Laurene was looking for the final material to complete 'Venus', the thing she had been trying to recreate and the reason she had been hiring skilled alchemist and magi technicians from all over the country.
The previous 'fourth' of the 'seven heroes' was a near transcendent level archmage and all her knowledge of magic was stuck inside Laurene's head.
When the previous seven heroes made the plan to reincarnate, all of them made special private plans for each of themselves, on how they would regain their previous weapons and magic.
For the previous fourth, her main plan was to regain 'Venus', her magic catalyst that stood atop every other magic catalyst a thousand years ago
Laurene didn't know if there were better existing ones now, especially in Kasteblum, the city-state of magic, but she was sure that when completed, Venus would still be among the top ten in the world.
The previous fourth had gathered some of the materials and left them in multiple bases that the previous seven heroes had, however, Laurene had been unable to find those bases due to the fact that their surrounding terrain had changed after a thousand years.
Some of the bases had been destroyed over time and the few she managed to find were in the territories of other countries, places that she, a princess, couldn't just randomly go to without a care in the world.
As such, she had to start gathering the materials again, one by one, spending hundreds of thousands of gold coins to acquire the materials and recruit skilled alchemists and magi technicians to help in recreating Venus.
However, even though Venus was recreated, it still missed one thing that could not be gotten elsewhere.
It still missed its core
While she had managed to recreate it, she had not been able to find anything that could replace Venus' core.
The core of Venus was something that she could not replicate so easily as even the previous fourth took years to make that core.
So, the previous fourth took her time to enchant the entirety of the base where the magic catalyst's core was kept, making sure that it would still be standing even after a thousand years.
Having the knowledge of the deceased archmage, she knew just where the core was located and after comparing the location on the map in her memories to the modern-day map, she discovered that it was in a place she could have easily gone to a lot earlier.
That place, was the Nepte province, one of the provinces in Duke Eris' territory, that's why she was there with Arnold as the two went over to go get the final piece of the catalyst.
Even though she had discovered the location quite a while ago, she did not go there because she knew fully well that an existence below the master level would be unable to handle the core of the catalyst and might end up suffering adverse effects ranging from energy flow deviation to losing the ability to manipulate energy, and worst case scenario;
Instant death.
As such, she needed to be over level 100 to use the catalyst, and at least 105 to ensure no problems would arise.
That was why she only came to retrieve the catalyst now.
Besides that, there was the fact that she had just turned thirteen a month ago and was dealing with her birthday party proceedings so she could not easily leave the capital.
After that, there was the incident where she encountered the knights who her dad sent after Evan when she returned from collecting some of the materials she needed for Venus, so it was only last week that she finally managed to recreate Venus.
Her plan was to go over and confirm if the base was still in the location that she believed it to be before returning and leading the rest of the guard detail that followed her from the capital there, but she ran into Arnold and decided to drag him along to confirm some of her suspicions.
Naturally, she also couldn't just vanish from the Duke's mansion as that would cause a whole lot of problems so she and Arnold informed the knights at the city gates of their destination and sent them to inform the members of her guard detail who had already realised she was missing and were tracking her down before borrowing a pair of horses and riding over to the forest.
That brought us to the current situation where Laurene and Arnold were standing atop a small hill about twenty metres high, staring down at an abandoned town with a structure in the middle that researchers from all the major powers of the Alpha continent would find familiar.
It was a building shaped like a circle, surrounded by metal overhanging panels. The second floor was bigger than the first, which created several overhanging parts on one side of the building.
The roof was high and circular and was covered with metal shingles. Small, half-rounded windows adding to the overall look of the building had been added to the structure in a fairly symmetrical pattern.
The compound had three circular walls that surrounded the building, with each of them having multiple collapsed sections that the orcs busily moved in or out of the compound through.
Despite having lived here for a while, the orcs had actually been unable to get into this structure, with the materials being used in the construction proving a bit too strong for even the orcs over level 100.
'It was built by a near transcendent level archmage, if level 100 orcs could break it, then there'd be a problem.'
The main striking feature of this structure, was the presence of the spherical dome at the centre of the roof, that despite being made with glass, had somehow been able to withstand the various climates and hadn't been damaged for so long.
Now then, it stands to question why such a structure had not been discovered by the researchers a long time ago despite the fact that they were searching for similar buildings. The reason was quite simple.
Where the duo stood, was currently smack dam in the middle of a forest that had been known to be infested by various monsters for a very long time.
The location of the forest was also a few kilometres away from the main Lento city, far enough that it took Laurene and Arnold about an hour to get there by horse.
To be more specific, it was one of the bases of the orc monsters that inhabited this forest.
As for the Lento city adventurer's guild, they were aware of this structure's existence. It was something they had come across when researching the ecosystem of the forest and scouting the main bases of the monsters inhabiting it.
Due to the presences of other broken down and depilated buildings all around the valley, weather-worn stone pillars surrounded by dead clumps of grass, cracked blocks and stones broken up by meandering tree roots, pitted steps and staircases, and caved-in roofs weighed down by vines or other foliage, they had concluded that there was a town that had existed in that area a long time ago, but the town had been abandoned for heaven knows how many generations.
As such, it was catalogued as an abandoned town and potential monster base in their archives. They never deemed it important enough to report this to the government, after all, this wasn't the only one of such towns that had been discovered by other adventurer's guilds across the continent.
And since this guild branch's executives were unaware of the research being conducted on the bases of the previous seven heroes by the major powers of the continent, they didn't know how important what they discovered was and didn't even report it to adventurer's guild main headquarters.
Thus, this base had remained undetected for years and Laurene wouldn't have known it was till there if she didn't come over to check personally.
Besides, even if they found it, they would have been unable to enter it as this was unlike the general bases they had discovered before, it was a private base owned not by all the previous seven heroes but only by the 'fourth'.
As such, the means to enter differed from the others, it was the same with all the other 'private' bases that had not yet been discovered.
"They're over a hundred..."
"Yeah, but their general levels are all below 70, only about a dozen are in the 90s and there are only two at level 100, but they're not master level so I can actually take them all out.
Actually, why don't I try it? It'd be a good way to test Venus out too."
"Princess, taking on over a hundred monsters by yourself is not a wise idea in any way, shape or form."
"I know."
"..."
"..."
The two stared at each other in silence before Laurene suddenly applied body-strengthening magic on herself and was about to jump off the hill, only for her right arm to be grabbed by Arnold who looked at her with a frown.
"Your Highness.
Since you've confirmed what you are looking for is still here, let's go back. Your guards are definitely worried about you by now."
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