Unsealing Emptiness

Kure was more than 900 years old and should know more than he would ever be able to read in the books. Artifacts were useful even considering his strength that was on par with Rank-10 Mages.

However, he could only give up on that idea now.

He could try to learn about the workings of the artifacts more in-depth, but he didn’t have time for that now.

Ozul knew that Kure hadn’t lied about anything during that whole conversation, and that was a little concerning considering the methods used by Old Gu.

Now he felt that his advice on training those two under him was probably because of this. Although they were strong as they were now, Ozul wanted them to be more than ready for any kind of situation.

“Though that was unexpected,” Ozul muttered on his way back as he thought how Kure’s attitude was overly friendly for an ancestor who had lived more than nine hundred years and was among the strongest on the entire continent.

.....

Nonetheless, it could be explained because Kure was reaching almost the end of his lifespan. He had felt how sincere that old man had been in persuading him to join the family. Ozul didn’t have to guess that Kure wanted the family to be safe after he died, hence his positive behavior.

Ozul then shrugged mentally and went inside the headquarters, making his way directly to the seventh floor as he ignored the usual fearful looks he received from those on the lower floors.

He didn’t find Irvin and Haley anywhere and then remembered the task he had given them before leaving.

It was already night, but those two were holed up in Haley’s office since the time he had left!

There were only those two in the room when he entered, and the inside of the office was completely different from when he had left.

The whole place was littered with random books, weird-looking stones or crystals, and all other kinds of strange objects. It wasn’t surprising when he noticed a long list in Haley’s hands and Irvin standing there motionlessly with his eyes closed and a Spatial ring in his hand.

For a moment, the husband and wife didn’t even notice his presence. Only when Haley looked up to call Irvin did she saw Ozul standing there at a distance.

“Young master!” she stood up while exclaiming in surprise. Irvin also pulled his consciousness out of the Spatial Ring, and they simultaneously bowed their heads.

“The list isn’t done yet?” Ozul asked the obvious.

“There were a lot more things than we expected, young master,” Haley apologized, but the smile never left her face. Although it was a headache to sort out everything from the Spatial Rings, all of these herbs and books would be used for the organization, so she was more than happy to spend her whole day on it.

“It’s fine. I will be in my room, give me the list as soon as you finish,” Ozul waved his hand and was about to leave the room but stopped in the middle of the doorway.

He remembered the task he had given Haley before going to the Silverbird Kingdom.

Turning towards her, he asked, “How is that elite group coming along?”

Haley didn’t understand what he meant for a few seconds before she remembered that he had told her to start training an exclusive and elite group of people and also given her free use of whatever resources the organization had.

“That... uh,” Haley didn’t know what to say since she hadn’t done anything about that yet.

Ozul could guess what she was thinking, but he didn’t plan to lecture her about this. It hadn’t been many days since he told her anyway.

“Don’t delay it any further than this. I need a complete report on this under a week,” Ozul ordered before leaving the room. Haley sighed in relief that it didn’t anger him, but she quickly went back to finish that list.

When Ozul got to the 8th floor, he noticed both Raven and Blaze were in their respective rooms, cultivating without any rest.

He would also have to start their training, but it was already night, so he decided to take a nap before Haley and Irvin finished compiling the list.

Although he had guessed that there would be many riches in Luthien’s Spatial Ring, he hadn’t expected there would be so much that it required hours for Haley and Irvin to write them down completely.

Until then, a long nap was just what he needed.

. . .

In the middle of the night, he heard the knock on his door and immediately woke up. He knew who was there.

Irvin and Haley were done listing out everything in the Spatial Rings.

It turned out that one of the Spatial Rings only contained Luthien’s spare clothes and similar things.

When Ozul learned about this, he wasn’t disappointed like Irvin and Haley. Instead, he was surprised that it took them so much time even when there were only two Spatial Rings!

‘Just how much did that guy stored in his Spatial Rings?’ Ozul could not help but notice that Haley and Irvin were in a hurry to show him the list compiled for all the contents.

He let them inside his room and sat beside Jinx, who was curled into sleep. Haley and Irvin didn’t dare to take a seat as they watched him read the list.

More than a million Purple Coins... some bottles filled with Blood of unknown Magical Beasts... The Emperor’s sword... fifty patches of the sun grass... tens of Rank-8 Magical Cores...etc.

Ozul kept reading the long list, but nothing written on it was of any use to him. There were some rare resources that weren’t sold in any market as well. However, all of it was useless to him.

Although he didn’t like the fact that such a long list didn’t have a single thing of use to him, he had already expected it, so it didn’t bother him as much.

Just when he had skimmed through the list and was about to give it back to Irvin, Ozul noticed something odd.

...old parchment...

“Old parchment? For what?” Ozul muttered to himself, but Haley quickly looked inside the now organized Spatial Ring and took out the old parchment covered in dirt before handing it over to him.

The scrolled parchment was tattered and looked decades old. There were a few drawings etched on the outside, but they weren’t clear enough now. Most of the pictures had already faded, and the rest only had a vague outline visible from up close.

As Ozul examined the old sheepskin, Haley spoke, “We haven’t confirmed its contents, but I didn’t want to open it myself since I think it could be quite important. Not only does it look decades old, but it was also placed at a corner, away from the other mess inside the Spatial Ring.”

Ozul nodded his head and proceeded on to open the parchment. There was a ribbon tied around it. Although the ribbon had a light brown color, it seemed that it was once red, but the passage of time had made it lose the bright red glow that it once held.

When he tried to remove the ribbon, he was surprised to find that the ribbon didn’t budge!

‘Oh?’ Ozul was amused as he used a drop of the Ball of Purity and cut the ribbon in two halves. As he expected, there was little resistance before the ribbon was ripped apart and the parchment rolled open.

Although Haley wanted to stop him from opening it with such a crude method, she sighed in relief when she noticed that the sheepskin was undamaged.

She didn’t know what the parchment contained, but a Rank-9 Mage had it in his Spatial ring, so it was definitely something important.

‘Ruins...?’ Ozul read the only word readable on the parchment. There were some letters before it, but they were too blurred and smudged for him to read.

Fortunately, the drawing below the text wasn’t as damaged as the rest of the parchment. He realized that it was a map that would lead to some old ruins he couldn’t read the name of.

The instructions were vague. Although the map wasn’t detailed, Ozul realized that these ruins were located in that 1/4th part of the continent that didn’t have any human settlements because of its unsuitable living conditions.

‘Now this is interesting...’ Ozul thought since he was also planning to explore that part of the continent for a while now.

In fact, one of the tasks he wanted to give to that elite team of the Three-Eyed Strangers was to explore that part!

However, if there were some old ruins there, it also meant that people used to live there before.

For some reason, he felt that he should personally visit these ruins. It had piqued his interest for various reasons.

He looked at Haley and Irvin staring at him in curiosity, but he didn’t entertain them and just put the parchment inside his Spatial Pouch before he stood up and handed over the list back to Haley.

“Half of these resources would go in training the future elite team. You can use the rest however you want,” Ozul said to Haley, who accepted the order with a calm face, but she was actually dazed.

She didn’t think that Ozul would put so much importance into this elite team.

Half of these resources were more than what a small kingdom would have in its treasury. And Ozul had so casually granted all of it to a team that wasn’t even created yet!