Kyle drew another symbol and looked at the array masters around him. After working for another day, they were almost done. He looked down at the few pebbles near his feet and, without thinking twice, kicked one of them away. But in an instant, an angry shout resounded in the distance.

"Who dares to hit me?"

The shout came from the same demi-human who asked him to compensate if he failed. The man was rubbing his neck with a frustrated expression.

Kyle blinked and quickly walked away to avoid any potential blame. It just happened accidentally, alright. He approached the tower and subconsciously his gaze landed on the spot he damaged last night.

"Huh?"

A surprised expression appeared on his face because the spot had reverted to its original state. He quickly approached the place and bent down to examine it further. In the distance, Han noticed him and arrived beside him.

"What happened?"

Kyle looked at the old man, unsure if he should reveal the fact that he damaged the tower last night.

"Nothing."

He stood up and started floating to examine the tower closely. The dark surface, the countless symbols, and the faint purple hue. His eyes stopped on the round openings, the same openings where a purple ore would be placed to open the tower every twenty years for the younger generation. Instantly, Kyle vanished and then reappeared in front of one of the openings.

He looked inside the hollow place and saw a pair of symbols engraved inside the circular opening. Those symbols looked quite familiar to him.

"This..."Kyle searched through his mind and pulled out one of the array books he found in the tower. Flipping through the pages, he paused at a page where a pair of similar symbols was drawn.

"But these are just low-rank symbols used to connect or resonate with your surroundings."

Kyle thought for a minute and asked the array masters, who were done with their part, to add the strange pair of symbols to the array as well.

Some of the array masters groaned since adding new symbols to an already-built array wasn't easy. But they kept quiet and swallowed their protests when Han gave them a deadpan expression. In the end, it took them two hours just to find a good place for the pair of symbols.

After finishing the array, they placed countless resources above it. Then, all the array masters gathered together to discuss who should activate the array. Kyle landed in front of them and gazed at Han and George.

"Let me do it."

The duo did not refuse since Kyle was the one who designed a major part of the array. It would be better if he activated it. The other array masters glanced at each other and agreed as well. Anyway, if something went wrong in the process, it would be better for Kyle to take the blame.

Kyle closed his eyes and felt the many symbols beneath him, arranged in rows within a large circle around the tower. After just a minute, the mana stones and other resources above the array were swiftly sucked in with lightning-fast speed.

The ground beneath him trembled as the symbols started to shine and float in the air. Then, they merged to form a glistening two-dimensional rectangular shape around the tower. But Kyle noticed with a frown that it wasn't working. He opened his eyes and stared at the pair of symbols that had been added at the end. The two symbols trembled when he supplied more mana to them, and at that moment, a faint voice echoed in his head.

"Finally..."

Kyle took a deep breath. However, the people behind him were discussing that he probably failed because the array wasn't working. And, to make matters worse, even the destructive symbols didn't activate to destroy the tower.

Han furrowed his brows and glanced at Kyle's figure. He raised his hand to hush the people around him.

"Jeez, shut up! Can't you all see he's trying to concentrate?"

The demi-human who had asked Kyle to compensate sneered at his words and felt a sense of satisfaction.

'Tsk, I did say we shouldn't trust an unknown person so blindly.'

But at that moment, the floating symbols began to move and attach themselves to the surface of the tower. In an instant, everyone fell silent and stared at the tower with bated breath because it had never happened before. They all had the same question in their minds.

Did the young man succeed?

Han smirked, and George wore a wry smile as he looked at the proud old man next to him. Suddenly, a cloud of smoke billowed from the tower, enveloping everything around it. A powerful tremor shook the surroundings, and with a loud sound, a flickering portal materialized before the astonished onlookers.

Kyle glanced up and noticed that the portal wasn't unstable. But then, all the symbols attached to the tower came together and merged with the portal, causing it to stop shaking. At that moment, a loud curse echoed through the air.

"Damn... I thought I would be crushed since the portal wasn't stable at all."

A figure dressed in a dark outfit stepped out of the portal, and in an instant, everyone's gaze fixated on the short dwarf who had just emerged from the tower.

The array masters held their breaths because even though Alec had told them that the guardians would help them, there was a faint inkling in their hearts, like, what if instead of helping, the guardians attacked them?

Kyle looked at the floating male dwarf with black hair and raised an eyebrow in surprise.

"Yon?"

The dwarf took a deep breath before furrowing his brows.

"Yes, yes, it's Yonaik, the one whose precious garden you and your friends destroyed. But why is the air so polluted outside? I expected it to be fresh."

He gazed down at Kyel, then scanned the people standing behind the latter. Just then, the portal behind him started trembling again, and he let out a growl.

"You all back off... I need to stabilize this thing so the others can come out."