The many pebbles hit the black orb simultaneously. Some were blocked by the blades, but the rest easily hit and destroyed the orb into smithereens. Into countless small pieces that bounced on the ground like broken glass.
It nevertheless didn’t come without a cost.
My body felt heavy as if I had done a one-hundred-kilometer marathon — the legs giving up, the eyes hazy as I fell down. Never had it been comfortable of running out of source energy… And it was much, much worse this time.
As a matter of fact, it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that my body had a dependency on source energy. If the context was misinterpreted, I wouldn’t be different than a drug addict.
Lunaria’s voice appeared as Luna-1 floated near me.
“Maxim, are you okay?”
“Mm, barely. Hah… damn. If the watchtower on the outside is already this troublesome, then what’s on the inside?” I frowned.
If there were like a dozen of these things inside, unless I was a Tier-2 evoker, I wouldn’t have dared to come inside even with one hundred times the courage.
“You need not worry about that. Most of the defense systems in the ruins should be no longer functioning. The watchtower is an exception because it draws energy in the air,” she explained. “Rather, I only let you fight it because I knew you could prevail easily. I mean, I wouldn’t have endangered you otherwise.”
“Ho? That so?”
Still, according to what she just said, it meant that people living in this world had mastered this abstruse power since ancient times. But thinking back, I should have noticed when seeing the weird watchtower that I fought just now.
Wait, maybe there was no need for that since it was stupid for a man to fight a pole…
In any case, if what she said held true, then I had nothing to worry. Nothing ventured, nothing gained, after all. First thing first, however, I got to open the stone door.
“So, has the stone door opened, or…?”
Lunaria quickly admitted, “Unfortunately, opening the door isn’t as simple as destroying the watchtower. After all, it wasn’t really the key.”
“Like, seriously?! So I did all this for nothing!” I rubbed my glabella in disappointment.
Well, what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, so there’s that… But still, this isn’t the kind of setup that I have in mind… I cursed inwardly for my still rather simple thinking.
“Hold there for a minute. I didn’t say that it doesn’t have any correlation to the ‘real key,’” she continued, emphasizing the last two words.
“What do you mean?”
“There’s a mechanism in the shape of a cuboid stone that will open the door so long as you put in the right password.
“Let’s cut to the chase, Lunaria. We don’t have the password nor key.”
“Just come check the thing first before you ask further — it should be located somewhere behind the watchtower.”
“Alright.”
Complying with her advice, I walked there once I regained most of my stamina. While I couldn’t cast another spell for a short time, she had assured me that nothing would come my way until I opened the stone door.
And there it was, located a dozen or so steps from the destroyed watchtower, a cuboid stone that she had spoken of. It had strange patterns along with a sizeable protrusion in the center. Perhaps pressing it would open the stone door… but was it that easy?
Intrigued, I pushed the protrusion with all my might, yet it wouldn’t budge even an inch.
“Do I need a key or something?” I gave up and decided to ask Lunaria anyway.
It was more than likely for me to find the answer eventually through experimentation, but I didn’t want to waste too much time here where unknown variables might pop up at any time.
“You do. And it’s simple: just channel your source energy into the stone. There’s no need for you to push it with raw strength.”
How did she know?
She did tell me that, but why did it feel like she was deliberately hiding information?
“Lunaria, be honest with me, you withheld information simply to frustrate me, right? Does that amuse you?”
This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.
She was silent for a moment before answering, “Maybe yes, maybe not. You’re free to interpret my intention in any way you like.”
Yeah, no doubt — she loved to watch me fail, and only then would she come to help me despite the equivocal nature of her answer. So wicked she was.
“Hey, stop thinking bad about me. It’s rude.”
“No, you’re just overthinking.” I feigned ignorance, raising my shoulders. “Anywho…”
I channeled the source energy within my body to the cuboid stone. Immediately afterward, the patterns on the stone shone with blue light and a sound of stone moving appeared from behind me.
“It’s just that simple, duh.”
I shook my head, making my way toward the now-open door.
Looking inside, the interior was unexpectedly murky and lightless, void of anything alive. Surprisingly, the walls were made of yellowish stone, like the ones used to make pyramids in Egypt. I figured that the original color had lost its luster and become what it was now.
In fact, the floor was covered by a thin layer of dust and sand, probably coming from the ceiling and walls. Just exactly how long have these ruins existed? Hundreds of years? Thousands?
“Lunaria, light, please. A big one.”
