“What a bad time to talk about dual-sworded ducks,” Tim muttered, he was concerned.
This was obviously not how he would wish for an event to unfold, he hadn't expected it, and he couldn’t have ever guessed that this duck that he imagined earlier on, would represent him today! It was unthinkable, and yet here he was, within the consequences of his own imagination!
“Out of all the things you could have summoned, you chose a duck… why?” The three pyramids asked him, as even they questioned his decisions.
“Because ducks are funny,” He answered honestly.
Tim was deep in cow dung right now, so he didn’t bother trying to excuse himself. If he died because of his decisions, then this would truly be the most hilarious way for him to die. He didn't regret a thing!
Perhaps he may die quickly too, because the pyramids spun even faster once Tim had answered them. Their velocity could contest that of a meteor's, so it was crystal clear that if something was to happen, it would happen now and it would be horrid!
A split second later, the pyramids beamed towards the ground! They moved at such speeds that they created three, individual craters once they hit the ground, and the literal heat they brought was intense!
Although they landed about thirty meters away, the team was still tossed a couple of meters away as a result. They didn't suffer too much damage, but they did get blinded for a minute, and their ears were ringing to the point where it was painful, so one couldn't say that they were unharmed.
Considering what just happened, they assumed that they were all going to die! Whatever process of evaluation this energy pocket space had, it was beyond them, the team did not understand what they were supposed to do here in order to get ‘blessed’ - Death seemed like the only result right now!
Just as they started to get on their feet, the orb landed on the ground as well just moments later, and got them knocked out for the second time! The team could not catch a break.
“Thanks for pissing them off, Terrence, this is definitely the way I want to die.” Ortana remarked, sarcastically.
“I never wanted to come here-” He tried to argue, but his words were cut short.
They suddenly became airborne, because they were being dragged towards the pyramids, somehow. This made them almost defecate themselves, because it would be a brutal way to die if either of them landed on top of the pyramids, for example, as they would get impaled!
Arvena broke a sweat while they floated, she was perhaps the most nervous one here. She might as well be nervous, because this would be a stupid way to die, especially for her who had actually achieved something in life! She was a wonderful mage, and she had a breakthrough in her mana quality just weeks ago, so this was not the right time for her to die, as her talents would be utterly wasted as a result. She was nervous, but thankfully, she survived, death did not befall anyone!
In fact, she and the team weren't attacked at all, well, apart from being blinded and deafened just a moment ago, they were otherwise fine. The four of them landed right between the pyramids, quite comfortably ~ They landed on top of the big, marble-patterned orb, to be exact, avoiding the pyramids entirely.
“Thou shall be blessed,” The pyramids said to them, as their thick, genderless voices reverberated around everyone's ears.
The orb shone even brighter afterwards, brighter than ever. Its green and blue colors radiated so violently, that one would think they pierced through the hypothetical stratosphere above them! Though it was the middle of the night, the sky now shared a mix of blue and green colors, as if an aurora event had suddenly erupted!
“Dunno what all of this has to do with mana,” Tim muttered, after he felt sure that he wasn't going to die here.
Then, he heard a sudden snap within his body. For a second he was sure that his hip was broken, he felt that snap right within his hips, but although what he felt was painful, he had not actually been crippled, no. The mana bracket, or potentially brackets, broke all at the same time within him, which created that sort of bone-cracking illusion that he felt, but he was otherwise fine.
The pyramids, or perhaps the orb, had blessed him. Whichever one it may be, it did not matter, as Timothy didn’t have a mana bracket holding him back anymore, and that was what was the most important to him!
The rest of the team were equally as lucky. Their mana brackets were removed as well, but their ‘bones’ cracked a bit more in comparison, as perhaps they had more brackets to remove. Arvena's insides cracked the most, they were loud, and everyone for a moment assumed that she died off, but she was fine, she was alive.
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“I never thought that I'd see the day…” She quietly celebrated at first, but then she exclaimed. “From now on, as long as I stay within the micro-universe of Valporovus, I'll be the strongest and richest mage alive!”
“You will be, I don't doubt that.” Tim encouraged her, but then he also added. “All the more reason for us to head back and find those ruins, right… the ruins of Aqumus? I remember you telling me that there was plenty of mana there.”
