Ten days after he had signed up for the expedition, he went to meet the rest of the team. In three days, they would leave Losa to enter the Yanan desert, and they had to prepare everything that they could need.

Multiple rooms were available within the Ventar Academy for the use of teams preparing for a mission or individuals requiring a space to conduct experiments. Any member of the academy could ask for permission to use one of these rooms as long as they had a logical reason.

Zack went to one of these rooms, where he found a group of six people. Four of them looked like scholars and were checking if they had all the supplies and materials necessary for the journey. The other two looked like warriors and were polishing their weapons.

As soon as they noticed Zack's presence, one of the warriors neared him.

"So you should be Zack, right? I'm Walt. Nice to meet you," said the man while extending his hands toward Zack.

He was more or less the same age as Zack, had short blonde hair, and while he wasn't very big, he looked agile and athletic.

"Yes, I am. Nice to meet you too." Zack said while shaking his hand.

"Well, come here. I will explain to you how the expedition will work and what your job would be. " Walt said as he indicated Zack to follow him to see a map that was on a desk. "You see, we are here right now. Our main goal is to travel past the Cinder Plains to reach the Yanan desert. That is going to be the easy part, as there are a few safe roads built up until there, but from there onwards is where our adventure begins. As soon as we enter the Yanan Desert, the possibility of someone lending us a hand there is zero, simply because no one enters it, so we need to be as prepared as we can. "

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"That sounds problematic. But I'm sure that you already have some kind of plan, don't you? " Zack asked.

"Of course we do. We have prepared equipment meant to protect us from the extreme conditions of the desert, so we would only need to be aware of the magical beast, and that, my friend, is where people like us come into play. It would be our work to keep these scholars alive while they are doing their investigations and bring them safely to the city so they can pay us for our jobs. Do you understand? "

"Yeah, that doesn't sound difficult. Are the magical beasts of the desert strong or something? " Zack said confidently.

"It is not that they are strong, but that they are tricky. Most of the time, you will not be able to notice that you are being hunted until those things are already biting into your legs. And they can leave as fast as they come, so for someone who is not prepared, it is almost impossible to defeat them. But don't you worry; when you know exactly how to handle the situation, those things are not much apart from an easy meal. " Walt explained, while a smile appeared on his face.

"And what is exactly the objective of the expedition?" Zack asked.

"Well, as far as I know, it has been detected that the closer you get to the middle of the desert, the more the energy concentration increases, so if we are able, we will try to reach the center to see exactly what is happening in it, and if we are not able to reach it, we are going to study more deeply the characteristics of the region so we can try to reach further the next time we try. In fact, this is the fourth time that we have ventured into the desert. That's why we are going to be pretty prepared for whatever comes when we are exploring it. " Walt explained.

"Oh, I see. I hope that we manage to reach our objective then. " Zack said, with a smile on his face.

After that, Walt began to show Zack some of the equipment that they had prepared. Among those things, there were clothes made of water and air energy materials that helped you to keep fresh, some medicines that recovered a lot of energy for the user in a short time, or bottles that, if fed with energy, would create small amounts of water.

With each gadget, Zack saw more and more effort put into that expedition, so he could only feel confident about the results of the mission. After a few hours of planning and talking, Zack left to return to his room and began to prepare for the expedition that would start in a few days.