Death... and me

Rean then touched his mark first before Light Element flashed, warping the light hitting the mark itself. Soon, light bent into a strange shape until that ice-blue Dragon Wing Mark suddenly changed back into the previous round ice-blue mark. In fact, the mark itself hadn't changed at all. However, Rean's manipulation of Light Element to bend light itself was already peerless. With that being said, it wasn't hard for him to make the ice-blue mark look a different shape in the eyes of others.

He also did the same thing with Roan and Kentucky, making the shape of their marks return to what it was before. Seeing what Rean did, Hurio also allowed him to work on his mark. After that, it became impossible to tell that the marks on their foreheads were any different than the marks they got as soon as they entered the first level.

That wasn't all. As mentioned before, the normal mark would start very faint. The longer one stayed in the First Level, the more substantial it became. With that, Rean used his Light Element control to make it take the appearance of a mark that had existed for ten days. They had been here for twenty-one days already, so that might serve as a clue for the Dragon Tail Group to put the fault of the robbed marks on them. However, if they saw how faint Rean's group mark is, it would look like it was impossible for Rean's group to have been the ones to receive four of the five marks.

Of course, Rean had to work on Lilia's mark as well. Hers didn't change shape. It showed that the dragon considered her not as worthy as Rean, Roan, Kentucky, Hurio, and Celso. With that said, even though her mark was the normal round one, it had the appearance of a mark that existed for twenty-one days.

Rean looked satisfied at everyone's marks once he was finished. "Alright, the Light Element applied on it will last five hours. Just make sure to stay close to me so that I can apply more Light Element to the marks while we're moving. I can do it in a hidden way as well. I just need to touch your bodies, and I can redirect Light Element to the fake mark's appearance. After we get out, I'll make the marks disappear little by little, making it look like we really stayed a short time in the first level."

Roan then proceeded with a new plan. "How far are we from the exit of the First Level, Hurio, Lilia?"

Hurio and Lilia looked at each other and reached the same conclusion after making some calculations. "Four days if slow and careful, two days if Kentucky flies at full speed. Although we moved a lot in this place, we still trekked part of the journey."

Roan nodded after hearing that. "That's good enough. I want to see if our Dragon Wing Mark will become more substantial as time passes. Perhaps the time limit of one month is still applicable even if the marks change shape. In that case, we'll have to move very quickly to the second level."

Everyone nodded in response before Kentucky charged in the direction Hurio and Lilia pointed. Rean also kept his Light and Divine Sense bending skill active, even though Divine Sense was somewhat useless in this place. He didn't want to risk having other groups find out that they had been in this place for much longer than the marks showed.

With that, Sister Orb could finally work on detecting the ancient formations once more, leading Kentucky to avoid the few ones they had ahead. Hurio already gave up thinking about how the twins could always find the ancient formations. In the end, the important thing was that they had their methods, and it would make their journey much safer.

Kentucky didn't go too fast but didn't move slowly either. He ended up completing the journey after three days before the twins sighted the exit. Thanks to Rean's life force detection, he could tell that no one was there. In this constant snowstorm and anti-Divine Sense place, life force detection was definitely one of the best detection methods out there.

"It's the exit."

Just like the entrance, the exit was also an enormous crack on a cliff. Hurio explained that this first level seemed to be in a shape that would keep the snowstorm inside, so it didn't affect the rest of the Lost Star Realm. It wasn't that the rest of the realm didn't have snowstorms, but they wouldn't be forever constant like the first level of the depths.

Kentucky then noticed something as soon as they came out of the crack that led them up again. "Look there!"

Rean's group immediately followed Kentucky's call and found a few marks on the ground. "It seems like we weren't the only ones to use this exit."

"That's to be expected," Roan mentioned. "Since we found the Dragon Tail Group at the entrance, it's obvious that the big ten separated. Most likely, some of the big ten found their own marks already and left ahead of us."

Lilia then asked Roan, "How about the Dragon Wing Marks on your foreheads? Did they become more substantial during these three days, as you hypothesized?"

Roan shook his head, saying, "No. After the marks took the dragon wing shape, they remained completely stable. I believe it's fine to say that the thirty-day deadline is also some kind of test. If you didn't find your beast mark until then, you would be forced to leave. In a certain way, it's quite lenient since you can wait a few days for your round marks to become fainter and return to the first level."

Rean shrugged his shoulders after that. "However, that would mean you fell behind others in finding beast marks. We don't even know if there are enough marks for everyone. Think of it this way. There's something very important going on, but the top ten powers' disciples only sent around twenty members each inside. It's probably because of the limitation of available marks."

Roan and the others agreed with Rean.

Eventually, Hurio asked, "What are we going to do now?"

"What else?" Kentucky immediately answered. "Let's head to the second level."