As they descended deeper into the ground, the air grew colder and the surroundings darker. They relied on Hargan's guidance, his ability, and keen senses helping them navigate the underground terrain towards the core's location.
The ability not only allowed him to manipulate the ground, but to also know where he was, it was akin to a sixth sense that allowed him to not lose his way underground.
They were slowly moving and getting closer and closer to where the center of the base was supposed to be, until Hargan suddenly stopped, his face showing slight confusion and apprehension.
"What happened?" Reign asked Hargan who sighed.
"There's no more soil in front of us, only a large open area."
"Could the enemy have somehow learned the same thing we have, thus keeping an eye on the core?" Wolf suddenly asked, to which Reign and the others just showed solemn expressions on their faces.
If that were true, then their plan would be much more difficult to accomplish.
To pour mana inside the core and have it recognize them would take time, and if the enemy was aware of the core's location and had placed people there to guard it, then it would be many times more difficult to do that.
"I don't sense anyone," Reign said softly as Shadow and the others nodded their heads as they also couldn't sense anything in front of them.
Even when using his soul sensing, Reign was unable to sense anything, which should mean that the coast was clear and that they were fine.
"Alright, start by creating a small hole that can allow us to see what is there, we'll slowly go from there," Reign told Hargan who nodded his head and took a deep breath before he continued parting the soil.
He first moved the hole a bit forward, making the soil that separated them from the open area much thinner, about an inch thin, before he started making the small hole that they would use to glance inside.
Reign placed his eye on the hole and started looking around.
There really was an open area there, and he could even see the core, which looked like a large crystal that was levitating above the ground.
He looked around the place, doing the best he could to see the entirety of the chamber that the core was inside of, and saw nobody there.
It was closed, the entire chamber where the core was present was closed, there were no stairs, no tunnels, no openings around it at all.
'Could it be that this is what the core did, it created this open area for itself, or it was just pure luck that the core was placed here?' Reign asked Aethion who shrugged his shoulders.
He stared at it before he started releasing his own aura and mana. He was nervous at first, after all, what if the enemy was able to sense his aura from above?
But Aethion explained how that wouldn't happen, the aura coming from the core was enough to mask his own, as long as he only released a bit of it, like he was supposed to.
They couldn't place an array around the core as that would be enough to alarm it and have it deem them hostile.
Slowly but surely, under Aethion's guidance, Reign's aura started coming in contact with the aura coming from the core, the two slowly entwining and mixing with one another.
The process was slow, incredibly slow.
Even after half an hour had passed, the auras were just starting to get deeper in touch with one another, with Reign's aura only being able to get some 3 inches closer to the core.
'Slowly and carefully, that is how it must be done, if you try to speed the process up, to hurry and do it quickly, it will fail for sure, and the core will turn hostile.'
'I know, you said it 20 times already.' Reign said in a calm voice as he continued doing what Aethion told him to do.
It was not only slow but arduous and difficult. Those looking at Reign would only see the auras starting to get in touch and mix with one another, which seemed simple and that Reign perhaps only needed to continue pushing his aura forward, but that was not the case.
He had to make sure that the aura from the core and his own didn't clash, he had to constantly control his aura with mana and slowly have it touch the core's aura. If he did nothing, then the process would fail, but he also had to be very careful when controlling it and not do it too quickly or slowly.
Two hours later, Shadow and the others were starting to get bored as the process continued, only that now, Reign's aura was much closer to the core, about an inch close. This was the most difficult part of the entire process, however, as Reign had to be incredibly meticulous and careful when controlling his aura, much more than before.
Aethion was helping him out, controlling a part of his aura and slowly starting to pour more mana into it, allowing Reign's mana to start getting closer to the core as well.
Each part of the aura had to be controlled and not allowed to be in contact with the aura of the core for too long in one place, it had to constantly move around and go forward.
The last step was the most difficult one, and making progress was very slow.
In fact, it took Reign half an hour to pass the one inch that separated his aura from the core, and for him, it seemed like hours had passed.
He was incredibly tired at that point, his concentration had been at its highest during the three hours this was going on, and sweat had covered his forehead and was dripping down his nose, and his hair, some even went into his eyes.
But in the end, he made it, he finally allowed his aura to touch the core, and from that moment on, he could start pouring his mana into the core.