maybe it was because of the existence of the System Space that Lee could be at a much-relaxed state. Otherwise, every action and thought of D in there would be directly reflected in his being.

---

The murmuring from the surroundings was uniformly chaotic and loud. D, who was a cultivator, could sense some sort of gut feeling in his soul that urged him to go take a look at the west side of the city. After all, that was the only side of the city where Lee and his 'inmates' had not visited.

Before they knew, Lee had reached in front of the academy.

Contrary to the usual appearance, the Alaqvier academy's gates were open and Lee couldn't help but tilt his head with a frown. He had gone in and out of the academy, but not through the main gate, but the pedestrian gate right next to it.

Lee walked through the gate and advanced to the academic building. He was curious about the open gate and did glance at it over his shoulder many times in confusion as he walked towards the building. The frown barely faded with each inspection.

'Hey guys, any idea?'

[Looks like an official event is about to unveil.]

[My point exactly.]

Lee did not ask further and stepped into the building. He was thinking of going straight to his residence for a nap but his schedule was disordered by a familiar fellow's appearance.

"Professor Lee, your timing is perfect! Come with me."

Before he could scan around and find Drake, the professor had quickly gone past him. To Lee's surprise, Drake had commendable strength when his right palm firmly planted its grip of Lee's left wrist.

Dragging him, Professor Drake hurriedly walked to the principal's office. Lee, who was dumbstruck for a few seconds, pieced together the analysis of information from his senses and surroundings. The almost-running pace of Drake reflected urgency in every step.