CONVERSATION

The Dwarven Bubble was in a bit of an uproar, but the culprits had vanished into thin air, unbeknownst to anyone else.

Much of the Dwarven Race lived underground, their culture not much different from what Leonel had seen in the Incomplete Worlds. Their societies were couched in winding tunnels and quasi darkness.

Of course, there were some beads of light here and there, mostly lining their walls and ceilings, but it was nothing like the sun could provide. In fact, a normal human from Earth might find it hard to even see very much further than a couple meters ahead of themselves.

One would think that a race of people like this would feel depressed all the time, but even from just being here a few minutes, Leonel found a sweet sort of ambience hanging in the air. © 2024.

After the improvement to his Dream Force, the Dream Force of others practically felt tangible to his eyes. This world was filled with peace and prosperity.

Who was he to tell these people what would make them happy? Just because a human would feel stuffy and depressed being stuck underground for such a long time, couldn't the Pixies and Sparrows feel different?

The Dwarven Race felt at once with the earth. They had evolved as a weak Race that needed to protect themselves, and over time, they grew to accept their underground worlds with open arms. Rather than a form of oppression, it became a source of peace and prosperity for them.

It was this world that Leonel and Aina entered. Disguising themselves as a Pixie and Sparrow wasn't too difficult. With the improvement to his Dream Force, although his Emulation Spatial Force hadn't been brought along, Leonel still felt like he could control it with greater precision.

At this point, unless an expert had mastered a Creation State Force, seeing through his disguises would be almost impossible. The only other way was to have a Quasi Creation State Dream or Soul Force.

While it wasn't impossible for the Dwarven Race to have such an expert lingering around, Leonel didn't plan on running into them any time soon.

"I'll need to just observe this world for a while. Let's try part two of our vacation now," Leonel said with a chuckle.

"Mm," Aina nodded, not minding. She looked around curiously, finding everything fascinating. She quite liked the ambience of the Dwarven Race, it was exactly this kind of atmosphere she wanted to recreate with her and Leonel's children. If they had a few little princes and princesses running around, wouldn't it feel a lot like this?

A smile couldn't help but bloom on her face.

Soon, the couple had found a hotel of sorts to stay in. Rather than working like Earth, though, the penthouses of this hotel were located much deeper into the ground. The closer to the world's core, the more expensive it was.

Leonel didn't want to be too conspicuous, so he picked out a mid-tier room for himself and Aina.

As they descended to their room, he listened to the various conversations.

More than once, he picked up some mention of Aerin. He could hear their pride in their voices and he even felt somewhat bad.

The entire world had all but forgotten about Aerin, when in reality he was just as important to the duo as Lyra had been. In fact, in some respects, he was even more important.

He knew when to advance and when to retreat, and Leonel actually had quite a good impression of him.

But then his ears suddenly twitched as he picked up a peculiar stream amongst the cloud of positivity.

"It really is inappropriate. Our Dwarven Race has always hidden in the shadows, suddenly being thrust into the spotlight like this will only do us no good."

"I agree. Although Prince Aerin brought us great pride, there's been more pressure at the borders recently. A lot of Bubbles have sent envoys to act as ambassadors, but King Mulin has rejected them all. Although he did so politely, how would the other Bubbles take this?"

"You're right. Even if they don't take offense, they'll take it as a sign of weakness and use it as an opportunity to oppress us. The rewards Prince Aerin brought back this time are too extraordinary, and there are a lot of people eyeing us now. I think the ambassadors are just a pretext to "exchange" goods, and it won't be long before the knowledge they want to exchange ends up being those high Order Blueprints."

The two Sparrows clicked their tongue, lamenting about the state of their world.

Leonel's eyes narrowed.

It had to be remembered that Internal Sight was an extension of all five senses, whether it was sight or touch or smell, it didn't matter.

Right now, Leonel had stripped down his Internal Sight of everything but his hearing sense. It made it easier for him to control and stop others from detecting. So even though he was walking leisurely and even chatting with Aina, his actual senses were spreading across hundreds of kilometers.

Unfortunately, Anastasia couldn't control her senses like this, so it was best for Leonel to do it.

His Ability Index directly filtered out useless conversations and narrowed in on the ones that triggered any sparks in his Dreamscape, and this one was particularly fascinating, especially since the situation on the outside didn't reflect their thoughts.

The outside world was completely enamored with Lyra, they weren't talking about Aerin at all. So was this just a coincidence? Or did it reflect something deeper?

With how isolated the Dwarven Bubble was, it could easily be an either/or type of situation. But wasn't it precisely because they were so isolated that their situation was so easy to predict?

'No. I don't believe that the Dwarven Race's higher ups are foolish enough to not pay attention to the outside world at all... Wait-'

The conversation continued and Leonel picked up on something that made his eyes narrow.