Immortal Ice Empress: Path to Vengeance Chapter 285 The Core?!

Chapter 285 The Core?!

It took almost the same amount of time for everyone to regroup than it did for them to actually finish marking their route. That's not to say that it took Celaine Maria, Elenei, and Mira each another 12 hours to make it back as that was only the case for Celaine.
Elenei had made it back to the meeting point in about half an hour. She would've made it back sooner, but she decided to keep her guard raised so she doesn't fall in some random trap. One mustn't forget that she reached the edge of the Formation in about 3 hours.
Even after making it back to her original position, she still had to wait almost 9 hours before the rest of her companions would even start making their way back.
Mira was the next one to make it back, but it still took her several hours after reaching the edge of the Formation to come back. It turns out that being teleported to random locations during her journey actually helped her get back to her original location slightly faster. The experience gained from retracing her steps in this environment is what helped her understand which direction she needed to walk in even if she was teleported away from her markers.
Maria was the second to last person to show up as she spent most of her time mining Spirit Stones and even continued doing so past the 12 hour mark. When she was done mining and made her way back to the surface, she realized that she had no idea where she was because she didn't see any tracking markers anywhere in sight.
She just had to walk in a random direction and hope she ran into a tracking marker and follow it back. Thankfully, Mira and her group made tracking markers that pointed in the directions they were walking so all Maria had to do was go in the opposite direction and she should make it back to her group.
Luckily, it didn't take her too long to find a set of tracking markers to follow, but even then it still took her 10 hours after the 12 hour mark to make it back.
Celaine was the last and probably the unluckiest person of the group. Not only did she have to fight for nearly 12 hours straight while placing down tracking markers, but she also had to deal with the same thing going back while trying to count how many markers she placed.
Sometimes she would be so focused on fighting that she would forget the number and had to restart which only made things worse!
Needless to say, the girl was exhausted when she finally made it back and the rest of the group could spot numerous wounds all over her body and her clothes were ripped up.
Now that everyone has made it back, Mira finally decided to start to discuss everyone's progress and their findings. She's been waiting for Celaine to finally show up as she didn't want to repeat herself.
"First, I'd like to start off by saying how many markers I was able to place before I reached what seemed like the edge of the Formation. I placed a total of 7,500 markers, which equates to roughly 75 kilometers. How many did you place, Elenei?"
"I placed around 42,500 markers before reaching the edge. That should equate to somewhere around 500 kilometers."
When Elenei finished, Celaine decided to speak up, albeit briefly.
"7,500 markers."
When Celaine finished, it was now Maria's turn to speak up, but the latter was sweating as she didn't even make it 75 kilometers before she got teleported and distracted by the Spirit Stone Mine.
All eyes were now trained on her as they looked at asking for confirmation. If she also placed around 42,500 markers then this would mean the Natural Formation is in the shape of a sphere and finding the center from here would be relatively easy, especially with Elenei. It shouldn't take them longer than half a day to find the center!
Maria, not knowing what to do, just started emptying her Spatial ring of all the Spirit Stones she collected.
Mira's face went black at this sight and she instantly came to a conclusion that only made her mood plummet further.
"Maria…"
"Umm… Yes? W-W-What is it… Mira?"
"Why are you pulling out all of these Spirit Stones?"
Maria went silent for a few seconds as she lowered her head in shame, but then remembering just how many Mid-Grade Spirit Stones she found and the weird metallic dodecahedron she picked up at the end of the Spirit Stone Mine, her mood lifted.
With a bright smile and a smug expression, she said:
"Because I spent the last half a day mining! I mean, just look at all of this loot! There are tens of Thousands of Low-Grade Spirit Stones and even hundreds of Mid-Grade Spirit Stones! I've probably collected the equivalent of close to 1 million Low-Grade Spirit Stones!"
Mira, Celaine, and even Elenei were taken aback for a few seconds as they realized the gravity of her words. If these Spirit Stones were in fact real, then they've really made it big this time! However, if they were just an illusion, then she just wasted an entire day!
"Also, look at this thing I found at the end of the Spirit Stone Mine! I'm sure this has to be something special as I can feel a tremendous amount of Qi contained within it."
Their eyes instantly shot to the metallic dodecahedron that Maria pulled out of her Spatial ring and although the rest didn't know what it was, Elenei knew exactly what this thing was!
"The Core! It's the Core of the Natural Formation! How the hell did you find it?! Explain what happened to you. Don't leave out any details!"
Elenei commanded and Maria nodded and proceeded to recount her journey. The three of them listened closely as they didn't want to miss out on a single detail, however when Maria described how she was drawn towards the Spirit Stone Mine and how she essentially wasted almost 10 hours mining something she didn't even know was real or not they started cursing at her.
It was only after she found what Elenei said to the Core of the Formation did they stop looking at her like roadside garbage.
Maria also mentioned that she was quite far from any tracking markers they placed which made the group think that maybe she was actually teleported to the center of the Natural Formation.
There was only one problem. This was a Natural Formation that could almost turn illusions into reality.
"How do we know if this is the real thing or a fake?"