"When can a mage learn how to fly?" She asked him.
"The 3rd Circle," he replied as he shot forward. With the increase in speed, Nefrati had to give directions faster.
"Take a left," she said. "That must mean that magic uses the elements more than aura. Only 4th Circle Aura Knights can float in the air. And they can't fly like you are until the 5th Circle," she said.
He nodded at her words while flying in the direction she pointed him in. After the left he took, there weren't any more turns he needed to take. In the distance, he saw a faint red hue in the distance.
"Is that-" Leo was about to say but Nefrati interrupted him.
"Yes, that is it. You almost exited the temple. But be careful. There is someone beyond the temple. If they are your friends, then that is fine, but I doubt it since they didn't come in with you," she said.
He quickly stopped in his tracks. The exit was right in front of him - only a few meters away - but he didn't leave yet. His mind was more focused on why there were people outside. The temple was in the middle of nowhere.
Even for him to get there, he had to travel for hours to the middle of this place. On top of that, there were multiple dangerous Magical Beasts on the way. To cross them, the people outside would have to be at least as strong as him.
"Thanks for the heads up," he said while taking a step forward. Even if he was not sure about who it was outside, he couldn't delay his exit. If the temple would sink down as she said, then it would be better to face what was outside.
When he exited the building, he was greeted by the familiar blood moon. The red hue from the moon wasn't as prominent as the hue from the barrier surrounding the temple. Outside the barrier were two people in the air. Both of them were pushing off the nearby Magical Beasts.
The two people were Elise and Viscount Greendove. Neither of them thought that they would end up where they were, but it happened.
Viscount Greendove thought they would turn back after the first hour of the search since looking for someone who flew away was the most retarded thing he had heard. However, the lady from the Fairmount family was annoyingly persistent. She didn't seem to give up and forced him to keep going forward with her.
The next two hours were the most regretful hours in his life. Magical Beasts were trying to pluck them out of the air without rest. The Viscount expected this because it was the blood moon and tried to use this as an excuse to turn back.
However, they saw a bright beacon of light shine at this point. Elise saw this light and became very excited, forcing the Viscount to follow her to the light. The light disappeared after a while, but they remembered the location.
When they got there, however, they found themselves stuck outside the barrier. They couldn't enter if they wanted to and Elise wouldn't let them leave. They stayed there for the next 4 hours in the air, starting to feel depleted of magic.
"Lady Fairmount, if we stay here in the air for any longer, we will no longer have the necessary magic to get back. It won't be a problem for me, but I worry for you," he warned her.
He didn't have any problems at all. Being a 4th Circle mage, he would be able to get back to his city without any problem. Escaping the Magical Beasts wasn't going to be hard either. The issue was that Elise was with him.
If he left behind the daughter of the Fairmount Family inside the forest, he would definitely suffer a fate worse than death at the hands of the Marquis. This was why he didn't particularly welcome the visit of the Lady.
Once again, just as he spoke those words, a person exited the temple.
"That is him!" Elise shouted when she saw the person who left the temple.
Leo was still in his disguise, so he was in the same appearance that he had used to meet Elise. Since he didn't expect to see her in the middle of the forest, he didn't use a different disguise.
The Viscount looked down at the person on the ground and saw a 20-year-old man.
"Him? Lady, I advise you to be cautious. There might be someone else near us," he warned her.
She was confused. "Why?" She asked him.
"The man is a 2nd Circle Aura Knight. There is no way that he was able to get here by himself. Especially since it is the red moon. All the Magical Beasts are agitated and would attack him the minute they saw him. He wouldn't be able to escape, especially not in such a good condition," he explained.
Meanwhile, Leo sighed when he saw who it was. It was Elise Fairmount along with another mage. He didn't recognize the second person but knew that he was a 4th Circle Mage. It was probably one of her noble friends or guardians. The only reason he wasn't worried was that compared to the two, he was in a better state.
Since he was inside the temple, he didn't worry about the Magical Beasts. Based on how the two were fighting off the Magical Beasts, he expected that they had been doing that ever since they got there. They also had to stay in the air.
While that wouldn't impact the 4th Circle mage as much, it would to some extent. As for the 3rd Circle mage, she would be useless in the fight. So he could either escape or even fight them.
In the sky, the moon was very close to setting. It was barely clinging to the edge of the sky. When he saw it, he breathed out a sigh of relief. If he got stuck inside the temple for just a little longer, he might not have had enough time to get out.
As he expected, after 5 minutes the blood moon disappeared from the sky. The sun started to rise, lighting up the forest. It no longer looked ghastly like before in the red hue and looked more welcoming.
The Magical Beasts also calmed down and stopped attacking as aggressively as before. When they realized the power of the people in the sky, a lot of them actually backed away.
A loud rumbling noise attracted their attention again. The huge temple that Leo was standing on started to sink down. He leaped forward, landing on the ground. Behind him, the temple quickly dropped to below the ground.
When it completely sunk down, the dirt closed the gaps and completely covered any trace of there being a huge structure in the middle of the forest. With the temple gone, the barrier between Leo and Elise and the Viscount also disappeared.
Both of them realized this and they slowly descended toward where Leo was. Because of their presence, the Magical Beasts didn't approach the two yet.
