The ruins were cobwebbed in thin vines that blossomed hundreds of vibrant flowers along their filamentous lengths like gunshots of color.

He screened the path in front of him for more Devil Pitchers, then tapped at the vines to make sure they weren’t some terrible predator. They weren’t. They brushed aside, easily revealing odd stonework and strangely stacked columns and rubble—all overtaken by the veil of vines that grew over them.

He moved around the ruins, on the lookout for more monsters, but they seemed to avoid this place. If anything, that put him on alert.

He stowed his pole and properly prepared with his hammer and shield, giving the latter a good wipe against the nearby vines for the umpteenth time. Near the rubble he saw fragments of wooden and iron poking up in places from the earth, like the fingers of shipwrecks.

He moved closer to examine one of the clusters of fragments, almost stubbing his toe through boot on a rock that turned out to be a rusted fragment of a lock—the remnants of a keyhole visible through half of its broken mass. Whatever door it had belonged to was long gone.

He continued through the ruins. Each eerily still and silent, despite the constant background buzz of jungle all around them.

He decided to put his new ability to the test once more and plucked one of the flowers. It was something called Lady’s Lace. It grew in areas of higher than average mana density and concentrated mana within the flowers. It was minorly poisonous—not a problem to him—and its main use was mana potions, but Chris sensed there were other properties he was as of yet unaware of.

He plucked several handfuls of the flowers and uprooted a small curl of vines. Maybe he could transplant them later. The ambient mana didn’t seem particularly higher than Kingscastle, so it should work. He continued moving, not wanting to waste time.

Things certainly felt more urgent now. The goal was simple. Get in, get Class Skills, get out. A bit of looting for good luck was acceptable as well, but only within reasonable bounds.

The Lady’s Lace might be a hint that whatever he was looking for was buried within the ruins, but that seemed like an overly large pain in the ass. There were dozens of them so far. Ugly piles of broken stone squatted between trees and bushes, while some sat in clearings. Chris spotted at least three more of the locks and broken doors before he stopped counting and looking too closely. Instead, he wandered. Until he found it.

It was a small, squat, ugly looking building. Made of unflattering roundness and odd pillars, it hunched upon the jungle floor like a beggar. A thick mantle of Lady’s Lace hung over it, festooning each pillar and adding a gaudy cheer out of place with the misshapen aspect it held.

And, cloistered almost out of sight by two ugly stone wings, Chris saw the metallic glimmer of a lock set in wood.

He stepped forward to examine it closer, then paused. He was pressed for time, but maybe it was better not to be hasty.

He circled around, and saw that what he expected to be a door was in fact a wooden chest, banded with iron.

He didn’t want to get close enough yet to check, but he was certain that his arm would ping the presence of a Class Skill inside. There just had to be something good in there. Which meant it was trapped. Or dangerous.

The fact that no monsters even came close might suggest that the danger was mobile, but limited to this area. If the area was trapped, Chris was sure he would have triggered one by now, so either minimally trapped, or not at all. That indicated danger. So, something dangerous.

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The Lady’s Lace? It didn’t react to being plucked and when he consumed it, nothing was mentioned about an ability to induce fear or kill anything nearby. The worst thing about it was that it was slightly poisonous, against which the obvious protection was clearly not to eat it. The vine and its flowers hardly choked the area and only grew on the rubble piles. Even if the leaves and flowers were something like poison ivy, it would be simple to just move around the plants.

So, why were they limited to the rubble piles? They grew well around naturally elevated mana. So why just them? There had to be something special about them. And if there was something special about the normal rubble, the undisturbed building had an even higher mana density—if the thick blanket of flowers and vines growing on it was any indication. Either that, or the other rubble piles were destroyed more recently and close to simultaneously.

That was a worrying thought. But there was little he could do about that, and he doubted the Tower of the Manifold Adept would be an insurmountable challenge.

He was loath to waste more time, but he found himself needing to check through the rubble pile for clues on what the buildings were. Soon, he found it. A strange, articulating joint of stone.

High mana density, moving parts of masonry. That was it. The stone structures were designed to move. Probably some kind of golem.

The only surviving building was carpeted in vines and bright flowers, which seemed to indicate it hadn’t been activated in a long time—and yet the monsters still avoided this area.

He was reluctant to approach the building, but at the same time, he felt he had to. There was a chest within the building that he had seen. If there was one thing he needed from this place, he would wager that the contents of the chest was it.

Cautiously he approached the building, hearing the faint complaint of gears suddenly whirring to life over the surrounding buzz of jungle. Yep, definitely a golem.

He lifted his hammer, and, with [Sunder] active, slammed it onto one of wings of the squat building, just as it began to lift from the earth. There was a pneumatic hiss as the limb trembled, then a sound like shutters being thrown open.

The building’s wings and strange columns jolted and jerked, revealing them to be segmented legs that clicked into functionality as the golem raised itself. It was a bulbous, spider-shaped golem made of graying stone and covered in a lattice of vines that fluttered in torn shreds from its sudden rise. In place of where a head should be, instead sat the chest, several rivets on its banded metal frame gleaming more darkly than inanimate objects had a right to.

The main body of the golem lifted and a rusted metal contraption spiraled up from a point on the roof. Two arms swung forward from the contraption, making it appear like a ballista in profile. The arms ratcheted back as Chris hammered at the insectoid legs of the golem again and again.

As a strangely tipped bolt clicked into place and Chris leapt out of the way, just in time and the bolt slammed into the ground by his feet.

He heard glass break within the spear and then gas and colorful, steaming liquid poured from the inside. He was already putting distance between himself and the spreading gas when another hammered into the ground at his feet, releasing more of the toxic fumes and forcing him to move farther away.

Alchemical bolts. Chris had poison resistance, but it was only resistance rather than immunity. The poison would still have an effect, just like that one with which Gregor had tried to kill him. Becoming impaired by the poison wouldn’t be good, especially if it would lead to him being skewered by the next bolt. If that happened and the poison was strong, nothing would save him.

So he ran around the golem, sacrificing most of his opportunities to deal damage in order to avoid the flying alchemical bolts that continuously shot his way. Several times he had to duck as spearing legs tried to pin him down or block his way. The legs weren’t so much of an issue. They had a limited range of movement, and if they moved too far in any direction, they’d inevitable tangle and jostle with another.

Then, with a quick strike, as the ballista oriented toward him, he landed a blow cleanly into one of the golem’s spiderlike legs. There was a grinding noise from inside and the leg locked up.

Chris smiled, against an enemy like this, a sword or spear would be an unimaginable pain. With a hammer, it was easy as heck. With one leg down, more would follow, as long as he could stay out of the colorful clouds of alchemical toxin the spider golem dispersed with its bolts.

Then the spider golem hissed and from the cracks in its stone form, gas began to pour outward.