For a minute or so, Valyr could only look at Faulus in silence, wondering whether or not to believe his words. After all, from his perspective, it seemed that Faulus had just given in to his intrusive thoughts the previous night.
With that in mind, Valyr began to wonder whether Faulus was just pulling his leg or playing a joke on him just to lighten up the mood.
"Are you… are you perhaps joking?" Though, since the alchemist would not tell something like that to him if there wasn't the possibility of it being true, Valyr decided to send a message back to Faulus for confirmation.
In response, Faulus looked at Valyr and faintly shook his head before sending a reply. "What reason would I even have to come up with such an elaborate joke?"
'True.' Reading through the alchemist's response, Valyr wryly smiled.
Inwardly taking a few deep breaths to calm himself down, the young man soon asked Faulus for more details as to how he figured something like that out.
In response, the alchemist sent back a series of messages that were concise, yet contain most of the information Valyr needed to know.
From what Faulus had sent to him in his messages, after the argument between the two of them had ended, the alchemist had sworn to himself to find out the reason why he had blurted out something like that all of a sudden.
After all, according to Faulus himself, it wasn't like him to speak out his mind before thinking.
With that, he began to thoroughly search through every possible cause whilst he was in his tent, starting off with the items he had brought along with him in his spatial chest.
Utilizing his great control over mana, he eventually crossed out the items in his spatial chest as a cause, finding nothing out of the sort even after greatly scrutinizing each and every item he had brought.
After that, he focused his attention towards the tent, as well as the current surroundings they were in. Though, similar to his first search, nothing popped up either, making him wonder whether he had truly decided to say what was on his mind at that moment without thinking.
Eventually, after finding nothing strange coming from his items and the environment, he focused his attention towards himself.
Or more specifically, his internals.
Circulating mana to every nook and cranny that existed within his body, Faulus kept all of his senses peeled for anything peculiar, cycling the mana around his body multiple times.
Then, by the time he had cycled his mana throughout his body for the tenth time, he finally noticed an extremely faint connection to some place else that was connected to his mind.
With how near imperceptible it was, Faulus decided to circulate his mana around his body for a bit more to hopefully cause the connection to awaken.
Thankfully, by the time he had circulated his mana around his body a total of 30 times, the connection had become strong enough for him to find out what the connection was doing.
And what he found out shocked him to the core.
Though he could not figure it out at first, Faulus eventually realized that this connection was the source of the negative thoughts that plagued his mind ever since he entered the inheritance.
Then again, he wasn't 100% sure whether or not the connection was truly the case, considering that he could only sense a nefarious energy emanating from it.
Nevertheless, after constructing a few basic barriers out of mana around the connection, he felt his mind become clearer and sharper compared to before.
"Since I have to circulate the mana around my body many times before even sensing that faint connection, I kind of understand why I've only said something so outlandish twice," wrote Faulus in his final message.
"Though it would've been better if I hadn't said something like that at all in the first place, I'm just grateful I now have some protection against it."
'You could definitely say that again,' inwardly muttered Valyr to himself, faintly smiling as he looked at Faulus. 'If it got any worse, I'm pretty sure it won't just stop at letting your intrusive thoughts win.'
'Then again, that begs the question…' Thinking about how it was a huge relief for the group that Faulus had somewhat nipped a potential problem down the road in the bud, a question soon popped up into Valyr's mind.
"Do you know who put that connection on you?" Sending the question to Faulus through the chat function, Valyr's mind was soon engulfed by the thought.
After all, with a connection like that, then that meant someone either had malicious intent towards Faulus. If not that, then they had malicious intent towards the five of them exploring the inheritance.
Hoping that the man had an answer, a slight frown briefly appeared on Valyr's face after seeing Faulus shake his head. "Unfortunately, no. Believe me when I say I've searched every nook and cranny to find a possible lead."
"Yet, nothing." At these words, the alchemist let out a low sigh.
Valyr let out a sigh as well. "Well, at the very least, you've contained a problem that might potentially get worse as more time passed. That, for now, is more than enough."
"I seriously apologize for causing trouble to you, Valyr," wrote Faulus in his response, feeling glum at the fact that he was causing another problem from another perspective, even though he found out the answer to his earlier problem.
Valyr only chuckled in response, the faint animosity he felt earlier towards Faulus now gone. "It's fine, it's fine. Let's just hope it doesn't get any worse the further we delve into the inheritance."
"But if it does, at least I now have an idea as to what's going on."
Sending a few more messages back and forth between them, the two eventually looked at each other with smiles on their faces, prompting the other three to smile as well.
"Guess they finally made up," said Hal, letting out a bit of laughter.
"This is just like those things I've been reading during my pastime," muttered Loreina, placing her hands on her cheeks as she felt her face get warm all of a sudden.
"Alright, enough dawdling around." Laughing in response to the words the others were saying, Valyr grabbed their attention and focused it towards the humanoids before them.
"It's time for us to gain some more authority levels!"
