Aaron completed his record of the surroundings. He made sure to miss nothing and noted every detail that he intended to show the world.

There is no way that he is going to let others know about his gains, no matter what. There are some subtractions of the hat that really happened, and what exactly he gained here.

"There, it's done. Now let's enter the damn portal and let's be done with these ruins", Aaron muttered as he moved towards the door that had the portal.

As he moved, his eyes landed on the throne. Something said to take the throne with him, but not to touch or sit on it.

Aaron observed the throne for a while.

The throne, although cracked, still carried immense value. It was made of rare materials like Dark Obsidian, Golden Iridium, and Silver Iron, which comprise a significant portion of the composition, while other materials are present in negligible quantities.

There are many gems embedded in it. Aaron recognised some of them as Fire Rubies, Wood Emeralds, and so on. If sold, it could net a lot of credits. Most can't even afford to bid on the throne.

Even though the throne can net him a lot of resources for Aaron, he felt that was not the reason why his mind was telling him to take away the throne. He felt it had something to do with the memories that he had watched a few minutes ago.

Even though he watched those memories and felt that they had some importance, he couldn't understand their significance at all.

What Aaron had no idea was how vital those memories were that he had just witnessed. One day he would, but not yet. The smoke man gave more than what he had just experienced. Aaron would come to understand the true importance of this scenario as time passed.

For now, he remained oblivious to the fact. He only stopped by the throne because of his instincts telling him not to leave the throne behind.

Aaron quickly put on some gloves he had and took the throne, then threw it into storage, fearing that touching it might trigger another session of memories or something similar.

If something like that repeats, then things might consume more than time this time around, or at least that was what he felt. So, he was pretty careful in handling the throne.

Once the throne was secured, he took a look around the place once again to see if he had missed anything of importance.

He didn't.

He recorded the murals painted on the walls, every one of them. So, there was nothing else.

Done with other things, he went to the door that covered the portal, which could lead him out of these ruins.

As Aaron watched the portal, he couldn't help but mutter, "Hope this would lead me out, and not to another location inside".

All Aaron saw was a portal, but nowhere was it mentioned that the portal could lead him out, nor could it lead him anywhere in the ruins. What he was doing was a pure gamble, but he had no other choice at the moment but to take the gamble.

He could not enter the portal, but that meant he had to wait for the Alliance members outside to find a way out for him. However, he knew that was impossible, as they should have already classified him as dead.

He was not the first to enter the ruins. No one has ever returned, even after months. So, they were marked as dead. In his journey inside, he never encountered another human, alliance, nor cult member, but he stumbled upon some bones, fresh bones of humans that were killed a few months ago at most.

Just as the alliance had estimated, they were dead. None alive. He collected some memorable items that can be used to identify the dead, possibly.

Once he was ready, he entered the portal, taking the gamble, hoping that he would exit the ruins and once again be able to reach his home. If this fails, then he decided to think about that at that time.

---

Around the same time...outside the ruins...

"No, no, that can't be done. It may blow up in our faces", the woman said to the man.

The pair who were arguing were none other than the researchers that the alliance brought in after a portal swallowed Aaron. They did almost everything that they could think of, except for having direct skin contact with the stone.

No matter what they did, the stone remained passive, showing no reaction to their actions. So, they were trying to come up with an out-of-the-box solution that could turn the passive rock into an active one.

The problem was that they couldn't determine the full composition of the stone.

There are some known elements present that contribute most to the stone's composition, but there are also a few unknown elements, and their reactions to certain solutions they came up with are unknown.

The one thing that they knew for sure was that this composition could be used to trigger portals. Space element was one of the most problematic ones. Death stands next to it, but theoretically, many believed that Time is the most problematic, as many knew Time existed but had never seen any profession related to it.

Fate is also a problematic one, but at least there are a few seers in the world.

The Pair couldn't come up with a solution that won't blow in their face. If they had more samples, they could experiment and determine a proper solution, but they don't. They scratched the stone for some samples, but the quantity was not enough, and as there was only one stone of the kind, they had only one chance.

"Sir, something is glowing", a shout came out of nowhere.

The pair stopped arguing and stepped outside, only to see a portal forming just outside the ruins. It took more than a minute to form the portal, but it did.

"What's happening?"

"I have no idea".

It was not just the pair that were shocked by the appearance; everyone in the camp was.

The commander of the operation barked orders, "Everyone keep far from the portal. We don't know what would be exiting. Be ready to attack if it is an enemy, on my orders".

People came out of their stupor when they heard the words and prepared for the battle, as if that was inevitable.

After forming, the portal remained stable for a second before it glowed for a second.

When the glow was gone, they could see a silhouette standing where the portal was. It was gone, and only the being that came through remained there.

"Ah, thank god it worked", the being who came through sighed in relief.

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