Once the sun was out and the Empress was sure that nothing was going to attack her, or at least no specter were out to get her, she started looking around this plateau. She was flying on top of Nimbus, of course, since the Sentinel was the best way to traverse the area. They were still very confident in the fact that there were no flying creatures that could pose a threat to them.

Even more than that, Hera and her court were unable to see tracks or evidence that there were birds or anything of the sort on this plateau. There were no nests, no loose feathers peppered on the ground, no claw marks on high branches. Nothing. Even fruit seemed to be growing more on the canopy of the trees, which generally was not the case when there was a large population of birds nearby.

But they were still moving very slowly. Hera didn't want to risk getting too far away from the village since, as far as she knew, that building was the only place where the ghosts wouldn't go. Still, that didn't mean she wasn't going to make some tests.

Hera, Avalon, and Filigree paid very close attention to the tree that was growing from the top of the guard tower. They realized that it wasn't an entirely unique tree. Sure, it was unique in the sense that it was growing from the top of the building and its roots were absolutely massive compared to any other tree that was in this area.

But that was it.

As a matter of fact, there were other trees like that one on the path to get to the village. Even after that, that species of trees was not unique to that one specific area. This could mean one of two things: either all the trees of that species had some sort of power to protect people from the ghosts, or the one specific tree on top of the guard tower had somehow developed that ability.

To discover what was the case, Hera stopped a couple of times to cut a small piece of the root of the trees that she found in the plateau, making sure to always pick the same species of trees that were growing on top of the guard tower. Despite the fact that she had yet to test the piece of the root from the original tree, the Empress was already thinking about the next step.

"Don't you think we should take some pieces from the other trees too?"

Livy suggested.

Hera paused for a moment, thinking about that option, and nodded, "We can't take too many since it might be annoying to carry along, but yes, sure. Let's bring a few just so we can try to see if any of those trees can do something."

After giving that order, the entire court started working on cutting small pieces of the roots, the branches, and even the leaves of the trees that were around them, especially the ones that seemed to be letting out a stronger mana density. However, Lurize took a different approach. Instead of going for the ones that were strongest, he started grabbing from the trees that had the least amount of mana on them.

Avalon noticed the difference and approached the royal tutor, asking, "If I may, why are you picking the trees that feel weaker?"

"It's just a gut feeling. Maybe what the tree is doing is not just creating a barrier using its magic, but instead sucking all the mana from the ghosts. For something to absorb mana like that, it's probably not dense in mana. It's probably wasting all the mana to do something else, so maybe this would be closer to what we are hoping to accomplish."

Avalon nodded in agreement. "That is a well-crafted theory. Would you like some help?"

Lurize smiled and nodded as the two started gathering materials from the weaker trees. Hera was aware of what was going on, but she wasn't going to say anything since she also agreed that the more options they had, the better the results would be. Still, she did keep in mind the weight that they would be able to carry. There wasn't much point in taking entire trees with them since Nimbus wasn't even going to be able to carry them once they started flying.

It was still before noon when she gave the command. "Okay, stop picking roots and trees. It's already too much, and I don't want to have Nimbus struggling to fly."

"But I'm not going to struggle," Nimbus protested.

But Hera just gave him a blank stare. "Really? If we put 200 kg of wood on your back, or you have to carry a large bag of wood wrapped in chains underneath you, you're still going to be able to move at top speed and do all kinds of maneuvers in case we are attacked?"

Nimbus crossed his arms. "I wouldn't say all kinds of maneuvers, but I probably can handle myself. Don't worry about it."

"It's just not worth it to carry a bunch of wood with us everywhere. If we need more, we can take more tomorrow. Don't worry."

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The Sentinel grumbled a bit more, but he accepted the decision without any more protests.

They stopped to eat, or more specifically, Hera stopped to eat since they had agreed that in this scenario where the Empress was the only one around, the court wasn't going to partake. They never really had to eat and just did so to speed up mana recovery and to blend in with the rest of the group.

But here, the lack of supplies would mean that Hera was the priority, and no one was going to take food away from her. Still, she didn't need to use the rations as they were able to find a couple of large lizards nearby and hunt them for lunch.

