Around the Bamboo Cove, herbs of all kinds were growing in a large quantity. Kadyn looked at them and smiled pleasantly. He crouched down near the lake and pulled a flower from the ground gently. Afterwards he took a sniff from it. "Red Savory," he muttered and hurriedly went to check out other herbs that were growing around. "Water Cinnamon. Winter Cassia. Fade Safflower…"

The more Kadyn checked the more excited he became. Though there weren't any Rank 1 or above herb, Kadyn was already content with what he had found. With these herbs he could brew a plethora of potions and make a large number of energy points by selling them.

He looked towards everyone else in his group. He smiled and said. "Let's collect these herbs before leaving the place. Although they are just elementary herbs, they are still quite precious. At least for the current me."

No one objected and did as Kadyn asked them. After an hour later they have collected almost all of the herbs around the lake. There were hundreds of herbs of all kinds. Kadyn passed all of them to Elora inside the shop. He thought for a moment and then decided to make a medicinal garden so he could plant those herbs.

He used around five hundred energy points to make a medicinal garden. Though his heart ached, he did it anyway. After all the soil and mana inside the shop wasn't enough to support those medicines — without enough mana and fertile soil they would die sooner or later — so he used energy points to increase the quality of the soil and mana in that area, enough to support the elementary rank herbs.

Afterwards he told Elora and others to plant those herbs inside the garden.

After doing that the group resumed their journey. The only open space was the lake but its surrounding was densely packed with brushes and shrubs and the tall Bamboos were obscuring the sky beyond. Even though they were following the same path from which Roclus and others came; from time to time, they still needed to cut the path open ahead of them with the help of their weapons.

However, halfway through Kadyn lost the path from which he had come with Roclus. Left with no choice he could only tread forward with his group. After walking for around two hours like that the group exited the Bamboo Forest. The Bamboo Cove had already vanished from their sight, hidden behind tall rattans.

As soon as the group walked out of the Bamboo Forest they took a deep breath and wiped the web and other kinds of trash that had gathered on their bodies and inside their hair when they were making a path — afterwards Kadyn looked around and realised that their surroundings were covered in mountains.

They rested for some time and drank water or ate something to replenish their energies. Afterwards they again started their journey — the relieving thing was that they didn't encounter any strong magical beast. Even though they had come across a few of the weak ones, Khrom and Slyff took care of them with ease.

Khrom was already pretty strong and not many under Rank 1 could match him. He could even fight a weak Rank 1 mage if he was forced by the circumstances. However, Slyff was also catching up to him pretty fast. He was already a 9-star elementary mage and after completing his previous missions he had gained quite a few energy points.

And with the help of those energy points, he had learned a 7-star bear transformation spell. He didn't have enough points to learn more strong spells as he had already used them in the meditation room. Otherwise, he would have not reached the 9-star elementary mage.

The group walked just like that until noon arrived. The sun was still hiding behind the gloomy clouds, reluctant to show its face to the people. At this moment, Kadyn summoned the shop and everyone went inside. Sister Rayna had already prepared the food for everyone while Cecilia, Nefia and Elora were helping her from the side. Though none of them knew how to even make tea.

"Have you completed the task I have given you?" Kadyn asked Elora when they were eating.

"Ah, don't worry, we have already planted all of the herbs that you have given us." She looked at Dion who was eating beside Hot Rod and said. "Dion did most of the work. Almost all of the herbs have been planted by him."

"Oh," Kadyn nodded and continued to eat — while their group was outside they didn't bring Dion, after all, he wasn't powerful enough, he would become a burden instead of helping them if they brought him together. That's why Kadyn left him behind. Though Dion felt somewhat bitter inside, he knew clearly his capabilities so he didn't dare to object.

After that their group went out again, and continued their journey. This time, however, Kadyn brought only Khrom with him. Previously he travelled with all of them with him because he was afraid that he might encounter a powerful magical beast inside those densely packed Bamboos that he couldn't handle by himself. After all, the Bamboo Forest looked quite eerie in its own right.

But now they could see far ahead of them and no hindrance was blocking their view — even if they encountered some trouble they would be able to summon their reinforcement in time, or even catch their adversaries off guard.

——

When it was around 4 o'clock only then the sun showed his face in the sky beyond the clouds. However it didn't last much longer and once again it went into hiding behind the dark clouds. Kadyn and Khrom had walked a long way from the Bamboo Forest by now, but they didn't see any village or town on the way that depressed them quite a bit.

'How good it would be if I had a map of the entire Pengolla.' Kadyn thought and then shook his head. Although the Pengolla Portal could send him anywhere on the Pengolla it wasn't a map.

"Smoke?" while he was in a deep thought Khrom said with a confused expression. Kadyn turned his gaze into the distance where Khrom was looking and also noticed a cloud of smoke in the distance.

"That must be a village or a town," Kadyn said somewhat excitedly. After walking around half a day he found a place with the human population. "Let's go." He said and dashed towards the source of the smoke.

Though the distance seemed short when they started their journey, around half an hour later, they realised that their destination was far away. Nonetheless the duo didn't stop and continued to sprint towards the source of the smoke. The ground was filled with pits, cobbles, and boulders. The ground was uneven and hard to run at a uniform speed. Nonetheless Kadyn cared a little about it and continued to rush with Khrom.

Around forty-five minutes later they arrived on a somewhat protruded ground from where they could look in a far distance. Kadyn and Khrom peered into a distance — the village was around a kilometre away from where they were standing at the moment. However at this moment, their expressions froze, because the entire village was filled with smoke.

That wasn't coming from a chimney or by cooking food. After all, such a large amount of smoke couldn't be produced by just cooking. Previously due to the large distance in between, they didn't realise about it, but now they knew that something was afoot here.

"Bandits?" Khrom muttered as he looked at Kadyn.

"Maybe, we will know after reaching there," his legs were already in motion as he said. "Let's go."

Five minutes later the duo reached the village. The entire village was on fire but the board at the entrance was still completely fine, on which the name of the village was written. "Sandrock Village."

Kadyn didn't stop at the entrance and rushed into the village. He looked all around but found no dead or a living soul. He exchanged confused glances with Khrom. The duo could see a bewildered look in each other's eyes. Where the hell did all the people of this village go? He thought.

When he failed to find anyone outside, he even went inside a few houses that were burning, to check if someone was there, but to no avail. He couldn't find even a single dead body. They continued to search the village and a minute later they arrived at the centre of the village and they felt a chill inside their bodies when they saw a scene in front of them. Their eyes were wide open in terror while their legs were about to collapse.

"Who the hell did such a thing?" Kadyn's eyes turned red in anger as he furiously said. He clenched his fist until his knuckles turned white and the creaking of bones resounded.