As soon as the grunts were organised, the middle-aged man tapped his foot lightly on the ground, and something magical happened.
The earth itself rose and created mounted platforms. But when looked at closely, ten stone tables and chairs were created, right in front of the spheres. And the spheres, as if they were waiting for a clue, sat on those chairs as soon as they were finished forming.
"Come." The sphere said to the grunt in front of him as all the grunts were mesmerised by this fine display of magic, as both tables and rock were smooth as if made by some craftsmen.
"Huh?! Oh!!! Yes." The grunts first in line, in all ten lines, moved.
When the grunts reached their position, the spheres took out a small pouch hanging around their waist; the pouch was as big as a palm, but it was covered with intricate runes that were pulsing with magic. Signifying they were not normal pouches.
The sphere opened the small pouch and brought out a Red Stone, but the shocking thing was the rock was clearly five to six times larger than the pouch.
"Wow!!" The grunt exclaimed, but Sphere didn't entertain his shock, nor did he tell how the pouch was able to store something big.
"Take this blade and drop your blood on this stone." The sphere placed the rock on the table and brought out a blade from the same bag.
"Be quick." His sharp and commanding voice caused the grunt to silence all the questions he had in his mind and just pick up the blade and make a small cut on his hand and drop his blood on the Red Stone.
*Drip* *Drip*
"hisss!!" As soon as the blood fell on the rock, it glowed, and the drop turned into a red mist that started rising, and as soon as the mist was a few centimetres above the rock, it solidified into a red translucent screen with some characters written on it.
Seeing most of the grunts were shocked, as in just a little span of time, they had seen many magical things.
As soon as the character finished forming, the sphere noted them on a sheet. And send the grunt to one of the paths leading somewhere unknown.
This continued across all the stone tables as grunts arrived, dropped their blood, the screen formed, and the sphere noted its content down and sent the grunt somewhere.
Soon it was Six's turn, as he reached in front of the young man from before.
But even when Six was in front of him, his expressionless face didn't change; he just signalled Six to pick up the blade and do what other grunts did.
Six picked up the blade and made a small cut and dropped some of his blade, but as he was making the cut, Six spoke.
"You didn't tell me your name back then."
The Sphere – the young man from before looked up; his and six's eyes met.
They were in a stalemate for a few seconds, and he spoke for the first time in a while.
"Kael."
As soon as Six heard that word, he felt something; he felt a sense of familiarity, as if he had found something that was his.
As Six was feeling all this, he saw that the young man was looking somewhere else when he spoke that word out.
He was looking at the screen formed by Six's blood.
...
...
Six saw the characters forming on the screen. His focus was on the very first string of words, 'Name-Kael Ravvanon'. He instinctively knew this was his name, and the screen was showing his current stats.
As he was busy observing the information, the young man from before noted all the information down; internally he was not satisfied by the stats, but the mental power caught his attention, as that was quite high.
But that was not enough, as he started doubting if Six or Kael was really special, as that person said.
"Move along this path and you will reach your next destination." The young man said while pointing towards the path that all the previous grunts had taken.
"I-" Kael wanted to say a few things, but he stopped himself, as this was not the right time for such things, and he made his way towards the path that the young man mentioned.
Kael walked on the path dimly lit by some sort of blue rock, as the other paths he had walked till now, even the room he slept in last night, had something similar.
Soon he saw light at the end of the tunnel or path. He hastened his steps, and he reached the place.
*squint*
Kael had to squint his eyes due to the brightness of the place.
It took his eyes a couple of seconds to get accustomed to the surroundings. And when he was finally able to look, he saw something incredible.
The area was many times larger than the previous one; rivers of magma flowed through this place. But they were controlled in a way that all those rivers clustered over a statue's head; it moved out from the hammer in his extended hand.
The statue was 15-20 ft tall, with its body sculpted in a way, as it was representing some great warrior, with it being clad in a rock armour. And then there was its face. It was that of a dragon.
The warrior was a mix of a human and a dragon, a dragonoid warrior.
But this statue was not the only thing; many people were working all over the place. Some were hammering iron ingots, and some were bathing raw iron in the magma coming from the statue to melt it.
"A smithy."
"Oiii brat, come quickly." A sudden shout caught Kael's attention. He looked over and noticed that a short but burly man was calling him; around him were some grunts from before.
Seeing this, Kael moved towards him and soon reached him.
"Here." He said, and he tossed something towards Kael, which he hurriedly caught.