"Shall we investigate it?" Sara asked, and William thought for a few seconds before shaking off his head.
"We are here to get to that dark academy, not for anything else," he paused before adding, "but later on, make sure to dispatch many of our guild members here to investigate."
"Is a treasure?" Sara asked in excitement.
"Are we going to have a grand fight?" Ibra seemed excited too, but for a totally different reason.
"Do you want me to use my technique?" Thomas asked, and William simply looked at them in a weird way.
"Let's speak about that after finishing our current adventure," William then returned to examine the map. The map was detailed and focused mainly on the area of hills and the adjacent regions to it. It covered up an area of a thousand kilometres, and one of them was the Blue Hills.
William never thought that the reason behind such a name came from the hills filling that region. According to the map, this place was around a few hundred kilometres in space, looking like a square, with three of its sides lined up by blue coloured hills.
The blue colour came from a certain ore that shone faintly in darkness and emitted blue light. William thought of a list of ores that could do such a thing, but the map already gave a name for this ore.
It was the Blue Dying ores. The name looked a bit gloomy, but William knew it wasn't true. This ore was a rare one, usually used to channel spirit power and help in making high grade gears.
It looked like the perfect place to make a trap. And William felt more unease when looking at the overall terrain of that region.
Aside from the empty side that was facing the region they were currently in, there was no way out from there. It was either by going through a dense layer of hills that were filled with tons of monsters or go from that opened side.
Seeing such abnormally perfect natural terrain made William surer about his earlier doubts. It was totally perfect for a deadly trap, one that wouldn't just seal them from exiting, but also a trap suited to take down lots of their forces.
Inside that prison-like place, there wasn't much to mention. The place was totally open and flat, without even forests or any hills or anything.
"There is no mention of any academy in this map," Ibra noticed what William noted from the first glance, "does this mean this academy truly appeared recently or what?"
"It seems this map isn't updated," Sara said about what William thought about, "it's not safe to take everything mentioned here as everything about that place…"
"As there are hills and dark masters, then it's better to assume all of these hills are bases for those bastards," Thomas added, and everything they said William already thought about.
"We need to take down these hills first," William looked at the grand surface area of these hills, "we need lots of earth-based masters to destroy all of these hills."
"I can go around and scan them first," Thomas suggested out of good will. Yet his words made everyone turn to him in a weird way, "what? Did I say something wrong?" The young master was startled by such an intense reaction from everyone.
"If we did that, then we'll take a longer time to scan all these hills," Sara rolled her eyes, "it's faster to let the earth-based masters dig these hills out."
"And that will also help to deactivate the expected traps," Ibra already was thinking like William, "but that place gives me a bad feeling."
"We'll go there, crush anything waiting for us there, and then come back here…" William paused, took Lara's Bullet out, "we need to establish part of the portals in a well defended settlement."
[Got it! I have twenty portal cores ready and will spread them while waiting for the various forces to arrive. When are we going to move?]
"First gather up all the earth-based masters," William looked at the map again, "we need them to remove all the hills surrounding that place."
[All the blue hills? Ok, I'll gather and send them with decent forces just in case. We'll hit the academy from the main entrance. Will we gather there?]
William was about to agree to her words but for a reason, he felt uneasy.
"No, let's change the plan…" William paused, "we'll go directly from the three sides other than the main entrance."
[But… These sides… Don't tell me we'll wait for the hills to get removed! They expand for more than a hundred kilometres and even more. We can't waste such time while alerting the enemy]
"They are already alerted, so it's fine," William felt more settled with such a decision, "gathering up another force to act as a decoy. Once we attract their attention, this force will move to hit the academy directly… Wait, let me lead this force!"
[Ok! But you do realise if you led it, then things will turn bad!]
"Stop spreading rumours on me please," William shortly laughed, "I'm not cursed with bad luck."
[Ok, I'll keep you posted]
William stored the Bullet away, returned to check the details of the map and the information on the other scroll regarding danger.
He felt like he was missing something out. And indeed he was. It was just in front of his eyes, but he couldn't spot it.
And that was because the map wasn't updated as he and all of the other three once mentioned. There was something on the outskirts of the Blue Hills, something that would turn things upside down.
For now, William kept thinking about what he missed, yet found no clue. His sense of unease grew weaker, but it was still there.
"Gather up the guild's force," William paused, "you are going to handle one side for me."
"Won't we come with you?" Thomas blinked twice, as he started to notice such weird attitudes from William every time they met a hurdle or something.
The source of this c𝐨ntent is freewe(b)nov𝒆l