[City of Avalon]

The next day after, the kingdom in the sky finally arrived at the doorsteps of the city of mages, as Asagi decided to personally descend for this special occasion. As natural some opposed to such an idea due to how much value Asagi had for the stability of the kingdom, but after learning that she need to personally tackle her business in this city, they had no choice but to compromise.

After seeing the overprotectiveness of the archangel time after time she wanted to go out, Asagi thought that she would need to straight things out with them in the near future. After all she wasn't a prisoner that always need to be guarded but also a person herself. But that story  is for the near future.

In the end Asagi herself picked the people who will go with her that she is comfortable with. Primarily she plans to head into the city together with Michael and Ariel alone, but just as she was about to finalize that decision, Amos then begun to intrude as he also wished to join with her and mingle in the city of mages.

As a person who wielded quite a unique magic himself and the fact that such a magnificent city was unprecedented even in his reign and the thrill of adventure, he naturally ordered to let him join the expedition to see the city itself. Since Asagi knew that the Amos is quite a stubborn person himself, she had no choice but to let him join as he wasn't a subordinate under her but instead a type of partner in crime.

Receiving Asagi's permission, Amos then laughed heartedly as he appointed Leon as his guard for this situation. With that the team for the expedition was then decided as they all begun heading down to the surface world.

*********

After touching the land, Asagi then issued everyone to hide their wings as she puts on the cloak she had prepared and led everyone in the icy plains heading towards the southern gate of the city of mages. In order to not set an alarm to the mages inside the city, Asagi and the group landed on the passageway between the two mountains facing the city, as they walked forwards towards the city itself.

The walk itself took about an hour and a half due to how  tricky the landscape is, because of the snow and ice laying on the land, not only is the land slippery, but it was also hard for them to find a solid footing as they traversed the plains. Due to that they had to be extra careful as they moved forward in this land filled with ice and snow.

Not long after they then arrived before the gates of the city, as they noticed a long line of people who wished to enter the city itself. All this people either wore thick fur coats to prevent freezing in this environment or thin rag clothes that seemed to be  from the people who lived outside the city's walls.

Some faces are hopeful to enter the city, while some looked desperate as if they saw an oasis just behind the gates of the city itself.

Since a lot of people are forming a line to enter the city, Asagi and her group then had no choice but to wait in line as they ended up at the tail of the line itself. The line itself moved not to fast nor too slow at all, it seems like the process on entering the city isn't that strict at all, but since this is a foreign land, they cant afford to let down their guard even for a single moment.

After for what seems like 30 minutes, they were then finally in front of the city gates as the seemingly guard of the gates approached them and asked for their identification.

"Identification please"

Realizing that they don't have any form of I.D in this world, Asagi stuttered for a bit as she tried to come up some way of excusing their group. But  before the guards could get suspicious of them, Amos then walked forward as he handed out a wooden plate in the size of his hand towards the guard guarding the gate.

Seeing the wooden plate, the guard naturally took it as he begun examining the card for its validity itself. With that, Asagi then turned to look at Amos as she was surprised to see him actually having an identification card in this time of emergency.

"How did you... where did you get that I.D?"

"Oh that? I've picked that up back when we were roaming the destroyed town near the ocean, at first i was skeptical of such an object, but after my foresight showed me that such a thing was actuality a type of identification,  i then realized just how important it is and simply took it for future use"

"You picked it up since that time? that was a long time ago" said by Asagi in surprise

"And i never expected it to be something important... who would have known"

Soon after the guard then returned the wooden plate towards Amos as he then said his comment.

"You can enter sir, but as for the others.... unless they give out their identification, they wouldn't be able to enter the city" said by the guard

"Is that so? but this is actually their first time entering this city and i was planning to  register them for identification acquirement in this city so that their next time going here would be an easy process" reasoned by Amos on the spot

"Is that the case? Then you should've told me from the very beginning... come follow me, i'll register them in that room over there"

With that the guard the requested for another man to cover his position , as he led the whole group inside the room and handed them a paper for them to fill out their identification. Filling up the paper wasn't hard at all for Asagi, after all such documentation was almost similar to how the identification from her past world was taken.

After the paper was filled up, the guard then took those paper as he handed it to the mages in the room for quick process.  Of course the wait didn't  take too long, after for what seems like 15 minutes, the identification process was completed, as the guard handed them a wooden plate with their identity inscribe, before letting them inside the city gates.

The moment they entered the city, they were immediately shocked and mesmerized by the sight of it as it appearance was completely different from they seen outside the city gates itself.

