Proofreader: M_W Miss Fierce

Leo and everyone arrived back at Sandy Town two days later. They spent one entire day removing those things that were blocking the water from flowing to Sandy Town, like for example webs and stones, and then afterwards they set-up a base since Mayor Jong had decided to assign a hundred or so of people to guard the place so as to not repeat the same event where Sandstone Spiders occupied the water source and made it into their nest.

Aside from that, they decided to use those five outposts they built into a reporting station for those people that guarded the water source and also a place that will be responsible for checking the flowing water from anything suspicious, like for example a Magical Beast had mixed some harmful substance into the water.

Lastly, they have made the tunnel that Leo has made into an official shortcut that will allow them to safely travel 100 kilometers north from Sandy Town. In such a way, they can venture deeper into the Sun Desert easily through the help of the tunnel which will then allow them to collect more resources, gather more information, and to also train their people to become more powerful.

They then used the day after that to travel back to Sandy Town from the Sandstone Mother Spider's nest, which they now call as Sandstone Underground River.

The moment they have arrived, they were immediately greeted by the loud and enthusiastic cheers from the people, congratulating them for their successful mission.

With the water source arriving first at Sandy Town before them, it's just natural for the people that stayed over there to know that Prince Loki and Mayor Jong had successfully completed their mission, that's why they were able to prepare a grand celebration before their arrival.

As soon as the night came, the people of Sandy Town immediately began the feast that they have prepared in advance for everyone.

Beautiful young women of the Earthen Spirit race stood beside the huge bonfire that they have created and soon after began performing the unique dance of their race to express their appreciation for the heroes that save their Sandy Town.

The cooks began serving Leo and everyone of their proud dishes, seemingly telling them through their food how thankful they were.

And lastly, for the main event, the people of Sandy Town released lanterns with a symbol of twin mountains to the sky, to commemorate those people that had sacrificed their lives to reclaim their water source.

When all of that was over, everyone immediately heads back to their houses to sleep and prepare for a beautiful day tomorrow. After all, now that they have their water source back, they could finally start to slowly rebuild the Sandy Town back to what it was used to be.

Under the moon and stars up the dark sky, Leo was cultivating on top of Mayor Jong's manor.

Now that Leo had finally returned back to Sandy Town, he doesn't need to worry about having enough Magical resources anymore because he could get more whenever he wants more from the Green Eagle Flyingboats parked outside the wall.

Sitting cross-legged beside him are Cassandra, Elizabeth, Angel, Veronica, Ash, and Charlotte, also in deep cultivation using the Magical resources that they have decided to shamelessly ask from Leo. They have all decided to join Leo in his cultivation.

It wasn't only them that decided to cultivate. Ethan, Elaine, Edward, Sele, Chief Lago, Sebastian, Dan, and old man Torre looked for an inconspicuous place to use the Chaos Orbs in their cultivation.

From the moment they have started using Chaos Orbs in their cultivation, they have soon noticed an increase in their cultivation speed. Moreover, they also noticed tens of folds of increase in their strength as well, specifically to their physical and mental strength, and most importantly Magic power.

With the powerful and pure concentration of Chaos Mana inside the Chaos Orbs, it's within their expectations to benefit by that much. In fact, what surprised them the most wasn't their cultivation, but rather the fact that they still haven't completely used up a single Chaos Orb yet.

They have been using only one Chaos Orbs each for the last 2 days now. Yet despite that, they still haven't completely emptied out one Chaos Orb, including Ethan, a 1st Galaxy Mage.

Until now, there still remained a huge amount of Chaos Mana inside their Chaos Orbs. And basing on how much Chaos Mana they have been absorbing to this very moment, they would most likely only be able to use up one single Chaos Mana after a week which is really surprising because even the rarest Magical resources they have used to this date could only last half a day.

What kind of concept is this? Well, this meant that a single Chaos Orb is equivalent in value to more than a dozen or so of powerful Magical resources.

