In one place

Somewhere in the center area of the empire, in a huge hall...

A great projection of the entire empire was suspended in the air showing everything in the empire and even a large area that surrounded the empire itself!

While under this big projection, many magical runes were scripted in an energy line shining brightly moving around in a big circle, apparently it was the source of energy to this projection, while in the middle of these runes, a huge yellow crystal giving a soft light...

And many other smaller crystals moving in circles along the lines around the projection showing many different pictures inside them...

Many different pictures for many places were showing...

Two men fighting while people cheer for them...

A woman using her power to grow flowers around the empire streets... A child stole someone's else pocket silently...

Two red-haired women walking through people...

Many pictures of what was happening in the empire...

Complete surveillance over the empire system!!!

While around this system, a few people were standing observing what the crystal shows them and report something from time to time...

"Oh, the data is here..." One of these people a female worker who was observing a screen made of some energy from the crystal she was looking at, received some information suddenly...

But looking at these data, a weird look appeared on her face...

"This... Not right..." the woman looked at the half-assed data in front of her and said...

"What's wrong? Found the intruders' information?" while looking at these data another man came to her side and asked while looking at the energy screen in front of her...

".... Where is the information?" The man also showed the same weird look and asked...

What they saw was... Gray and his party data...

It's just...

Name: Unknown...

Ability: suspected race awakener, weird aura, might also be sound ability...

Age: 13~15 probably...

Note: quite adorable...

The man couldn't help but show fishy eyes seeing Gray's date...

Suspected race awakener? They already know this...

Weird aura? what the hell was this supposed to be?

And age... What this probably means?

And Note...

Good thing, he sent the C.P records... Or he really wanted to kick the worker who sent this information...

"Quite good..." Seeing the C.P records in front of him, the man couldn't help but say to himself, and his eyes also showed a serious look...

Awakeners... There was no telling what kind of ability one could have... After all, there were many types of awakening, so seeing the C.P records he couldn't help but feel worried...

He knows very well that every awakener was a threat... Even the simple first awakener might be a disaster if awakened a certain ability...

The main reason they sent someone to test Gray and his party was to know what ability they have, and now that silly man actually sending *Adorable* Note?

But as if thinking of something, the man sighed helplessly...

"Where are they right now..." Looking at Gray's party record, the man asked the woman beside him...

Hearing the man question, she touched the crystal changing the scene to another one...

And not surprisingly the one who appeared inside the screen this time was actually Gray and his party who was walking around...

"They are moving toward the north direction of the empire..." the woman looked at the few dots that reacted in the huge projection moving slowly through the empire and said...

"....."

Hearing this, the man showed a weird look on his face and looked at the empire's big projection...

"Weren't the other intruders also in that area?"

....

.....

"So lively..." Mary looked around her while walking and said...

The empire streets were really full of people...

Some were working, some walking toward the exit direction caring their weapons, apparently ready to go out in hunt...

While some actually walking back from the outside with different faces, some happy, some sad... While showing gloom and despair on their faces, apparently their experience wasn't a really good one outside...

But one thing Gray noticed while observing, almost everyone was directly or indirectly moving toward a very huge building he can see from his place in the center of the empire direction...

Empyrean tower... The most important place in the empire...

Gray choose to walk slowly because he wanted to gather more information while taking a look at the empire closely...

From the information he was gathering, he understood something...

This empire.. was not a joke... the more he understands, the more alerted he became...

From what he learned... that big tower was more like a task hall where everyone goes to exchange things and receive tasks from the empire...

The empire has three main tasks...

1. Discover bases and resources.

2. Clear zombies.

3. Exchange awakening Crystals...

Well... It sounds normal, but Gray couldn't help but show a weird look when he thinks about the first two tasks...

Discover bases... From what he knows, this empire was made after gathering bases from the entire west area so it managed to reach this level...

As for clearing zombies... Hmmm, not so simple...

Other bases usually try to avoid zombies as much as they can, while this base was actually hunting zombies actively...

From time to time, they even gather groups to raid zombie gathering places like a village or small city!

Gray thought about it as steps...

As if... This empire was moving in order...

Gather power, Then clean the area...

Now almost the entire west bases became part of this empire, only zombies clearing was left...

In this case, it might really be possible to clear the west faster than he expected...

And he has a reason to think like this... Because of the reward of these tasks...

The reward was... C.P points...

Well... Yup... Actually rising their own C.P points by completing tasks as a reward...

What C.P represent? Power!

The higher the C.P... The stronger the awakener will be...

With every awakening-order one crosses, a new ability will awaken, rise the individual power level into a completely new realm!

So... How could this help in the steps of the base tasks?

With such benefits, the awakeners will be more than willing to risk their lives!

After the apocalypse, everyone understood the simple truth of this world...

Power... Only by having power, one can survive...

So everyone desires power more than anything... and now there was a clear way for them to gain power, how could they not work harder?

"So strong..." After thinking of all this, Gray showed a thoughtful look...

No wonder the power level in this empire was so high... With such *fair* deal, everyone here could get stronger...

"Haaa... Should we also go there for tasks..." Mary also looked at the high tower and asked with interest...

Do task to rise power... Sounds like fun...

No... Mary's eyes were already glowing with excitement... Things have already gone beyond fun level...

