After the battle in the Grant Academy campus subsided, it took around 12 hours before the emergency evacuation order was enacted. During this time, Professor Atkinson and Dolores were still taking shelter inside of Professor Atkinson’s office - according to the small crystal ball of Professor Atkinson, the air in the campus was filled with some kind of very corrosive and toxic dust, which also seemed to be able to seep into some rooms that were not well sealed off from the outside world.
“Well, that was a waste of time.” when the emergency evacuation order arrived, Dolores sighed and put down her notebook: “They should’ve enacted it earlier, what caused the delay?”
“Don’t know, but I think it’s good that it is enacted.” Professor Atkinson took out a small scroll from one of his drawers: “The teleportation barrier is disabled in areas that are functioning as shelters now, let me send out a note and leave.”
“I will contact Mr. Yu.” Dolores nodded: “He told me he was going to be in the lab continuing with his experiment, so he should be there as well.”
Just this moment, a somewhat unstable portal with golden and orange edges appeared in the office, and shortly, Mr. Lun Wang, one of Jianmen’s avatars, came out from behind it.
“Hey folks, sorry.” when the portal closed, a small explosion happened and knocked some books and notes off from both Professor Atkinson’s and Dolores’ desk: “My apologies, I wanted to walk over here but the smoke is in the way. I think everyone will have some trouble with that.”
“No, no, don’t worry you’re here just in time.” Professor Atkinson patted on his suitcase and said: “We were just going to ask you if you’d accompany us on our trip to the edgelands.”
“Edgelands?” Jianmen nodded: “So you did find something useful from our library, did you? I can’t say that for my students, but congratulations!”
“Yeah. They are just very vague tales and lores from some old memoirs and archived documents. But I think we found something.” Dolores jumped up a little and giggled with visible excitement: “Apparently, long ago there were some mages and scholars that had pretty good relationships with some members of the elemental world, and in their notes and diaries they mentioned that there were some kind of intertribal conflict amongst many different groups that occupy different realms that were once - well, once one.”
“So you were saying, something tore the void up.” Jianmen nodded.
“The void - and the rupture. It started to make sense, the more we read and cross reference the knowledge with the information he shared with me, the more sense it makes.” Professor Atkinson started getting too excited to speak: “The mages and scholars, they were able to gather some lores and history from the elementals, right? And they were able to find out that apparently after the ‘rupture’ tore the void appart, the tribes of the voidborns were thus born. The different elementals, the Fog Dwellers and Depth Dwellers. And they - well, how to properly put this - they went on to different evolutionary routes. Also, there are no, I mean absolutely no official ‘voidborns’ anymore.”
“No official ‘voidborns’? ” Jianmen went silent for a short moment: “How is that possible? The void got split into different realms, but the void being the void, the pieces should still be able to give birth to their own children.”
“Yeah, that part IS true.” Dolores said: “Except that the elementals mentioned that something seemed to be missing from the elementals after the rupture - they couldn’t tell what it was, but they could sense the absence of it.”
“Well, that’s not good.”
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“What made it worse was that it became the course of a few wars, which led to a lot of bloodshed - well, blood in elemental terms at least. And they lost more strong and original voidborns in those wars and they thus had less of a clue on what it was.”
“So, what’s your theory?”
“Our theory was that we go to edgelands and find some more historical records about the rupture and the wars, and since it is the descendant of the first one who ascended from the void, then the one we’re looking for definitely has ‘it’.” Dolores answered: “Whatever it was, we can’t really figure it out unless we at least go to the edgelands and meet with some of the elementals. So, would you accompany us?”
“Ah, bad timing. I am afraid I can’t.” Jianmen shook his head: “Believe me, I would really love to. But this injury's got me pretty exhausted and I am in no shape to travel to the edgelands. So I guess all I can say is good luck.”
“Too bad.” Professor Atkinson said: “Now we should be on our way. Do you know if the elementals still use purified gems, sapphires or rubies as currency?”
“Yes they still use them. Though they are also open to trading with energy stones, and most of the materials you would need to find when you need to craft any high level arrays.”
“Noted.” Dolores nodded and went back to her desk to take out a few cloth bags of her personal materials.
“And, please take some of these.” Jianmen reached into his pocket and took out a few pieces of very rough and crude looking dark stones: “These are some of the mid-products of some of my purification experiments. It’s not worth much, but should be alright to serve as pocket change.”
“Thank you.” Dolores took the rough stones and put them into a cloth pouch: “And thank you for all the wonderful help you’ve given us.”
“So, would we still see you when you’re back?” Professor Atkinson asked.
“You could still see ME, as in my main body or other avatars., just ask Josephine.” Jianmen smiled and handed them an envelope: “This is for you - some very important information inside for your references. I’d tell you face to face, but this kind of information needs time to prep the listeners. So, be absolutely ready before you open it.”
“Okay, call me intrigued.” Dolores chuckled: “Mind letting me know what it is about?”
“It’s a clue I recently got synced up from one other avatar.” Jianmen nodded: “It could be helpful, but it could be nothing.”