Aside from those improvements, they have also noticed that their affinity with Chaos Mana has improved. If they continue using Chaos Orbs, then it would be possible for them to be able to use Chaos Element in the nearby future.

Thinking about that, all of them can't help becoming excited. Being able to use Chaos Element means they could start casting Chaos Element Magic spells, a very powerful and destructive Magic spell, and also they can create Chaos stones, which is a very valuable and useful item.

After enough time passes, Leo and the others finally decided to go to sleep and prepare themselves for tomorrow's departure.

.....

Early morning the next day, Leo and the others quickly began preparing the necessary supplies and items they needed for the Green Eagle Flyingboats.

Food, water, materials, and other necessary consumables were being brought up by the slaves to the Green Eagle Flyingboats inside the crates and barrels.

The people of Sandy Town also volunteered to help Leo and his group with their departure, despite feeling a bit sad for the heroes leaving their place this soon.

Meanwhile, Leo, Cassandra, Elizabeth, Angel, Veronica, Ash, Charlotte, Ethan, Elaine, Edward, Sele, Chief Lago, Sebastian, Dan, old man Torre, Lex, and Virgil gathered around a circular table to discuss about the first stop of their journey, the Emerald Tree Kingdom, a Kingdom of Elves.

The journey to the Horizon Empire required them to cross five different Kingdoms, specifically an ally Kingdom of Elves, an ally Kingdom of Beastman, a neutral Kingdom of Demons, and two allied Kingdoms of Humans. To be more precise, they will cross those five different Kingdoms in order to arrive at Aurora Empire, where they would then join an Aerial Party, specifically a group made up of Flyingboats and Flyingships, and travel to the Horizon Empire using the shortest path possible.

Only by going through the shortest path could they arrive at Horizon Empire as soon as possible. Simply put, the shortest path is a shortcut. And to travel using this shortcut would be very dangerous, as they would be traveling through numerous wilderness and inhabited places.

Although they could indeed still arrived at Horizon Empire despite not using a shortcut, but they would be spending nearly a year's worth of time of journey just to finally reached the territory, which honestly speaking, is really a waste of time.

Anyways, that is still not their final decision yet, as they aren't even sure whether they will have the necessary requirements to successfully join an Aerial Party. After all, traveling such a dangerous path required enough strength. Without that, even if they kneeled on the ground all day, they won't still be able to join an Aerial Party.

Normally, no Aerial Party would accept to babysit weak groups. It's very troublesome, as those weak groups would just cause their Aerial Party tons of problems along their journey. Unless, of course, if such Aerial Party is only looking for cannon fodder. Only those kinds of Aerial Party would accept weak groups.

The very first stop of their journey is the Emerald Tree Kingdom, a territory part of the alliance of the Human race. This territory is surrounded by a very huge body of forest called Emerald Forest. It's a Danger Zone in the standards of Kingdoms, but only a Red Zone in the standards of Empires, similar to the Sun Desert.

However, unlike the Sun Desert, the Emerald Forest houses tens of thousands of different species of Magical Beast. After all, it's an extremely suited place for living. The size of its territory is also tens of times more bigger than the Twilight Forest of the Lionheart Kingdom. Aside from that, there are also some villages and towns of other Foreign races scattered across the territory, either allied, neutral, or enemy.

For them to successfully enter Emerald Tree Kingdom, they should successfully cross the Emerald Forest first.

Therefore, in order for them to achieve success in this journey, they need a thorough planning.

Unfortunately, though, the Lionheart Kingdom doesn't have any helpful or useful reference about the Emerald Forest and Emerald Tree Kingdom that can help them make the plan.

Nevertheless, hope hasn't been lost yet, because Mayor Jong, fortunately, has records of their Earthen Spirit race ancestors successfully crossing the Emerald Forest in the past.

This was the main reason why they have started a meeting at this moment before leaving.

"Let the meeting begin," Leo said to everyone as he laid down a rough map of the Emerald Forest made by the ancestors of the Earthen Spirit race along with opening the book that Mayor Jong had given to them.