Arthur entered the makeshift cafeteria with Tess to his right and Ellie to his left, with Boo and Regis following behind. Tess kissed him goodbye before running off to join the rest of their team, then he looked around for Helen. He saw her sitting across from Kaspian, looking like they were having a discussion, and walked over.

"Kaspian, Helen," Arthur said as he approached. "How's everything going?"

"Very good General," Kaspian replied as Helen smiled a greeting to Ellie. "We were just discussing strategy for when we're guarding the miners."

"We're thinking of breaking our group into two more teams, and sending one out to try and hunt the beasts before they can attack us," Helen stated.

"Not a bad idea," Arthur replied approvingly.

"The only problem is I'd like to keep more ranged mages defending. I don't feel like it's enough considering how little we know about the beast's capabilities," Kaspian explained.

"What a coincidence, I'm actually here to add another ranged mage to your team," Arthur stated as he placed his hand and Ellie's back and guided her forward. "My little sister Eleanor will be joining you starting today."

"Umm, General," Kaspian started with an unapproving look, while Helen gave Ellie a welcoming smile. "I don't know if this is a good idea. I know most of the people on this mission are young, but she looks like she just awakened."

"Actually Ellie awakened several years ago, and is at the solid orange stage," Arthur corrected.

"She's also an archer, capable of using pure mana arrows, and has the mana pool of a light orange core conjurer," Helen chimed in. Kaspian looked at her questioningly as to how she knew so much about Ellie. "I was her mentor before and throughout the war," Helen said with a smile as she read his look.

"However," She then looked at Arthur. "I'm surprised that you're allowing her to come along. You're always so protective of her."

"I know, that's why I'm holding her to additional standards she has to meet to be able to go."

—————————————————————-

Last night

The Leywin's were eating dinner together in Arthur's apartment for a change, eating a dinner prepared by Tess. She had talked to Arthur about her feelings that she previously discussed with Alice, and was now feeling a bit better. Arthur had revealed he had felt similarly after returning from being an adventurer when he was twelve, but that going to school was exciting enough to help him. He had come up with a suggestion that after the war that they should do some dives into the relic tombs together every once in a while. If not for Arthur's description of how challenging the tombs were she may have been skeptical. The idea satisfied her, and knowing he understood how she felt put her at ease. She of course wasn't over this, but letting it out and talking to Arthur and Alice helped, and made her feel not alone with this.

Everyone was talking about various things, trying to keep from talking about the war, except for Ellie who was just picking at her food. To put it simply, Ellie was bored. She had been going out to hunt the mana beast that lived in the tunnels with the guards or Mica. She preferred going with Mica over the guards, who only acted like they were babysitting her, despite the fact that she always killed close to half of the beasts they saw. Mica got bored with the hunting of the beast quickly since they were so weak, but she did enjoy Ellie's company. Despite the obvious differences in their age and maturity, the two were essentially on the same wavelength when it came to personality. The two bonded over talks of training and boys, Ellie with her desire to have a boyfriend and Mica doing her best to be vague in her talk of the guy she's interested in.

"So Ellie, what did you do today?" Alice asked, after noticing her seeming distracted.

"Same old stuff," she replied, sounding bored. She then put her fork down. She had known what she wanted for a while, but never had the nerve to ask as she knew she would be denied. But as time ticked by, her opportunities also left her, so if she was ever going to ask, why not now. She looked to Arthur calmly and steadily. "Brother, I want to go on the dungeon dive!"

"Eleanor Leywin, No! I will not allow this!" Alice replied instantly.

"We're calling it a tomb dive," Arthur corrected casually.

"Whatever, I want to go!"

"I'm pretty sure mom just gave her answer, and I'm not going against her," Arthur replied as he sat back in his chair and shook his head.

Ellie redirected her eyes to her mother and gave a pleading look. "Please, I can do this. Lilia has been giving me copies of the test, and Emily let me try out the puzzle training. I passed both of them! And as for the mana conservation, being a pure mana mage I already train on that all the time, so I'm confident I'd pass that too."

