Genius Mage in a Cultivation World

"It's been a while, wasn't it?" Layn said once their small group climbed a sandhill, allowing them to finally see the huge camp in the distance. Or rather, the walls that surrounded it from the south, barring anyone entry.

"Don't tell me," Irea started, snuggling to Layn's side even more than usual, only to let go of his hand the very next moment when her smirk turned into a pained expression, "HOT! But don't tell me you are feeling nostalgic!" The smirk returned on her lips, signifying how carefree the girl could be in the vast stretch of sandy nothingness.

"Nostalgic? I would call it like that." Layn replied while closing his eyes for a bit. With the scorching sun of the summer not only scorching their heads but also reflecting from the sand and warming their entire bodies, even uttering just a few words was a challenge worth its price in water lost by sweating. "It's more like, I'm returning to my roots?"

Layn smiled at his own memories. 'Thankfully she doesn't realize how accurate that sentence was. In a sense, the desert behind the camp was a place where I was born in those times.' Pondering over the events of the past and their consequences today, Layn shook his head.

"Sir, madam, why are we going to the warcamp so soon? If my calculations are right, it will take at least a month or two before the barrier will open again!" Pavried asked while leaning his head over his shoulder.

"We are not going beyond the barrier just yet." Layn didn't mind explaining the situation at all. While revealing the entirety of his plan and purpose for his action was obviously impossible as it would foil the plan itself, explaining some of its skeletal structure was more than possible. In a sense, it could allow Layn to encourage his potential students to work harder once they would get past the barrier. "Do you remember the day you were chosen?" Rather than going on a fully-fledged lecture mode, Layn decided to force Pavrien into participating in a discussion instead.

"Sir, it's only been two weeks, how could I forget?" Pavrien protested against the passive aggression that he got subjected to.

"I'm not trying to claim you already forgot it. I just wanted to bring that memory back. Tell me, why do you think I was looking for about twenty people to follow me?" Layn asked while barely managing to hold his smirk from appearing on his face.

"Uhh…" Pavrien only stuttered in response before taking his time to try to figure out the answer. "Because the actual mission requires manpower? Maybe we are going to attempt some kind of puzzle that once unlocked, would give us access to some ancient treasure?" Pavrien asked while his eyes glistered with excitement.

"Hold your horses, boy. It's far simpler than that." Layn smiled upon hearing Pavrien's desperate attempts to come up with a proper answer. "I announced I wanted to recruit up to twenty people because I need twenty people to follow me into the desert. As simple as that." Unable to hold his smirk any longer, Layn allowed his lips to form it at the expense of Pavrien's face turning from excitement to sulking.

"Layn, don't bully him like that!" Irea was quick to reprimand her partner. "Don't mind him, he just likes to make fool out of others." She said while patting the young man's back. "I guess he is just so full of knowledge he can't share with others, that he always looks for ways to showcase it in a safe way." Adding her own opinion, Irea looked at Layn with her lips forming a smirk on her own. "Isn't that true, dear?"

Soon, the entire discussion, albeit serious in the beginning, dissolved into a series of nitpicks, jokes, and lightly bullying each other. While the last sounded pretty wrong for such a small group, as it was done in a pristinely friendly manner, no one could feel insulted by any of the remarks someone else would throw.

"Stay where you are!" Still focused on their fake strife, Layn almost failed to notice that they approached the closed gates of the warcamp. The same gates that he crossed when he first left this place, only to be assaulted by that bastard's group a few days later.

"Ah, sorry for that, mister guard." Layn apologized while raising his hand to his forehead to shield his eyes from the sun as he looked up the walls. "I was too immersed in the folly with my companions. Can get inside now?"

It was pretty obvious that crossing the gates could pose a small but real challenge. Given how Layn never obtained any sort of verification that he could use to pass the gates, it was now all up to Irea to figure out how to get them through the security.

"Wait, aren't you with the wild wolves?" The guard asked as soon as Irea raised her head in an attempt to vouch for the other two. Hearing the guard's words though, her smile instantly soured before turning wry.

"Well, that was the case for a long time… But not anymore." Irea answered while shaking her head before casting a long glance at Layn's face. "You see, I thought of them as my dear friends and companions… But who would've thought they would ditch me as soon as they learned a found a boyfriend!" Irea suddenly threw a fit, stomping her foot on the sands of the desert.

"Ah," the guard gasped for air, as his face filled with both enlightenment and a distant echo of regret. "I see…" His eyes moved to Pavrien, "and who is the lucky guy?"

"Not him? Come on, you only had two to chose from and you still picked wrong!" This time, Irea's anger wasn't faked. As it appeared, the guard's mistake actually managed to hurt her.

"Ah, sorry, sorry. My bad!" The guard instantly spurred on to apologize. "Either way, you guys sure are early here. Looking for some more members for the team?" the guard asked while tinkering with some kind of mechanism hidden behind a small, wooden shack atop the walls.

Then, with no more small talk, the massive gate started to slowly open, as the guard atop the walls continued to do something inside his shack.

Walking through the huge area between the two sets of walls, Layn couldn't help but reminiscent of everything that happened to him ever since he appeared in this time. From how he was learning the basics from Karter and his group while waiting for their turn to pass through the gate, through the first moments of his visit to the actual ancient city…

'Looking back, I think I already changed quite a bit,' Layn thought as Irea quickly managed to deal with the guard securing the second layer of the walls, getting their entire group to the warcamp proper.

"It's kinda… empty?" As soon as the group crossed by the last set of fortifications, Layn froze in place. While it was obvious that this place wouldn't be as crowded as it was at the peak of the exploring season, the scale of the difference still managed to be beyond what the archmage expected.

"I told you. Outside of the skeletal staff of the various businesses, there are only a few mercenaries and adventurers here." Irea said while shrugging her arms. "At least we won't have any problems getting a room in the inn." She added after a moment, trying to find some positives in their current situation.

'If this entire place is just as empty as its outskirts are… No, let's not waste time thinking about this.' Layn shook his head, trying to get rid of those depressing thoughts. 'In the end, it doesn't matter if this place is empty right now as we won't be able to enter the desert proper before the barrier changes either way…' thought the archmage while looking towards the very same phenomena that astounded him in the past.

"I will lead the way." Noticing the thoughtful look on Layn's face, Irea took the lead of the group, guiding the three of them into the deeper parts of the camp.

'Is it… fluctuating?' Following after the girl, Layn couldn't stop himself from observing the minute changes in the mana flux of the barrier. While by themselves they were already a great topic of study that could give him some insights about the inner workings of such a powerful usage of magic, Layn was more than aware of how hard it would be to approach the barrier in the first place.

'Especially given how it stops any force from the other side from inviting this warcamp in the first place. I guess they would treat any attempts at studying it as sacrilege,' Layn thought while clenching his firsts. 'To have something so impressive yet being unable to as much as touch it…' Layn could feel the feeling of powerlessness creeping up in his soul.

"Excuse me, are you Irea Astartes and Layn?" Just as the group was about to step inside one of the more centrally-located inns, a stranger approached them while asking.

"Depends on who is asking." Irea took the lead to answer, not willing to break Layn's focus for some small reason.

"I'm Antion, the prefect of this place. And I will need you guys to…" as soon as the man finished his introduction and wanted to order them something, he finally noticed that there was a third person in the group. But that only resulted in a small lapse in his words.. "I need you guys to follow me."