Lord Feyngan's words caused all those present to produce all kinds of varying thoughts.
Largely it was a mixture of dread and greed.
Dread at the thought of the emergence of such an unknown, great power and how the balance of power would drastically shift due to it.
And greed… for obvious reasons.
The first to express himself regarding this was predictably the officious mermaid king- Zavul Ozeamriths.
"So where is the Esteemed Excellency?" He sharply chimed towards Lord Feyngan, his hawk like eyes quickly surveying the surrounding wastelands like an eagle searching for its prey.
Although he sounded respectful in his address, just in the off chance that presumed formidable presence was listening, really, his intent was far less charitable and much more covetous.
"There are no signs of life," The pale nobleman gave the answer in an extremely monotone voice. Then brightening the pale blue fire in his eyes added, "However I sense the death aura of two beings. Combine that with the massive explosion…"
Having given enough clues, the usually extremely reticent man trailed off, leaving the other to fill in the obvious gaps.
And it did not take even an instant for everyone to connect the dots -
A high level mage had landed here, most probably injured… this may have been due to fleeing from a formidable enemy, maybe due to a teleportation portal going wrong, or maybe some other unknown cause.
Whatever the reason may be, he came here from the upper planes to hide, thinking the desolateness of the place would give him a good cover, away from the prying eyes of any powerful local mage.
Yet as luck would have it, he instantly got to meet the most formidable being known to the people around these parts- a half mad beast that acted mostly out of pure instinct.
There was no reasoning with it even if he wanted to barter.
The result- mutually assured destruction.
The man blew himself to take his foe with him.
This was the absolute best result all the power of this plane could have hoped for.
Hence, if before, Lord Feyngan's words only made the other four's hearts flutter, now it made their whole body burn up with euphoric excitement.
'An inheritance from the higher realms!' They cried in their head together.
Even Elder Cinthalo, the most mature and composed of the group seemed to be on the verge of losing control.
Fortunately, all these people were people of the world, having seen and lived through much of it.
So before they let their thoughts run away with them, and start prematurely celebrating,
"Madam Agatha, is what Lord Feyngan saying true?" the most prudent of them all, Knight Legate, Lady Esthrad chose to seek a second opinion first, focusing her magnificent crystal blue eyes on the tiny fairy.
This was quickly followed by three more pairs.
"...." And facing the concentrated 'glare' of all their gazes, the fairy initially produced a bitter face,
"Smelly old fart! Today is the day you decided to open your trap! Damn you!" She venemously cursed the pale man under her breath.
Now, from all their interaction till now, it was very obvious she and Lord Feyngan's faction were diametrically opposed to each other.
And the lady once again found proof why.
But the damage had already been done- there was little point in trying to hide anything.
Sigh….
Thus finally taking a deep breath that caused her abundant chest to heave, Fairy Agatha turned her head upwards to indeed confirm,
"He is right. Just as I got here, I was able to pick up the presence of two distinct mana signatures… one putrid and foul like the depths of the abyss...the other… extremely faint, yet extremely pure and clean… unlike anything we have here. Clearly, it came from… a highly privileged place."
The gorgeous lady would go on to pause several while describing Adonis's mana- both because it was hard to and also because she wanted to keep it a secret.
These people were not from her faction but rivals, so why should she just give away free information?
She also seemed reticent to utter the words- higher planes- as she felt an instinctual reverence for the place she had only heard of in legends, It both fascinated her and she very much longed to reach it.
On the other hand, the remaining three were far more concerned with what Lady Agatha had said.
Her slight stuttering was of little distraction for them- and as soon as she made the confirmation- the trio felt as if an illusory dam in their heart had burst forth.
"So you did know something!" The mermaid kind Zavul Ozeamriths growled at the lady with both excitement and anger, eyes almost letting out lightning strikes.
While Lady Esthard and Elder Cinthalo eyes were more focused on the surrounding area, greedily scanning it as if they could not wait to dive in and start searching for 'the salvage'.
"Snort, you are being awfully talkative today Lord Feyngan. I thought your Zilou Empire would want to monopolize the entire thing for yourself?"
As for Lady Agatha, she directly ignored the roar from the bulky royal, rather turning to blame the pale figure who had given her secret away.
She had actually detected that pristine mana from the very beginning, and it did not take even a second for this formidable witch to know she was onto something good.
Back then, she just did not know exactly what it was.
But over the course of the discussion, with hints from Lord Feyngan, that mystery was quickly resolved.
And initially it had set her heart on a roaring fire. She could hardly contain herself.
Fortunately, she was able to perfectly hide all of that by playing along with the others who actually appeared shocked.
This was one of the reasons why she had so closely mirrored Elder Chintalo's reaction to Lord Feyngan's 'ridiculous' claim.
She thought she was playing her part perfectly.
Yet…
All that scheming turned out for naught.
'It's all because of that darm zombie!' The beautiful lady cursed, clenching her pearly whites as she glared.
"Hahaha, and you people say we have nothing in our heads," While facing her, perhaps for the first time since this meeting, Lord Feyngan's zombie like face perhaps produced a touch of genuine emotion- amusement.
Curling his thin, bluish cold lips by the tiniest of fractions, the corpse like man mused,
"I never knew you changed your brain for mature, old hag. Or else how could you seriously think you could hide such a huge thing from all of us?"
"Hahaha… the inheritance of a Rank 6, possibly Rank 7 is not something that can be sneakily taken. All of us would quickly know what was going on even without any external help. So why hide it?"
At that point the usually extremely laconic man appeared to suddenly become very energic and chatty, regally flashing his alabaster palms and causing the tiny pale blue flame inside his sunken eyes to surge with unparalleled radiance,
"Since we are all smart people here I will stop beating around the bush. The death of that beast and the higher level mage has released tremendous amounts of mana into the area. All this will start to return… returning this wasteland to its heyday. The lush and fertile Maure Zavary will once again be back."
"So let it be known my Zilou Empire lays claim to the entirety of it all! Anyone encroaching upon it without our permission will be seen as an act of war!"
"Hmmp! Preposterous!"
"Hehehe, and you said my head was full of manure. What happened to your's old dog? Got kicked by a donkey!"
"Snort!"
"Hehehe, it seems Lord Feyngan wants to use this as a pretext to wage a great war and create more corpses. Is this why you so liberally shared all the information? To pit all of us against each other? Hehe.. indeed this kind of underhanded tactics belong to your Zilou Empire."
While the others glared or simply ignored the pale lord, Elder Cinthalo was able to perfectly see through the man's ruse, chuckling out the explanation.
Yet deep inside he also knew this changed things little.
The bait was just too juicy to ignore, no matter how obvious the trap.
"....." As for the man at the center of all this outrage, he only gave a pallid, zombie like stony look to the others.
And turning around, simply flew away.