Unsealing Emptiness

For now, he put the book away since the surroundings had yet to stop changing. Things were continually shifting, and the whole terrain seemed to be going under a makeover.

If everything was returning to whatever it was like before the garden had decided to set up in this place, then it just showed how much things were changed because of it.

Slowly things changed to the point where it was almost unrecognizable! If it weren’t for the ground not changing, they would’ve thought that they were in some illusion before.

However, that also changed in a while after the ground began to shake and devour some of the trees. Ozul noticed that those were only the strange trees with those unusual vines only.

It made him think that the whole ‘garden’ was just a bunch of different trees put together doing their tasks. However, he couldn’t think of how the garden had the consciousness to move.

Ozul would’ve suspected someone to be controlling the garden, but he couldn’t sense anyone around who could do something like this in the surroundings. Then again, he did not need to understand everything, so he waited for everything to settle down by analyzing the book that he had just found.

.....

In a matter of seconds, the whole place was turned upside down. After the walls disappeared, people could see the fog outside disappearing with visible speed.

After the fog had cleared up, the group saw the jungle slowly turning into how it was before the fog had started.

At this point, their surroundings did not look anything like before.

Although there were trees everywhere, it was all normal, unlike how they were before, littered with vines.

After things had settled down, Ozul sensed how Rufus and his men were all anxious before, and only now had they calmed down.

Rufus and his meant couldn’t have entered the room since there was only one way to do so. And that was the tunnel. However, entering through that small tunnel would let even a child notice them.

So Rufus had again decided to trust Ozul on this and didn’t enter the room. However, waiting for days had caused them to get anxious as they searched ways to get in.

Just now, they were still trying to find some way to enter the room without getting noticed when things started to rumble, and the whole terrain changed.

It was only then that they saw the people were all fine. Except, there were almost no weak men in the group now since they had been turned into food by the strange plants.

On the other hand, everyone in the group stood still on the ground. Although it looked like things had gone back to how they were before, they were hesitant to move about since they were in an unknown place.

Everyone’s sight followed Ozul’s figure, who was looking intently at the worn-out book in his hand.

Clive wanted to ask if he would follow them again from now on, but he did not know how to start the conversation since he was afraid that it would disturb Ozul.

Ignoring everyone’s stares, Ozul went to a tree and sat down while resting his back against the trunk. His eyes never left the cover of the book that he had yet to understand.

‘Maybe the text inside would actually have something readable?’ Ozul thought before trying to open the book.

It took a while before he realized that there was a lock on the outside. It was one of those old books that required a key to open.

Ozul found it weird that someone still used these books. They were mostly made for kids these days since such locks were only children’s play for Mages and Fighters to break open.

However, the lock wasn’t as simple as he thought it out to be.

Just then, Raven and Blaze came near him and also sat down cross-legged on the ground.

“Should I set up a camp?” Raven asked since there was a significant space for setting up tents. The ground in the room was all flat, so it was a suitable place.

Unlike others, she didn’t think that Ozul would want to start moving this instant.

As expected, Ozul nodded his head and looked at Clive before saying, “I would be resting first. Do whatever you want to.”

Ozul understood that if he didn’t specify, they would only bother him later. So he took the opportunity to clear things now.

After Clive heard his words, he looked around and noticed that his men and the mercenaries all looked to be exhausted as well.

‘Hm... I also should have a talk with the Leader.’ Clive thought before taking a look around him. It was a perfect place for them to rest. They would probably not find another location such as this during their journey again.

“Set up the camps. And take up the formation that we had discussed before. Meanwhile, I will personally take a look around the surroundings.” Clive shouted the orders before nodding his head at Hanry.

Hanry immediately understood where he was going to go and also nodded his head to assure Clive that he would handle things.

Clive went to meet up with Rufus and discuss the next part of the journey and what they would change if necessary.

Meanwhile, Ozul entered the camp, which Raven had set up for him on the far end of the flat ground.

He put both the black cube containing the Elemental Seeds and the old book on the ground in front of him. Although he had thought the lock on the book to be nothing different from a kid’s toy, he quickly realized that it was much more than that.

No matter how much force he put on the lock, it did not even budge. Even though his physical prowess wasn’t as strong as the Ball of Purity and his sharp mind, he could still rival at least a Rank-8 Fighter using only his body!

And a Rank-8 Fighter was strong enough to pick up boulders using only their fingers!

It looked like using the key was his only option. But he did not have the key either. After contemplating for a while, Ozul suddenly had an idea that he thought would probably not work. However, he still gave it a try since it was all he could think of in this situation.

He produced some Ball of Purity and turned it into liquid form before making it go into the lock. Since it was liquid, the Ball of Purity could go anywhere inside it.

After Ozul felt that the lock was filled with Ball of Purity, he turned it solid, creating a key that fits perfectly in. He did not think that it would work since his Ball of Purity wasn’t the only way to open locks such as this, and the person would surely have some countermeasure against it.

*Click*

However, to his surprise, when he turned the key, the lock actually opened!

“What type of idiot would create locks such as these!?” Ozul said with his eyes almost twitching.

But he was okay with it since at least he was able to open the book without ruining it just because of someone’s stupidity.

When he opened the book, Ozul realized that it was actually a sort of diary that contained information on various strange things.

Fortunately, it was all readable. At once, Ozul understood that the man was probably some sort of mad scientist or person of great interest in finding new things just for the sake of discovering.

The diary contained information mostly on some rare plants that he had never heard of and some beasts that he had never encountered before either.

However, the information on them was detailed to the point of making Ozul realize that the owner of the book had probably seen everything written here personally and only then wrote this.

This realization made him skip all the way to the last pages of the book since that would most likely contain the information on Elemental Lotus.

He guessed that the Elemental Lotus was one of the rare things that the person must’ve been here for. But he did not understand what could cause him to leave his book here when he just read many of his encounters that were much more dangerous than this one.

‘Something must’ve happened.’ Ozul thought before shrugging it off. At this moment, he only needed to know more about Elemental Seeds.

At the end of the book, Ozul was not surprised to find that there was indeed information on the Elemental Lotus there!

After reading for a while, Ozul closed the book. He understood everything that he wanted to do about the Seeds for now.

He let out a satisfied smile before locking the book again.

“Hm... This would make Raven and Blaze easily cross Rank-8.” Ozul muttered while holding the cube, which contained the Elemental Seeds.

The book said that each Elemental Seed could get a single Mage with the respective Element to Rank-8 without complications! It meant that each Seed was equal to a Rank-8 Mage if used correctly!

Such treasure was enough to make Empires such as even the Silverbird Kingdom drool with greed!

However, Ozul was actually more happy to find the book than these Seeds. He had let out a smile not because he had such rare Seeds before him, but because of how much knowledge the book contained on strange things all around the continent.

The book was also thick to the point that he wouldn’t be able to read it all in one go. So he could only put it aside for now and read in his free time.

For now, he had many things to do before him...