"Wear this." Rho gave him a small patch of almost liquid-like cloth. It was light grey, but it seemed to reflect light from its surroundings.
"What's this?" Maru curiously asked when he took the cloth and let it flow through his hands. "It's unlike anything I've ever seen, like its liquid and yet it's just cloth. It's slightly metallic to the touch but it's so soft!" Rho laughed. "This is the <Starchanging Cloak>. It's a disguise!" Maru frowned. "Why does it feel like it's ridculously expensive?" "Because it is." Rho mischievously said. It does what it says. Anyone who looks at this, even the stars, will be affected. It's an illusionairy method to change people's view of you. It's strong, simply because its too expensive to make on a large scale, expecially since the method to make it is long lost. But when it's active, nobody will be able to see through the illusion, not with the current means. Basically, it's named like this because the stars themselves can change with this spell. The worth of this cloth is probably around a set of rank 7 Deity weapon and armor." Maru's eyes almost popped out of their sockets, a look of utter disbelief in his eyes. "W-w-w-what did you...." He could barely get the words out of his mouth as his hands trembled while he looked at the piece of cloth that was worth as much as all the high level treasures of his house combined. Rho didn't even look behind him as he said "I got lucky in certain challenge I had to deal with. Follow me."
They walked back to the plaza, with Maru and Rho both disguised. They saw a large groups standing around the place they fought, some of them talking to officials who were asking some people questions. Rho kept on walking towards a row of pillars where the pathway to a semi-broken array was. The reason it was rarely used because it was a one way path to this place, and if you tried to go the other way you'd end up somewhere in the world with virtually no way of surviving. Apart from the various human factions who had a lot of war between them, there were also demon clans, raging elementals, dragons of all sorts, natural disaster zones and desolate fields with many strong creatures roaming. Of course, there were also various ancient ruins, seperate spaces, as large as millions of kilometers, with an abundant amount of precious materials, rare creatures and even training methods and battle skills and in some rare cases, even spirit weapons and array manuals. This was also where Rho had "obtained" these pieces of heaven-defying materials. This was, of course, only his way of explaining. There were a lot of secrets kept on Rho, and nearly all of them were enough to get in major trouble.
Rho walked to the corridor, but instead of walking into it he turned left and spoke to the person standing there. This person was a male with long, unkept white hair, with a white ragged cloth over his eyes, on which a mysterious circle was imprinted. He had a face that was sharp but quite handsome, and he held on to a long staff made of black metal with a purple gem on top of it.
"You are quite intriguing you know that?" Rho chuckled. The black haired young man almost jumped in the air of fright. "W-who said that!?" he managed to say after looking around fervently. While he did this, he gathered his mana around him as a defence. Maru immediately responded with gathering his own mana and was about to unsheathe his weapon when he felt a hand on his arm. He looked left with a questioning look to Rho.
Rho just shook his head and looked at the young man. "Hold up your palm." He said in a soft voice. The sound of this voice was almost voiceless, but behind the bandage eyes were visibly trembling. With a shaky hand, the black-haired youngster slowly lifted up his hand and asked "What in the world are you?" Rho chuckled and said only a few words. "You just focus on this." He then lightly pressed his finger on the palm that was held up. The moment he did this, the black-haired young man gasped for breath, while his hair was lifted up, fluttering around him due to the chaotic energy waves around him. Maru stood there watching silently.
The bandage in front of the young man's eyes was disintegrated and the closed eyes behind it slowly opened. They were purple, with a white pupil and a magic circle rotating slowly vertically as an iris. When the energies slowly calmed down, he blinked twice and looked carefully at Rho. It was near invisible in the light but there were two small streaks of tears running down on his cheecks. "What did you do?"
Rho smiled with a somewhat sad smile. "I only restored your vision, not the underlying problem. It's not that I'm unwilling to, but since I don't know you I can't help you more right now. Can I ask for your name?" The black haired young man was clearly shocked by that answer but got himself together and said "My name is Kirin Faral. To who do I owe my life?". Rho looked at Kirin and simply said "My name is Rho Doka, I am looking for people to fight with me. Are you in?". Kirin was clear in his response and stated his approval without hesitation. "You gave me my vision back, I will happily oblige." before he continued hesitatingly, "But you said that you can help me when you know me?" Rho nodded in agreement. "Correct, I can indeed cure your eyes, and even bring out your full potential. All of this will come in due time. But for now, I need you to follow me to the Institute. Are you okay with that?" The institute Rho was referring to was know under many names, the most ancient one being "Arakos Nyrix", meaning Magic Academy of the Great Heavens, but later on this name was changed to Magic Academy of the Stars. This academy was built some million years ago in the ancient era when magic was still vastly different from what it was now. In the past million years, there had been 4 immense disasters that shook the world and uprooted nearly all of civilization. These events had different reasons, but 2 of them were actually fights between to fated enemies. The first one was between a King and a Lord, and the second of the fights was between their successors. Both these fights wrecked havoc amongst all of the realms that were near the centre of the main world. In the end, both fights ended in mutual destruction. The other two disasters were a meteor of an unknown source and a heavenly tribulation of a Divine-level ancient Beast who was destroyed in the end. The former events however, were destined by fate. And in this time and age, the third battle was about to commence.
Kirin grinned and said tried to be nonchalant. "I guess I can accompany you for a while." But the glimmers in his eyes and the completely changed aura of his appearance spoke enough words for him.
Rho laughed and spoke with a hidden laugh in his voice. "Let's go then." It was clear to all three present that he wasn't going to leave his party anytime soon.
Only Rho felt the consciousness from far away observing them.