"We will... But not now..." Gray heard what Mary said, and nodded his head agreeing to this... While the light in his eyes wasn't even lower than Mary...

What interested him was the method they use to raise the C.P... Not the tasks themselves...

Was it an awakener job... Was it something else...

Rising power was never an easy thing... Not to say, rising C.P easily for nothing...

If he could get this method...

Thinking of this, Gray also blackened and showed an evil smile...

Legolas on the side looked at Mary and Gray showing the same smile and listened himself a little bit...

These two were thinking about a disaster probably...

While Perona kept playing with her ghosts gathering information...

However, Gray knew very well... that was just his wishful thinking... He won't try and play with the empire for the time being...

While walking, Not only Gray looked around him, but many others also looked at Gray at the same time...

To not attract attention, Gray cast a simple charm around them... However, he didn't overdo it...

So they still attracted attention...

Especially Gray... He felt like some kind of rare animal, all kind of eyes looked at him...

So while walking, he took a big hat and wore it to hide the crown...

However... No matter how he looked at it... He always felt the attrition around him wasn't reduced... But even... A little more?

Yup... He understood ... The crown wasn't the problem... It was him... The hat simply added charm to his attribute >..>

If it wasn't for the fact that he might be watched right now and didn't want to act so abnormal before finding Baccarat and Tauriel, he wouldn't have walked normally, to begin with...

Looking at Niala who was also looking at him with glowing eyes, Gray felt annoyed so he took the hat away from his head and put it on her head...

"Oh..." Niala caught the hat with both hands and smiled amusedly and walked...

Doing this, Gray stopped paying attention to all of this and took Baccarat and Tauriel cards while walking...

Looking at these two cards, Gray kept Tauriel's card in his hand and looked at it with thoughtful eyes...

"..." After looking at it for a few seconds, he waved his hand gently...

...

....

.....

On the northern area of the empire...

Close to the north empire gate... Such a big empire naturally has more than one gate...

Two tall red-haired women with different styles walked beside each other attracting the attention of the entire street around them...

However, no one dared to get closer, because a heavy aura was released around these two simply refusing them... So all they could do was watching from afar...

"Are you sure they are here Baccarat..." Tauriel looked at the place around her and asked Baccarat who was smiling silly beside her...

"Do you think I will be wrong? Don't worry... They are absolutely here..." Baccarat beside her said while showing a charming fox smile...

While saying this, she skillfully touched a passer woman beside her and smile gently at her as if it was an accident...

Tauriel glanced at the woman who just ignored Baccarat and kept walking, with odd eyes...

As she looked at her, the woman stopped walking because dropped something from her hand and lowered herself to pick it up, while another short man happened to walk beside her and silently took a small crystal from the woman's side pocket, that gently opened a gap itself as she lowered her wrist...

Hmmm... That was... what they call a street robber...

Seeing all this, Tarueil touched her head and showed a helpless smile on her face...

Baccarat ability was really weird...

She knows quite well what happened to that woman wasn't an accident... But her luck was stolen by Baccarat only... Which made her unlucky to fell into such an accident...

For Baccarat, entering the base was more like a fish returned to water... Not letting any chance to supply herself with others' luck...

That's why she showed such a silly smile...

Knowing that this woman's unlucky encounter was because of them, Tarueil twitched her fingers using her ability to return the crystal from the man who already ran away to the woman's pocket...

Doing this, Tauriel stopped paying attention and walked forward with Baccarat...

Like Gray and the others, they also just came to this empire...

And again, just like Gray... they sneaked in by switching her place with two random things from beyond the empire walls...

Before coming in, Tauriel didn't want to enter this empire and wanted to turn around it... But from what Baccarat said, Gray and the others should be inside, so she landed close to the walls and made her way in silently...

Tauriel couldn't help but look at the cards again...

Four cards moving forward...

"Don't look at them, our guide is already here..." But while looking at these cards, Baccarat suddenly stretched her hand and took the papers away, while her other hand pointed at above them...

"Kshaaa" A beautiful small red bird came suddenly from nowhere and flew around them making a happy cry...

"Ah?" Seeing this bird coming to her suddenly, Tauriel was taken aback... This bird... So much resemble the phoenix...

"Khaa" The bird made a calling sound and flew in a certain direction...

"Our guide?" Seeing this, Tauriel pointed at the bird and asked Baccarat weirdly...

She wasn't quite sure what Baccarat meant by this... but somehow this bird... gave her a very close feeling... So close...

"Let's follow it!" But Baccarat didn't answer and showed a bright smile as if she saw the happiest thing today and followed the bird directly.

Seeing this, Tauriel also followed silently... the moment she saw this bird she always felt odd... Somehow this bird doesn't look like a real bird to her... But so familiar at the same time...

So both Baccarat and Tauriel walked behind where the bird led them for almost half an hour...

Till finally, they entered a street that was full of people...

However, as they walked there... both of them stopped paying attention to the bird anymore...

But looking at the few figures that also stopped not far in front of them...

"Khaa" the red bird flew down from the sky and landed on a little white-haired elf hand standing with a few familiar faces who were also looking at them with different reactions...

But one thing they share...

The long white-haired elf in the front looked at the bird in his hand for a second and slowly turned his face that was showing a bright smile wordlessly...

They... Finally gathered.... in one place again...

...

...