"Eleanor, you've heard Arthur's stories about the tombs. They can be even more dangerous than any dungeon," Alice argued in an effort to change her mind.

But Ellie wasn't giving up.

"General."

Hearing Ellie call him that made Arthur's heart ache a little.

"Please. I'm sure you could use more people. I can do this," Ellie pleaded.

Arthur pondered this point. Based on what happened in the relic tomb during the previous timeline, more ranged attackers would definitely be advantageous. However there wasn't much time to find more that could make the cut. His original plan was to take powerful mages he trusted to secure a location in the relic tomb, and make it a fall back position in case the sanctuary was attacked again. Even though putting Ellie and his mother there would ensure they were safe, they could be in just as much danger if the relic tomb outpost wasn't established first.

"Fine," Arthur replied reluctantly.

"Arthur?!" Alice shouted in shock.

Arthur raised his hand calmly to her to ask her to wait and hear him out as he looked towards Ellie.

"If I'm going to allow this, then you have to meet an additional standard, on top of the ones everyone else has to meet." Arthur raised his index finger in front of his face, and instantly formed a marble sized ball of aether. "I learned that our family is distantly descended from the ancient mages, which means you should have an affinity to aether too. I'm going to talk to elder Rinia in the morning, and ask her to train you. If you want to go with us, you need to be able to create a ball of aether this big by the day of our departure."

"Thank you!" Ellie shouted excitedly as she hugged Arthur, then ran to hug Boo.

"Arthur? What are you doing?" Alice asked as she tried to contain her anger.

Arthur leaned in close. "She won't be able to do it. Maybe in a few months or a year it's possible, but our affinity is so weak she won't be able to pick it up fast enough. This is just to bring this topic to a close," Arthur whispered.

Alice nodded in acceptance. If they refused her she would just continue to beg and try to prove herself. This way she will be working to improve instead, which is a good thing regardless. And in the unlikely chance that she did learn to use aether in time, it would become a big advantage for her down in the tomb.

—————————————————————-

"Just treat her like you would anyone else under your command, forget that she's my sister. You hold her to the same standards as everyone else while I hold mine for her even higher," Arthur said as he tousled Ellie's hair at the end.

With an annoyed look Ellie pushed Arthur's hand off her head.

"Very well," Kaspian conceded, then looked at Ellie. "Considering your past with Captain Shard, moving forward you will report to her and move with her team through the training."

"Thank you Captain," Ellie replied with a bow as she failed to contain her excitement.

"Well I'll leave you to it then. Good luck Ellie, and don't forget your training with elder Rinia after," Arthur said then turned to leave.

"Oh before you go," Helen said abruptly. "One of the guys from Kaspian's team got a hold of some good meat, so we're all going to be having a little barbecue for dinner tonight with just those of us going on the mission. I wanted to make sure you knew to be there."

"Oh, I'll cook!" Regis chimed in.

"Hell no!" Arthur shouted at the aetheric wolf. "You are never allowed to cook again."

"Oh come on," Regis whined. "You were enjoying it. You wouldn't have even known it was cat meat if it wasn't for that cook coming in."

"Hence why I don't want you cooking. You can't be trusted," Arthur replied as everyone in the room looked over confused as to what exactly happened. Tess just sat quietly next to Claire shuttering, as her appetite was completely ruined. Claire tried to ask Tess about it but she immediately denied not wanting to talk about the topic further.

"Anyway," Arthur turned his head to face back towards Helen as he still looked tense and angry. "Where are we meeting?"

"Umm, just meet here at six. We need to pick up a few things from the kitchen, so someone can just show you," she replied.

"Great, I'll see...." Arthur started before being interrupted.

"General!" A guard said as he stood at attention and saluted.

"What is it?" Arthur replied as he returned the salute.

"We found it."