It was very strange to hunt her own food again. Not that she had never done this before, but it had been such a long time that it felt almost novel. However, she really needed to improve her cooking. The meat ended up being very chewy, and even using some spells to create spice and salt, it was almost as bad as eating jerky every day.

Almost.

The Empress didn't take long to finish her meal, and they continued traveling. But this time, they were not flying. She couldn't see anything from the bird's-eye view when she was on top of Nimbus. It didn't matter where she looked down; there was only a sea of leaves blocking her view. So instead, she wanted to give a chance for the environment to surprise her. Maybe there was something hiding there, and all she had to do was find it.

After about an hour of walking, she found hope. By the side of a tree was a stone structure. More specifically, those stones were inside the tree as the vegetation was growing over it. She got a bit closer and tried to touch the structure but to no avail, as most of the tree prevented her from doing anything. The part that she could see and interact with felt very similar to the pillars that she saw between the first and second plateau and the next.

Thinking this could be the same thing, an idea sparked in her mind, and Hera activated the [Echolocation] skill on her relic. She wasn't expecting to find passages or something, but instead she was hoping to use the bouncing mana to reveal the details of those rocks as they were inside the tree. Her idea worked a bit too well.

Not only was the Empress able to see the stones and how they were laid inside the tree, but she also was able to see some of the carvings that were present there. Apparently, the tree had covered the grooves and preserved them for all those years. Hera wasn't entirely sure how that was possible, but she wasn't going to argue against that.

Unfortunately, most of the writing was too destroyed for her to read through. However, somehow she could see that underneath the bark was a snake coiled around a pillar. More telling was the fact that this particular snake had a pair of wings coming from its body.

A long time ago, when she first met Mr. Beetle, she had seen something like that. The same type of a winged snake that was present in that statue of the Naga she found in the temple.

By touching it, the Naga skills that she had at the time resonated with the artifact, sending her into a vision of the past. A vision where she saw the final form of Zaxalam and how she sacrificed herself to warn the people who lived there about the incoming danger.

Even if all her actions back then were meaningless as she was just watching something that had already happened in the past. That was still the place where she first met Mr. Beetle and, thanks to him, she gained Lurize as her titled blade.

Unlike that previous sculpture, this one didn't give off the same feeling at all. She even tried reaching out to the pillar and touching it, but nothing happened. No vision, no strange effect because of her skills, nothing.

Which made sense. It was one thing to find a hidden Naga relic in a place where it shouldn't be. It was another thing to go to their homeland and expect that every single thing would react to her skills. Hera could imagine how annoying it would have been to live in a place where every time she was going to touch something, it would send her into a vision of the past.

It seemed like she was on the right track. Taking advantage of her court, Hera created a search chain, spreading them all out in a network. Only after a moment she realized that there was one more group that she could be calling to explore this place. Kicking herself for not thinking about this sooner, the Empress summoned the snakes from her bracelet, and they popped out.

She gave them a simple command: explore the plateau. Just as they started moving, Hera could see her map already being filled by whatever they were discovering. As a matter of fact, she could even zoom in and see the actual path that each snake was taking.

Hera, the Naga Empress, was not just a one-woman army. She was also an entire scouting expedition by herself. But at the same time, she wasn't going to just wait around and let the snakes do all the work. She asked them to leave one area open so she could explore it herself together with her court. They did exactly that.

Following the area that was loosely aimed at the direction where the pillar had fallen towards, Hera and her court continued walking forward, doing their best to see if there was anything that could reveal more about the Naga homeland.

After a few hours of walking, her alarm rang, letting her know that she had only 40 minutes until sundown and that it would take her roughly 30 to get back to the guard tower. Slightly annoyed by that, Hera snapped her fingers and the court took to the sky to fly back to where they spent the previous night.

Now that she thought about it, the ghosts didn't really appear right after sunset. It was only much later. As a matter of fact, if she was remembering things properly, the specters only showed up after midnight. Maybe she could still travel for some time.

But this wasn't something she was going to try today. She already had her snakes out and gave them a command to always give her a heads up when they found a monster. If the ghosts truly showed up only after midnight, she would know. And if the rest of the forest was also affected by this strange type of mana, the snakes would also give her that information.

So for now, she would have to be satisfied with only a small amount of progress and a few new experiments that she had prepared. After all, she had a backpack full of wood and really wanted to know if any of it would protect her from those ghosts.