Time flew by, and before long, the day turned to night.
Ellis was first stunned, then frustrated, and later on, impressed at Grey's obsession with trying to figure out how the array in the passageway worked.
He had seen people who wanted to learn, but few were at Grey's level of diligence. He had been studying Grey's expression over the past five hours, and he could tell that he made some improvements.
Well, it's not from his expression, but from the fact that he walked into the first part of the array and it didn't light up. It was only after almost a minute did it light up.
Presently, Grey was already midway through the entire passageway, and it hasn't lit up. When he passed it previously, he used his strength to forcibly suppress it, hence the reason he was able to casually walk through it. But Grey was carefully studying and finding the weak links in the array, this is why it wasn't lightning up even after so long.
'He must be a genius in array formations!' Ellis exclaimed inside.
'Wait, if I recall correctly, he mainly used three different elements when he was fighting against those guys, adding the space element to it, that makes it four. Wow! What sort of a monster is he? People with three elements aren't rare back at home, although there are some with four, for one to appear in such a place is truly remarkable.' He looked at Grey with eyes wide open.
If he were to find out that the four he knew of were just half of Grey's elements, it's unknown how he would react.
Ten more minutes passed and Grey walked out from the array.
"I'm done, we should head out," He said to the baffled-looking Ellis.
"Oh, okay," Ellis came back to his senses before looking at the array once again, waiting to see if it would light up.
"No need to check, it won't light up. Although, if you were to step on it, the outcome would be different," Grey said with a small smile.
Ellis looked at Grey before deciding to test out what he said. With a few steps, he appeared before the array, he placed his left leg on it, and even before his leg touched the array, it lit up, sending out an explosion that was far stronger than what it used to.
"I might've forgotten to add that I modified it while I was studying it," Grey said while scratching the back of his head.
Ellis, who was still in the explosion, came out coughing from the smoke. He was fine, except for his clothes which suffered from some burns.
He looked at Grey, and the more he thought about it, the more he felt like Grey was someone who could easily topple the genius in his continent. Well, not with his current strength though. But he believed it would be possible in a few years' time.
"Wouldn't this kill everyone who is coming in here?" Ellis asked.
"No," Grey shook his head before continuing, "Remember when I said I modified it?"
Ellis nodded to his question.
"Well you see, it needed to let out a powerful explosion, that way, it would stop functioning. It can easily be reactivated. But I set up a trap array to ensure no one activates it," Grey explained.
As if to test what Grey said, Ellis stepped on the passageway again, but this time, he set up a powerful defensive armor around his body. Even though he wasn't hurt by the previous explosion, it still rocked him.
Fortunately for him, the array didn't light up, nor did it explode.
"Oh, it's just like you said," He lowered his guard before turning around.
Boom!
An explosion rang out from the other side of the passageway, scaring the shit out of Ellis.
"Now, the array has been completely nullified." Grey nodded confidently before stepping out of the cave.
"You didn't kill that guy from before?" Ellis asked, shocked.
He knew he didn't sense any sign of life in the captain's body after Grey killed him.
"Well, I wanted to, but then I figured what was better, killing him, or keeping him trapped here. I decided to go with the latter since it might give him an opportunity to survive. He was unfortunate and woke up sooner than expected, since he was already up, I just thought it wasn't worth it letting someone like him live," Grey shrugged.
"What do you mean woke up sooner than expected, you literally stayed in here for over five hours," Ellis looked at Grey stunned.
'This guy's ruthless. If he were to come with me, hehehe, the peace of the continent would be turned upside down,' He thought happily.
"Five hours? I thought we were only there for a few minutes," Grey asked surprised, on looking up, he realized it was already dark, "Crap! You're right,"
"Of course I am, now, where do we begin our search?" Ellis asked while looking around.
"I have no idea, I forgot to ask the person where the bamboo forest was located, so" Grey spread out his hands.
"Take this, I'll go out to search for it myself," Ellis threw a crystal orb towards Grey.
Grey caught it and looked at it with interest, "What does this do?"
The orb wasn't big, just slightly larger than Grey's palm.
"It's for communication, see, I have one with me," Ellis brought out another crystal orb, showing it to Grey.
Grey looked into the orb on his hand, and to his surprise, it showed the image of Ellis who was a few meters away from him.
"Wow! I've been hoping to make something like this, to think it has already been created," He exclaimed.
"Wait, what?" Ellis asked, surprised.
"I wanted to make something like this, but I haven't been able to figure out how the arrays would work," Grey replied sincerely.
'Are you sure you grew up here?' Ellis almost wanted to ask but refrained from doing so.
From the small time he has chatted with Grey, he could tell he didn't think like most of the people here. Although, there were always weird people everywhere,