In my room, I review the information Nelton gave me about the expedition. He sure knows a lot about the situation, The exchange had been worth it. The target of the expedition is an old ruin 70 something kilometres from the city, it is situated between the borders of the league of shadows and order of the black shadow. It is told to us, that it is an exploration mission, but in truth, it is the beginning of the war between the two organizations.

The ruin itself is very old. Of course it had already been wiped out of anything worth something by mages. The amount of valuables apprentices can get out is very limited. Of course, that isn’t told to most people. The history of the ruins is unknown even to the order. It is only known that it was an ancient order of assassins and dishonest people. At least that’s what they say. I don’t think that this description is that much different than the order I am part of.

So continuing. The ruins had been concealed in a valley between the dragon back mountains. A natural border between the two organizations. It had been used in the past for the same purposes. It had been only discovered in the last 300 years. Not a long time, if you take the lifespan of most official mages. The freshly broken through mages have a lifespan of 100 to 300 years. It depends a whole lot when they broke through.

It had been told to us that the boost of longevity depends a lot on your age. For example the boost of lifespan for someone who had been at their sixties, who have around 20-30 years at most left with their strengthened body as a mage would have an additional lifespan of 60 to 90 years. In comparison, someone who broke through in their twenties and have a theoretical lifespan of 100 would have an increase of 240 years. That means a total lifespan of 340 years. But that depends mainly on their affinity. Someone with a very weak affinity has a very low chance of becoming a third stage apprentice, not to say about becoming a mage. Persons with a very strong affinity like me have an easier time to reach the peak of the third stage, but that doesn’t make the breakthrough easier. Only the way is faster. That’s why highly talented people are valued, but not like I had expected at the beginning.

The increase of lifespan is more a multiplicator than a fixed amount of 200 or 300 years. It is kind of logical if you think about it.

Back to the exploration. The entrance to the ruins is a small entrance in a valley on both sides of the mountain. That also means that the two parties can’t simply send in a huge amount of slaves to tire out the other side. It is more a skirmish with groups from 3 to 5 people, with the occasional lone wolf among them. Nelton also found out about some of the traps in the place. Most likely from earlier participants. Most of the traps are some kind of magically made traps. The triggers are either a big enough life from or heat. Nasty things can come out if I don’t watch out. Some are coated in poison. These are not the most dangerous one, most of the poison lost it’s potency in the millennia after it had been abandoned. The next most dangerous are the ones with inscribed pointy weapons. The effects have been described like my victims would after using soul shredder.

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„Now, with this, it got a lot more interesting. Maybe I can get out something that the others overlooked“I said to myself.

The rest of the traps were mostly elemental ones. Stuff you would expect in a world of magic. Flame and earth traps. Very harmless sounding. But no one would say so after seeing someone getting ripped or barbequed by those traps.

Skimming through the rest of the information, I find a map and some explanation about the dangerous areas. Some sound promising like the hall of echos. It reads like a huge trap for people, who don’t cultivate the soil. But the rest is not important right now. The expedition is said to take off in two weeks. Particular wording right there. I might be in for a surprise.

+++++++++++

At last, after months, I translated the next section of the introductory book. It talks a bit more about the order.

‚The Order is a hidden organization, spanning multiple continents. We are being welcomed and shunned at the same time. Our bad name comes from our enemies and botched up assassination attempt. Make sure that if you get captured in a mission, to immediately commit suicide, or your end will not be pleasant. ‘

That just stinks of propaganda, the members shouldn’t be this gullible right? ‚As an official member of the order, you have the right to know about a part of the secret signs and language. The strongholds are marked with our special soul mark. It looks like a lightning in a circle for strongholds. The same as the Faust of Thunder uses. It is a kind of cover for the hidden strongholds. It had been an effective concealment for millennia. No one wants to offend those madmen. You mentor should have warned and informed about the standard layout of a stronghold. Most are made very similarly, but some are different. There are two more kinds. They are similar in layout with the standard one, but they are built on special places of interest. The first kind functions as a body strengthening facility. The remarkable thing about them is the high concentration of shadow type mana, which helps to cultivate the spell technique ‚shadow movement‘, a special spell, which integrates some parts from some ancient techniques. If you find a hidden room overfilled with traps of the soul kind, then you found one of those. The second type is …‘ This part is made for some reason unreadable, maybe the apprentice was not careful enough? Whatever. The rest of this section is mostly more propaganda and painting themselves as seekers of knowledge and the rest as evil oppressors. As if I believe in that.