Chapter 1332: Costs alone

With the appearance of the Queen, the elves, including Milica, realized that everything was over. The intruder is caught, and no one will be able to escape from her.

The High Elves returned to their disciples one by one.

"Master!"

"Senior!"

Seeing Milica safe and sound, the group greeted her joyfully and was finally able to breathe a sigh of relief.

Arabel, Idan, and Eulalia exchanged glances with Milica, and their joy was heightened by the realization that their plan had succeeded.

Idan opened the Trading function window and checked the costs.

5,000 System Points for Summoning a Guardian with Rank 5 strength, and another 3,670 System Points for more than 10 minutes of Sierra’s stay in her Spirit Form.

And an additional 4,250 System points for the Spatial Ring with the detection suppression function, where all the Fruits were moved in advance and which Coco, on his instructions, quietly handed over to Sierra after her summoning.

"Costs alone," — Idan said with a sad sigh, looking at the total amount. To these costs should have been added two more fruits of the foundation, which they did not receive.

"And all this is because of a little scoundrel," he added.

The scoundrel who had gone back to slumbering on his shoulder after satisfying her appetite with a piece of candy.

It didn’t take long before the Domain that had overlaid two layers of realms disappeared, and the Queen herself appeared in front of everyone, floating in the night sky.

Glancing at everyone, she announced:

"The intruder is finished. All the stolen fruits have been returned safely."

The elves of the Magic Tree breathed a sigh of relief and rejoiced at this news, while the representatives of the other elven kingdoms remained indifferent.

"Due to the incident, the meeting scheduled for today has been postponed to tomorrow."

This statement did not come as a surprise. By that time, everyone had already assumed that the meeting would be postponed.

"Why is she staring at us so intently? Arabel asked Idan through a mental link. "Did she suspect something?"

"Undoubtedly, she will suspect us," Idan replied to her. "However, she doesn’t have any evidence against us, so behave as usual."

"Milica," the Queen addressed her, without taking her eyes off Arabel and Idan. "I heard it was your disciple who discovered the intruder?"

"Yes, my Queen," Milica bowed her head respectfully. "My third disciple managed to discover it due to her affinity with the element of Space."

Idan and Arabel were the first "earthlings" she encountered, and admittedly, they made a deep impression on her, a Rank 9 being. She secretly watched their duel, and what she saw convinced her that these two had not demonstrated all their abilities.

"The Challenge Circle is complete," she said, without taking her eyes off the couple. — But the two of you won two fights, but you couldn’t fight the third one due to an unforeseen incident. Considering the contribution of one of you to the capture of the intruder, I, as the Owner of this place, believe that the third battle is also completed in your favor and that you both deserve one Foundation Fruit each."

With these words, the Queen extracted two fruits and handed them to Idan and Arabel.

They did not expect such generosity and were pleasantly surprised.

One way or another, these two fruits were going to be the prey of the winners of the Challenge Circle. Therefore, the Queen did not consider them a loss.

As a loss, she considered half of the fruits of the Foundation and the Law, which she agreed to give to an unknown intruder. However, the others don’t need to know about it.

It is beneficial for her and her Kingdom that the intruder is eliminated and the fruits are returned.

As soon as the fruits fell into their hands, Idan and Arabel froze.

A system message popped up in front of them:

[Ding! The task "Take part in the Challenge Circle and win the Fruit of the Foundation" has been successfully completed.]

[System experience has been gained.]

[Ding! To raise the level of the System, it is necessary to improve the Foundation of the Law to an Average.]

The system task that Idan and Arabel had considered a failure all along was successfully completed. And they took another step towards raising their System level to 32. Now they need to find the time and absorb the Fruits of the Foundation they have received in order to refine their Law Foundation to an average level.

After reviewing the System Notification and seeing that the Queen still hadn’t left, Idan and Arabel hid the fruits in their spatial rings and respectfully bowed their heads in appreciation.:

"Thank you, Your Majesty."

After observing the couple for a while, the Queen left, passing through the boundary between the layers of reality and returning to the Highest Realm.

With her departure, everyone present began to disperse.

Milica decided to stay behind to discuss the upcoming meeting tomorrow with Severin and her two younger comrades.

Idan and Arabel decided to return home.

After learning about this, Eulalia volunteered to escort them to the Adventurer’s Guild building as soon as her two Rank 6 bodyguards assigned to her by Severin returned from the Highest Realm.

Under the protection of two sixth-rank elves, they reached the Adventurer’s Guild without any incident, from where Idan and Arabel returned to their Family Home.

"Who would have guessed that our usual decision to go out and spend time would lead us to such an unusual adventure?" said Arabel with a smile, appearing in the living room.

"Indeed," Idan agreed, looking at her.

They were finally alone, and everything he had been holding back for so long was coming out. He pulled her to him and pressed his lips to hers.

"Mmm," — Arabel moaned, returning his kiss and hugging him tightly around the neck.

She felt his passion and desire, which aroused a reciprocal feeling in her.

At that moment, Arabel, who had just been thinking about checking on her little ones, put that thought aside and wanted to be in her bedroom as soon as possible.

***

Kingdom. The Forest of Doppelgangers.

In the depths of the forest, where the concentration of the energy of madness reached its peak, where few of the inhabitants of the Kingdom dared to set foot, there was a building, the only one in the entire forest — the Auction House.

An auction house that has never held auctions or accepted regular visitors since its foundation.

But even in this state, the building was restless. It was functioning, and it was carefully monitored by attendants in identical clothes and half masks. They were waiting for the time to come when the house run by their esteemed ancestor would finally open its doors to visitors.

At the back of the building, in a room hidden from prying eyes, Geminia, the owner of this auction house and the ancestor of all Doppelgangers, stood in front of three women, assessing their progress.

Her gaze landed on one of them, who looked very much like herself. If someone saw them side by side, they might mistake them for mother and daughter, or even sisters. But the truth was quite different.

This woman was Geminia’s only disciple, as well as Idan’s own grandmother, Eleanor. She became the first and so far the only human who adopted the Geminia bloodline and became a full-fledged Doppelganger.

"You’ve almost reached the peak of the Golden rank, Eleanor. Excellent results," Geminia was very pleased with her disciple’s progress.

"Thank you, Master," Eleanor replied, remaining calm and showing no emotion. She was not a young person who rejoiced at every achievement, and treated her cultivation with all seriousness.

Geminia’s gaze turned to the other two women.

Unlike Eleanor, they were not her students. They were her subordinates who had received the second and third Dominion Marks.

After gaining the second Dominion Mark, Livia — an Ashen Seraph of the fifth rank, underwent significant changes. Her skin, which had previously had an ash-gray hue, turned ash-pink, and her long dark hair and red eyes were filled with the radiance of the Flame of Madness.

Wings fluttered behind her, engulfed in the Flames of Madness.

Livia had a crazy but at the same time cold smile of reverence on her face, and her gaze was filled with respect and reverence.

The third woman to be awarded the third Geminia Dominion Mark was a fifth-rank Flaming Ifrit named Saelina. Her originally bronzed skin turned purple, and her hair turned bright pink.

Unlike Livia, Saelina seemed more restrained, but Geminia knew that behind this outward equanimity there was an equally insane woman.

Geminia assumed that the mixture of violent flames and her madness energy transmitted through the dominion mark would produce something unstoppable and uncontrollable. However, these two women managed to harness this power, which earned them the right to be part of her pack.

Geminia was quite satisfied with the success of all three women.

Now she can start forming their first Trinity Pack.