“We will get there as soon as we can,” She assured.
Before they could say anything else, the world around them suddenly crumbled. It disappeared, the pyramids and the orb disappeared as well, and they didn't make a single sound as they went away!
Utter darkness almost surrounded Tim and his friends afterwards, for the second time. However, before it could've done so thoroughly, the team vanished as well, they vanished almost as quickly as everything else!
What felt like seconds later, they popped up in the underground cavern that they had been in before they entered the energy pocket space. This cavern featured many holy relics, and they were happier than ever to see them again, because whatever space they had been in just moments ago, had been gnawing on their nerves in all the wrong ways, they were happy to survive it!
They were in the cavern now, and that resident goblin was there to greet them, as soon as they popped up in here. He didn't seem so happy to welcome the team, but the pyramids and or the orb had spoken, the team was now fit for the road, as they had been blessed without a doubt. They completed their little mission here, as confusing as everything was.
“So the holy three spared you? You met the essences of the three pyramids, and they did not tear the flesh off of your bones? I congratulate you, then, as that doesn't happen often nowadays.” The cavern's resident said, quite smuggly.
“Thanks, guy, though you don't seem glad to see us.” Tim added, and then he pointed out. “I'd say that you look like you've seen a ghost, but it's more like you fell on a pile of chalk, you greedy, pale bastard! You sent us in that energy pocket thing, fully expecting us to die… that wasn't so holy of you.”
“That's how the process is supposed to go, I don't make the rules. Besides, you're the ones who infiltrated our haven, our home.” The resident argued, “You're lucky that we didn't try and defend ourselves, otherwise you would've never met the holy three to begin with, you filthy heathens!”
Tim felt the need to smack this guy on the mouth afterwards, but he avoided it. He was smart enough to remember that this guy was probably a whole realm or two above him in terms of mana quality. It would not only be stupid to attack him, but also suicidal!
Besides, he didn’t have a single valid reason to fight anyone here right now. He and the team got what they wanted, the mana quality brackets that they had, perhaps multiple of them, were now broken! Well, a mage would need to face countless brackets if he was to ascend through the realms, but he was happy enough that he'd be able to escape the god’s punishment realm soon, so he became quiet, he didn’t want to spoil his achievements.
Skendus took over the conversation instead, and very calmly said. “Thank you for having us heathens, sir, we acknowledge your… hesitation. Assuming that our guide here agrees with me, we'll be going now, as we don't wish to disrupt your peace any further.”
“We'll be going, yes.” Arveena agreed, “I barely know who this place belongs to anyway, I haven't studied enough.”
“Studying is an attribute of every great mage, I wish you luck with it.” The resident goblin added, his tone was a lot calmer now.
Then, the resident waved his hand towards them, and so, Tim and the team disappeared out of thin air once more! They vanished from the cavern where the holy site resided, and then appeared on the water.
The thing was, they weren't deep underwater, no. They were very close to the surface, everyone could notice this even within the midst of the utter nighttime darkness that had engulfed them!
Within the darkness, they then felt something lurking in the waters, which was terrifying! The team didn't have any phobias that they knew of, but being in the open waters in the dead of night encouraged a type of fear that they never felt before! Tim felt as if a shark was going to grab his leg any second now.
Something did grab him eventually, but it wasn't a shark. He felt these three, long, tentacle-like arms grabbing on to him, and at first he almost shat himself in response, but then he got a hint of what was going on. He remembered those entities that the shaman had summoned before, the ones that brought him in the nano-universe of Nul to begin with, and he figured that they were the ones who were touching him up right now!
The entities pulled the team up towards the very surface, and then started swimming around them, until everyone involved started floating above the water, and towards the sky! They flew for a while, and as the dark, three-armed entities spun them across the air afterwards, another portal opened up!
The entities along with the team, pushed their way through the portal, which in turn rendered everyone in the team unconscious! They weren't aware of what happened next, but what felt like an hour later, they woke up in a lush green field, right near the red-tiled town where Arvena had grown up in.
They got out of the nano-universe of Nul, and made it back to the micro-universe of Valporovus!