Interlude

A secret location inside a cave.

As he stared at the masked man in front of him, Max couldn't help but take in a deep breath.

"Follow me, sir," said Max before beginning to walk deeper and deeper into the cave.

After seemed like just a brief moment of hesitation, the masked man then began silently following Max, causing sweat to appear on the latter's forehead.

After around a minute of walking through twisty tunnels, Max, as well as masked man, arrived at the location where the goods were stored.

Nine Mage Apprentices stood around several large boxes, silently guarding them.

"Can I inspect the goods?" asked the masked man, causing Max to hesitate for a brief moment before nodding and waving his hand, causing the Mage Apprentices to walk to the side of the boxes.

Then, as the underground cave kept filling with tension, the masked man silently opened one of the boxes, revealing another, much smaller box inside, shielded from the outside world by many layers of shields and protections.

A moment later, the masked man grabbed the smaller box and carefully took it out of the crate, and placed it onto a nearby rock.

The moment the crate was opened, small amounts of elemental energy spilled through the room, increasing in size as the man took the box out.

After that, the man then began slowly but surely opening the small box, making sure that he did not do any damage to it.

The moment the masked man opened the small box, large amounts of elemental energy suddenly spilled out of it, but even so, the man still managed to catch a glimpse of the large elemental stone in it before quickly closing the box and placing it into the crate, after which he then also closed it.

Then, in the same fashion, the masked man then examined the contents of the other four crates, each of which held a similarly sized elemental stone.

After verifying the contents of the boxes, the masked man then turned to Max with a smile on his face, of course, this smile was hidden by the mask which was concealing his face.

"Very good, the quality is as was promised," said the masked man, causing Max to breathe a sigh of relief.

Sadly, though, this was the last breath that Max would ever breathe, as his body was then smashed to pieces by something invisible a moment later.

A moment later, the mage apprentices suddenly took action, and began launching their spells towards the masked man, but sadly, it was of no use, as a small Dark Bolt then quickly pierced through their barriers and claimed their lives.

After that, the masked man then snapped his fingers, causing black flames to emerge on the corpses, causing them to quickly begin burning up as the masked man, who had now removed his mask, began once again checking the contents of the crates.

This time, though, Leylin seemed much more carefree, as he quickly picked up the large elemental stones inside the boxes and walked out of the tunnel.

Of course, he first destroyed any other sort of evidence left at the scene.

...

As she looked at 'Beatrice', who had five large elemental stones floating in front of her, Selena couldn't help but faintly smile.

"It seems as though your task has gone quite well," said Selena as she stretched out her hand, causing the large elemental stones to suddenly fly into her hands

"Yes teacher, everything went smoothly this time," said 'Beatrice' as she looked at Selena, who had four large elemental stones in front of her, as well as at the singular stone now left in her possession.

Seeing the surprise on 'Beatrice's' face, Selena couldn't help but shake her head.

"You can consider this a reward for completing my task so fast," said Selena before disappearing, leaving 'Beatrice' no time to do anything.

A few moments after that, Beatrice then placed the elemental stone into her robe and walked right into her room, which was nearby.

...

As he stared at the four large elemental stones in front of him, Nicholas couldn't help but nod his head.

"These should be enough for the Space Prism to finally finish returning to its normal state, but wasn't it a bit wasteful to destroy the elemental stone mine to obtain these elemental stones?" asked Nicholas, causing Selena to shake her head.

"Even If I didn't destroy the mine, I wouldn't have been able to keep it in my collection, it's much better to obtain a few final benefits from the mine then to let it fall into the hands of the academies without obtaining anything from it, as for the benefits of this mine could bring in 10 or 20 years, what do those have to do with me?" asked Selena as she stared at Nicholas, causing him to faintly nod.

Indeed, from such a selfish point of view, destroying the mine made quite a bit of sense, after all, it was just the choice between being able to obtain something, or just giving it up without gaining anything.

At the same time, after eliminating the miners as well as the person involved with the mining operation, linking this up with Selena would become much more difficult, unless the Prophet got involved of course.

Of course, the Prophet doesn't usually get involved in things as minor as this, and as such, she should be safe to continue her work peacefully, at least for now.

...

Unaware of the thoughts of her teacher, 'Beatrice' was currently sitting in her chair, staring at the elemental stone in front of her, and thinking about what to do with it.

As she looked at the box that was her main body, Beatrice couldn't help but become a bit tempted to slightly upgrade herself.

"With the elemental energy production capability of this stone, creating a permanent shield around my main body shouldn't be very difficult..." mumbled Beatrice as she looked at the cube in front of her, light appearing in her pitch black eyes.