Combining their efforts, Lucas, Asta, and Bell all dedicated their efforts to scour libraries all over the Duke's territory to find any kind of intel about the past and where the previous capitals were.
As Bell focused on gathering the correct books, Lucas and Asta were tasked with reading through them as fast as possible and figuring out where the old capitals were located based on anecdotes since maps weren't available.
Spending their days in libraries, they started to fear that they were running behind Alastor. For the man probably already knew where the artifact was located. After having gathered every little scrap of information about the possible capitals off the past, even going around to ask the older demons if they knew something, Lucas and Asta had around 10 possible locations to visit.
Just the long list and the vast distances between them all would take entire months to traverse. Not knowing how much time they truly had, wasting a single day could spell their loss.
Then again, not a single location of the ten seemed lesser in importance or size. They each held significant value in the past but were destroyed due to wars or battles between a few mages. Their names were long forgotten or only partially known, now nothing but remnants of a distant past remained.
Going of their gut feeling felt wrong, so they decided to take the shortest possible route to visit them all. Before they left, Lucas had but a single question.
"Do we need to take Bell with us? I'm certain we can go a lot faster if we leave her behind."
Lucas cared little that she was with them in the room. She had just replenished a tray of cookies for them, yet this was the reward.
Asta couldn't even get a word out before Bell was already on her knees pleading before him. "Young Master, please take me with you! Don't leave me here! Don't listen to that man!"
Asta had a sour look on his face, he knew Lucas was more than correct, even agreeing with him at first, yet after seeing Bell, the emotional side of him was instantly won over. He used to be filled with arrogance and pride, letting those emotions carry him. Yet now, after having confronted his past somewhat, the durable wall around his heart was starting to cave.
Was he faced with the same decision right after returning to Sabaoth, he would've dumped her. Now, he didn't think that was a wise choice.
"Lucas, she's my maid, I'd rather she join us to take care of the menial things. While we're travelling, I doubt we'll be able to stay awake and focused for months on end. We need someone to cook and book our inns."
Realizing he wasn't exactly correct, Asta tried to make his appeal. Sleep wasn't necessary, even if it did clear the mental fog quite efficiently. Food was similarly solved, so there wasn't really a need. Luckily, his friend wasn't so stubborn.
"It's your competition. Let's get ready to leave as soon as possible. The first location isn't even in your father's domain. Are there any border checks?"
Thinking of the practicality of things, Lucas and Asta scheduled a route keeping their possibly tight time frame in mind. Leaving as soon as they could, they instantly traveled through the Duke's domain to arrive at the border.
The checkpoints were extremely loose, only checking if one was a criminal or Undead. If no problems were noted, they were allowed through. With Asta providing his status as a Duke's child, many were even laxer than usual. Combining the fact they were both Rank 3 mages, many didn't even bother checking their credentials, not wanting to anger them.
Taking a carriage would limit them to the speed of the beasts pulling them, so they mostly flew across the roads and landed near checkpoints in case there were any. Flying over them would only be an issue if they found out who they were, but not taking any chances, they followed procedure.
Arriving at the first potential capital of the past, all that was visible was a red desert. "Whatever was once here, it's completely gone," Lucas didn't like his odds, there was nothing here, in other words, all their time travelling to this place was wasted.
"Or buried under sand. Can you remove some?", pointing to the dunes ahead, Lucas wasn't sure what he wanted. Using Darkness to actually remove it, would also remove the remnants of the past, if there were any. So if he attacked a dune, all he would do was blast the sand in the air. The fact that the went in their direction, Lucas wasn't planning getting a face full of sand.
"At least conjured a wall to block the sand."
"Of course, I'm waiting for you to attack."
Rolling his eyes at the smirking Asta, Lucas lifted his arm as he reinforced it to the absolute max. Punching the open air in front of him, a shock wave was sent out to obliterate a nearby dune.