—————————————————————

The tunnel was dark, the only light coming from the artifacts carried by the guards, and the dim glow coming from the floating carts being pushed by several other guards. As they proceeded down the tunnel a dim orange light was seen. As they got closer the light became brighter, and was eventually shown to be several lighting artifacts and torches.

"I've never actually seen one of these uncovered before," Virion said as he approached as he stared in awe at the artifact leaning against the cavern wall.

"So is this the teleportation gate you were looking for General?" Markus asked as he stared in the same wonder as Virion.

"It is," Arthur replied. "With this gate we're one step closer to being able to dive into the relic tomb. Gentlemen," Arthur said, looking towards the guards. "Carefully load this onto the carts."

The gate was in rough shape. It was a dingy white and covered in cracks as well as a few chunks that had been broken off. All of the other gates looked pristine without even a scratch, leaving everyone but Arthur worried that it wouldn't work. However no one also knew what the conditions of the gates were when they were first discovered centuries ago, only the condition they were in now. They told themselves that artifactors must have had to work hard to repair them as well just to keep a degree of hope.

The three of them watched as the guards examined the old teleportation gate, and made a plan to try and move it. The carts were moved into position as another guard tied some rope to the top. With the carts in position the guards began pulling on the rope, and soon the white arch was upright once again. It looked like this would be a simple task and that the gate would be on its way back to the sanctuary in minutes.

The two outer ropes were abandoned and those guards moved to the side of the gate. Once in position the guards with the rope began pulling again as the guards on the sides controlled its descent. Small pieces of the gate began to crumble off as they could hear the cracks beginning to spread. In a panic the guards stopped pulling and began trying to push it back up, but it was too late. The sides stayed with the guards, but the top portion crumbled and fell on to the carts.

"Can't say I didn't see that coming," Arthur commented casually, as everyone else just stared at the broken gate in disbelief. "Finish loading it onto the cart, and don't leave any of the pieces behind."

"But Arthur, it's broken. Not even Gideon can fix this," Markus replied in confusion. His time with Arthur had been the least out of anyone on the council, so he hadn't learned to trust in Arthur just yet.

"No he can't, now pick up all of the pieces and bring them to the sanctuary so I can get to work," Arthur replied.

The guards looked at each other confused. The gate was broken, not even the greatest artifactor on the continent could fix it, yet this young Lance still wanted the pieces gathered, saying he was going to work on it.

"Did I stutter?" Arthur asked with annoyance that they weren't working. "Get to work and pick up every last piece."

Quickly the guards got to work, looking forward to when Arthur failed, as it wasn't everyday that a Lance made a fool of themselves.

As the guards worked, Virion got closer.

"You knew that was going to happen didn't you?" He asked, quiet enough that the guards wouldn't hear.

"No, last time Gideon was too scared to let anyone even touch it as he tried to figure it out. I just fixed it here then moved it." Arthur shrugged. "I always thought he was just overreacting, I guess not."

"But you can fix it like this too, right?"

Arthur just smiled.

—————————————————————

About an hour later the teleportation gate pieces had been brought outside of the training building. The guards stood off to the side, ready to be entertained by Arthur's failure, as the council members along with Varay waited to see what he was about to do.

Arthur looked to the guards. "Stand one of the longer sections here," Arthur instructed as he tapped his foot on the location. "And the other here."

The guards groaned briefly, but did as they were told. As the two sides were stood up Arthur used earth mana to form a stone base to keep them from falling over. He then extended his right arm as the god runes for Aroa's Requiem ignited in a golden glow. Everyone watched in wonder and amazement as aetheric emotes swirled around in the palm of his hand, before flying out to the broken arch. The emotes swirled around the pieces still sitting on the carts brought them to the standing portions. As they arrived they began fitting into place like a jigsaw puzzle, with the cracks sealing as they locked in and the emotes were absorbed. From the top of the arch the remaining emotes moved on to the sides and were absorbed in as they repaired the cracks. As the last of the emotes were absorbed a series of runes glowed with an amethyst purple hue upon a prestinly white surface before dying out.

