“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” - Arthur C. Clarke.

___

In a dark cave, footsteps can be heard, and two pairs of steps walking down the cave making a sound every time the soles of their feet touch the ground.

One figure in the dark is a short and masculine body, with a small fire following them a little bigger than a candle fire you can see his bronze skin and well-defined muscles, and from his face covered in shadows, his kind and gruff face with brown eyes can be seen matching well with his dark brown short hair.

Moving to their clothes you can see them wearing a thick mix of chainmail and leather protecting all of their vitals while holding a hammer almost as long as himself with one end of the hunk of metal of the hammer being circular and flat, made to smash and crush, while the other end being like a pickaxe, made to pierce and destroy

Another figure a few steps behind the last can be seen, the one holding a floating flame in their hand.

This figure is brighter, being the centre of the light you can see her features clearly. The glowing figure is tall and thin but still with a few visible muscles, although she is not well endowed she has a very eye-catching figure when mixed with her sharp crimson eyes and short shoulder-length red hair, looking like a goddess of flame.

She is wearing a lighter outfit than her companion, made of mostly strong fabrics and light leather, connected to her back is a sword, seeming to be a broadsword with a finely crafted handle and guard yet a simplistic design made for protection. In her hand near her floating fire is a short metal rod, engraved on it are mysterious symbols connected to a small glass orb at the base.

Both figures walk in silence paying attention to not trip, until one talks.

"Hey, Toddler I swear if this cave ends into nothing or into a feral goblin nest I will kill you," the tall feminine figure whispers although their voice still gets carried down the tunnel.

Sighing the shorter figure speaks, "Oh Aether why did I have to be friends with you Ashly, I have told you, it doesn't even matter if we find nothing as long as we gain experience because this might be on the entry test," the short one whispers and with a little more annoyance in his voice continues, "And how many times do I have to tell you my name is Tod!"

"To me, you will always be Toddler, and I still don't get why we have to actually go to this random cave instead of a dungeon, those are actually filled with things," Ashly whispers while continuing to walk behind Tod, "And we could have also gotten some extra coins to pocket while doing it, here if we find nothing it will be such a waste of time."

Walking down the tunnel, staring at the scenery they got tired of after the first few minutes, Tod can't help but agree inside but not wanting to let this devilish woman have something to annoy him of for weeks doesn't say this out loud.

Whispering he tries to comfort her, "Ashly I swear on my Dad's kindness that we will find something, I found this cave entrance hidden when I was mining for materials for my practice smithing."

"Oh Aether your Dad is an asshole to you we are doomed, I bet you only found this because your Dad wouldn't let you use his materials so you had to find your own." glaring towards the back of Tod's short brown hair she thinks if she should give him a haircut with fire, imagining a bold Tod her mood lightens up a smudge making her smile.

Tod feeling a chill down his spine cratches his hair and turns around to see the smiling Ashly, his heart skips a beat and he trips over something, "AHH!"

*Klang*

His hammer falls alongside him making a loud sound,

Ashly starts to laugh openly at Tod sprawled on the shiny ground, "For a Dwarf who is mostly legs you really can't use them well," she continues to watch him sprawled on the ground until she notices what she just glossed over, "Wait? Shiny ground?"

"Ahh damn it, that fucking hurt, my head feels like I got hit by Mum's frying pan when I tried to steal an extra piece of Earth Chick leg," while holding his ringing head he slowly pulls himself up and sits on the shiny ground.

Looking around he finds his hammer close to where he fell, getting up and moving closer towards it he goes to pick it up until he notices what it's laying on.

Both of them turn to one another at the same time, silently Tod picks up his hammer and moves back to Ashly, then quietly says, "Hey can you boost the power of Candle Light."

Listening to Tod she quickly draws more fire mana from the atmosphere to strengthen her spell which quickly enlightens the wide area they are in with bright light, being blinded by the light in her hand she makes it rise above them.

Both looking towards the cave walls and ground they follow it until they suddenly change, into something more metallic, something different which reflects their light.

