Lone was walking through the Elven city that sat atop the world tree while he was lost in thought.

He ignored all of the people that greeted him or tried to speak to him, and he simply kept aimlessly walking around.

'What Shan'len said about regaining the elves independence is sticking with me for some reason... Why did he believe that he could do something like that after the tree loses its spirit and they all become the slaves of the Taslo Empire? It makes no sense!' Lone's mind was in disarray.

While he didn't have a skill that let him detect lies, Lone was fairly good at judging people based on their body language, words and their actions, A benefit of being bullied constantly in real life and then having to lead a disorderly band of gamers like himself who liked to show their true selves while hiding behind their screens.

'He's definitely loyal to the tree and he obviously felt that it was impossible to stop Ythmagobla, but why was turning to a Human Empire the right choice in his mind? Why wasn't fleeing and living in hiding a better option?' Such thoughts filled Lone's troubled mind.

Maybe an hour had passed since Lone had entered this state. At some point, he had begun to think about the requirements to ranking up as well.

Lone had never really considered that there were other ways to rank up beside hard-fought and life-threatening battles. Breena had flipped this idea around.

Swind's successful rank-up could be attributed to the instinctual fear of just thinking about fighting Lone seriously, however, Breena was different.

Not only had the small Foxkin girl figured out Lone's intentions during the training immediately, but she had also already fought with both Lone and Sophie at max power before. This made Lone question the entire rank-up system of Altros.

'Elestia was also able to force enlightenment on me, so I should have realised all of this then, to be honest... Just how rare of an occurrence are these unusual rank-ups for not a single one of the books I read in Milindo to even mention them? Clicker's book had some light theories in them, but I'd always assumed that was just nonsense...' Perhaps it was time for Lone to reread the tome he had taken from Clicker's dungeon.

"Lone?" A sudden voice called out to him.

This voice was strikingly familiar, so he didn't ignore it like he had been doing so with other the people for the past hour or so. Looking at its owner, he saw Tal'hat'mata.

Taking a moment to glance around, Lone noticed that he had ended up walking into the mansion district of the tree's crown, where the council elders lived.

"Hi," Lone greeted Tal'hat'mata a bit absentmindedly.

"What brings you here, Lone? I never expected to run into you in the mansion district, of all places." There was a small smile on the beautiful High Elf's lips.

She held affection for Lone. Not a romantic affection, of course. She understood that he was absolutely loyal to Sophie, and regardless, she had already pledged her life to another. Her feelings were purely those of respect and admiration.

"I was on autopilot. I kinda ended up here. You? I don't picture this place being one you'd frequent very often, what with your sour reputation and all," Lone asked with no intended malice, despite his somewhat hurtful words.

Tal'hat'mata smiled wryly. "Indeed. I came to visit someone. Would you like to join me?"

"Okay, so long as I'm not intruding." Lone had nothing better to do considering he was struggling to focus, so he thought that this little distraction could help him regain his concentration.

"I'm sure he won't mind." With that said, Tal'hat'mata went further into the mansion district with Lone in tow.

Some time passed before they entered the courtyard of a large manor that looked a bit unkempt. The grass and flowers clearly hadn't been attended to for a day or two and the house looked like it had been abandoned.

Tal'hat'mata silently went through an iron gate, a rare thing in the world tree. On the other side, Lone could see a lovely garden that, like the courtyard, was slowly beginning to overgrow. The powerful energy from the world tree made plantlife grow several times faster than normal, so Lone had to wonder why this place hadn't been overrun with plants yet if it wasn't lived in.

'Did the owner just move out or something? Maybe Foru or Shan'len...' Lone would soon get his answer.

In a tucked away corner of the garden, Tal'hat'mata knelt down on the ground and offered her prayers to a small tree.

On this tree, there was a carved inscription which read: Here lies Mal'hu Wrinklewood, beloved son and a man of great stature. Never will his brave sacrifice be forgotten.

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Lone could see a golden hue lightly spreading out from the tree and his eyes widened in shock. "This tree had a soul? No, wait, it's the soul of the man buried underneath it, isn't it? For it to be gold... Just how much goodwill does this soul have for you, Tal'hat'mata?"

"So you can see it... As I expected. Truly, Soul Oracles are a wonder of this world." Tal'hat'mata sounded deeply saddened.

She wiped a tear from her eye before she began to lightly laugh. "This is my lover and best friend, Mal'hu, Elder Shan'len's son."

"Ah..." Lone was left speechless.

Tal'hat'mata prayed for a few minutes to the tree before she stood up. "This is the first time I've been able to see him since he sacrificed himself to save me."

"... Shan'len?" Lone asked.

Tal'hat'mata nodded slowly. "He couldn't accept that I lived while Mal'hu didn't. I think he loved him just as much as I did and was torn by grief. I've never blamed him for trying to ruin my life, I might have done the same if our positions were reversed."

"I... see," Lone replied with some uncertainty in his voice.

Tal'hat'mata giggled softly before she smiled. "I'm glad I could come here and visit him at least once before Ythmagobla's invasion started."

"You know?" Lone asked.

