Using the remaining materials he had in storage, he quickly crafted three axes, a pick-axe, and another set of climbing axes.
He then used vine ropes to tie the tools to his back and attached double-strengthened vine ropes to the climbing axes to support his weight.
Since he was running out of time to create Granovarish's weapons, he planned on doing only a bit of surveillance before actually carrying out the operation, so there would be no time for him to return and make more tools.
Once he was done with his preparations, he left for Alpha's room.
There he found both Alpha and Zhayen doing pushups -Alpha once again doing his one-handed radiant cowl pushups, while Zhayen was struggling to do even the regular ones.
"Zhayen, is someone here?" Alpha asked as Lucius approached.
"It's Havon," Zhayen strained to say, before falling to his belly in exhaustion.
"Master, do you need something from me?" Alpha asked, immediately getting to his feet and facing the door.
"I'm over here," Lucius said with a soft smile. Even though Alpha still had a long way to go, it was good to see that he was able to tell someone had entered the room.
"You know, if you use your hearing in addition to earth sense, you'd be able to tell it was me by my gait alone," Lucius explained, before moving to help Zhayen get up.
"Gait?" Alpha asked, wiping the sweat off his face.
"The way I walk. Have you noticed that everyone's footsteps sound different?" Lucius replied, before sitting on the edge of the earth bath at the center of the room.
"I-I'll take that into consideration," Alpha responded after some thought.
"Anyway, I'm going out on a mission. I might be away for a day or two, so if you need food I've left the container with meat open. You can eat as much as you want, I'll probably come back with more," Lucius said.
"I'm going with you," Zhayen said, fatigue still apparent on his face.
"No, you're staying. You'd just get in the master's way. You need to at least have a solar crux for you to ever hope to go on missions with him," Alpha scolded. To which Zhayen drooped his head in defeat, before going on his knees and silently begging Lucius to come with him.
~Ah, Alpha's infamous training session has gotten to him,~ Lucius laughed to himself inwardly. Though if Zhayen hoped to become a part of the commune this was a bare minimum.
"Alpha, try not to talk about too many commune secrets around him. He'll be told about them when the time comes, for now, he still has to prove that he'll be useful to us in some way," Lucius said after some thought.
"And Zhayen, I have no idea why you're on your knees, but with the form you were using to do your pushups, I'd say you have to start over," he added, prompting Alpha to begin scolding him. Apparently Alpha had already warned the child about doing them incorrectly.
It was a heartwarming sight for him. Even though he would've liked it if his whole family were here, it was good to see that Alpha was still the same as always.
~Who knows, maybe I'll find them while I'm out on my mission,~ Lucius thought to himself before pulling out their status screens.
┏━━━━━━༻❁༺━━━━━━┓
────⋅☾ Creature Details ☽⋅───
[Pagan Elwood ]
[Level 26: 0/2600]
[Leaf Being [Photosynthesis-Variation] [93%]
─────⋅☾ Stats ☽⋅─────
[Agility: 400]-Maxed [+5%]
[Strength: 400]-Maxed [+5%]
[Stamina: 400]-Maxed [+5%]
─────⋅☾ Titles ☽⋅─────
『First in the commune』- active +5% to all stats, helios, and growth gains.
┗━━━━━━༻❁༺━━━━━━┛
┏━━━━━━༻❁༺━━━━━━┓
────⋅☾ Creature Details ☽⋅───
[Ghost Elwood ]
[Level 25: 2456/2500]
[Leaf Being [healthy-hybrid] [43%]
─────⋅☾ Stats ☽⋅─────
[Agility: 400]-Maxed
[Strength: 400]-Maxed
[Stamina: 400]-Maxed
┗━━━━━━༻❁༺━━━━━━┛
┏━━━━━━༻❁༺━━━━━━┓
────⋅☾ Creature Details ☽⋅───
[Hannibal Elwood ]
[Level 21: 0/2100]
[Leaf Being [73%]]
─────⋅☾ Stats ☽⋅─────
[Agility: 400]-Maxed
[Strength: 400]-Maxed
[Stamina: 400]-Maxed
┗━━━━━━༻❁༺━━━━━━┛
He felt infuriated that he hadn't made the time to search for them properly. But with everything that had happened during the past week, it was all he could do to hope that they were safe.
~Well, wherever they are, it looks like they've been doing a lot,~ he thought to himself, noting just how high their current levels were.
It was no surprise that Ghost and Pagan had managed to max out their stats and get to those levels, but for Hannibal to achieve that as well must've meant that they were carrying out a lot of operations.
"I'm sorry I'm taking so long. Soon," he whispered before willing all the screens out of view.
As he was about to leave, Zhayen stepped in front of him, and got on his knees once again, the tears at the rim of his eyelids threatening to roll down his cheeks.
'P.L.E.A.S.E' he mouthed.
To which Lucius just shook his head, and walk past him without a hint of mercy.
"You guys enjoy yourselves," he said, before venturing towards the exit.
*
Staying underground was quite confusing since one could never be certain what time of day it was. However, Lucius was lucky enough to find that it was still daytime. It was just a shame that the necromancer's spell blocked a good amount of the sun's rays.
Before proceeding to the clan lands, he decided to check how much progress the necromancer had made toward building his second necropolis.
And apparently, construction was going well from the looks of it.
There were now several massive skyscrapers in the city, and there were even a few more undead giants working now, making production go even faster.
In the past Lucius would've felt like he was useless for letting the necromancer get this far, however, he knew better now. He was not taking on some random creature that had just spawned out of nowhere.
No, from the memories he had stolen, he came to know that the necromancer was at least as old as the fae, if not older. And the spells he had at his disposal would've been enough to make a weaker man give up.
However, he had also discovered several of the necromancer's weaknesses. For instance, his true body was still in Necropolis, and the body he was using here was being tethered by something called 'The Conduit'.
He hadn't gotten enough time in Aziel's mind to find out exactly what, or where it was. But he knew it had to be kept close to the necromancer at all times. If he could find that, then it didn't matter how many creatures it created.
"I'll kill you eventually. Just you wait," he whispered to himself, before dashing off to the Immaculate Forest at full gallop, his determination only stoked by the necromancer's progress.
*