After blowing all that sand in the air, Asta was quick to shield them from the aftermath. Under all that sand... was more sand. Seeing no surprising results, Lucas started to ramp it up, throwing powered punches and explosions as fast as he could. Flying in the air, he started to bombard the desert as much as his core and reflexes allowed. After blowing a massive hole in the middle of the desert they found something unexpected...
"More sand. Let's move up ahead and try again," Asta said as he started to float in the sky. Holding Bell's hand, she was dragged with him.
Lucas repeated his assault on the ground again and again until his core was depleted enough for him to stop. He still had quite a bit of reserves, but in fear of being attacked, it was best to keep some safety measures. Of course, Asta was with him, but being out of magic felt like a risk too great to take no matter the circumstances.
Two days had passed, yet all they found was sand.
"There's nothing here", Lucas felt a bit defeated yet also relaxed. It wasn't often he could just go all out and destroy his surroundings with no regard for the people. Being able to just fire off explosion after explosion felt relaxing, but he also knew the dangers of having that as his standard calming method.
"Then let's move to the next location. You can recover on the way there. Use as many crystals as you want."
Handing over a small ring, Lucas put it on his middle finger to check the insides only to find an absolute goldmine of crystals. A small hill of magic crystals were simply collecting dust. Sadly, they weren't nicely categorized, the smaller crystals with barely any mana in them would still fetch a nice price on the open market, but were useless to recover the large amounts of mana he lost. He would have to filter the good ones first.
"Where did you get all these?"
"It's my inheritance. I'm still my father's child. Besides, many of those also came from that friend of yours, Augustinus."
"Yes, a friend," Lucas tried to shove his personal feelings to the side as he grabbed a few crystals and started to replenish his core to fly to the next location.
Days passed once more before arriving in a overgrown jungle. Being in complete contrast to the previous location, Lucas wasn't sure the results would follow suit.
Taking a break for Bell, Asta went out to look for signs while Lucas was in charge of catching a beast to eat. Bell would prepare the food and sleep afterwards. Lucas and Asta, depending on their mood, would also take a moment off.
Procuring some meat was extremely easy with his current tools. Simple spreading his willpower would pinpoint all the animals in the area. The magical ones he would skip, the weak ones were ripe for the picking.
Going near one of the weaker animals, it looked like a simple deer, though with ruby-like skin. The big black beads in its head scanned the surrounding plant life for any sign of trouble, but Lucas had hidden himself more than enough.
Instead of using his powers to turn the deer into mush, he wanted to catch it fairly. Without a challenge, he felt like it wouldn't have been earned. Right as he was ready to strike, the tree he was hiding behind grabbed his wrist through its vines.
'It's alive?'
As the vines tried to cover Lucas' entire body, the middle of the tree started to open up. A large mouth shaped hole appeared as the deer ran away. Lucas stared at its direction as he let the vines pull him closer. Planting his foot on the ground, the vines contracted around his body, even trying to squeeze his neck, suffocating him.
Raising his arm, he ripped the vines into shreds. Once he made it clear the tree was absolutely no match for him, the hole in the closed up and returned to normal.
'Can this piece of bark think?'
Lucas didn't know what to think. Placing his hand on the rough texture that made up its trunk. 'No, I think it's... like an animal. It has instinct, but can't think much further than that.'
'So it's not self aware?'
'I... don't know,' using a spell he learned at the very beginning of his journey, Lucas drained the life out of the tree. There was some resistance, as if the tree was trying to chain all its mana and vigor down, to no avail. The tree's luster started to die off as the vines turned brown and started to fall apart.
'It can think.'
'Then... are we surrounded now?'
While a strange thought, he was standing in a patch of grass surrounded by dozens if not hundreds of trees similar to the one he just killed. What fascinated Lucas the most was the fact that some of the trees didn't seem to hunt for him, while others did yet none held a core necessary to store the mana.
Fascinated by the strange composition of mana inside the trees, Lucas felt his curiosity surge in leaps and bounds. Before he gave in to his own desires, he retracted his hands from the bark.
Shaking himself awake, this wasn't the place or time to conduct experiments or learn about them. Still, Lucas realized why so many mages were locked up in their studies. If he had free reign over his own actions and destiny, he wouldn't mind just figuring out how certain things worked.
