Splitting up

'Is she dead??'

[No, she is alive, but appears to be in an incredibly deep sleep, resembling that of hibernation. That is why her heartbeat and breathing have slowed considerably]

After hearing that explanation, Daron Simply picked her up and put her on his back before leaving the black box.

By this time, the man had already walked to the next box and was in the process of pushing open the door. Just before entering, he turned to Daron who was catching up and pointed at a spot near what seemed like a door nearly 100 metres from where they were, and said.

"Place her on the ground over there before coming to this one."

'Now he is making me do 100-metre shuttles? What am I, a delivery boy?' Again, he had to put away his frustration, that was likely caused due to the imbalance in his hormones, and ran the distance, placed Patrice down on the ground, before rushing to where the man was.

The next box had a familiar face whose name he did not remember, but he was part of the 6 who were originally on the ship. After failing to wake the person up, Daron simply lifted up the dude and put him a little away from Patrice unconsciously.

Within just 10 minutes, 17 unconscious people were lying next to each other.

"What did those 6 do?" Asked the man, displaying a hint of emotion in his voice for the first time since Daron had met him, almost as though he was reminiscing something from his past. But that was not something Daron wanted to venture too deeply into, and he just shrugged.

"Nothing much. It is just that they are new additions to the group at the very last minute."

"I see. Not trusting people easily is a good quality. Just make sure to remember it from now on. It is a quality that will save your life countless times." The man said with that hint of emotion slowly vanishing by the end of his sentence, as though he remembered a hateful memory, and his tone turned frigid once more.

What was more frustrating was that he could not see the face of the person under the hood, and neither could Sirious. Normally, this sort of thing should not be possible.

Just as he was going to say something, the hooded man stretched out his hand and began chanting some strange syllables, which were similar to the ones he used for his fireball, but yet completely different.

'Make sure to record and analyse this'

[Alright]

A strange light began to emanate from the man's hand, which woke all the people up from their deep slumber, and within 10 seconds of him completing the incantation, all the people began waking up one at a time.

[Done. Beginning analysis now. This will take 10% of the current processing power. However, even once I finish analysing it, you will still have to learn and understand the spell on your own. Furthermore, it does not seem like a spell that is too powerful.]

'It's fine. If one person had bothered to make the spell, and someone else has bothered to learn it, it means it at least has some value.'

[…] Sirious did not reply, but at that time, the hooded man spoke as he pointed to a few people.

"You, you, you, you and you, separate yourselves from the group." The ones he had pointed at were the knights in training, and official knights of the group. A total of 8 people were forced to leave those who they intended on working for, including Rudolf and a few knights in training from Daron's group.

The people who were originally from Daron's group, and the knight from Charles' group complied after noticing that Daron was also following the man's instructions. However, the remaining Novice knight from the group of six that mainly consisted of apprentices besides himself did not say anything and just stood his ground without saying another word. He was the last line of defence for the mage apprentices, and his responsibility had grown considerably especially since most of the knights and knights in training who had been brought along had died over the past 2 months.

The hooded man simply grunted before raising his finger and shooting out a beam of flames, whose temperature was so high that it turned the knight into ash in an instant, and the surrounding 4 apprentices that were behind him felt intense heat as though the sun had been brought right in front of their faces.

However, that only lasted for a mere moment, and the heat did not do actual damage to them.

The hooded man turned back to the two knights, one being Rudolf, and another being the one that followed Charles, and two knights who had been part of Patrice's group, before speaking coldly.

"You guys wait here. Someone will be here to take you guys away. Everyone else, follow me."

Without wasting anything else, the man began walking up the stairs, towards the wooden door behind Daron and the group of apprentices.