"All right, everyone's here." Yulisan, with his black hair and brown eyes, checked the roster and counted off the names.
Hearing his words, Exelion let a faint smile cross his face and turned to look at Lucian. "Lord Evans, Lord Forman, shall we set out?"
The moment he thought of the corrupted Elven Tree — the moment he thought of the dozens of his kin who had fallen into demonic corruption — his heart burned with anxiety, which was why he could barely contain his emotions.
Lucian had intended to exchange a glance with Atlanter to confirm his thoughts, but when he turned, he saw only a pair of tightly closed eyes. He couldn't help but shake his head and laugh. Natasha's soft chuckle reached his ear as well — she had noticed Lucian's awkward predicament. Habit and experience could lead anyone to make a mistake, after all.
"Mr. Atlanter, do you have something else to attend to?" Lucian asked directly.
Atlanter gave a slight nod, his smile warm and amiable. "Nothing else. For this investigation, I'll be serving primarily as your assistant."
Elesiting let out a sigh of relief and was about to speak when she suddenly felt a wave of dizziness wash over her. The colors around her faded, leaving only the deepest darkness. Then she saw a vast and boundless starfield — only the stars were no longer brilliant. Instead, they glowed with different hues like various elements: silver-white, gold, eerie green, deep crimson…
"Atomic Universe" — the name arose unbidden in her mind, and every mid- to high-ranking mage present except for Hetty and the others murmured it in low voices.
Felipe's face was pale as always, his brows faintly furrowed as though enduring the nausea of spatial transit. His hands were tucked into the pockets of his long black coat, his back ramrod straight, his head lifted just slightly as he gazed with deep, unfathomable eyes at the elemental planets orbiting around them — lost in thought, no one knew what.
Before Elesiting's discomfort had time to fade, the planets suddenly accelerated, tracing mysterious trajectories that linked together into strange, peculiar symbols.
The moment she saw those symbols, her vision swam once more and she could no longer clearly perceive her surroundings. A strange sensation arose, as though she were hurtling through a long, dark tunnel.
In that dazed, half-conscious state, Elesiting had no sense of how much time had passed before a sudden burst of light pierced her eyes, forcing her to squint. Her head throbbed dizzily, as though she might vomit at any moment.
"We've reached the edge of the Stroup Forest. Could you two please guide us to the 'Nature's Dwelling'?"
Lucian's rich voice seemed to cross countless worlds before reaching Elesiting's ears — ethereal and indistinct.
The "Nature's Dwelling" was the powerful arcane lock of the Elven people, and the term also served as a general reference to their settlements within the Stroup Forest.
Elesiting shook her head, trying to shake off the dizziness, when she suddenly saw a beautiful yet spirited face before her. Silver-violet translucent eyes held a gentle smile, and an open palm extended a thumb-sized fruit that shimmered with flowing light. "Chilga — a fruit unique to the Holm Kingdom. It only grows along the banks of the Chilga River, which runs for a few dozen kilometers. It can quickly soothe the dizziness caused by spatial teleportation."
Elesiting accepted the fruit and placed it in her mouth. Instantly, a cool, sweet-and-sour taste refreshed her mind. "Thank you, Your Majesty."
As a diplomat, how could she not recognize the wife of Lord Evans — Queen of the Holm Kingdom?
Natasha laughed. "You'll get used to it. Spatial jumps really aren't that terrifying."
She turned and walked back to Lucian's side, secretly laughing through their long-established telepathic link: "The Elven princess is this fragile? A princess like me really must be one of a kind."
"You should look at her actual strength," Lucian replied, quite pleased that his wife hadn't continued her "gentlemanly" conversation with Elesiting.
Natasha said smugly, "When I was a child, I came to the Holm Kingdom through the 'Elemental Paradise' and didn't find it nearly that unbearable."
"Mm, you're one of a kind." Lucian wisely ended the topic with a compliment.
After a few deep breaths, Elesiting had fully recovered. She noticed that the mages of the Magic Council had already regained their composure through various strange and peculiar means. She put on an elegant, polite smile. "Please follow me to the 'Nature's Dwelling.'"
When they had arrived, it was through Grand Druid Malfurion's nature-based Divine Arts, so the spatial dizziness had been relatively less severe. Not all Legends possessed demiplanes — Holy Spirit Priests didn't, most Epic Knights didn't, Grand Druids didn't. Only Legendary mages and those powerful enough to have seized control of a demiplane with special properties or a layer of an extradimensional space did — such as Apsis of the "Bone Wasteland" and Tivtidis of the "Silent Hell."
Of course, their demiplanes were widely believed to have been bestowed upon them by the Lord of Hell or the Will of the Abyss, and fighting within them granted a Domain enhancement that could boost one's strength by half a tier to a full tier.
"So this is spatial teleportation based on a demiplane?" Exelion followed behind his sister, feeling that he had only been dizzy for a moment, yet before his eyes already lay the familiar and welcoming Stroup Forest.