After crying for a short moment, Shiro calmed herself down and wiped away her tears. Taking a deep breath, she made her way back to the open room and saw Yin sitting down with her eyes closed.
Fire would flicker around her as her aura would fluctuate.
“What’s happening?” Shiro asked curiously.
“Mn? Oh it’s just that Yin’s refining her flames through the crystals that Fei Ling had left behind.” Nan Tian replied with a smile. Despite seeing the redness around her eyes, he did not bring it up as he knew it would be embarrassing for Shiro.
“Heh~ I see. She did mention that she did some preparations to make sure that Yin could get stronger.” Shiro nodded as she started to look around for the artefact piece.
However, despite scanning the room for the artefact, she could not find anything.
“Don’t search for it mum, the artefact is what empowers me. I’ve already gotten what I needed from this site.” Yin smiled softly as she opened her eyes.
“Oh… Also Yin, how did you know about Fei Ling’s final spark?” Shiro asked curiously.
“The system told me. When I entered this room, I had a strange screen appear in front of me saying that there is the presence of the final spark of a phoenix and that I could awaken it by presenting my own flames.” Yin replied.
“I see… Well since it seems there’s nothing else in this place, let us leave. We have other places to be.” Shiro nodded and started to walk away.
Sensing her mum’s strange condition right now, Yin knew that it was due to Fei Ling’s ‘death’.
“Let’s go then. Mum will probably get over it soon.” Yin turned to Nan Tian as he nodded his head and the two started to follow Shiro.
However, as Nan Tian was following behind Shiro, he couldn’t help but notice a small change in Yin’s appearance. Her ears were slightly pointed now along with the fact that her hair had a slight tint of blue when viewed at an angel.
‘Could it be because of Fei Ling? Hmm… from the way it’s progressing, I’m guessing her hair will eventually turn completely blue and her eyes will become golden. Though her face still resembles Shiro’s. I suppose it’s similar to transferring a flame from an old candle to a new one.’ Nan Tian thought to himself with a small shake of his head.
As they left the tomb, they were greeted with the presence of quite a few members of Shadow Temple along with Lucius.
“What happened in there? I heard the cry of a phoenix and the mana around here suddenly spiked.” Lucius asked with worry.
“Don’t think about it too much. I was just meeting an old friend. We’ve already collected the artefact in this place. You can look at the murals but don’t break or disturb anything.” Shiro said while walking past Lucius without a second glance.
Confused about her sudden change in attitude, Lucius glanced towards Nan Tian and Yin who only shook their head and followed behind her.
“So where are we going now then?” Nan Tian asked.
“We’ll be going to the other spots on this map. There are still three more places after this that Lucius hadn’t discovered yet. We might get a clue about their location later.” Shiro replied.
“Plus, there are two other sites in this city for us to ‘collect’ from.” She said while gesturing to the map.
Zooming in into the city, the other two sites were located slightly further out and close to the edge of the city. One was to the north while the other was to the west.
Thinking about it for a moment, Shiro decided to go to the one in the north as it was closer to where the monsters are. She was quite curious about them since they were apparently unique to this city.
After knowing that this place was merged from Fei Ling’s world, she might be able to find out why it’s so different from other places. Red skies that rain blood isn’t exactly the most common sight.
Leaving the site from the way they came, they started to make their way north. On the way there, she saw a branch of the adventurer’s guild and wondered if she should update her guild ID. After all, she might need it to access a few places in the future and doing it now would get it out of the way.
“Do you want to go to the adventurer’s guild for a bit? I need to update my ID.” Shiro said with a smile.
“Sure. We got a bit of time so a detour or two wouldn’t hurt.” Nan Tian nodded.
Entering the strangely ominous-looking guild hall due to the materials that they had to use, Shiro looked around for what seemed to be a counter but saw that there were no signs of staff.
“Mn? Where are the staff?” Shiro muttered with a frown.
Even Nan Tian found this a little weird as he took his phone out and had a look to see if there were anyone being deployed into this city as a scout.
Unfortunately, it seemed like the scout had been injured heavily and they were currently in the process of assigning someone new.
“Tch, that’s a bit annoying. We won’t be able to get information from the scout the sect had placed in this city.” Nan Tian furrowed his brows.
“Let’s wait a little then. I’m sure we’ll find out something in a bit.” Shiro suggested.
“I want something to eat in the meantime if we’re going to wait around.” Yin said as she stretched her body slightly.
“Sorry, I don’t have the currency of this place so we can’t order. The best I can do for you is some mana stones.” Shiro smiled apologetically.
“Eh? Hm, I guess they’ll do. I haven’t had them in a long time though.” Yin sighed and nodded her head.
Reaching into her inventory, Shiro rummaged around a little before pulling out the highest level of mana stone that she had. Unfortunately, it was only a B class since she wasn’t able to collect any A class mana stones.
Giving Yin the mana stone, the trio sat down by one of the tables near the windows and watched as the confusion in the guild escalated.
Since there were no staff in sight, people couldn’t turn in their quests nor could they have their business resolved.
Small arguments broke out due to a few people being quite impatient while others only watched. Soon, a few members of the staff that worked here appeared and tried to calm the situation down.
“We apologise for the current situation but something unexpected has occurred so if you don’t mind, please be patient while we deal with this.” The staff called out but a few people were still impatient.
Watching this happen, Nan Tian couldn’t help but raise his eyebrow in curiosity.
“What do you think is happening for the guild to be like this?” He turned to Shiro.
“Not sure. I’m looking at the news but nothing is showing up.” Shiro shook her head. If it was going to be something major, she wanted to give the people a hand in resolving it since there were two more excavation sites in this city and they were very important for Yin.
“If you want, I can go out and do some investigating of my own to see what’s happening.” Nan Tian suggested as Shiro thought about it for a moment.
“Hmm… we’ll give it a bit more time and see how it goes.” She shook her head.
As they waited some more, the guild master finally arrived. He was a rather tall man with a well built physique. He seemed to be someone in his 30’s.
“I apologise for the confusion but as you know, something a little unexpected has happened in the city. Far out to the north, outside of the city borders, a strange phenomenon has taken place. The ground is slowly caving in to reveal a ruin of sorts and the demons are being detected to be flocking to the site from the front lines. We’re going to be posting an emergency quest where only level 200 or aboves can apply for due to the unknown nature of this situation. In addition to this, the mana density of this city is slowly dropping and being sucked towards the ruins. Some of you may know that if the mana density is decreased past a certain point, you are no longer able to use the ambient mana to power your spells, making it much more dangerous than it should be.
“Therefore, the reward to whoever resolves this would be a trip to the national vault and pick out a treasure of your own choice.” The guild master shouted out as a commotion rang out.
Hearing what he had said, Shiro narrowed her eyes. Since it might affect the other sites in this city, she might as well have a look at the situation and see what she could do. The sites were important to Yin after all.
