3 ZHONYA

The next morning, Ikmir, Symas, and Alwith, along with the other members of the expedition, finished packing their belongings and set out towards their goal.

"Say, Ikmir, would you be interested in participating in our expedition? I cannot guarantee our success in finding treasures, but we can always unearth a piece of history that has been lost for a few millennia." Alwith asked with a smile on his face as they walked through the forest.

"No problem for me, I have nowhere to go anyway, with the exception of Ixaocan, but I still need to find my way to the city."

Hearing his words, Symas and Alwith looked at each other.

"Did you say you want to enter the city? Tell me, where are you from exactly? Shurima? Targon? Bilgewater? The blessed isles?" Symas asked with a curious twinkle in his eye.

Hearing these questions and the way they looked at him, Ikmir was curious, 'Why did they have that kind of reaction? Was it something I said? Wait... Could it be that... Ixaocan is not a known place?'

"Why are you asking this?" Ikmir tried to subtly confirm his speculation.

"Well..." Alwith scratched the back of his neck. "Unless you have lived for a few thousand years, which in this case would mean that you were alive at the time that Ixaocan was still known worldwide, there is no way for you to know about the existence of the city."

Symas nodded and continued to explain. "You know, we ixtalan can come and go as we please, but we are forbidden to talk about the city with someone who does not know it, and because of that, knowledge about the city has slowly been lost in the river of time until not even Demacia or Noxus had any knowledge about us."

Alwith looked at Ikmir's armor and continued.

"We asked about those places because they were the ones that had the most contact with Ixtal in the past."

Ikmir nodded and sighed, 'So Ixaocan is not a known place, I was probably only able to find these two because I was already relatively close to them.'

"What about entering the city? Can I? Even though I wasn't originally from Ixtal?"

"That... It is hard to say... the magic that protects Ixaocan was created by the tenth generation of the descendants of Yun Tal rulers, at that time the person in charge even had the title of wizard god and it is suspected that he used the World Rune of Sorcery to conjure the spell that protects the city from prying eyes and prevents us from spreading the knowledge about it."

"And besides the spell, there is also the path wardens... Even if you have a divine spark, and does not necessarily mean any harm towards us, they might even fight against you in case you try to forcefully enter the city." Symas sighed as he explained.

"If you could put me in the right direction, I would appreciate it no matter what happens later, I need to go to Ixaocan, that is part of my mission." Ikmir lowered his head as he said it with determination.

"Mission huh... tell me, Ikmir, what exactly is your purpose? Pantheon as the aspect of war obviously exists for that purpose, the aspect of the sun exists to protect the Solari and bring light to the helpless and innocent, the jackal ascendant is someone who exists to propagate and protect knowledge." Alwith explained slowly.

"Basically, every person with a divine spark has a purpose, you mentioned that you need to enter Ixaocan, but as far as I know, no aspect or ascendant ever had such purpose before."

Ikmir smiled and after thinking for some time he replied.

"While I do not know how you could have so much knowledge about the ones like me, I do have a mission or a purpose to fulfill... Mine is to fight and destroy an evil that lurks in the shadow, a threat to the entire world, or to die trying."

"You mean something like the Void, or maybe the Watchers?"

"Eh!? You know about then?"

Symas grunted and said. "Of course we know about them! Who do you think that had to save everyone every time so much shit spread throughout the world? We created the weapons that are used to kill the watchers, and we were also the ones that created the means to close the void rifts, not that it was as effective as we wished though..."

"Yeah, otherwise, don't even think about Shurima..." Alwith used a piece of cloth to clean the sweat on his forehead. "After what the mage king did in Icathia together with Tyrus of Helia just to win that stupid war, the world could have been swallowed by the void!"

Ikmir nodded but he was still curious.

"So, how do you know so much about ascendants and aspects?"

"Oh! Of course, I forgot to talk about it." Alwith laughed lightly. "We from Ixtal were the first to create an aspect, but that was a long time ago and unfortunately we no longer have the method to do it. Although technically speaking we did it together with the Shurimans."

"I see..." Ikmir nodded and sighed hearing his explanation, this world is way more complex than he expected, while he knows some of the lore and could remember the name of every champion from the game. Riot changed the story so many times that he wasn't sure what was canon and what wasn't.

After hours of walking, they arrived at what appeared to be an archaeological site with several excavation points in the middle of the forest. Several strange tools were scattered around, just waiting to be used.

"Have you ever visited an archaeological site before, Ikmir?"

"No, this is the first time that I see something like this."

Symas nodded and pointed to the excavation points. "We have been excavating this place for a month, some time ago we have discovered ancient documents from the golden age of Shurima, we believe that we found the place where Zhonya, the main clerk of the royal library and possibly the wife of King Horusm, grandfather of Azir, created 3 legendary relics, Zhonya's Hourglass, the Sunfire Cape and the Chalicar."

"Did you know that she was an Ixtalan and someone from the Yun Tal caste?" Alwith smiled as he remembered the documents they discovered.

"Haha... I didn't even know about Azir's grandfather..." Ikmir smiled a little bit ashamed.

"Hehe! Don't worry about, I was just too excited about it, if we manage to find at least one proof that she did create those things, then we will basically change part of the history of our world!" Alwith was so excited that a big smile hung on his face.

Symas shook his head and turned to Ikmir. "You can rest under the shadows of one of those trees, we won't have anything for you to do for some hours."

"Alright." Ikmir nodded and sat down under one of the trees.

Having nothing more to do, Ikmir decided to cultivate and see how far he was progressing. As he collected energy, his pool slowly filled, 2%, 5%, and finally, 10%. When he opened his eyes and realized it was almost night, he gasped, his progress was way slower than before, hours of cultivation was only equivalent to 1/10 of his previous speed...

Just after he stopped, someone shouted for the others.

"Hey! I found it! It's here!"

Everyone ran towards him, could they have finally found it?

Where the vastayan was, there was a big hole and a kind of stair covered with dust, the light from the torches was not enough to illuminate it completely, so it was impossible to tell how deep the stairs went.

"Ikmir, you and the others need to wait here, for now, we will investigate this place and neutralize possible threats first."

Ikmir and the others nodded, everyone who lives in Ixtal has inherent magic, but not everyone practices it to the point of becoming masters capable of fighting.

If they were divided in terms of fighting power, Alwith and Symas would be tied for first, while Ikmir would be in second. The others, however skillful they were, would not be useful in a fight.

Symas and Alwith went down the stairs while looking at the pictures on the floor and on the wall, based only on the symbols and style they could already say that these were really related to Shurima, it remained to be seen if it had anything to do with Zhonya.

After a few minutes of descending the stairs, they arrived in a kind of oval room, several dusty tools were hanging on the walls or lying on tables.

The moment they stepped inside the hall, 8 large torches were lit with blue fire lighting the place, illegible runes also lit up and some walls shook before starting to rise.

Seeing this, Alwith and Symas extended their hand, and after saying an incantation, conjured a staff covered in the element in which they were most skilled.

"What do you think? Common guardians, other rooms, or a trap?" Symas asked with a slight smile on his face.

"As long as this is not a hextec guardian, I accept anything."

When the walls rose completely, a high-pitched sound rang over the place and the red glow of small eyes appeared in each of the openings.