Tod slowly turns his head with a grin on it towards Ashly, "Told you something would be down here, I could feel it."

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Hearing him speak Ashly breaks out of her daze and starts to slowly smile also, "YES! Let's explore and make some money," she says while starting to step forward but her arm is quickly grabbed by Tod.

Looking back her gaze questions what he is doing.

"You really don't think we can just go in can you? You and I know this could be an Ancient Vault, normally only big guilds take care of this, and even they don't always come back unscathed, "Trying his best to be serious he tries to persuade her from forcing her and him to go inside, as he would like to not die this early.

"And we can also broker this information to a guild for a the right price, we could become rich depending on how we sell this information so let's go back."

Ashly thinks about what he says is correct she calms down and with Tod seeing her calm down he releases his grip on her, "See now you see, now let's g-" before he could finish his sentence Ashly goes sprinting off deeper into the now metallic tunnel.

Stunned Tod stands there, not believing what she had just done, then he yells and begins to chase her, "FUCK YOU WHYYYYY!" extremely annoyed and anxious he runs as fast as he can after her just to hear her reply, "Hahaha, because I want to see it first before we leave and I know you wouldn't let me."

Hearing what she said is correct he can only get annoyed at how well she knows him and at how he should have expected she would do this.

Trying his best he tries to catch up to her but with his short legs he only keeps losing distance, "GHAA I hate your long legs why are all you Elves so damn tall," knowing that he won't be able to catch up he decides on what he has to do before she gets too far ahead.

"Damn it I hate using Aura Arts, they are so exhausting for me. I swear I'm gonna kill her if she isn't already dead by the time I get there."

With Tod deciding on what has to be done he slows down and focuses, moving his Aether around his body, mostly his legs, willing them to become more durable, to become more springy to help draw in the impact and then shoot forward when releasing the impact.

Slowly he starts to feel his legs strengthen, to become like springs bursting with more power with every step, grinning that he actually did it properly this time. Not wanting to waste any more time he gets into a posture to help with the power his legs are going to be kicking off with to not trip, trying to lower his body, and then he goes.

*Fwoosh*

His body goes sprinting off after Ashly into the straight tunnel. Although he can't see her anymore and it slowly gets darker as she had taken the light he can still see her glow, while running to make sure he doesn't trip he takes out the portable torch he brought and quickly pours a liquid from a bottle he pulls out of a leather pouch, he then quickly lightens it while running with his little tool called a sparker which hits together to create sparks helping to catch the liquid on fire. With the torch bursting aflame he is ready.

With the tunnel quickly brightening he has an easier time speeding up, with every step the weight from himself and his hammer on his back creates big and loud tremors which get carried down the tunnel slowly. Becoming more and more worried that he will awaken something he hopes to catch Ashly before anything bad happens.

Tod starts to question how deep this tunnel goes as he has been running now at full speed for a few minutes, thinking that this is only a way into an entrance he questions how big the actual Ancient Vault would be.

Finally seeing himself catching up to Ashly he sees herself surrounded by wind, "Ah so that's why I still didn't catch up to her, I hate her long legs and affinity to magic."

Seeing her stopped he thinks of how to pay her back, thinking how one good hit to the head or ass should be just perfect. While quickly getting closer he prepares to hit her making sure to lower his speed and strength, finally getting close enough to see what's in front of her he stops preparing to hit her and trips once again, "NOT AGAIN FUCK!"

*Bam*

Ashly turns around to see Tod flat on the metal ground then turns around to look back at what she was staring at, "Tod... look."

Calming down from falling yet once again he gets back onto his feet and also stares at what Ashly is looking at, and it's incredible and horrifying. Looking into the barely lit darkness a bit away from the two is a gigantic metallic wall, that looked to priorly be a massive door. They think priorly as it's not there, it's on the ground about 5-10 meters away from it inside, clawed and destroyed into literal pieces.

In the wall which is presumed to have once been where the giant door used to be is now a hole, and on that wall are many colossal claw marks, as almost as wide as the wall of a normal house from the top to bottom, way bigger than any normal Monster claws.

