Genius Mage in a Cultivation World

"Dang, I would never think that we would be back to this kind of lifestyle," Markus said while crushing the tree branches blocking his path.

"Yeah," Yelna replied in her usual, short manner. As she moved forward, anyone could see the stark difference between how she was traveling and how her husband went at it.

Rather than cutting the branches with powerful yet graceful slashes of a knife or an axe like Markus and their ancestor accompanying them, she moved swiftly around the obstacles as if she was in some kind of race.

"Silence. We are nearing the end of the forest," Ation ordered. As one of the three Gener clansmen accompanying them on this scouting mission, he was named as the leader of the squad, despite both of his fellow clansmen outranking him.

"Look how much a little authority can change a man," Al giggled while poking Lessen's side.

"…" As usual, there was no reply to his words. But this was just the nature of the original scout of their group and the deadliest member of the Gener clan.

"Strange," said Markus while looking at the events in the distance. While the place that they ended up scouting was selected at random from the pool of locations they had to secure in order to create up the settlement he planned, it appeared as if they stumbled into something pretty interesting.

"What's going on?" Al asked, keeping himself in the slightly deeper part of the forest. As much as he wanted to take a look himself, his massive posture would make it too dangerous to approach the less dense part of the forest's thicket.

"It looks like they are in a hurry?" guessed Markus while laying flat on the ground and only allowing his head to protrude above the forest's vegetation. "It's almost as if they were preparing for some kind of war…"

Even though Markus was a saint, the deeds that he committed, the things that he took part in were often unbecoming of someone named a saint, those events from his past gave him an invaluable experience. An experience that allowed him to figure out a bit more details from the commotion in the distance than one could see just from observing them.

"Do you think they are…" before Al could even finish his words, Markus started to crawl to the back before standing up and shaking his head once he was hidden in the deeper part of the forest. "No way, " he protested, "They can't know about us yet. What they are preparing for," nodding his head towards the outside of the forest, Markus lowered his head while buried in his thoughts, "has nothing to do with us."

Tingle.

For a moment, all thoughts dissapeared from Markus' mind. With his eyes only pretending to fill their role of providing him with vision, he just stood there while staring blankly ahead.

"Markus?" Noticing the strange behavior of her husband, Yelna crawled to the back as well before standing up and taking a closer look at her man's face.

Slap.

"SNAP OUT OF IT." Yelna didn't shout. Her voice was no louder than any of the words she said so far in this strange situation of theirs. But the powerful force hidden behind her words still made a whole world of difference. That, and a crispy bitchslap to Markus' face allowed the man to regain his senses.

"Ah, sorry. I just felt something a bit out of place. If…" Once again, Markus turned silent mid-sentence. This time though, Yelna simply ended up watching the slight changes appearing on his face, not daring to force him out of his sudden focus.

"Impossible…" Markus whispered. After a moment, his face suddenly turned red. Then, falling to his knees, he starter vomiting all the content of his stomach on the forest's floor.

"What happened?" asked Yelna in a perfectly calm voice. Yet, while her voice appeared calm, her face proved that she was pretty anxious.

"What's going on?" Al asked while taking a note of the situation. 'Weren't they supposed to be even stronger than us? Why is he retching right now?' Confused by the situation, Al attempted to make a sense out of it on his own.

"Something happened. The spirits cried out." Suddenly, Lessen finally revealed his voice to the duo that claimed to be his descendants.

Only now Al realized that something huge was actually going on. But being the brawler he was, without even a shred of connection to the spirits, he had no other choice but to rely on reports of others to figure out just what was going on.

"Spirits my ass!" Suddenly exclaiming from all fours, Markus had no fear of getting on Lessen's bad side. "I know this feeling. I already experienced it once. In a lab, but still."

Slowly gathering himself up, Markus used a bit of his water to clean his mouth before raising his face and looking at everyone.

"My wife didn't feel anything because she knows no magic whatsoever. But I'm pretty sensitive towards it. And now it all makes damned sense!" said Markus while smashing his fist in a nearby tree.

"Markus, calm down," Yelna said while getting closer to him. But rather than slapping his face again, she slipped her hands underneath his arms before giving him an affectionate hug.

