Chapter 592: Aqua Palace and The Sea Folks
Chapter 592: Aqua Palace and The Sea Folks
Michael uttered no word while they were on their way to Aqua island. They only had to stop once before reaching the island to pay the entry fee. For a moment, Michael was speechless when a guard adorning in aqua blue robes asked them to pay 10,000 gold coins as an entry fee. One could buy a healing potion for nine thousand gold coins in Elon. Calculating how many gold coins the Aqua Palace would earn in a month alone made Michael jealous of the Aqua Palace. In reality, the Aqua Palace had a monthly income of fifty million in gold coins. In addition, they received rare artifacts, herbs, and ores as another source of income. Eventually, after twenty minutes of rowing the boat, they reached the island.
"Do I have to wait here?" the man asked Gaya, but she shook her head.
"No need," Gaya stepped onto the dock and helped Eve. The Aqua Palace looked more majestic closer than when Michael looked at it from the pier.
Michael activated his X-ray vision to see countless glowing runes etched on each glass petal which could easily contain a hundred humans. Aqua Palace held the number one spot for being majestic and grandeur among all the buildings Michael had seen in this world. Imagine a giant lotus made of glass and glistening in the sunlight.
To Michael's surprise, there weren't many guards patrolling the premises. In fact, it was void of any guards. However, that didn't mean the Aqua Palace was vulnerable. Instead, hundreds of runes and magical arrays, including killing and illusion arrays, protected the Aqua Palace, leading to minimal use of actual guards. The Aqua Palace wanted its customers to feel at home and offered high-quality customer service. They believed having guards patrolling the premises would make the customers feel like they were inside a military base. Hence, they used arrays and runes instead of guards.
To those who had no guide like Gaya, the Aqua Palace placed markers pointing the visitors towards the front door. It was so easy to get lost on the island without any supervision.
"So, who owns the Aqua Palace?" Michael asked, following Gaya.
"The Arctic hall of the Sea Folks. This is one of the very few establishments of the Sea Folks," Gaya answered Michael.
"Sea Folks huh? We don't hear about them often, do we?"
"That's because we live in Elon. In Awor, they are quite famous,"
"Are you from Awor, Aelia?" After hearing Gaya, Eve couldn't help asking. Aelia seemed to know much more about Awor than Eve expected her to. It was quite surprising for a resident of Elon to know a lot about Awor unless Aelia had some kind of connection with Awor.
"She travels a lot," Michael answered Eve and asked more questions about the Aqua Palace. It was an excellent time to learn more about Awor and Aqua Palace since it would take at least ten minutes of walking to reach the front door. However, the water fountains, flower beds, and butterflies made walking a soothing experience. Aqua Palace was one of the most well-maintained places in Awor. On one side was a bed of sunflowers, except these flowers had bright blue petals. On the other side, the red maple trees provided shade as well as carpeted the pavement with their red leaves.
The trees looked ancient and well pruned.
"I thought Aqua Palace was owned by the empress,"
"Most people think that. But they don't know that the empress owns this island, not the Aqua Palace," Eve explained to Michael.
"Isn't the Arctic hall one of the three major factions of the Sea Folks?" Michael recalled everything he heard about the Sea Folks from Lailah Alden.
"Hmm," Gaya and Eve nodded,
"Unlike the Water God Hall and Sea Serpent Hall, Arctic hall is split into three houses. House of Dathomir, House of Megaloids, and House of Halrid," Gaya yet again surprised Eve with her knowledge about the Sea Folks.
"Thank the gods they don't step onto the land. Now that I think about it, I want to see who will win the award of being the first class bitch, elves or the sea fuckers," Gaya whispered and giggled.
"Well, be careful what you wish for. You might see them soon enough,"
Michael and Gaya immediately stopped walking,
"What do you mean?" asked Michael.
"Don't you know? House Halrid has put a base in Ozer. We had to send in some construction materials before the plague. Rumor has they are joining the hunt for the Dark Lord,"
A cold chill ran down her spine as soon as Gaya heard Eve. She even began to sweat beneath her robes. Dealing with Guardians was difficult enough, and now House Halrid had joined the hunt, which meant the Arctic hall had come to hunt down the Dark Lord. At that moment, they learned their lives had become several times more complicated and hard.
However, Michael remained calm because he anticipated this. He wouldn't be surprised even if the Skyhall itself joined the hunt. It was only a matter of time before new powers sought to destroy the Dark Lord.
"Nowadays, everyone seeks to find the Dark Lord," Michael smiled as he resumed walking towards the front door. Although Eve had more things to worry about than the Dark Lord, she curiously asked about the Dark Lord.
