Affinity:Chaos

"Damn bunnies"

Grey cursed while sitting in a crossed leg position inside a hole in a huge tree.

The bunnies surprisingly chased him for over one hour. He could swear the leader of the bunnies gave him a smug look, like, 'I thought you wanted to make bunny soup?'.

Looking at his bag, he felt a little excited about his harvest. Although he didn't take a lot which would have guaranteed him a quick advancement to the Ninth stage, they were still better than nothing. Since he was not an Alchemist, there was no way he could fully bring out most of the essence from the plants. The best he could do was just cooking them since unlike fruits, plants shouldn't be eaten directly because there are toxins present in them. There are procedures in extracting their essence, but he did not know of them.

However, cooking them will only bring out at most ten percent of the herbal essence. But he'll have to do with that for now, he didn't plan on using all the plants since he didn't know most of them. What if some of them had poison? Thinking up to this point, he decided to only use the ones he was familiar with.

Since it was dark, he didn't cook the plants, instead, he went into the chaos space and started comprehending the water element.

The days passed by and before Grey knew it, he had been in the trial lands for one month now. This one month could be said to be fruitful since he had been able to advance quickly in his cultivation. Currently, he was just a whisker away from the Ninth stage of the Arcane Plane. The only thing that dampened his mood was that apart from the garden, he hasn't obtained anything good that boosted his strength.

He had searched multiple buildings but couldn't find anything could.

…………..

"A castle"

Grey saw a castle in the distance from the hilltop he was currently on, and made his way towards it.

From the palace he entered the last time, he had big expectations for this castle. Although this place wasn't as big as the palace he entered the previous time, it should have good items inside.

It took Grey three minutes to get to the castle. There wasn't anyone outside the castle, which meant two possibilities, either they were inside, or there was no one here.

He cautiously entered the castle, and before he could walk any further, he heard sounds of battles.

'Someone's fighting? No, seems like a group'

At first, he thought it was a single battle, but from the sounds, it was clear the battle was between two groups.

He sneaked towards where he was hearing the sounds and soon a big hall appeared before him, and he noticed the groups fighting against another. There were at least ten people in each group, and at the side of the hall, six beasts could be seen lying lifelessly on the ground.

'These beasts aren't weak, they are all stronger than an average peak Arcane Plane Elementalist'

Grey thought.

He had battled with beasts that were exactly like these, so he knew just how strong they were.

Focusing his attention back to the group fighting, he saw some familiar faces he saw not too long ago.

'It's them! What are they fighting over?'

Grey recognized one of the groups.

He saw them about a week ago. When he was about to enter a compound, he saw this group. They consisted of about ten people, and the one with the weakest cultivation stage was at the Eighth stage of the Arcane Plane. But none of them had been able to break through to the Origin Plane though.

The leader of the group was a refined-looking young man who had sharp features and a warm, gentle smile. When the group noticed Grey, the leader suddenly walked up to him and introduced himself with a calm voice. The way he spoke was very soothing to the ear and Grey was sure he wouldn't have a problem with convincing people. Just from how he spoke, Grey almost had the notion of befriending him. But when he recognized the students from the Starlight Academy behind him, he quickly dismissed that thought.

Seeing them, he thought they came to find trouble with him.

When the leader noticed this, he laughed before introducing himself to Grey. When Grey heard his identity, he was shocked. The leader of the group claimed he was the twelfth prince of the Qilin empire, and from the way, the students from the Starlight Academy were behaving towards him, it didn't seem like he was lying. He didn't expect the twelfth prince would recognize him, he hasn't even seen this twelfth prince before or any other prince.

He was invited by the prince to join their group, which he politely refused. Since the prince was talking to him calmly, there was no need to be rude to him. But there was something he noticed the moment he refused. He felt a hint of animosity from them, the prince included. Well, he already felt it from the trio from the Starlight Academy the moment they saw him. Although the prince hid it quickly, he was still able to sense it.

'I understand the animosity coming from the students from the Starlight Academy, but I've never met any of the other people. So I don't get the reason they are feeling this way towards me'.

'It shouldn't be because I refused to join them right?'

Grey had always kept his guard up whenever he crosses part with people, he increased it further the moment he recognized some people from the Starlight Academy. He further increased it when he sensed animosity from people he hadn't even made contact with.

………….

'Huh! What's that?'

Grey's attention was immediately drawn to the box which was placed not too far from the fighting group.

'There's an array protecting it, but it seems to have worn down due to time'

'They are probably fighting over who will acquire it. But from the aura radiating from the array, it has been attacked before. It's almost broken even'.

"Fuck you all, this place was found by us. And we also defeated the beasts here, now you all want to claim the reward"

A youth from the other group yelled towards those from the Qilin empire.

The prince replied in a very cool and calm manner,

"It doesn't matter who finds it first, it's who has the strength to acquire what's inside that matters"

The group from the Qilin empire all laughed. They had been here before the other group defeated the beasts, but they hid so as not to alert them of their presence. When the group successfully killed the beasts, they immediately went over to the box but seeing it was protected by an array, they started attacking it. Luckily, the array didn't seem to have a self-repair function, or maybe it had, but it wasn't working properly. They were about to break the array when the group from the Qilin empire showed up and attacked them.

Grey looked at them for a while, the moment he saw the box, his interest was aroused, and he was already plotting on how to acquire it. He didn't care about any prince, if he's a prince, what does it have to do with him? Given his knowledge of arrays, although this array was more complex compared to the ones he knew, they all had the same outline. If he could figure out the weakest link, he could quickly destroy the array and escape with the box.

But he wasn't in a hurry, even if he finds the link now, he couldn't attack since he had to make sure he moved at the best time. The group from the Qilin empire already had the upper hand, and he estimated they would most likely win the battle since the other group was already exhausted from the previous battle with the beasts.

"You should just give up. Some of you are already injured, and there's no way you can contend with us"

The prince tried convincing the group.

It would be better if they didn't have to waste their energy fighting a prolonged battle.

The other group all looked dismayed, they had worked so hard just to get here. Even defeating the beasts wasn't easy, but now, someone wants to take the fruit of their labor. They didn't want to accept it, they couldn't. They would rather fight it out with them, what if what was inside the box was a life-changing item.

The battle soon entered the crucial stage with both groups attacking more fiercely.

Grey knew his time had come since there was no way he would wait for them to finish battling before he makes a move. Now that they were more focused on their opponents, they would not be able to notice him as he sneaks towards the box. He had already picked out the weak link in the array.

'Now'