When Leon heard Lilith's words, he awkwardly asked. "Ahem… How long have I been standing irresponsive?"
"About five minutes?" Lilith answered with her head leaning sideways, before asking, "What happened to you? Why didn't you respond to me? It was like you were frozen in shock or something…"
Lilith casually swept the first floor with a glance. As Leon was standing near the entrance like a block of wood, she all her attention had been on getting Leon's response. Now that she was studying the building, she quickly became shocked.
"Holy Cow! What happened to the library!? It looks like it's been ransacked!" Lilith exclaimed. However, she quickly felt awkward right after. There was a venerable beast worshipped in the Wildlands as the Holy Cow for divine healing powers. If the Holy Cow knew she used its title was used as a figure of speech, it might curse her in the moo language.
"It was like this when I got here…" Leon said impassively without guilt. Nothing could be derived from his expression.
Lilith glanced at him suspiciously. "Really?"
"Yeah…"
Leon began rubbing his chin as he looked back at Lilith in thought.
Lilith did not carry any bag on her and didn't loot anything from her building. She was looking for something else. She spent the entire time practicing the [Hundred Beast Transformation Art] when she couldn't what she was looking for.
Thinking Leon had finally taken notice, she began puffing out her chest and feeling smug.
"Go on. Praise me."
Contrary to her expectation, Leon was thinking about an entirely different matter.
Due to the difference between their races, their culture would undoubtedly be different. The Nova Empire was a human civilization with similar building aesthetics to the Crawford Kingdom, or rather the Crawford Kingdom got their building aesthetics from studying the ancient ruins of the Nova Empire. As such Leon could recognize the library briefly, but how was Lilith able to do the same?
"How did you know this is the library?" Leon asked curiously.
"Oh that… I calculated with my fingers." Lilith said.
Leon froze. "…"
Lilith: "…"
There was a brief silence between them.
Leon lowered his head and pinched the bridge of his nose as if he was suffering from emotional distress. After he recovered, he said, "Let me rephrase. How did you recognize this building as the library?"
Lilith smiled coyly and playfully said, "I calculated with my—"
A bright ball of flames lit up on Leon's palm as he wore a slightly annoyed expression. Once was enough. Daring to use his own excuse against him twice. The audacity.
"Okay, Okay. Let's not resort to violence. There are so many shelves in here. Only a pharmacy, supermarket or library would need so many shelves. I made a lucky guess out of the three options, I suppose." Lilith retreated and pouted.
"I see. It seems you're quite familiar with human structures. I suppose the beastkins also live in large structured cities?" Leon rubbed his chin.
"Huh!? Of course, we do! We're not savages!" Lilith was riled by Leon's remark, but her lips soon curved into a derisive smile. "Our building aesthetics don't defer much from each other since we assimilated human knowledge after all. However, if you think this human city is large, then it shows how ignorant you are. The city my Desolate Crow Clan resides in is at least 10 times larger than your human city and our buildings are also much bigger and higher!"
As Lilith said to this point, she puffed her chest out proudly. While humans spread their influence across the lands through several cities and towns, every beast tribes congregate all their forces into one megacity.
"Oh? Why don't you tell me more about your Desolate Crow Clan and the Wildlands?" Leon said with interest. He had only been speaking from the perspective of an ordinary human in the Crawford Kingdom. Only he knew who the truly ignorant one was.
The divine cities of the Divine Realm at a minimum were at least several hundred times larger than the Capital and the population usually numbered in the hundreds of millions. This is only possible because divine practitioners didn't need to eat food to sustain themselves after reaching the Divine Origin Realm. Spirit energy was their sustenance.
"Hmph! Maybe when I feel like it." Lilith pouted when she didn't get the response she was hoping for. This fella was only interested in Wildlands and didn't care about her claims. Maybe he thought she was just boasting? Lilith did not feel good when she arrived at that conclusion.