Sadly, fate hated and loved him at the same time. Rushing towards the direction of the deer he previously saw, Lucas didn't play fair any longer.
Dropping the carcass in front of Bell, she rolled up her sleeves and went to work preparing it. During the process she hummed along some song Lucas didn't recognize. The song itself mattered little, but the fact she looked happy despite the dirt work, something didn't sit right.
"Got another letter?", Lucas said sarcastically as he tried to find a comfortable position to sit in.
"Yes, actually!", filled to the brim with energy, she didn't look like she needed sleep in the slightest. Sadly, the answer wasn't what Lucas expected, his face instantly lost his carefully curated mask.
'No fucking way.'
'I knew she wasn't the smartest, but this is just incredibly stupid.'
'Wait, they can be in love all they want, but sending a letter to the middle of fucking nowhere in a random ass county is just not possible. How the hell did it even arrive here?'
'I agree on its impracticality, but that's not all. Even if she kept giving away where we were going and located. A carrier pigeon or courier has no way to know where exactly we are in the middle of the jungle. We didn't even stop by a town this time.'
'Wait, are you thinking...?'
'Yes.'
'So you had it right then, dammit. Then you better get to fixing it.'
'Indeed.'
Lucas continued to talk to Bell, bantering about pointless thing, at least pointless from Lucas' perspective. Feeling that it was time, Lucas gave Bell a single command. It wasn't one a master normally gave, but if things went according to his ideas, it would be able to turn the tides.
"Hmm? What did you say?"
"Nothing," Lucas was curious how it affect her in the future, but decided to stop here, not pushing the boundaries of his powers over her.
Eating a meal with her, Asta eventually returned with nothing of note. "I spread my willpower as far as I could. Besides a few ancient ruins, there was nothing spectacular."
"Ruins at least indicate that civilizations existed in this place. What makes you say it's not worthy of investigation?"
"They were primitive houses made from natural stone. I couldn't feel a speck of mana. There are barely any magical beasts."
"Can't expect to find a goblin fort or something."
"Goblins don't exist on Sabaoth, so I wasn't ever assuming such a thing. The levels of mana in this place makes me think of the desert to the east. There's nothing there."
Reading between the lines, Lucas knew that this wasn't the place. An artifact used by the first Demon God wouldn't exactly be magicless. Perhaps that was an assumption too risky to make, but wasting any more time investigating primitive societies wasn't on his to do list.
"Then we move up. Where is the next spot?"
"In the Spiked Mountains."
Lucas nodded to himself, the name of the location didn't sound all that pleasant or inviting, yet there were multiple signs that it used to be a very important place in the past. Considering the power mages could have on their environment, the spiked mountains could've been the result of a battle between mages.
When checking the desert, Lucas changed the entire topography of the place. Were he not in the a desolate place, he would've destroyed hundreds of years of history.
Of course, what Lucas didn't like about the next place was the fact that there were magical storms circling around the place. Categorized as a Two Star zone, anyone below Rank 3 had to be ready to lose their life just visiting the place. Since they had to take Bell with them, they were going to have to go at a snails pace to reach the center.
"This place seems like the most likely one compared to the others we haven't visited yet. Did you have the time to investigate the place further?", Lucas asked.
"Yes, the storms are mostly just electrical currents that are stuck in the air. The air itself is breathable, so we just have to defend against the lightning."
"And how do we do that?"
"The easiest solution would be to create a box around us. You would create air for us to breathe while I focus on hardening the walls of the cube. It should hold the lightning back."
Lucas wasn't so sure his plan would work, but not having seen the location himself or investigating it since he was tasked with other locations, he could only trust Asta.
Travelling for days on end, Lucas was starting to get a little restless while Asta was starting to get more relaxed. One felt that his chances of victory were slinking while the other felt that the planet would still move despite their potential loss.
Bell, who was between them, was happy she was able to journey alongside them, completely oblivious to the plays around her.