"What's your thoughts on the Dark Lord? If I'm right, he hunts down the nobles in Elon. After reading that the guardians hid the vampires' existence from the world, I don't think we can trust them to apprehend the Dark Lord. They might have even known about him all this time and done nothing to stop him," Eve sighed.
"I think we don't have to worry about the Dark Lord Eve. Each of us has enough problems to deal with. He is the Guardians' problem. If they couldn't stop him, there are seven more great clans. If you ask me, don't believe everything the great eight clans and the guardians say,"
"Who knows? The Dark Lord might be what this world needs," Gaya chuckled, putting the seed of doubt in Eve's mind. Suppose Ghost's secret got exposed, they would need as many allies as possible. But what Gaya didn't know was Eve stood beside the Dark Lord until she drew her last breath. Eve's death affected the future Dark Lord as much as the death of Nightmare. Their deaths put Michael on a path to building a time machine that sent Michael back in time. He sacrificed everything he built to bring back everyone he lost.
The moment the Dark Lord traveled back in time, he had become the past, and the current Michael became the present.
"Yeah, keep an open mind, and you won't be disappointed," Michael patted Eve on the shoulder.
Finally, they reached a set of white stairs leading up to a set of burnished golden doors. The doors were flanked by a towering orc standing seven feet and carrying a spear taller than him in a uniform of silver plate armor. The orc said nothing as he opened the door for the three of them.
"Thank you," Michae nodded before entering the Aqua Palace. The Aqua Palace's inside looked just as majestic as outside. At that moment, they were standing in a spacious hall under the glass roof and a humongous-sized chandelier big enough to illuminate the entire building at night. As expected, several lounges were set up for the customers to sit and rest with rare exotic flower plants for decorations. Michael also noticed several half-elves walking around the hall serving drinks and beverages to the elves in the lounges, reading Royal news. Some of the elves craned their necks to take a look at the three of them. After seeing they were humans, they snickered and took their gazes away.
Ignoring those elves, Michael, Gaya, and Eve walked toward the marble counter at the end of the hall.
"Welcome to Aqua Palace. I am Zentha Virmys. How may I help you today?" As expected, they were welcomed by an angelic elven beauty. However, unlike those racist elves, the girl showed no emotions but delight on her face when she greeted them with a wide grin.
"We are looking to buy some alchemy ingredients," Gaya took the lead as Michael walked around the place like he owned the place.
"Does my lady have a VIP card? If not, you have to buy a token for seven thousand gold coins and wait for your turn. We will provide you with drinks and beverages, on the house, of course,"
"You're new here? Where is Velatha?" Eve asked, surprising the smiling elf.
"Here," with a flick of her wrist, Eve took out a deep blue card with the words 'Voldigards' engraved in golden letters under the Aqua Palace crest, a water droplet encircled by two sea dragons.
"Forgive me for not recognizing you, my lady. You must be Lady Eve Voldigard," The girl quickly bowed with the utmost respect.
"We are in a rush Zentha. So I would appreciate it if you get me these items as quickly as possible,"
"Of course. Miriad," Zentha clapped as another elven girl dressed in emerald green robes walked out of the door behind Zentha.
"Take my lady Eve Voldigard to Master Eloba," Zentha instructed Miriad and turned her gaze back to Gaya and Eve.
"Master Eloba is our head of the alchemy section, and he will be glad to help you," with a wave of her hand, Zentha made the marble counter slide open for Miriad. Afterward, the elf began to lead them to Master Eloba. Looking at Eve and Gaya following an elf behind, Michael stopped gawking around and followed them behind. The elf led them to the glass stairs to the second floor, which contained several stairs leading to various branches in the building, but they didn't take any stairs. Instead, they followed the elf to a jade stone door.
"Master Eloba is inside, my lady, my lord," the elf said in a melodious voice as Gaya pushed open the door.
"Thank you," Michael nodded before following Gaya through the door. As soon as Michael entered the room, he felt like he had entered a penthouse instead of a showroom.
"Take a seat," surprisingly, a dark elf greeted them, sitting behind an oak table flanked by black roses the size of a small child. The man looked similar to the dark elves Michael met in Esya village. Like them, the room's dark elf had silvery hair and brownish skin. They could see thin lines of a tattoo design behind the dark elf's green robes but couldn't make out the complete design.
As they approached the dark elf, three wooden chairs emerged from the ground for them to sit. Eve and Gaya glanced around the room yet found not a single herb or an ingredient in the room. All they could find were book racks, wooden tables with parchments, and a giant portrait of the dark elf before them.
"Tell me, what do you need?" Ebola wasn't a man of many words. So he jumped straight into business without beating around the bushes.
While waiting for Gaya to take out the list, Michael noticed the dark elf looking at Eve like he was scanning her. Luckily, the dark elf said no words, but Michael was sure the dark elf found Eve was sick.