Within five minutes, all of the youngsters had managed to follow the instructions and enter the Relic's separate space. Now all that was left was the waiting.
Karl was just getting comfortable when another portal opened, and Rae used [Shadow Step] to go greet their visitors.
"Ah, monster!" The woman on the other side of the portal screamed.
No, Karl realized half a second later. That was a man with an exceptionally high-pitched screaming voice. Because the woman who stepped through looked disgusted with his cowardice.
"Princess. Are you the leader of this team? I have been sent by the Staptonbia Tower to negotiate access to the Relic." She announced.
Rae smiled at her, a gleaming crescent of serrated teeth.
"No, my Karl is the leader here. But I could have sworn that we already had your person here." Rae replied, confused by the way that the humans were using the same name twice.
The woman gave her a perplexed look, then turned to where Karl and the Royal Rank mage were sitting.
"What are you doing here, Joseph?" She demanded.
"The same thing that you are. I paid for my students to access the Relic." He replied with a smug smile.
The woman glared at him, then held out a box. "I suppose that he also paid with one of these?" She asked, showing Rae a potion identical to the first, except higher quality.
"This one is better than the first one. I can give you a chance to try the relic along with your ten tributes for that price." Rae offered.
The leader of the first group of mages, Joseph, turned to Karl.
"Can she do that? Normally, there are politics involved in which faction gets to make the decision." He whispered.
"It's fine. We're in agreement on the price." Karl replied, dismissing the mage's concerns.
The new mage woman turned over the box, which Rae tossed in her space for Remi to upgrade later. They had one ready to go, and now they could make another. That way, they could feed them to both Thor and Lotus to see what happened.
All she needed was to find another Monarch Rank Earth Stone. Or a nature stone. It should work with a nature stone too. Assuming that she could find one.
[I will check my swamp first. I might already have some.] Remi noted. Rae was busy playing hostess, so Remi would get started on the work.
[I have a Royal Rank Nature Stone. Is that good enough?] Remi asked after a few seconds.
[Probably. I recall Hawk saying that humans can't absorb resources well, so you can't give them really good things.]
A Monarch Rank potion would be two full ranks above Lotus, and that might be too much for her to handle. Normally humans used potions at their own level to advance, not ones that were already above their rank, simply out of access issues. Any resource that they could use was usually consumed by the finder, or traded for one that they could use. So, there were no over level resources available. The human nations simply weren't capable of keeping up with demand.
The [Identify] skill that Karl had gotten, and passively shared with the team, was practically a cheat code for Remi when she started to study potion making. She only had to see the combination that would be good for one of the team members, and then try to make something that wouldn't kill a human.
She had wanted to make a growth potion that would make Lotus taller, but one of the ingredients was her own venom. If it didn't work to make her taller, it would probably kill her.
"You're really fine with a Royal Rank mage using the Relic?" The woman asked.
"Of course. But only on the condition that you give our friend Librarian Gareth a full description of what happened inside. The Blue Dragons hate when they miss out on possibly useful information." Rae insisted.
[Plus, it will be funny to find out what insults the System came up when we send another old woman in.] She mentally added.
The woman led her group in just as the first ten came out, all within thirty seconds of each other.
Once they were at the Relic, and the Blue Dragon was debriefing the young mages coming out, Joseph finally gave in to temptation and asked Karl the question that was burning in his mind. "What are you expecting to happen that you are willing to risk a foreign Royal advancing with the aid of the Relic you're assigned to?"
Karl laughed. "That Relic won't immediately advance anyone. Your people will explain to you soon. But there is a sentience inside the Relic, and it loves to insult people. Rae let her enter just so that she would be forced to describe the experience to the Blue Dragon. They can read minds, and they will know if she's lying or trying to hide anything. Trust me, you don't want to leave before she gets out, especially if you're rivals in the same Sect."
Joseph blinked slowly, then looked at Rae, who was very proud of her idea.
"That's brilliant. Evil, but brilliant. Now, as I'm going to find out anyhow, what sort of Relic is it?" He asked.
"It gives the chance to awaken a System Class if you are compatible, or view a historical video if you're not. But you see, the System was typically awakened during puberty.
Your counterpart is significantly older than that, as is Colonel Lu, the Royal Rank Minotaur over there. It berated him the entire time that he was there, even though it gave him the reward.
So, even if she is successful, we are expecting entertainment."
Joseph chuckled as he waited for his acolytes to be returned to him after interrogation by the Blue Dragon. His nation also followed the Dragon Gods, though they didn't follow the Golden Dragon Church.
But the actual religious faction didn't matter much when it came to showing respect for the dragons. Even the Beast God followers were kind to the chromatic dragons, and most of the others on the continent followed suit out of common sense. After all, you never wanted to upset someone who might eat you.