Angele followed Ainphent, telling Asuna that he would contact her later since they had already exchanged their communication sigils.
Asuna understood that she would not be allowed in the wizard area so she nodded and left.
Angele followed Ainphent down the hill, and he started seeing more wizards on the way after passing several intersections with other mountain roads.
"I don’t mind it if you prefer to date men, however, if you’re interested in me, I’ll have to say sorry," Angele said with a low voice, his eyebrows furrowed.
Ainphent smiled. "What if I tell you, I was once a woman before the accident happened during an experiment, will you believe me?"
Angele was surprised. "What? You were a woman?"
He stared at Ainphent and observed him again.
Ainphent’s face was handsome, his white short hair clean and straight. His skin was a bit pale, but his body was balanced and strong. Angele found nothing that indicated the gentleman in front of him had once been a female.
"Do you mind if I ask what the experiment was about?"
Angele found it hard to believe, but he understood that wizards did strange experiments all the time.
"I can’t tell you the details, but I was infected by polluted energy leaking out of containers. Something in my body changed and I failed to find a way to stop it. My appearance became like this after several years," Ainphent explained. He sounded depressed.
Angele did not know what he should say after listening to Ainphent’s words. They stopped chatting and walked down the path quietly.
The left side of the path was a mountain and the right side was a large cliff. A waterfall was cascading down the rocks under the cliff and the water was joining a river in the canyon below.
On the farther side, there was a high, white obelisk hidden in thin mist. The surface of the obelisk was smooth like a mirror, and it looked identical to the black pillar by the entrance except for the pyramidal top.
Angele raised his head and saw a white glow on the top of the tall obelisk.
A tiny black dot was slowly leaving the top of the obelisk, flying to the left, however, it was too far away from Angele for him to see what it was.
Ainphent noticed what Angele was staring at and explained, "Are you looking at the obelisk? There are six of them and they are called ‘Signal Obelisks’. The six obelisks are arranged in such a way that they form a giant circle. The place is named Six Ring High Tower not because of the layer but rather that each obelisk exists as an individual ring that completes the circle. It’s also one of the most famous visitor attractions on the west coast."
He pointed at the areas that were blocked by the mountains.
"Without those mountains, you’d be able to see the other two Signal Towers. They have the same height and look exactly just like the one you’re staring at."
"Indeed, they’re magnificent."
Angele nodded.
"These obelisks were built at least 3000 years ago, and they were almost destroyed during the wars. However, after years of repairing, they’re now in good shape. The obelisks have witnessed the fall and rise of the west coast," Ainphent added.
It was the first-time that Angele had seen one of the wonders of this world.
The two were walking down when they heard something wings flapping on the side.
There were five large black vultures in the air, flying down the mountains.
Each of the vultures was about five meters long, their feathers all black and their necks bald. Angele saw several people wearing dark green long robes sitting on their backs.
One of the vultures flew by Angele and the strong rush of wind blew the lap of his robe. The vultures flapped their wings from time to time, slowly gliding down.
Ainphent smiled. "They’re probably members of one of the local wizard families; they’re the guards of this market. I think they just came back from patrolling since their shift is over."
"You mean… They send formal wizards just to patrol the area?"
Angele was a bit surprised.
"Things like this will only happen in Nola, haha."
Ainphent chuckled.
They heard other wizards chatting about the landing vultures. The place got noisy within seconds.
Angele heard many different languages mixed with dialects and only two of them were found in Zero’s database. He looked at Ainphent, wanting to ask if he knew what the others were talking about.
The other saw Angele looking at him and shrugged, it seemed like he did not what others were saying as well.
They stopped the conversation and reached the bottom of the canyon after several minutes.
A small square appeared in Angele’s sight.
There was a tall black stone gate on the surface of the rock. It looked like the gate was built a long time ago, the components already having started to decay due to the weather. On top of the gate, there was an oval-shaped white stone and an eye-shaped complicated pattern engraved onto it.
The gate was about ten meters tall and eight meters wide, and closed. Green vines climbed up its sides, and there was a small flight of stone steps in the front. On the right side of the steps, there was a brazier with burning firewood inside.
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