"And now we have a fully functioning teleportation gate," Arthur announced proudly.

"How...," Makus started but paused. He wanted to ask a question, but the words wouldn't come out, as he had too many questions at once.

"Were one step closer," Virion mused as he looked up to the gate, resting a hand on the white arch. "Can we activate it now to test it?"

"We could, but I would prefer to wait till we're ready to connect to the relic tomb, and I don't want to do that until we have the artifacts Gideon is making. I don't want to risk someone accidentally going through and getting killed because they weren't prepared," Arthur replied.

—————————————————————-

Arthur, Tess, and Sylvie arrived at the cafeteria. Regis was already at the party as he was on Elijah guard duty, making sure that Nico didn't manage to get out. As for Sylvie, many saw her as Arthur and Tess' adopted daughter, so even though she wasn't coming on the mission, she would no doubt be welcome.

They didn't see anyone at first, but heard noise coming from around back, and went to investigate. In back they saw Darvus, along with several others Arthur wasn't very familiar with, loading food and other ingredients onto one of the anti gravity cart artifacts, as one of the cooks just stood back watching.

"So Darvus is stealing food now?" Arthur questioned, notifying them that he was there.

Everyone else froze and looked on the verge of panic, however Darvus saw Tess covering her mouth while trying to hide she was giggling.

"Seriously, don't scare these guys," Darvus shot back with annoyance.

"Sorry, but this just looks like something shady if you don't actually know what's going on," Arthur replied.

With that they finished loading everything up, and headed to the party site. Along the way Arthur spoke with the youngest member of Kaspian's team, Noah. He was Kingston's son, and like him he was an ice augmenter who specialized in hand to hand combat. However unlike his father his appearance was softer. Not in the sense of being weak, but he was more expressive and held a kinder, warmer demeanor, compared to his cold, almost completely expressionless father.

"About time you guys showed up," Theo complained as they arrived.

The site was at the edge of town so the earth mages could conjure up some seating, and so they could have a nice bonfire going. A stone grill was raised from the ground as a low flame was burning, with metal grates on top to cook the meats on. Many people were drinking ale from an assortment of different mugs, no doubt what the individuals had on hand.

"It's not our fault," Darvus shot back as the supplies were being brought to the grill. "We were waiting for them." He gestured to Arthur and Tess.

"Sorry, my fault," Arthur replied. "It was a busy morning so training with Varay got pushed back."

"That's good that you can train with the other lances to get stronger," Lunaris commented from a bench with an arm around Kathyln.

At the same time the supplies from the cafeteria were done being offloaded and Noah walking towards a seat. His father waved him down, signaling there was still a seat beside him. Noah waved and continued walking, but he didn't stop at his father. Instead he walked past him, and towards Lunaris's team, specifically Karen, the female elf augmenter. He sat down beside her and they shared a quick kiss on the lips as she snuggled up to him. His father was left with a crescent fallen expression, as some of the other members of his team tried to console him, after losing his son to the cute elf.

"Oh, this was to help her get stronger. It's only a warm up for me," Arthur stated matter of factly.

"Since Arthur reached the integration stage, he's undisputedly the strongest Lance," Sylvie explained proudly.

"Wait!" Theo shouted as he stood up and narrowed his eyes on Arthur. "Is that what the stage beyond white core is called?"

"That's right," Arthur replied.

"That's it," Theo shouted as he pulled his gauntlets from his dimensional ring. "I was going easy on you last time, and I'm in the light yellow stage, nearly dark silver now. It's time for you to be punished for breaking your restriction."

"Actually, I didn't break it," Arthur pointed out. "You said someone needed to catch up to me before I could get stronger. Well," Arthur stepped aside and gestured to Tess as if presenting her. "Tess has already reached the white core stage."

Tess gave her, 'teehee' expression.

"What?!"

"Hey I'm not alone," she pointed to Elijah. "Elijah made it there too."

Elijah looked embarrassed as he scratched the back of his head sheepishly, and everyone looked back and forth between the newest white core mages.