The streets were wide enough that it could fit two carriages going in opposite direction, the side walk was spacious that it could literally fit in a row of people, the lamp seemed kind of being activated by some kind of a rune stone, The streets were filled to the brim of stores selling potion, staffs, and other magician or alchemist equipment.

There were no people suffering on the streets, no slums, no dark areas, no underground organization, a perfect utopia. There were also a lot of tall towers all over the place the closer you get to the center of the city. There's also some defensive tower stationed all over the area and a runic barrier capsuling the whole city like a dome. Due to that despite having snow all over the streets, the whole city itself is warm or not that cold to begin with.

Lastly the whole area inside the city's wall is so spacious in comparison to what was seen from the outside. Seemingly the whole city is under the spell of spatial expansion and the dome was put on top of it not only for protection but for also camouflaging the whole city as an ordinary sized city from the outside.

Even thought none of them knew the reason why it was done so like this, such question was pushed to shove as the all snapped out of their daze and continued on to what they intended to do in this city.

"Whoa! Just whoa! this whole place is even bigger than the capital city of the empire" commented by Leon

"Indeed! Never did i expect that i would be so shock to see such a place.... The world is a big place after all" added by Amos

"There are always a bigger fish out there in the world" replied by Leon

With that Asagi clapped her hands as she took everyone's attention.

"Alright! Now that were here, all we need now is to fully focus on our goal for this expedition... so what do you think about setting up a base first?"

" Like what? Like what you did when you infiltrate my Empire's capital city? I've got to say that was some sloppy work" said by Amos

Hearing Amos words, Asagi then bushed a bit for remembering that embarrassing event as she shooed away such memory.

"Forget about that! that was invalid! you have a foresight ability, i cant top that"

After she said that, Michael then came closer as he asked.

"Then what shall we do your majesty?"

After she heard that question, Asagi then turned to look at the tallest tower in the middle of the city, as she contemplated for a bit before answering Michael's question.

"How about we gather information first? after all information is the key  to getting our question answered and i believe that Amos has a question unanswered too"

".... Your right! i do have some questions that are left unanswered.... what you suggest is a plausible  answer too, so do we have to find a library of some sort in this place?"

" Well it never hurts to ask the locals in this place right?"

Just as the group was about to do their thing of asking some bystanders for some questions, a group of cloaked people then approached them from the front as the head of the group  stood before Asagi which alerted everyone. But in order to not escalate the situation, Asagi held everyone back as she waited for the person to answer the purpose of approaching them.

"Who are you people?"

In response to that, the leading cloaked figure then bowed down towards her as it said.

"I welcome the royalty from another country, welcome to the city of mages... we would do our utmost best to service you and accomplish any expectation you have in our city, but before anything else i would like to invite you and your companions to follow us to the center of the city"

Hearing their words, Not only were everyone so shocked, but even Asagi was dumbfounded that she was easily caught like that just like what happened back in the empire. At this point on, even she begun to doubt if she had any talent at all for scouting an unknown land. No matter how sneaky she gets, she was always found out immediately as an intruder from another land.

"Who are you guys? where do you plan to  take us?"

" We are the disciples of an Archmage, one of the leading figures in this city... we wish to invite you for a arm welcome with the friend of our master?" the hooded man replied

" So we are being invited by a friend of your master? just who is this friend to even dare ask of our presence?" asked by Amos in a haughty voice he had done back when he was still an emperor.

"That person is the most respected in our city and the person who had the highest position in this city" they replied

"If he's so great then why don't he send his own disciples? does he think were not enough to receive such treatment?" urged by Amos

"That's... not it.... that person, doesn't have any disciples so we were the one who was sent to recover our guest"

With that answer, Amos finally backed down as Asagi took the lead and calmed down both sides.

"Well since it feels like a some kind of an important matter, then i would ask you to lead us the way"

"As you wish"

Under Asagi's calm temperament, the hooded figures then smiled as they also calmed down from Amos tense atmosphere, as they led the way towards the center of the city. Since this was better than rather searching for answers blindly, the group then followed suit as they walked past everyone and towards the center of the city.

But never did they expect that as they got closer to the center of the city, the more the tower in the center seemed domineering. Based on what the disciples had said, each non-defensive tower in the city inhabits an important figure that aids the development of the city itself. What's more  the city of mages itself also inhibits alchemist among their residents, so this only means that the so called city of mages isn't exactly 100% pure mage residents but rather a mix of 50% mage residents and 50% alchemist residents

Not long after, they were then led at the central tower's entrance as they saw a whole new world inside the tower which is almost big enough  of the same width as a football field. With such a wide area, one would even wonder just how can one person live in such tower.

***ReadAtWebnovel***