"I visited the outsider mansion and Sophie told me. I truly pity the other outsiders though. I never knew your lover could be so brutal despite her cute appearance," Tal'hat'mata joked.

The Elven beauty grinned before she got back on her feet and patted down her leggings. "Well, I'll be going first. I'll see you on the battlefield in two days, Lone."

"Sure," Lone replied.

After Tal'hat'mata had left, Lone decided to enter Shan'len's house. 'Maybe there's some clue in here about why he thought the Elves could regain independence?'

He searched the mansion fairly thoroughly and couldn't find anything. Apparently, everything had been confiscated after Shan'len's arrest. All that was left to explore was the basement.

"What? Nothing but empty bookcases?" Lone held his chin in thought. "I wonder if any of them are hiding a secret room? I wouldn't put it past that slimeball to build something like that down here..."

Lone began moving all of the bookcases to check behind them, but he couldn't find anything suspicious. "No way. There has to be something down here, right?"

Not being one to give up, Lone used Clicker's power on the walls to see if any were fakes or contained concealed switches. but again, nothing came of it.

"Did he really not hide anything, or was it already confiscated? I guess he could have been delusional... Let's try one more thing." Lone cleary wanted there to be some sort of secret here.

His instincts as a history teacher were screaming at him that Shan'len was the type to hide his valuables and secrets in a hidden room.

'Soph, do you mind teleporting to me really quickly? I need you for something. It shouldn't take more than five minutes,' Lone asked via telepathy.

Lone didn't receive an answer, instead, Sophie directly appearing in front of him.

The small girl was wearing a loosely-fitted tank top and a pair of black shorts. Sophie's face was covered in sweat, but she smiled sweetly regardless, and not minding her new surroundings, ran into Lone's embrace and hugged him tightly.

Lone cuddled her back. "Miss me?"

"Mhmm," Sophie's muffled voice replied. She looked up and asked, "What did you need me for?"

Lone's face relaxed and he could feel his recent mental stress evaporating at how adorable Sophie was being. "You're really the perfect stress ball..."

"Huh?" Sophie tilted her head to the side cutely.

Lone shook his head and chuckled lightly. "Nothing."

"Okay," Sophie said as she grabbed a few of Lone's tails and enjoyed herself. "By the way, Lone, why is there a room behind that wall?"

Sophie pointed to the left-most exposed wooden wall with a confused face. Naturally, she was able to detect it with her Mana Sensing, which was what Lone was hoping for.

"That's why I needed you," Lone said as he rubbed her head affectionately. "I was sure there had to be something hidden here, but I couldn't, for the life of me, find it. I'm glad I wasn't just being an idiot."

Sophie was beaming from ear to ear. "I'm happy I was helpful."

"Can you also find the switch or trigger to open the room? This used to be Elder Shan'len's house, so I wouldn't put it past him to set up a trap or self-detonating feature or something if the room is forcefully tampered with," Lone said.

Excited to help, Sophie spun around and rushed towards the wall that concealed the hidden room, however, in her haste, she accidentally tripped over and hit her face on the floor.

"Oww!" she exclaimed as she propped herself up.

The moment Sophie's hand touched a particular part of the floor, a clicking sound echoed out into the basement and the suspicious wall swung open, revealing the hidden chamber.

Lone helped Sophie up to her feet and smiled a bit wryly before he kissed her nose. "Are you okay?"

"Mmmmm..." With reddened cheeks, Sophie barely managed to squeak out an answer. She was an A-ranker, so apart from the initial shock, the fall hadn't actually injured her.

"That's good." Lone looked at the opening in the wall and grinned. "Still, your absurdly high luck helped you find the button, I guess, huh? It's not such a useless stat, after all."

"Ahahaha... yeah... helped me..." Sophie's replied as she rubbed her nose bashfully. 'I guess I won't tell him that I already knew where the button was thanks to my mana sensing. I really did just fall down... How embarrassing...'

The two entered the room immediately and Sophie sensed something strange.

Amongst the bookshelves and chests filled with jewels and gold coins, Sophie could feel an absurdly huge amount of mana flowing out of an ordinary-looking box that was tucked behind a few books. In fact, she could only see it thanks to her Mana Sensing, and even then, it seemed that the flow of mana around it was being clogged by something.

Sophie was certain. A normal mage who was skilled at detecting magic wouldn't have even caught the slightest hint that this box was so suspicious.

"Lone, I found something," Sophie said as she pushed a few tomes aside and showed the wooden box to Lone.

"It looks pretty normal to me. Did you see what's inside with your skill?" Lone asked as he inspected the box with Clicker's ability and noticed that it was heavily enchanted and firmly sealed, despite being made from regular world tree wood.

Sophie nodded. "I think only about five-percent of it is leaking out, but whatever's inside that box, has at least as much mana as five Eolande's combined, and that's without considering the ninety-five-percent that's being obstructed from my vision."

'Eolande has been degraded to being just a measuring unit for mana?' Lone laughed internally before he gazed down at the box in his hands. "I wonder what's in here? What were you hiding, Shan'len?"