897 Seclusion

Three months have passed since the confrontation over the area of the formation of the cyan pentagram.

After a journey of just over a day to get away from the very dangerous areas in the far north of the continent, Vicente and the others found a good place for their retreat.

There, they held a brief farewell ceremony for their dead before burying them near a lake.

Now the group was still standing in the underground area they had found, a place that had once belonged to the Cataclysm Order, where the group's beasts still slept soundly, processing the precious resources they had consumed months before.

Meanwhile, Vicente had awoken from his seclusion a month ago!

...

In the meditation area of the order's secret altar, which the group had entered to hide from their enemies for a moment, six special magical creatures slept peacefully in a room large enough to accommodate them.

In one corner, Acidbelly stood with his large wings covering his entire body, the mana in the surrounding area more concentrated around him, a sign that he was close to a level increase.

Tenglin was in a similar situation, though he didn't have as much mana around him. Curled up in a small corner of the area, the Qilin looked like a sleeping cat, ready to act if anything disturbed his peace.

The werewolf Lonan lay down like a human in another corner of the area, while Elmo sat in a lotus position, his roots and flowers sprouting from his body. Bonfi had his flames burning brightly around his body, his cultivation as high as it had ever been, similar to Qiang's situation.

Outside of this place, robotic armors stood guard at every door in the area, some of them even standing guard outside.

After over eight weeks of seclusion, Vicente had awakened a month ago, having reached the absolute peak level of a High-level Paragon after absorbing some of the blood of a superior vampire with a cultivation similar to his own.

Unfortunately, he had already consumed vampire blood many times in the past few years and months. What might have brought other High-level Paragons to the beginning of the 6th stage only helped him reach the peak of the 5th stage.

Even though he had reached the peak of the 5th stage, Vicente was still at a cultivation bottleneck. He didn't know how to get out of it for the time being. What he lacked was not mana.

Ever since he woke up, he had been working hard on his creations, trying to stimulate his cultivation by constantly challenging his understanding.

Thus, in the past month, he had not only sent eight of the twelve monsters that had come with him and his group to this place to the south, but he had also created peak 5th stage robotic armors.

These armors now occupied this previously empty place, guarding the surroundings, protecting the entrances, and doing the maintenance work for this secret outpost.

Unlike the dusty and troubled place they had found when they first entered months ago, this was now a clean and organized environment.

Vicente was now in the study and work area of this secret altar, working on his next plans.

"Sigh... It would be easier if I had old Torne by my side," he muttered as he closed the book he had just finished reading and leaned back in his chair.

As he closed his eyes and sighed, Vicente remembered that fateful day. Even though he had absorbed his fifth pentagram at the time of Torne's and the others' deaths, he had felt everything perfectly to know how his allies had died in his defense.

It was terrible not to have his advisor by his side, but after a minute of mourning, Vicente opened his eyes and stood up, looking at the shelves of books.

'I have to get back to work.'

As sad as he was, and as grateful as he was for the sacrifices of those five, he didn't want to see the future predicted by the Divine Dragon Matrix come true. Pausing next to a shelf of books on Materials, Negative Elements, and Forging, Vicente selected a few more volumes to study.

The Cataclysm Order was a large organization from the past of the Polaris Realm. It had many professionals of different specializations and valuable collections for blacksmiths like Vicente.

Not knowing what he could do to reach the 6th stage, Vicente wanted to focus on forging. He wanted to learn. Maybe that would help him get out of the bottleneck he was in.

Not having much else to do while he waited for his companions to finish their restorative sleep, he returned to his current routine.

Besides his daily reading and cultivation, Vicente had spent the past month crafting armor and weapons that he planned to send south via Elmo and Bonfi when they awoke and continued their plans to return to their territories.

In addition to the robotic armor he was working on for this outpost of the order, he already had a spatial ring filled with weapons and ammunition, as well as 5th stage armor.

Even with more common and weaker materials, Vicente could now produce the highest quality items his structures would allow. Weapons were limited to the 4th grade, while conscious armor was limited to the 5th stage.

...

Vicente would continue his routine for the next few weeks, the time it would take for the group to begin to leave their seclusion room.

The first to finish his sleep would be Lonan, the one with the lowest cultivation, who had reached the last part of the Beginner Archmage level.

After Lonan, Bonfi would be next, reaching the absolute peak of his level, very close to advancing to the level of an Intermediate Archmage.

To Vicente's surprise, after Bonfi, Qiang would awaken just before Acidbelly and Tenglin, achieving the same breakthrough as those two beings from the Majestic Treefrog Grove weeks lateradvancing to the level of Intermediate Archmage!

Elmo would be the last of the group to come out of seclusion, apparently still at the same level, as it was extremely difficult for someone like him to advance to Advanced Archmage.

After the day of Elmo's awakening, the group would celebrate their past victories and the end of their partnership before Elmo and Bonfi would leave the team and head south together, carrying resources for the humans, but also hopes for a better future.

Vicente, Lonan, Qiang, Acidbelly, and Tenglin would also leave this outpost of the order, traveling with four Dark Path Intermediate Archmages with new plans in mind.

It was time for them to continue their crusade against vampires!

Their current goal? To free the humans in the north of the continent!