"Never mind then. Let's head back." Leon smiled. He began walking off without waiting for Lilith's reply. At the same time, he tried to digest the influx of runic knowledge in his mind.
"Eh? Don't you have something to say about how I look?" Lilith finally brought up the matter.
Leon paused and flashed a glance over his shoulders. He continued his way after he calmly answered, "None."
Naturally, he had long noticed the absence behind her back. It was hard not to notice such a conspicuous thing when it goes missing. Although he did not show it, he was quite surprised. He had to admit that Lilith was quite a genius for mastering the art so quickly. However, he ignored it. He did not want to stroke her ego.
Lilith stamped her feet in anger but still followed Leon. She was expecting some praises but didn't expect this fella to be so hateful for not satisfying her vanity.
Zorbek and the 18 other palace guards sighed with relief when they saw Leon. Zorbek would have gone out to look for Leon personally if he did not return within another 5 minutes.
"It's good that you are safe, Your Highness." Zorbek soon shifted his eyes onto the petite figure behind Leon. "…and who is this lovely lady?"
What the heck? Was this person pretending to be stupid? Other than the black wing that she had retracted into her body, she looked practically the same as before.
Never did it occur to Lilith that Zorbek never put her in his eyes and only recognize her by her wing, otherwise she would have been angered to death. There was a limit to how much the person could dislike her, right!? She hadn't done anything to them, yet!
"Are you hitting on me? Sorry, it's too late to win my good impression. I'm not interested in older men anyway." Lilith said.
!!!
Zorbek widened his eyes in shock and almost choked on his own words. What happened to her wing? The others also showed surprised expressions, but they soon started looking at her strangely. The silence made her uncomfortable.
"What is it? Why are you all looking at me like that?" Lilith asked doubtfully.
Leon turned around and asked peculiarly, "If you're not interested in older men, then are you interested in younger boys?"
Lilith was startled by Leon's question before her face soon flush with embarrassment.
"No…!"
"Hahaha…" Leon chuckled lightly. He wanted to continue teasing, but then he frowned. They were still short on numbers. "Alright, enough nonsense. Where's the rest of the team?"
"I just sent them out to look for you. They should be back in a bit to report when they can't find you, Your Highness." Zorbek answered.
"I see. Never mind then. You can busy yourself with your own work. I'm going to meditate for a bit."
"Yes, Your Highness." Zorbek complied.
Leon found himself a spot on the ground and began digesting the rest of the knowledge from [Introduction to Runes for Dummies]. At the same time, Zorbek gathered the palace guards and had them report their findings to him, before jotting everything down on his notebook.
Everyone had a plentiful harvest in this short hour. This could be seen when they presented their overloaded backpacks. They couldn't fit everything inside and had to carry the excess on hand back to the gathering point.
There was more room after depleting nearly all their rations, however, the free space was filled back up with crystals and sunstones. They also found some unknown tools, equipment, and even weapons, which could all be categorized under artifacts.
One of Leon's eyes opened when the artifacts were pulled out, but he quickly lost interest. He suspected they were spirit artifacts or maybe even forbidden artifacts, but the runic lines were all damaged and he didn't sense any artifact spirit from them.
If the runic lines were damaged, then the artifact was pretty much scraps and only useful for study purposes. He was just beginning to understand basic runic lines. He was still far from being able to repair the damaged artifacts.
Sometime later, Leon reopened his eyes and gave the group a brief sweeping glance. Zorbek and palace guards had finished their tallying and were waiting on him.
"Should we begin preparing for our return journey and check if the path is clear, Your Highness? We won't be able to carry any more relics if we proceed further." Zorbek asked.
Leon shook his head. He had completed half of his objectives on this trip, but he was still unwilling to return after making it this far.
Despite searching so many buildings, no one seemed to have located the power sources yet. Leon gave Lilith a brief glance. Was she also looking for power sources?
Suddenly, Leon swept the group again and frowned.
"What's wrong, Your Highness?"
"The other two palace guards. They haven't returned yet?"