All this time, the drone only had to maintain a weak flashlight to illuminate the area as the wall would shine red from time to time from the red fog carried in the mycelium and the occasional glowing moonshrooms spread throughout the cave. Though it wasn’t the case here, as even the root of the giant mushroom couldn’t pierce this area.
As I proceeded deeper, I spotted a huge altar with a strange sword embedded on the platform located at its peak. On closer inspection, the sword was about 1.8 meters in length and had an outlandish shape… Totally different than your typical medieval swords.
What I meant by that was its shape, it had metallic components and even a strange injector-like part between the grip and the blade with many colorful crystals adorning it every few centimeters. At first glance, it looked like a one-edged greatsword, but with a thin metallic cover that looked more like an extension to the blade for some reason. Thin red patterns also adorned the blade ridge’s edge.
“What is this sword?” Being only a step away, I reached for the handle as if it was fate for me to possess it but retraced my hand at the last moment.
For some reason, I was reminded of “the tale of the legendary sword Excalibur” that was famous in pieces of literature… but this definitely wasn’t that as it was nowhere similar in shape. The point being, there was no way that this thing didn’t come with catches — there could be traps that lay beneath.
“It’s an artifact from a past civilization… To think there’s one here.” Usually, Lunaria’s voice was emotionless, but now it was filled with melancholy.
An artifact?
I put my forefinger on the blade. It was blunt… So much so that it couldn’t even cut paper, much less strong monster hides like mutant ants.
“Why is it so blunt?” The blades looked like they were made of sophisticated alloy, though.
To answer this specific question, I used [Identification] on it.
Sword of Alabaster (artifact)
A sword made from a bygone era by a grandmaster magic mechanic. Several functions are hidden inside the sword that will only activate once the password is inputted.
Interesting. It would be my greatest interest to obtain this sword and study its secret. Perhaps it would become my greatest trump card in the times to come.
Right. Like hell it would!
In this day and age, who would use close-range weapons when you could point your guns at the enemy? I did, yes, with the catalyst daggers… but that was only because I was saving bullets and the enemy was mostly mutated monsters.
“Don’t be fooled.” Lunaria explained, “It is blunt because it requires a certain method to activate it. Look, you won’t be able to pull it out without doing ‘it.’”
“I know, I know. I just have to channel my source energy again, right?”
“Yes. But once you draw it out, the traps will be triggered, too. It’s a risk worth taking if you ask me, but the choice is yours.”
The choice is up to me? As a hoarder, I wouldn’t let such a treasure escape my grasp. However, between it and my life, it was obvious which was more important here.
With that in mind, I checked the platform through [Identification], and as expected, it did have a mechanism that would activate once I pulled the sword. This sword wasn’t supposed to be taken… not even by its original creator.
What I meant by that, was the defense mechanism would activate no matter what I did — putting something as a substitute or even destroying the platform itself — and there was no way to deactivate it. My knowledge was limited, so there was bound to be a solution to this that I didn’t know, which was the same as having no solution at all.
“You said that the defense systems here are mostly malfunctioning, correct?”
“I presume that is the case, yes. Though I can’t say for certain if all the mechanisms are dormant, most of them are.”
Then, it was worth taking the risk.
My plan was simple: took the sword and skedaddled as fast as possible to the entrance.
“All right!”
I stretched my body and recovered my source power quickly by absorbing source crystals. It was a waste to use source crystals just to recover my strength but being thrifty here would be unwise.
Energized to the point of bursting, I put both of my hands on the sword and circulated the source energy within my body on my feet.
“Here goes nothing.”
After steeling my heart, I pulled out the sword by using my source power, and instantly, there was a blaring sound along with the sound of gears turning.
All of a sudden, there was an alert from the surroundings.
{“Warning! An intruder has been detected. Level 1 security activated.”}
To my surprise, I was able to understand the language used by the defense mechanism. While my ability to understand unknown languages increased hundredfold thanks to my Vocation, there was no way to immediately learn something I never heard.
It only meant one thing: This was among the language that I knew. And if my hunch was correct, it was the source language… the one used for runic inscription.
I didn’t linger in my thoughts and made my way to the entrance the instant the blaring sound appeared.
{“Missing precious object detected. Maximum level security activated.”}
At that moment, the surrounding piles of metals converged together and formed constructs that stood tall and sharp. Most of them had either humanoid or animal forms with sharp blades all around, though some of them were round, likely moving by rolling around and crashing into their enemies…
Just that I was the intruder — their enemy — and they weren’t broken by any means!
“Of course, as expected of the ruins of a foregone era; it’s fraught with danger!”