Cube

The moment the mysterious woman disappeared, silence ensued among the group, as none spoke even a single word.

A few moments later, Catherine suddenly began moving, using her hands to suddenly search through her robes before frowning and turning to face the rest of her group.

"We need to go right now, this place is probably not safe anymore," said Catherine as she slowly moved her body, feeling fewer and fewer restraints on her movement.

Seeing this, the rest of the group suddenly broke out of their trance, as suddenly regained control of their body once again.

"Yea, let's go, we can talk about this after we get somewhere safer," said Shane as he quickly jumped out of the hole, being followed by the rest of the group.

...

Sometime later,

Looking at the burning campfire in front of him, Oliver couldn't help but slightly raise his head, staring at the rest of the group.

"Are all of your elemental stones gone as well?" asked Oliver as he looked at his three companions, who right now were sitting silently around a campfire.

"Yea," mumbled Shane as he slightly raised he got up and walked next to Madeline.

"It's alright, we aren't in any danger right now," said Shane as he looked at Madeline, who was shaking at the moment.

Hearing Shane's words, Madeline suddenly raised her head, staring into his blue eyes for a moment.

"You don't have to worry, I'm not as fragile as you think," said Madeline as she slightly relaxed her fist.

But even though Shane heard Madeline's words, he did not speak, as for some reason, some sweat appeared on the back of his head.

Although Shane was not the best at distinguishing emotions, as he looked at Madeline right now, he could feel it without any difficulty, the anger that was flowing through her right at this moment.

Seeing this scene, Catherine couldn't help but try to cheer the group up.

"You have to view things in a positive light, after all, we at least got some combat experience out of this, things could have gone much much worse," said Catherine as she looked at the rest of the group, as Shane, who was about to speak shut his mouth up,

At this moment, for some reason, Catherine felt like her words of encouragement seemed to have had the opposite effect of what she intended.

...

"Hmm, looks like those kids weren't as impoverished as I expected," mumbled Beatrice as she quickly counted the elemental stones she had acquired from them.

Immediately after counting them, Beatrice took the 216 elemental stones and put them in a small bag before taking out three small metal cubes.

One of the cubes came from Catherine, while the other came from the same room Catherine and the others were residing in, hidden in a certain corner, guarded by another formerly magical lock.

As for the third cube, this one came from inside of the lab, being the only thing Beatrice could retrieve from there, with everything else inside being completely dead or decayed.

"Injecting mana into it will probably work," mumbled Beatrice as she picked up the first cube, the color of the barrier protecting her body becoming slightly brighter as she did so.

Then, a moment later, Beatrice injected her mana into the small cube, causing a small figure to suddenly appear above the cube.

"If someone other than me is seeing this, then it means I have already followed in my Master's footsteps and died," said the figure as it stared in front of itself.

"I don't have any requirements for you, being who is seeing this, but if you found my corpse, I would like to ask you to bury it, as there is nothing valuable present on it."

'It's quite a pity that your body was destroyed in the explosion after surviving all these years,' thought Beatrice as she watched the small figure once again begin speaking.

"If you came here in search of a way to become a Warlock the rune my teacher used is present in the left wall of the room, but I don't think it will be of much use to you."

"After all, trying to become a Warlock in the Mage world is an extremely foolish idea, especially after what those damn Mages did," said the figure as it gritted its teeth.

"But if you want to continue on this path, you can find my experimental notes in the lab," said the figure before suddenly disappearing.

"Is this the end?" mumbled Beatrice as she once again sent mana into the small cube, being greeted by the same figure repeating the same words over and over again.

A few moments later, Beatrice diactivated the first cube before turning her attention to the second one.

The moment Beatrice sent her mana into the cube, an image of a rune suddenly appeared before her, alongside some text.

'The rune suitable for the assimilation of the Golden Lyon Beast'

At this moment, no other words were present in front, causing her to slightly frown before injecting some more mana into the cube.

A moment later, the image in front of Beatrice shifted, revealing another rune and another sentence.

'The rune suitable for the assimilation of Flying Wolf'

'The rune suitable for the assimilation of Wood Elves'

As Beatrice injected her mana into the cube, the scene before her continued shifting, but after a few moments of searching through her memories, Beatrice couldn't help but remember the words of the figure.

'After all, trying to become a Warlock in the Mage world is an extremely foolish idea, especially after what those damn Mages did.'

The more Beatrice searched for the beasts described below the rune, the more she reached an awkward circumstance.

All of the beasts and creatures described by the cube were gone, hunted to extinction by past mages.

Everything that was listed by the cube as being able to be assimilated, from the weakest bug to the strongest Dragon, was completely gone from this world.

At the same time, Beatrice also read about some species she had no idea even existed, for example, these so-called 'Elves'

Right at this moment, Beatrice realized why she hadn't actually heard of any Warlocks actually existing at the moment.