It had been mentioned before, but Damien didn't leave August to figure it all out on his own.
He'd left clues all throughout Fort Halleya that would eventually lead him to the right place.
It obviously wouldn't be easy, but it was absolutely possible, even with the particular uniqueness of Damien's current hiding place.
Damien believed in his son, and August believed in his ability to read his father.
Making it out of the crowd was a problem at first, but for geniuses who put their mind to it, evading regular civilians wasn't a problem at all.
In a situation like this, they were permitted to use their power, weren't they?
August was able to maneuver in such a way that he could avoid all prying eyes without a problem. Valerie was more high profile, but after seeing her performance in the arena, hardly anyone was willing to stand in her way.
Melania didn't have either of those traits. She was good at concealing herself, but only at a basic level for now.
Still, she had the least problems out of any of them.
Her presence during the battle was barely a thing, so even when she left the same area as the other geniuses, people decided to focus on those like Valerie instead, so she was able to get through without a problem.
It was a bit humiliating, but since August and Valerie didn't see it that way, Melania was less self-conscious about it.
Nevertheless, the three of them escaped the arena and met up at a nearby cafe to discuss strategy.
August had somewhat explained the game to them.
They had to follow his lead since he was the only one who could track the clues left for them, but both Valerie and Melania were prepared to play any role they could to help.
Though, they didn't believe it would be that hard.
It was just a friendly game between father and son, right? What was the worst that could happen?
window.pubfuturetag = window.pubfuturetag || [];window.pubfuturetag.push({unit: "64ce79d606107d003c23ea27", id: "pf-5140-1"})August didn't bother telling them otherwise, since they'd find out on their own soon enough.
'First off, clues.'
"Knowing my dad, the first clue is going to be super obvious. It's going to get progressively harder from there, but we can worry about that later," he said, involving the other two in his thought process.
"The question now is: where is that obvious place?"
He didn't know anything about this city. He could spend time learning if he wanted to, but what was the purpose of having teammates if the work wasn't distributed?
Melania hadn't left Arragon before so she couldn't help in this area, but Valerie had explored a decent amount of the kingdom under the guidance of her clansmen, so it was different on her side.
"Fort Halleya isn't a crazy popular city, but it's still a spot that tourists really enjoy. There are a few monuments that matter more than others, but if it's as obvious of a spot as you say, then it has to be a staple of this city," Valerie said, her brows furrowed.
"If I had to guess, then the best place to start would be the Monument of Truth."
"The Monument of Truth?" August echoed.
"Yeah, it's not really anything special. It's just called that. Anyway, it'd be too boring to just talk about it, so I'll just take you there."
August nodded, and Melania also agreed.
Fort Halleya was a port city, or at least, the draconic equivalent of one.
They didn't need to use the seas to trade with others, but there were several clans that lived in the water. They would surface at places like Fort Halleya to accumulate resources and trade for things they couldn't get in their natural habitats.
The Monument of Truth was located on that port, at the very west end of the city, outside of the walls that allowed this place to call itself a fort.
It was really just an obelisk made out of a dark obsidian-like material. Its height was commendable, but the actual artistic creativity behind its design was questionable.
Still, when a well-traveled or well-informed dragon thought about Fort Halleya, the Monument of Truth was one of the first things that came to mind.
window.pubfuturetag = window.pubfuturetag || [];window.pubfuturetag.push({unit: "64cc9e79c7059f003e4ad4b0", id: "pf-5109-1"})It was put in place when the city was first created and had withstood trials and tribulations for hundreds of thousands of years.
The reason it was valued was not because of its design. It wasn't even because of the materials it was made of or its originally intended meaning.
The reason people valued the Monument of Truth was because it managed to survive no matter what kind of arduous situation it was placed in.
Through countless wars and countless disasters, it stood strong, reminding people of what they could do if they just kept themselves stable and refused to lose hope.
As such, what was originally just a monument used to praise a long-forgotten king was now a symbol of the people, a site that Fort Halleya's denizens took pride in.
August could feel their pride as he approached it.
Along with something else, an aura that only he'd ever be able to sense.
"You were right," he said, looking at Valerie.
"It looks like our quest starts here."
He walked up to the obelisk with the girls. They could only follow him as he circled it before stopping at a specific spot on the side that faced the pier.
"Am I allowed to touch it?"
"Not if you don't want to die."
"Then…"
August reached out, his fingers just an inch away from the obelisk.
There were people who immediately turned their eyes to him with hostility, but he didn't plan to move his fingers forward to cross that final gap.
Instead, he took a drop of mana to the very edge of his fingertip and sought a connection with the aura he felt.
window.pubfuturetag = window.pubfuturetag || [];window.pubfuturetag.push({unit: "663633fa8ebf7442f0652b33", id: "pf-8817-1"})Zap!
Like a small arc of lightning, a bolt of mana connected August's finger to the obelisk itself.
A galaxy appeared in his eyes. Darkness enveloped him and the two behind him. The obelisk flipped on its head and started ticking like the minute hand of a clock.
Valerie and Melania were already confused and panicking. This situation wasn't anything like what they were expecting.
August, on the other hand, was comfortable in the darkness.
'It's a clock…?'
Was this the clue, or did he have to do something else to unveil it?
'Hmm…since it's the first one, it would usually end here, but…'
August started drawing in the air with his fingers.
Mana was released from his hand. It first surrounded the obelisk in a circle before forming numbers and even a second hand to complete the image of the clock.
The second hand ticked according to the flow of the minute hand, and over time, as they synchronized, August saw a different picture.
"Coordinates?"
Melania was actually the one to voice it. August looked back at her in surprise.
"How did you know?"
"Ah, I don't really know. The hands aren't really following the flow of time, so I thought they were trying to point us in a certain direction instead. The easiest way to do that is to either give us a range to explore or give us coordinates to find."
It was quite an intuitive answer.
Melania had spent a lot of time trying to discover what she was good at. She'd read as much as she was able to with her status, and she learned a variety of trades to support her family.
Reading coordinates wasn't really a useful skill, but she learned to decipher them as part of a job that she had taken in the past.
After gaining an interest in cartography, a skill that dragons didn't make much use of, she did some extensive research on her own and actually developed a decent skill set to become an explorer.
Of course, she couldn't leave her family at home alone, so she never pursued that path.
Still, her skills never became useless. This moment proved exactly that.
"Nice!" August said with a smile.
Whenever Damien gave him coordinates, he'd struggle. He hardly knew his way around a map, and to understand the position of a few numbers in a place where he didn't know left from right was genuinely just impossible for him.
By chance, he had someone in his party who could make up for his weaknesses.
And because of that, what would've been a taxing task that took several hours or even a day to complete could be finished in a much shorter time period.
'See, ancestor?' August thought as his smile widened.
'This is why comrades are always important.'
He was hoping Qinglong was watching from the heavens as he gained prominence in the world.
Because that ancestor of his…while they differed a lot, he was still the only blood-related family that August had.
The urge to make that ancestor proud, to show him what kind of excellence he could achieve in the path he'd chosen…
Moments like these helped him satisfy that urge.
And, it solidified his own thoughts.
He would conquer this world with his comrades.
Not a single one of them would be left behind in the process.
He would make sure of it, no matter what it took.
