Chapter 224 - Fortress

Once they decided to leave, everyone picked up their stuff, while Artemis went back into Jason's soul world.

Without wasting any time, he was about to go straight to the rift, when he was held back by Theo.

Looking at him in confusion, he pointed towards the large medical tent next to the rift, explaining

"We have to be tested before we're allowed to enter the rift. It won't take that long and it's just a simple blood test and another small examination to measure your brainwaves."

Halting in his tracks, Jason was confused for a moment, before he understood the meaning of such a test, as he asked to make sure that his train of thoughts was correct.

"Do we have to undergo these tests because it is unknown if the valley has foreign, harmful viruses or diseases? But what about the brain waves?... Are they done to figure out if parasites enter our body as a host to control us or something like that?"

Jason remembered having heard something similar, but he was not sure if his memory was correct.

Theo only nodded his head, smiling lightly as he said.

"Yes, there are just too many unknown viruses, spreading disease and even more hostile, yet crafty beasts within the rifts, which makes everything slightly more complicated."

Because of that, the four of them had to line up in order to be examined before they were allowed to go back to Argos.

The examination itself wouldn't take long, but they had to wait for a few hours in the queue to enter the large tent.

In the meantime, Jason scanned through everyone's mana core, before he averted his attention to the passive mana gathering technique.

When it was their turn, his brain waves were scanned, his body searched through for certain signs of a disease or an injury from a beast to figure out if bacteria or viruses were transferred to him before his blood was tested.

Jason was neither bitten by any beast nor seriously injured at the moment because his broken shoulder was already completely healed.

His blood test and brain waves were also in the normal standards, which allowed him to step through the rift.

Waiting for the others, they also seemed fine and the four of them stepped through the four-star rift, ending the expedition.

This time, Jason wanted to stay conscious without fainting during their teleport back to Argos and he calmed down to focus on his entire being, as the space around him twisted as it happened the first time.

The other fainted, while his eyes shone brightly in the seemingly infinite darkness which was brightened up by bright shining stars around him.

The vast blue planet appeared in his sight once again, but this time instead of staring blankly at it, Jason tried to inspect it more in detail.

Like ancient globes of Argos indicated, this blue planet in front of him was similarly filled with a majority of water.

There were many large continents, islands, but the biggest contrast between Argos and the blue planet in front of him was that the blue planet had huge areas with single landscapes that slowly changed, while even a single island on Argos had multiple environments at once.

At least, Jason presumed them to be landscapes or rather different environmental areas, because he could see white-colored areas, most likely indicating a mountain range or ice/snowfields and so on, while the majority of the continents were filled with a dark-green and bluish-green color which looked extremely distinct, even from far away.

But there were also black, brown, and even red areas, causing him to frown.

"Is that a volcano or corroded environment?"

Comparing Argos and the blue planet, the blue planet seemed to be less chaotic, which couldn't be said for Canir or any island of the archipelagos that were extremely chaotic from their enviroments, caused by the emerging of natural treasures with transmuted mana.

'Is this planet better in handling the natural mana? How? Isn't the emergence of natural treasures a coincidence?.... Is there someone or something controlling everything?'

Jason assumed just anything that jumped into his mind and there was no sure answer but his own thoughts astonished him because they were abstruse and without any proof.

It was just his imagination and time seemed to pass without him knowing and his complete attention was on the blue planet they passed.

Even if Jason was able to stay conscious longer than before, in the end, his mind trembled as he fainted on the ground, without being able to continue his inspection.

**

Waking up, Jason found himself in a tent again and it felt like a deja-vu when he sensed that the mana fluctuations around him were fainter compared to the four-star rift.

'Ah...we are already back and I still collapsed…' He thought while lamenting about his weak will before he stood up slowly.

His head ached slightly, but it was not as uncomfortable as expected.

Looking at Malia and the Daer-siblings laying inside the beds next to his, he pondered what to do, as he took out a piece of paper and wrote a short message, which he laid next to Malia's bed.

'They should find it immediately, right? It's better than nothing!' Jason thought and he couldn't waste too much time waiting for the others.

In the end, nobody except him knew exactly how devastating Lux's capabilities became and that he seemed to have no limit, thanks to the undead blood-soul sphere, with its unknown abilities.

Leaving the tent, all of them slept in, the sunset greeted him, telling him that it was already evening.

'Does a single trip through the rift take so long, or is the day and night circle somewhat shifted or even reversed?'

Not knowing the answer, Jason decided to disregard this thought for now, because it was not that important, as he looked around in order to figure out where exactly he was.

From his distance to the four-star rift, Jason was sure that he was still within the secured area around it, but what he saw in front of him took him by surprise.

'They build such a thing in just three weeks?'

Looking up, he saw humongous walls with all kinds of long-range warfare situated on top, shocking him, as he decided to search for guardians in order to figure out what was going on.

Opening his quantum bracelet, a holographic screen emerged in front of him, with hundreds of messages in it, which he however ignored.

Most of them were from the Fler's, asking about their well-being and that they should answer their calls once they returned.

This told Jason that Cyro-City already knew about the dangers within the four-star rift and it was apparently also the reason for such a large fortress to be built in such a short period.

His first thought was that it was extremely quickly built, but with his mana eyes and rational thinking, Jason concluded that it was built in four days at most, with the help of high-ranked affinities.

But even so, it still looked better than he expected from such a huge, yet quickly built fortress.

The first thing he did was messaging Shane and Dalia before he decided to message Seron and the Fler's about his well-being.

After that, he immediately called Till, because he was the strongest being within Cyro-City if one excluded Dalia and Shane, who lived illegally in Astrix and hidden from the big families.

His call was still connecting to Till, as he noticed familiar mana fluctuations next to him approaching him with an astronomical velocity, as he hung up the call.

Waving, he smiled lightly when Till with his white-golden wings, looking at him impatiently.

"Jason! It's nice that you're fine, but can I bother you for a second? Old Drake and I would like to talk to you about Lux!!"

Sensing Till's impatience and urge to talk to him in private with Old Drake in addition to Lux's name, Jason figured out what everything was about and when he nodded lightly, Till picked him up without asking for permission, as he soared in the air without wasting a single second.

Noticing this, Jason felt that Lux and the blood-soul sphere were not the worst things, Astrix had to take care of, which caused him to frown lightly, as he wondered what exactly could have happened.