Ashly begins to walk closer to look inside, to feel the massive claw marks as deep as a human's body, Tod is frozen solid by his amazement at how something so massive was created underground which seemed he could see a city on the inside, looking to be a giant cavern.

Tod follows Ashly to the other side of the giant wall to see the city, looking up he sees it slowly glowing mysteriously, seeming to have something on the houses and walls which caused it to glow. Seeing that the wall from the inside continued up to the roof Tod and Ashly understand that this whole place might be in a hemisphere.

Ashly staring at the wall connecting to the roof speaks to Tod, "Do you think it even goes underground."

"It probably does, wouldn't be much use to only keep the top incased and would be safer to be a sphere shape. I am just amazed at how they did this, I heard that the ancients were more powerful than we are today in some things but I didn't think it would be like this."

Tod thinks to himself how possibly only the 7 Academy could outshine this, with them being the best of the best, and maybe the capitals of the Elves, Dwarves and Humanity.

Moving around both of them give up any thought of leaving, both snared by the mysteriousness of everything, moving around Ashly notices how everything is covered in layers of dust like it hasn't been touched in many years, plants and glowing what they both presume is some kind of glowing moss.

"Everything looks so old and destroyed, look how cool that house looks its all destroyed and broken. What do you think caused all of this?" Ashly says while looking out for anything exciting.

"Well I would guess the creature which clawed the door in although I have no clue where it is, I don't think it would still be here as there is nothing for it down here," Tod says hoping he is correct.

"I don't know I really hope it's still here, I want to see what caused those massive claw marks, also why is there so much rust on everything in here yet not in the massive outside tunnel," Ashly says hoping Tod is incorrect.

Tod sighs wondering how he has kept her alive for 12 years, reminding himself of their age he also gets annoyed about how she is a week older and would always shove that in his face, "I might be the younger one but she acts 5 years younger than me."

Walking along what seems metal path towards the centre with plants and houses on either side of them they casually explore from time to time houses or buildings they are interested in but there is always nothing other than rust.

With them getting closer and closer to the centre building which seems to be the biggest after about 20 minutes they start to see white stones everywhere, cracking from under their feet as they walk past in this barely visible world they start to see hills next to the centre buildings outline which looks like small hills.

As they get closer Ashly starts to step on the hills as she likes the clean crack of them she keeps walking on everyone she can.

*Step*

*Crack*

*Step*

*Crack*

Until finally she looks at a small circular one still together and thinks how perfect it would be for kicking so she speeds herself up and kicks it hard.

*Crack*

Looking down she sees her foot had gone right through a part of the rock and that it had gotten stuck, standing at a weird angle she grabs the rock to get it off. Then she stops, her spine chilling and stopping.

Then she screams, "AHHHHH BITCH GET IT OOFFFF!" and starts flailing her leg.

Tod who had been walking alongside her sees her go crazy and quickly tries to see what's wrong. Getting closer he tries to stop her from flailing and grabs the rock to pull it off, with a part of the rock opening it easily comes off. Staring at the rock he wonders why she went crazy over just a little rock, and then he notices its weird feeling.

Tod slowly looks down while Ashly is kicking all the white rocks around her away from her. Looking into the rock are 4 holes, two circulars, one triangular and another at the bottom where Ashly had her foot inside and had opened up.

Shocked Tod speaks without meaning it, "A... Human skull... We have been walking on," hearing something far down the path he slowly looks back.

Looking back he sees something moving all the way back by the entrance, then they hear something bone-chilling from where they came from.

*ROAAAAAR!*

A wave of sound washes over the two.

*BOOM!*

Followed by the ground shattering sound, buildings and the ground near the entrance started to collapse and fall apart.

___

Somewhere else deeper into the centre near the duo after the rumbling and explosions above.

[ENERGY-STORAGE-CO#PR%@ISED]

[DAM$%#-TO-#&$-INTERGRITY]

[RELEASING-#&$-0]