"There is no other way. It has to be his job. Otherwise, it wouldn't make sense at all. Not in the world we are in right now." Refusing to make any sense to those unaquiatanced with their knowledge, Markus continued his ramble.

"Would you be kind enough to explain what's going on?" Al asked as the irritation slowly started to get better of him. As the leader of the most powerful clan that surfaced after the great spirit revenge, he was used to getting reports on everything, often before the people involved in it would learn about them. But right now, it appeared as he was the only one being left out of the understanding of the situation.

"Markus, can you speak?" Yelna asked her husband after casting a furious glance at Al. A furious glance that was so filled with power, that even the very founder of the civilization that Yelna grew up in had to step back under the influence of the innate, animalistic fear in him.

"Yeah…" after taking a long time to calm himself down, Markus finally returned to his usual self. With his hand gripping the handle of his sword, he finally started to speak.

"As we already told you, we used to travel in a group of seven. While we were called a hero's party from the role that my dearest held, Yelna was actually the third most powerful person in the entire team." Allowing his knees to cave in, Markus slid down the tree, sitting down directly on the ground while resting his back against the bark.

"The strongest of them all, Victor. Regretfully, ever since the party disbanded, I have no idea what he was up to or what he was doing. But that's not the point I'm trying to make here. The second most powerful person and the greatest mage of our time, Layn. I have a lot of reasons to believe that he is the one responsible for what just happened…" Markus suddenly ceased his words while turning his head away.

For a few moments, no one dared to utter a word, hoping to hear the rest from the mouth of the man.

"I think you can tell them. We still don't know almost anything at all about our situation, so its nothing more than a guess. It's better if they know." After a few long moments, Yelna finally attempted to encourage  her husband to share what he had on mind.

"Dear… He is my friend. MY FRIEND!" Momentairly forgeting the purpouse of their mission out there in the forest, Markus shouted. The onslaught of furious glances that followed quickly helped him to regain his wits.

"I know. So let's do it like that." Yelna said while standing up and turning around to face the three ancestors of theirs. "He will speak, but before that, you need to understand one thing."

Yelna didn't even need to place her hand on the handle of her dagger. She didn't even need to change her possition. Her dissposition just changed.

In one moment, she was just a simple, nible woman following after her husband. But in the next moment, the aura around her changed to that of an unimaginable monster.

"If any of you dare to lay hand of Layn before the two of us will decide that's necessary, then I will see to it myself that all your clansmen will be eradicated from this world." Openly threatening the Gener clansmen, Yelna didn't seem to be bothered with how it would weight on their still fresh relationship.

"I understand." Before the situation could turn any more tense, Al stepped forward. This time, he didn't pay any mind to hiding his presence. Yelna's aura was so strong, that anyone capable of percieving it would already know about their presence at the edge of the forest, renderind all the attempts at remaining hidden, completly and utterly pointless. "The camraderie of brothers in arms… It's something sacred to us as well."

As soon as Al nodded his head with respect to the thing he just mentioned, Markus' face relaxed a bit.

"You see, this was my guess since a while ago. From the very moment we appeared in what looks like a distant past, Layn was the primary suspect. But now, I'm almost certain." Still not making much sense, Markus started his explanation. Then, as he raised his head, his eyes glued to Al's pupils.

"What just happened, was mana diffraction. Something that was a new theory that was only starting to get tested in our times. And Layn was the one pushing forward the experiments on it. In other words, its a situation where the world's energy itself, the power of the spirit, mana or whatever name you use to call it, is pushed to such insane limits, where it simply colapses on itself and turns into a wild outburst on unstable mana, mana that dissapears from the world forever."

Not giving any mind to the fact that his ancestors had no way of understanding those complex theorems and setnences, Markus continued.

"But less about that. The fact that the mana diffusion happened in this time, is the greatest giveaway that Layn also is somewhere in this world, in this time." Squinting his eyes, Markus turned around before walking out of the forest. With his sword leaving its scabbard, he turned around and finished his words.. "In other words, he is most likely to be behind everything that happened to you, and to us as well."