I studied the glass floor carefully. Certain parts of it immediately cracked when I stepped on them while others didn't. Deciding that I didn't want to deal with any of this I simply activated my warp magic mark. But before I could use it in any way the entire room lit up with a red light and I heard the sound of a bell ringing, loudly, then I felt a sudden stinging pain in my head that was so bad I nearly fell over.
"W-What is this?" I asked, holding my ears shut, which seemingly had no effect.
'It seems to be some kind of anti-magic effect that engulfs this entire room...' Ira said.
"Oh... perfect, just perfect..." I said, annoyed, as the ringing bell sound began to disappear and I could stand properly again.
Since I couldn't use magic I decided to go along with the room challenge. At first, it was easy, all I had to do was tap the floor in front of me with my foot to see whether or not it would break. The problem was that the closer I got to the pillar the more dangerous it became. Not only were there less stable spots but the ones that would break upon me stepping onto them were stable enough to allow me to stand on them before breaking, which meant I needed to stomp onto every part of the glass floor before I could continue. And each of those stomps would make the ground vibrate violently, nearly making me fall, which would probably end up with me taking a not-so-nice bath in the lava below.
The heat had begun to get to me, even though as a wood elf I was usually rather resistant to both cold and heat, one of the many perks of being, what some called, the ultimate hunter. But even with those qualities, I was sweating, both from fear of falling into the lava that would surely melt my entire body in seconds, and from the heat that rose from said lava, heating up the glass floor, which gave way for another fear: Would the floor start to melt, would I fall if I was too fast and if I was too slow?
With a sigh I continued to make my way towards the pillar, having to backtrack and circle around half the room only to, once again, fail at approaching the door, instead I had to walk along another side of the pillar, pressing myself against the glass just to be safe.
"I swear to whatever fucking devil or deity that is listening if I die because of that fuckers favour I'll crawl back from the afterlife and rip his head off!" I cursed as I turned around a corner, now being on the opposite side of the pillar, also called the completely wrong side.
Ira and Arva both chuckled.
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I continued onwards, now having to go right back to the wall of the room itself, I had to go along it until I suddenly had to move diagonally back towards the pillar, then I went straight down, back towards the door only to find out that it was yet another dead end. After what must have been nearly half a day I finally reached the door or at least the closest platform to it. There was about one metre of glass floor between me and the door, the glass floor that broke the second I stepped on it.
"Shit."
I barely avoided falling, having gotten used to needing to put most, if not all, of my weight onto the parts of the floor that would break. Once I had gathered myself I reached out for the door and pushed it open, careful to keep my balance. The door swung open with a high pitched grinding sound.
"Finally," I groaned as I stepped across the gap in the floor and into the pillar.
Before I could do anything I suddenly felt incredibly light and felt myself floating upwards, towards the very end of the pillar, which seemed to be a solid ceiling. I approached it more and more rapidly until the ceiling seemed to open and I found myself inside the glass cube on the top floor of the pyramid, sitting on the ground.
'Oh my, if that wasn't a journey then I don't know what is,' Arva stated as I stood up and studied the pedestal.
My gaze fell upon the light blue orb which almost seemed like it was breathing. It drew me in, I found myself unable to take my eyes off of it for some reason. I could feel mana emanating from it, mana that seemed incredibly scary.
"That's a magic concept, isn't it?" I said as I reached out.
'It is...' Ira said.
When my fingers touched it I felt a surge of power rush through me, it reminded me of the time I found a magic concept in my dreams, back when I lived with Elvia in Titan's Palace. The feeling of power wandered across my body until it settled in the upper half of my right arm and part of my shoulder, where I suddenly felt an uncomfortable tingling feeling, like an itch that was impossible to scratch.
"At least this whole thing was worth it," I said as I bent down to break the orb the strange man wanted from the pedestal. "Now let's get out of here."
That's when my next problem occurred: How do I get out of here?
I looked around the glass cube but there was no door and the ground also didn't have any openings. That's when I spotted a small button that had been hidden by the magic concept. Without thinking about it I pressed it and suddenly felt myself pressed to the ground as the top of the pyramid opened up and the strange contraption the chains were connected to activated. Seconds later the glass cube was ripped from the ground and thrown right against the ceiling of the cave chamber. But instead of simply bouncing off the glass cube just straight up went through the stone, leaving behind a hole. After a few seconds, I found myself flying out of the side of the mountain, still rising towards the sky.
"What the-"
Then the glass cube disappeared around me and I began falling.
"You gotta be kidding me!" I yelled out as I activated my warp magic mark.
I let the black-dark green energy consume me and reappeared on the ground, disoriented and with sweat dripping from my forehead.
"Shit... what kind of place is that?" I asked out loud.
"A strange one, a truly strange one," a familiar voice responded.