NoGift

ARGENT carefully landed the flying car on the clearing of a fairly dense forest. The forest was located near a small village called Qingxin. This particular village was the one closest to the small fishing village of Hangzhou. Because Hangzhou was a fishing village, it was inadvertently surrounded by bodies of water. The only way to go there was to hire a boat from Qingxin.

Argent decided to land near Qingxin instead of going straight to Hangzhou. She studied the topography of Hangzhou from the map provided by Lei Feng. Hangzhou was a fishing village located at a very small island full of open spaces. There wasn't any forest that could hide the landing of the flying car. Thus, her decision.

There were still three hours before midnight. The only light available was coming from the moon above the starlit sky. But that was enough for Argent to successfully land the car on the clearing. She looked back at her four passengers. Lei Feng and An Si still looked normal but the same thing couldn't be said to the other two. An Liu's face was pale but he still maintained an emotionless expresion on his face. An Qi, on the other hand, looked like he would puke his gut's out any minute now.

"You can get out now."

As soon as she said that, An Qi immediately ran outside the car. Probably to throw up. The other three men also followed. Argent turned off the stealth function of the car and also get off. Then she pressed the button of the remote, turning the car into a capsule. She picked it up and put both the capsule and the remote in her space ring.

An Si who was preparing a bonfire once again marvel at the ingenuity of this flying contraption. If it wouldn't bring shame to his Master, he would probably 'oohed and ahhed' the first time he saw such a mysterious vehicle. He was sure that An Liu and An Qi also felt the same. So at the end, they only held their amazement in themselves and tried their best to act like it was nothing.

But truly, this young duke was indeed a one of a kind genius. Someone who would only appear once in a millenium. Creating the sPhone was enough to cause a change in the way of life of people. But if people found out that the young duke also created such a contraption, it would no doubt bring forth another change. And he probably had other amazing inventions up his sleeve. What a fearsome genius. And to think that he was only 14 years old.

But based on their master's warning, it looked like the young duke didn't really want to divulge his other inventions to the world. An Si thought it was a wise decision. Who knew what those people in power would do if they found out that the young duke could do more than a communication device. Wars would probably be fought just to get their hands on those inventions.

Argent turned around and saw that Lei Feng was already setting up a tent while his guard An Si was already making a fire. "Where's the other two?"

"Hunting," Lei Feng answered. He stood up after he finished setting up the tent. "Do you mind eating wild game for dinner?"

Argent shrugged. "I don't mind."

She sat near a tree and started thinking. Particularly about the things that her sister discovered. Argent was most concerned about the 'Apostles of Gaia' thing. She kept on wondering if it was somehow connected to that dreadful Temple of Gaia. She asked White to search for information about Apostles of Gaia on their database, but as she expected, nothing of import came up. Which meant that no one ever posted anything about any Apostles of Gaia. And no one ever talked about it over sPhones. If this Apostles of Gaia was somehow an underground organization connected to the Temple, then not finding immediate information about it was understandable.

Her thinking was cut off when she felt the familiar vibration from the diamond stud on her earlobe. Argent opened her light brain and what appeared on the screen was Jaxon's handsome face.

"Are you already in Hangzhou?" Jaxon asked, noting her surroundings.

Argent sent Jaxon a message about the things Aurum discovered so he was pretty much up to date about everything. "Not yet. I'll probably arrive there tomorrow. Have you found new information?"

"Not on my end. I tried to search for the family that was supposed to guard the Elven queen's favorite jewelry but found nothing. I couldn't even tell if they did exist or not."

"Hey, Uncle Jax, there's something that has been bothering me for quite some time now. These treasures, they were obviously connected to the two mythical races - the dragons and the elves. Something like that should be pretty well-known, but why does it seem that no one knows about it?"

"It's not that no one knows about it, it's just most people don't believe that they exist. It's been 500 years since Mythos continent closed off, so the existence of those three races almost felt like a myth. Legends about their treasures were innumerable. Finding out which one was true is almost impossible."

But her father excluded two from those innumerable legends and somehow decided that they were true. But why those two particular legends?

"By the way, my men didn't find anything about that Temple of Tian Long. But they did find something when they went back at that forest where you lost Thea's signal. This time, they searched every nook and cranny of the forest. Even each trees. It proved to be quite fruitful," Jaxon added.

That certainly grabbed Argent's attention. "What do you mean?"

"They found something written on one of the trees. It was on the bottom and covered by tall shrubs so they didn't notice it the first time they searched there. I recognized Thea's handwriting, so I know she's the one who wrote it. But I couldn't make heads or tails of what she wrote. I think Thea made it that way so even if her abductors find it, they would just see it as nothing but gibberish. I will send the picture they took."

"Please. And Uncle Jax, tell your men that they could leave that area where they are right now. Tell them that they shouldn't be stealthy about it. The bigger their actions, the better. They should also act like they're giving up their search."

That way, if one of her mother's abductors was still in the area, what they would see was a group of men searching for someone and then giving up in frustration because they couldn't find her. That would definitely lower the guard of those damn abductors.

"I understand. I'll do what you say," Jaxon said, clearly understanding what Argent meant. "I will be travelling to Xing after I leave here. Since I don't think I could find anything more even if I stayed."

Argent only nodded since she really couldn't find a viable reason to stop him. "But be careful on the excuse you'll give why you suddenly visited Xing. The Emperor here is very tricky. You're quite well-known yourself. If you come to Xing, that Emperor would surely want to meet you. If you're not careful enough, that annoying man would surely think that something was up."

Really this girl, calling an emperor annoying. "I know. You don't have to worry about that."

After that, both of them ended the call.

Argent opened the message Jaxon sent containing the picture of the message her mother wrote on the tree. What she saw was;

CAKEN TAOSD MBOLE UDTRT RCNDD EGAOP BBEOL NUOEL UODNR RENTA ROESA E

Well, this certainly looked like gibberish. Argent took a small notebook and a pen from her space ring and started writing those letters. When done, she turned off her light brain and started studying the string of letters she wrote. It was definitely some kind of code. But how to decrypt it?

Before she could continue to ponder, a delicious smell wafted in the air. Then a barbecued meat was suddenly presented in front of her face. Because she was still thinking about the code, she didn't think much and just bit down on the barbecue. When she realized what she'd done, Argent looked up and saw Lei Feng holding the barbecued meat. With the help of the light from the bonfire, she noticed that his ear tips suddenly turned red. He's probably embarrassed because of what she did.

"Ah, sorry," she apologized and immediately took the barbecue.

"It's nothing. Tell me if you want to eat more."

The three dark guards who saw this immediately looked down and pretended that they didn't see anything.

After eating dinner, Lei Feng suggested that Argent rested in the tent. Argent walked towards the tent. She was about to enter it when she remembered something. If she was not mistaken, this tent was some kind of magical tool. It's the type where it looked small on the outside but really wide on the inside.

Argent turned to Lei Feng. "Where will you sleep?"

"On one of the trees."

"Why not sleep inside? I'm pretty sure there's more than enough space for the both of us."

The moment Argent suggested that, Lei Feng's ear tips immediately turned red. Even his face had a faint blush. "No. I'll sleep outside."

He didn't wait for Argent to say more and just jumped to one of the trees.

Argent tilted her head in confusion. What was he being shy about? She shrugged and just entered inside the tent.

The three dark guards who also witnessed this scene didn't know how to react. How come their outstanding general was now acting like a teenage girl?