Dimensional Descent

Leonel met their gazes, his own narrowing. The sight of the Libra brothers wasn't something that he was expecting, it was the first time he was seeing such odd humans. The natural blue hair of the Adurna family was already a great shock to him, but the white as clouds and dark as night skin of the twins was yet another culture shock for Leonel. The both of them seemed as though they had been painted into reality rather than being naturally occurring.

Still, Leonel only lingered on this thought for a moment. What was more intriguing was the odd way Force moved about the two of them. There was a clear push and pull effect between the two brothers as though they were pulling in Force together and separating it into parts in a game of tug of war. In the end, there would be a light pop and the 'rope' would cleanly separate, leaving each brother with their own clean half of the Force.

It was a perfect sort of a balance. Droet's Force was a bit lighter and brighter while Huon's Force was a bit darker and heavier.

Leonel looked away. He couldn't waste any more time on these people, there was a time crunch.

He took a step forward but Aina was a bit slow. Seeing that her legs felt weak, Leonel put away his spear and swept her legs into his arms as well, not really thinking twice about it.

Huon and Droet frowned at this scene. If Aina was a normal beauty, they wouldn't have even thought twice about what they were seeing. What kind of beauty hadn't they experienced with their noble standing? Unfortunately, Aina wasn't very normal at all.

These petty feelings only made the anger they felt toward their failed ambush worse. But, within the safe zones, the rules of the Void Palace were put back into place. It was already too late for them to do much of anything.

Surprisingly, though, Leonel didn't get the chance to explore very long before a flash of light appeared before them.

Soon, it faded, revealing the figure of Ossenna within.

The safe zone was quite small, only being about 30 or so meters in diameter. So, despite the fact Ossenna stood at the center, she was still viewable to them all through the gaps left between the storefronts that called the core of the village home.

"Congratulations on making it this far, you can now be considered Nominal Disciples of the Void Palace."

Leonel's expression flickered, but then he settled down in understanding.

They had been fighting without pause or rest for more than a day. If it wasn't for him and Little Blackstar taking up the vanguard, and then him proceeding to take the brunt of the pressure away from everyone else, it was likely that no one would have passed from the Three Pillar Sector.

Of course, that was also because Leonel's coma hadn't allowed them the time they needed to acclimate. There was no doubt that they would have performed far better if given the same time to adjust as everyone else.

If Leonel had to be objective, probably about half of those here would have managed to pass. If they were able to all work together like they did under him and not allow their clashing origins and backgrounds to interfere, then at least 60-70% would have passed. The quality of their Sector was definitely decent even if it didn't seem like it.

That said, it was still lagging behind others. If not for Leonel's interference, 100% of both Keiza and the Libra brothers' groups would have passed. And, that was taking into consideration the fact all three hardly raised a finger at all.

"Those without Tokens will be staying here. You will have one year from this point to make it to the next safe zone, or else your Nominal Disciple Rank will be revoked. Those with Gold Tokens, you may remain in this safe zone for three hours before you must leave and head to the next checkpoint.

"From now on, this will be a contest of not just checkpoints, but also speed. Safe zones will only allow a certain number of Tokens to pass through. Some will only accept one while some will accept up to three. You will be able to tell by the zone's size.

"Good luck."

After saying these words, Ossenna vanished once more, leaving Leonel surprised once more. It seems that he had been too naïve. How could the Void Palace make things so easy, even if it was for Nominal Disciples?

From what it sounded like, making it up the mountain was a rite of passage for all students. Even if you were a Nominal Disciple, you would have to do it, it was just that you were given a little more time to do so while those who carried the burden of higher level Tokens were under a stricter time crunch.

It was likely that if you wanted to graduate from your status as a Nominal Disciple, you would have to make it all the way up the mountain to the final checkpoint within the allotted time given to you.

'Another three hours, huh…'

The three Golden Token holders of the Three Pillar Sector were Myghell, Aina and Noah. And, of course, there was Leonel who had the Amethyst Token and was obviously involved with all of this as well.

Myghell had already gone ahead. Leonel wasn't sure if he had already stopped by the safe zone and chose to leave already, or if it was the case that he had went in another direction and ended up at a completely different safe zone. Either way, he wasn't here.

Ultimately, Leonel decided that this was a net positive. Now everyone had a year to adjust and with the storefronts here, they could exchange for everything they needed.

Since there wasn't anything necessarily tying down this safe zone to Village 0012, they shouldn't experience the same problems.

'Three hours, need to be more efficient this time.'

"I'll be back in a few minutes."

Leonel's gaze narrowed. He realized that there was one elephant in the room he hadn't considered just yet, and trying to ignore it could lead to a lot of problems.

Carrying Aina, he quickly made his way to the storefronts.