Affinity:Chaos

Grey and Ellis stared at each other for a while, each curious about the other. Well, Grey was more curious given he likes to learn new things, and the prospect of finding out about another place that is far better than this place was thrilling.

"How did you get to become so good with the space element?" Ellis was the first to break the silence.

"Luck I guess. I found a strange, troublesome, cute teacher," Grey replied, thinking about Void when he spoke of this.

"Oh, there's another Space Elementalist here?" Ellis asked, surprised.

"Yeah, he's far better at it than I am," Grey nodded.

"That's surprising!" Ellis exclaimed.

"He was the one who introduced me to the space element," Grey said while rubbing his spatial ring.

Ellis noticed the sadness in his eyes and voice, as well as when he was rubbing the spatial ring.

"Wait, is that a spatial ring?" He asked, hopefully trying to get Grey's mind away from whatever sad thoughts he was having.

"Yeah, I got one by luck again," Grey replied with a soft smile.

If not for Void, there was no way he would've thought that seemingly useless ring would actually turn out to be a spatial ring.

"You sure are lucky. Although where I'm from is far bigger than this place, and has a lot of Space Elementalists, obtaining one of these is quite hard. You're either from a good family or very strong. And to get a good one costs a fortune!" Ellis said before pointing to the one on his finger.

"How come I didn't sense any space undulations from it?" Grey asked.

Well, he saw the ring on Ellis' finger during their journey, but he didn't sense anything strange from it.

"There's an array placed on it to make it look ordinary," Ellis replied.

"Such a sophisticated array, can I take a look?" Grey asked, a little excited.

One of the things he enjoyed learning about was arrays. Whenever he sees something new, he would study it properly, integrating it with his previous knowledge.

The reason he still hasn't left the cave was that he wanted to study how this trap array worked.

Ellis didn't think too much and removed the ring from his finger before tossing it towards him.

Grey caught it gently before studying it, his facial expressions changing multiple times.

"This is really good, if I can learn how it works, then it would be an amazing breakthrough," He mumbled while fumbling the ring in his hand.

On seeing Grey's expression while he was studying the ring, Ellis knew he must be someone who had a high interest in arrays.

After looking at it for a while, Grey reluctantly gave it back to Ellis.

Ellis took the ring before placing it back on his finger.

There are a lot of things Grey wanted to ask Ellis, but he didn't feel it was appropriate.

"Come with me, I'll be returning in two days time," Ellis suddenly said.

"Huh?" Grey looked at Ellis, confused.

"I've been searching for a way to leave this place, and I found an array formation that seems to be able to transport me back there. I don't know which people made it, but if my guess is correct, then they must be from where I'm from," Ellis explained.

"As much as I would like to go, I have a lot of things to take care of here," Grey shook his head sadly.

Even though Ellis haven't told him much about this place he was from, he could tell it would help him grow faster, compared to staying in the Azure continent.

"What might that be? I could help," Ellis asked.

He liked Grey, and making friends with such a genius would be a great thing for him. For Grey to grow this powerful while in a place like this, it was unimaginable what he would achieve if he were to accompany him back to his continent which had superior resources.

"I'm searching for a place, it's a bamboo forest like this one. This was why I spoke with you when I heard you say a bamboo forest," Grey said.

Since Ellis was powerful and wanted to help him, then why not. He has never been stupid, so when a good opportunity arises, of course, he was going to take it.

"Hmm, a bamboo forest. What are you looking for?" Ellis asked.

Grey went on to explain what he was searching for in the bamboo forest, after listening to him, Ellis fell deep in thoughts.

"A shame, I've used up the one that was with me. I don't know where this bamboo forest is, but for the next two days, I'll help you search for it. Hopefully, we can find it before then," Ellis added.

Grey nodded, before thanking him for his help. Although he couldn't say he trusted Ellis, he could tell that he wasn't a bad person, at least to him.

'Could it be that they are not from this continent?'

Grey suddenly thought of his parents. According to old man Gerald, there is no information about his parents in the Azure continent. He said they appeared all of a sudden and disappeared in the same manner. No one has been able to tell him where they were from.

The more he thought about it, the more he felt like this was the most probable explanation. If they didn't come from the Azure continent, then it made sense how they suddenly disappeared without a trace.

After calming his raging thoughts, he started studying the array in the passageway. There was no way he was going to pass up this chance to learn this array formation.

Ellis, who was waiting for him, was surprised when he saw him sitting on the ground close to the passageway.

'What is he doing?' He thought.

He soon got his answer when he saw a familiar gleam in Grey's eyes. It was exactly the same as the one he saw when Grey was studying his ring.