After leaving Dolminico's restaurant Uriel was holding on to his seat for the life of his, the woman behind the wheel proved to be a reckless driver, dodging other cars across the city without a care for the speed limit or transit laws.

"Can you please slow down?" Uriel shouted, scared out of his mind.

"I told you before, we're in a hurry. Something like this wouldn't be necessary if someone had picked up his phone before!" She gazed at him, worrying him even more about his safety.

"Please look ahead!" Uriel was on the verge of tears. His joy after seeing his bully knocked out cold in the ground was outshadowed by his current fear of death.

"Come on! don't be such a coward!" She said still looking at him, letting go of the wheel entirely and placing a hand on top of his leg seductively, yet all Uriel could think about was the imminent crash they were bound to suffer.

Contrary to his expectations, the car started braking in a soft manner, thanks to its advanced suspension it was barely noticeable. Once they got off the car, it moved by itself to the nearest empty parking spot. Uriel gaped at the incredible car, but at least know he knew how it was possible to move so fast even in heavy traffic.

"This is a Nikola, it's able to drive on its own and it's unaffected by cryptids' FOD so I could technically take that baby even to incursions without any issues." The beautiful woman said with a smug grin as she watched the miraculous car park on its own.

There were about twenty bodyguards waiting for them already, each and everyone taller than the average soldier and dressed in really expensive clothes.

'This clothes... I've seen them before.' Uriel pondered as he gazed at the long coats. Those were Mapple corp employees and they were all of the ascended rank.

The woman walked right past them, rushing her steps to get to the door before the young student. Uriel didn't miss that when she walked by they didn't flinch, yet as soon as he walked in the middle of the corridor every bodyguard bowed politely towards him.

The building was extremely luxurious, the floor was neat and the hall was so tall it was inefficient. If he knew anything from his studies on past civilizations was that the more inefficient a building is the more money they owners had.

Automatic doors opened and closed as they walked by, until they finally reached the spacious backyard where the Mapple zeppelin was located. Uriel was still trying to catch his breath when a tall figure emerged from the zeppelin's door.

"Miss Nika how dare you rush our esteemed guest!?" An old man wearing expensive clothes, with an appearance similar to Mister Scofield, scolded the woman.

"But, Mister Walter, the zeppelin was about to depart! I needed to rush him or else..."

"Nonsense! how can we depart without mister Sage!? I'll have a serious talk with you. I apologize for our employee's behavior Mister Sage, she's nothing but a warmonger and lacks any form of common courtesy." He bowed down deeply in front of Uriel.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

just judging by his appearance Uriel already liked the old man, but now he heard him speak so politely left a deep impression on him.

The old man led him to the first comfortable chair as he clapped his hands to call for service. A young blonde stewardess hurried up with a cart filled with all sorts of delicacies, and poured a glass of cold water for Uriel. He gulped down the content of the glass in one go, more nervous than thirsty, because of the VIP treatment he had received so far.

"Is there anything else I can get you mister Sage?" The blonde girl asked worriedly, as if her life depended on it.

"No, thank you for the water, it was delicious." Although he was a very smart person and was top of his class, his mind simply stopped working when he replied. 'Delicious, who says water is delicious, it's just water' he scolded himself in his own mind.

As soon as Uriel regained his composure he looked around with a clueless look. Walter didn't miss any of it and then proceeded to speak.

"I understand your confusion Mister Sage, please allow me to introduce myself first. My name is Walter Works and I'm really pleased to finally meet you." The man said as he extended his hand for a handshake, Uriel replied without thinking much of it.

"You have the same name of the founder of the Mapple company." He laughed jokingly, but the man didn't seem to react.

"Ah! Yes, actually, I am the founder of Mapple corp. but please don't think much of it and just call me walter, I'm no longer the CEO and I'm just an old man after all. Now, let's get down to business." He made a small pause and then presented in front of Uriel a strange map which was clearly hand drawn. "I believe you're familiar with this place."

"Of course I am! that's Chichén Itzá, one of the most important pre columbian remains known to date... Well, after the Mapple project I suppose there's not much else to find anymore." Uriel sighed.

"On the contrary!" Mister walker exclaimed. "There's just so much we don't know about so many places and that's precisely why we're setting up this expedition."

To say Mister Walter was charismatic would be an understatement and he had Uriel's complete attention, even after being informed that he was in front of one of the most important men in history he could only focus on the conversation.

"And what exactly are you expecting to find?" Uriel asked with a glint of distrust in his eyes.

"To be honest, we're pretty open minded about it. Anything we find will most likely be a ground breaking discovery, from the strong material used in the construction of the underground structures, to even the fountain of youth!" Walter said excitedly.

"The fountain of youth? But that's just a myth!"

"A myth, is it? We've found that many of the cryptids that had been laying waste to our civilization have been at least mentioned in folklore from the old times. We just recruited an interesting young lady who presented to us an outrageous theory that's starting to make more sense the more we think about it."

"Could that woman's name be Luna?"

"How wonderful! So you know each other! Had I known that from before I would have asked her to come along." Walter said in a regretful tone.

"It's ok, I don't think she would have been interested in coming anyway. So, what was that about the fountain of youth?"

"I knew you'd be interested. Now let me be clear, I don't think we've found 'El dorado' or anything, but one of our archaeologists has been studying Ponce de Leon's travels and he believes that he actually found the fountain of youth and then staged his own death so no one else could find it."

Uriel's rational mind didn't have any space for mumble jumble about impossible cities and fantastic fountains with the made up ability to rejuvenate a person, but he had to admit that keeping an open mind would be the best course of action if he was to take part in the investigation.

Mister Walter explained the details about their mission with such passion that Uriel realized that he was in front of another Archaeology enthusiast. They chatted for a while and the conversation was so pleasant the sun was already down when they finished and Mister Walter had to attend to other businesses.