Genius Mage in a Cultivation World

"This is the place, I'm sure of it," Markus said while holding his head just right above the vegetation. His eyes were directed at a relatively small city in the distance, surrounded by nothing but arid plains and some small thickets that were too shallow and too sparse to serve as a good cover.

"Good. Let's not waste the time and go in, then." Al muttered under his nose, worried that speaking out in a normal way would get them compromised.

"So much for the scouting mission, huh?" Markus smirked. "I know you already told me more than enough times, but are you sure you are okay with my arrangement?" He said before looking at the legendary ancestor.

"Posing as slave bodyguards? Well, it's all just an act so there is no need to pay it any mind." Al once again calmed Markus down, before shaking his head. "Even if I wouldn't like it, I don't know their language. There would be no point in picking me as the leader of the group." Al explained, raising from the field of high-growing grass.

It was crucial for him to be the first one to appear in the view. Because Markus's plan was two-fold.

"First, let's deal with our investigation. If I will be able to confirm that it was all Layn's doing, we will be one step closer to catching up with him." Markus muttered, more to himself than to anyone else. "Whenever you will want to break your act, remember. As long as we get to him without letting the others realize how little we care about them, there is even a chance that he could bring us all back to our own times." Markus said while standing up.

Their initial scouting group already split. With Yelna taking Antion and two of the antique soldiers with her, Markus was left with Al and Lessen. And while the first few days after the split, after Markus felt the wavering of the mana filled his head with nightmare-like thoughts of what that silent man was planning, all it took was one close save where Lessen's dagger saved Markus from a stray beast for the trust between the two of them to start budding.

"Let's go!" Markus ordered, positioning himself right behind Al and ahead of Lessen.

In a relatively short time, the small city in the distance grew in their eyes, proving to not be as small as they initially expected.

"Isn't this place enormous?" Al said out loud, gawking at the sight.

"Nah, it's a small place. If we ever get to move through time again, I would love to show you how a really big city looks like," Markus said while a smirk grew up on his face. 'I wonder how he would react if he were to know that the capital he created turned into nothing more but a preservation site, surrounded by living quarters of the modern capital several miles in each direction!' Markus giggled internally, not daring to show the state of his mind to the two of his companions.

Just in case they would take his giggle for an insult.

"Stay where you are!" Said the guard as soon as the trio approached the gates. From how slowly the queue to the gate was moving and from how guards stood already at its rear rather than focusing on the gate itself, one could tell that there was something desperately wrong with this place.

"Excuse me?" Markus tested out his translation spell. It was a spell he worked several sleepless nights on. By using most of his energy and basically restricting himself from using magic while the translation spell was active, he perfected the structure of the advanced translation spell. With that, he could talk to the ancients even without knowing the language at all.

'The man who came up with this design… He is the one that deserves the title of genius,' Markus recalled the words he said to the two antique men when they first asked about what he was doing. Them calling him a genius only sparked a humble reaction out of the saint.

"I told you, stay where you are, fucker." The guard didn't even bother to turn around, dismissing Markus's group in his mind.

"Sir, I'm perfectly aware that everyone must be constantly asking about this, and I'm truly sorry for asking the same," Markus said before lowering his head. "Sir, could you please tell us what happened here? I was sent all this way by my lord to make sure the same thing wouldn't happen in any of his villages…" Markus explained the fake story he prepared the night before while adjusting his facial expression to one's fitting a tired noble's official.

"Eh, again?" Initially intrigued by Markus' words, the guard turned his head towards him, only to look away as soon as the topic of Markus' question became obvious. "I don't know much. Apparently, some treasure went out of control, destroying a huge chunk of our academy and the city itself." The guard leisurely pointed his hand towards the pillar of smoke that still grew around the southern part of the town.

"Wait, what?" Markus posed to be shocked. "A treasure went out of control? How could this even happen?!" He asked, perfectly aware of what those treasures this guard was talking about.

During their weekly journey to the source of the distribution, Markus' group came across many different celestials. Some of them attempted to buy their life with the spoils they had on themselves, revealing the treasures to be just a slightly more complex mechanism crafted by a civilization that appeared to be just one or two centuries worth of technological development above the current celestial civilization.

In other words, what the locals considered treasures, was nothing more but leftover trash that remained on the face of the world after the collapse of the ancient civilization preceding the locals.

As such, every piece of trash that locals would call a treasure, was something that was left buried in the ruins for centuries if not ages, before someone was lucky enough to stumble upon them.

"I know, right?" The guard agreed with Markus in pretended shock. "It's just a rumor, but apparently that treasure… It not only was a fake, but also a cleverly planted magical bomb." The guard shook his arms, proving how little he cared about those affairs. "The people tell that it was some kind of personal vendetta between those pesky cultivators," the guard attempted to explain, before suddenly stopping as he laid his eyes on the two Gener clansmen.

"Are you…" The guard asked without even finishing his sentence. Rather than that, he squinted his eyes instead.

"Ah, no. They are not cultivators!" Markus instantly came forward to reassure the man. "My lord just fancy the power of the barbarian brutes." Markus smiled, cutting the topic.

"Barbarian brutes? What the heck do you mean by that?" Already engaged in the discussion, the guard no longer had any qualms about talking with Markus.

"Oh, so you don't have them here?" The saint pretended to be surprised. "You know, those dirty spawns of the criminal seed. Children of those who were cast away and banished to the forest?" Markus continued to give more exposition to the guard, hoping that the man would figure out the story himself.

Sadly, the confused look on the man's face proved how he was clearly incapable of achieving an intellectual enlightenment from the hints that Markus dropped alone.

"So you don't have them anywhere near," Markus pretended to be both surprised and disappointed, while he continued to furiously make notes in his mind. Because outside of investigating what happened and whether Layn was behind it or not, he still had another part of his mission.

To sound off whether his precedesors even existed in the day and age they all got transported to.

"Either way, my lord is quite fond of them. Not only they are dumb and unable to speak the civilized language, but they are also pretty strong out of their bodies." Markus shrugged his arms. "It makes them the perfect bodyguards. They only understand a few commands, making them impossible to ever betray any secrets, not like those pesky cultivators one could hire anywhere," Markus said as he held his breath for a while to make his face turn slightly red.

'Who could've known that faking another persona could be so taxing?' he thought while his mind begged for another breath of fresh air.

"To think that there would be this kind of people in this world as well," the guard shook his head in amazement. And by that time, the queue finally managed to move forward, making it harder and harder for Markus to communicate with the man who was watching the end of the line. 

"Either way, thanks for explaining the things to me." Markus raised his hand, bidding his farewells to the man. "It will make it easier to find out where I should even begin looking for the answers I need!" He added before turning his head around and taking a glance at the city.

'Not like I need to even enter this place anymore, huh?' he thought to himself, before shaking his head. 'You didn't change at all, brother..' Markus's lips curved up into a small smile. 'You still leave your scent all over the place!'