Earth's Greatest Magus
chapter-997

"That can't be right!"

Despite Yuria's warning, Thrax confidently charged into the forest.

Behind him, Julian simply commented, "Let that idiot volunteer and try."

Yuria also nodded. She didn't think that it would pose much of a threat. On the contrary, Yuria had also called all the 20 golden warriors and their captains to enter from different entry points as well.

However, the situation proved to be as expected. In less than 30 minutes, the 20 golden warriors, their captains, and the Thracian all walked out of the woods where they came from one by one.

"What the hell!? I walked straight! How is this even possible!?" Thrax annoyedly voiced out his thoughts and ruffled his hair.

Ignoring the Thracian's confusion, Yuria once again told the golden warriors to enter once again "Walk around the forest, check on another path"

This was the reason why Yuria brought more people to help. It was quite a huge mountain, after all, there must be one hidden path.

On the side, Klea looked at the entrance of the woods with a curious look on her face.

"Is this an illusion?"

Without waiting for anyone to give her an answer, the girl flew up into the sky, activated her enchanted bracelets, and flew toward the summit.

"Be careful" Emery said

The girl was supposed to fly straight into the summit, however, from the ground, the others could see that she was apparently just flying the outskirt of the mountain in a circle.

After a while, Klea finally flew back down. Under the other's curious gaze, she began explaining what she found.

"It's an illusion of the mind, but it's created through a formation. The whole forest is one big formation, and the only way we can go through it is to break the formation."

Unfortunately, none of them knew much about formations, much less how to break one. The person who knew most about formations among them was Emery, and even he only understood about using stone formations to enhance his spatial magic.

Next, it was Chumo who stepped forward.

"Let me give it a try."

He touched his forehead and used his special skill, [Eye of Raven]. Suprisingly, Chumo was actually able to sense the flow of spirit energy inside the forest with it.

"Follow me!" Chumo proudly exclaimed. Hearing this, the others, including Emery, had a look of amazement on their faces.

This time, everyone entered the forest with Chumo leading them at the very front. As they carefully walked inside the forest, Emery constantly used his spirit reading to check for any anomalies in the area.

However, no matter how hard he looked, he couldn't find any.

After five minutes of walking deep into the forest, Chumo began telling them to turn sideways multiple times without any prior signs. Half an hour later, the group finally reached a clearing.

There, a little girl was sitting on top of a huge boulder. The forest breeze lightly blew her long black hair, and the sound of rushing water could be heard from the river next to her.

The clear blue eyes looking straight at them were filled with amusement as she laughed in a slightly childish voice befitting of her appearance.

"Hihihihi, congratulations for passing through level one."

Emery, who was in front of the others, was ready to start speaking to the little girl when he felt a hand on his shoulder.

"Let me do it," Klea said before retracting her hand.

Emery wasn't sure of what she wanted to do, but he realized having Klea to talk to will be less frightening for the little girl.

"Please excuse us, little girl. We're looking for a man called the Eastern Sage, do you know him? If you do, can you please lead us to him?"

The little girl blinked before cheerfully responding with a smile.

"Father said only those who passed the challenge worthy to see him."

"Father?"

Emery was surprised. He didn't expect the Easter Sage to have such a young daughter. However, before he could think more about the matter, he saw Yuria was already standing behind the little girl, ready to catch her.

"Little girl, we have no time for games. Just lead us to your father."

"Yuria, don't!" Emery shouted as he had a bad premonition about the girl.

Sure enough, right after the threatening words came out of Yuria's mouth, the girl emanated an enormous amount of explosive energy at a magus level, instantly throwing Yuria back several meters.

"So you all are bad people. Naya would rather see you die in the forest than let you meet father!"

The infuriated little girl transformed into a blue cyclase before she swiftly jumped into the river beside her. Emery and the others quickly rushed toward the river stream trying to go after her, but she quickly disappeared from their sight.

"She not human," Klea said, half-muttering. "She has to be a high-level evolved Merfolk"

"Now what?" Julian furrowed his brows.

Yuria silently looked at the river where the little girl disappeared while pursing her lips.

"Sorry." The girl stood up. Because of her, the only lead they found ran away.

Emery glance toward Yuria and said "Don't worry about it. Let's see if we can pass the next formation"

Chumo once again used his [Eye of Raven] to help them find a way. However, unlike in the previous formation, the flow of energy in this one was much more difficult to follow.

"The flow of energy here is in multiple layers, they stack over one another," he reported to the group.

Still, he didn't give up using his special skill to guide them out of the formation.

…

The place was extremely strange. It had been about an hour since they started looking for the formation's exit, yet even with a river stream passing through the forest and several rocks that were relatively easy to recognize, they still ended up back where they came from; the boulder the little girl previously sat on.

Klea, who had been observing the situation, fell into thought. After a short while, she finally began speaking with certainty.

"This should be a triple-element formation of water, plant, and earth. It definitely takes a genius in the field of elements to make something like this. How many elements is the Eastern Sage actually proficient in?"

She muttered the last sentence.

After trying for half a day, Chumo ended up giving up on using his skill to find a way out of the formation. At this point, he was already quite mentally exhausted.

"We need a different way. Does anyone have any other ideas?"