The group of caravans moved following Virginia"s lead.
Initially, the soldiers on foot gave each other some hateful look, but then they were mesmerized by Virginia"s figure walking ahead of them.
Noah had his eyes fixed on her too but for a different reason than the others.
"I really can"t understand how strong she is."
No matter how hard he inspected her, he couldn"t get a clear perception of her level.
She seemed to be submerged in some invisible membrane that negated the mental energy coming at her.
"Is she too powerful for me to investigate her? Or it is just a method of the Shosti family to protect themselves?"
Of course, he wasn"t going all out with his mental energy for fear of being discovered from the other party.
After half a day of travel, they arrived at a desolate yard surrounded by guards in white armors.
The white guards bowed seeing Virginia coming and opened a pa.s.sage for the caravans to enter the yard.
The caravans arranged themselves in a casual manner and all the descendants jumped off of them joining their respective groups of guards.
Virginia neared the end of the yard and took out a s.h.i.+ny gem from seemingly nowhere.
The youngest guards were surprised but Noah knew what had happened.
"s.p.a.ce-ring!"
However, what came after that shocked even him.
The report had described briefly the event of the opening of the separate dimension but many times words could not express the true beauty of something.
Virginia placed the gem on the ground and immediately a vast amount of runes lighted up on the terrain.
The yard that was more than two hundred meters square became completely covered in dazzling orange runes.
The runes then gathered their brilliance on the gem in the ground that shot out a vertical ray of orange light in the air that stopped at five meters of height.
The ray stood still for a moment before it began to enlarge forming a rectangular orange figure.
A door made of light was created!
Everyone was so stunned by the scene that they almost didn"t hear Virginia"s next words.
"The gate is open. I will call the name of a family and their group will enter. The order is decided based on the contributions given to the Shosti family in the past twenty years."
Being called as first not only gave the family an advantage in choosing an easier beasts pack to attack, it was also a sign of honor in the social environment of the n.o.ble families.
According to the tests made in the previous years, most of the second stages gave additional rewards if the time spent in the separate dimension was lower than a certain average.
"Sawler family, come forth."
Virginia announced and a group of men and women dressed in blue neared the door made of light.
Then their appointed captain moved and touched the light disappearing in an instant.
The guards and descendants behind him followed and they too disappeared leaving no trace of their presence.
"This is basically teleportation!"
Noah had his mouth opened since the rune appeared.
"To think that by using the "Breath" the humans of this world achieved something only theoretic in my previous one."
"Next, Noorge family."
This time it was a group donning black armors that went forth and entered the inheritance ground.
"Balvan family."
Noah came back to reality after hearing the name of his family.
Trevor took the lead of the group in red and moved toward the door followed by the other guards and descendants.
When they were in front of the door Noah could feel the pressure of all the "Breath" that was used to keep the entrance opened.
"The report said that the consumption of "Breath" was immense but to think that it was actually so much. No wonder in the week the inheritance ground is open we get only one chance to enter, the cost is way too high."
The gem that Virginia used was a concentrate of "Breath" of great value.
Since the trials inside the separate dimension were hard and dangerous, a group had generally to rest for more than one week after one attempt, but by then the gate would be closed for another twenty years.
That"s why the Shosti family chose to use two of those gems every twenty years, one for their family and one for those under their command, in order to increase the chance of obtaining something more valuable than simple wealth.
Spells, magical weapons, and techniques had immense value and helped to increase the foundation of a family, what was money compared to a solid foundation?
Trevor couldn"t waste much energy from the gem and trespa.s.sed the edge made of light.
The others followed.
When Noah touched the door, he felt his vision spinning and a huge pressure was applied to his sea of consciousness.
With the toughness of his sphere though, he only had to close his eyes for a moment to resist the force before opening them again.
What he saw then was an immense gra.s.sland.
His eyes were filled with the green color and the horizon seemed to have no end.
He looked above him and saw that the sky had become orange, with no sun or stars in it.
The concentration of "Breath" was a little higher than on the outside but it was barely noticeable.
"So this is a separate dimension, if not for the sky and the fact that I can"t see anything but plains in every direction I would swear that I was still in the outside world."
He was still looking around him when he felt a gaze fixed on him.
Noah turned to look in that direction and saw Trevor staring at him with wide eyes.
Noah was confused but then he noticed that all the members in his group had still his eyes closed to resist the pressure of the teleportation.
The next to open her eyes was Lena and when she saw the look on Trevor"s eyes she understood that Noah was the first to recover and joined the appointed captain in his surprised stare to Noah.
"As if I didn"t have enough problems already."
Noah thought, answering to their gazes with his usual cold one.