Here Toby was, back in the research room again.

But this time, he would take the things he refused, the previous Dark Lord’s notebook and The Dark Lord’s Inventory.

He opened the notebook first and was welcomed by a sight he wasn’t prepared for. Black ink worms were squirming on the pages as he was reminded why he had to take his sister's medicine list to a drugstore. The writing was horrendous. It was ten times worse than any doctor’s writing Toby had ever seen before.

“Jesus Christ.” Toby looked up at the sky.

He slowly flipped through the notebook. Every page had the same worm-like writing on it. He closed it and decided to slowly decode this monstrosity at a later time.

Toby switched his attention to the stone ring. He snapped a tree branch from the wither bonsai and poked the ring to test its reaction. Maybe the ring was actually a living being, and it would jump at him the moment he let his guard down. Or maybe it was created by a villain and would corrupt him into building a tower with a big ass burning eye at the top.

After poking the ring for the n times, Toby picked it up. No reaction.

He tried to scan it with Mana but the only response he got was that this was just a simple stone ring. He tried biting it, but, again, it was a stone ring. Luckily, he didn’t have teeth, or he would have one hell of a smile after biting the thing. Looking at the ring at different angles, he found nothing special.

That’s when Toby remembered how he was able to get down here in the first place. Dark Element. Something only The Dark Lord had.

Searching his memory for the sensation of chaos that flowed in an orderly way again, Toby slowly pushed his Mana into the ring. It didn’t react.

Toby focused and searched for the problem. He noticed that what he pushed into the ring was pure Mana. Not the chaotic Mana he felt before. So he dug deeper into that sensation and focused on his Mana. Slowly, inside the clear stream that was his Mana, black fog rose from the water’s surface and dyed the water black.

Toby pushed his Mana into the ring and got a reaction.

The ring started to shine a black light. Before he could react, Toby’s consciousness was drawn inside an empty white space. Everything was pure white. Up, down, left, right, there was nothing but white. Yet, when Toby looked in front of him, there was a black wall that appeared out of nowhere. His instinct told him to place his hand on the wall. So he did.

That’s when Toby realized something. He had hands. He wasn’t in the form of a turtle but in the form of a human. A human made of pure Mana with black fog floating around in his body. Other than the black fog, there was a small yet bright red flame in the shape of a phoenix and a baseball-sized drop of crystal-clear water inside him.

“My Elements?” Toby mumbled. Strangely enough, his voice sounded the same.

He was born with Darkness Element but he must have gained Fire and Water after he got the Skills with those elements.

The sound of broken glass drew Toby's attention as he looked up. The black wall shattered as pieces fell to the ground. It was like a wall of glass. Behind that wall were big, black letters floating high up that said, “Chamber 12.”

“This must be my senior’s,” Toby commented as he moved his head down and looked around. Scattered all around were broken pieces of equipment like swords, spears, axes, bows, shields, necklaces, rings, and many more. They didn’t look like rare or legendary items either. Toby picked up a broken sword.

[Broken Steel Sword – Rank 0]

“Just a bunch of scrap then.” He looked around, piles and piles of these scrap metals.

Yet, somehow, he didn’t believe a researcher would let things like these lie around for no reason. He walked past the piles of scrap metal and found a stainless steel table with a magic circle drawn on the top of it. On that table was equipment for what looked like a science class with three glass beakers, a plastic beaker, a measuring cup, eight glass flashes, an eye dropper, and a wooden spoon.

“The hell is this?” Toby picked up the wooden spoon.

[Spoon made from World Tree’s bark – Rank 7]

“…Seriously?” He put the spoon down and picked up a glass beaker.

[Mana container – Rank 7]

“This shit has the same Rank as a spoon made from the World Tree?” Toby exclaimed and looked at the science table in front of him. “Right, the table.” He looked at the table.

[Dark Lord No.12’s Mana transmuting table – Rank 8]

“Holy shit.” Toby jumped back. The table was a Rank higher than the tools on top of it. “Wait, how come I can see Items with Rank 7 or 8? What’s going on, System?”

[Analyzing. Turtle System determined that this space is a subspace created through the use of Dark Element, thus having the effect of enhancing the perception power of Dark Lords considerably]

“I have no idea how that even makes any sense, but I’m taking it. Not going to look in a gifted horse's mouth." He ran his hand across the magic circle on the table. It felt steel cold like he expected. Yet, it also felt like the circle was alive with this ink as its warm blood somehow.

“What does this magic circle do?”

[The user has yet to gather the corresponding knowledge]

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

“Hold up, I have no idea this world has a World Tree either. How can I see that this spoon is made from World Tree’s bark? And what’s Mana transmuting?”

[Searching. The user did acquire such knowledge from Dark Lord No.12’s notebook]

“What? But I just skimmed it. I don’t even know what it…was…saying.” An idea struck Toby. “Hehehe.”

When he got out of this subspace, he was going to test it out.

Looking past the table, there was nothing but white again. But Toby wasn’t going to be fooled for the second time. He walked past the table. He walked until he hit his face on another black glass wall. Toby looked up at the letters carved on the wall, “Chamber 11.”

Toby tried to do the same thing with the last wall and made Dark Element Mana flow from the black smoke inside of him into the wall. The wall shook, but nothing else happened.

“Guess that’s that.” Toby stretched his body. “Now then, how do I get out of here?”

[The user can get out of here by thinking about existing]

With that said, Toby thought about leaving as he closed his eyes. When he opened them, he was back in his glorious turtle shell and in that research room. He reached down toward the notebook and the stone ring on the table. But only the notebook was on the table, the stone ring was gone.

“Eh?” Toby looked around. He looked at the ground and sent out a Mana wave to find the ring. But it was nowhere to be seen. “What the? System, where is the ring?”

[The Dark Lord’s Inventory has assimilated with the user and is now one of the user's Passive Skills]

With wide eyes, Toby opened his status and looked at the Skill section.

===

Rank 10 – Dark Lord’s Inventory (Darkness)

The Dark Lord’s Inventory, the Item passed down from generation to generation of Dark Lord. A Dark Lord can access this subspace for whatever purpose a Dark Lord deems fit - Expanded mental capacity when used - The subspace has 12 chambers, each chamber corresponding to a generation of Dark Lord - 1 hour in the subspace is 1 second in Virelen - When a Dark Lord dies, the temporary space created by said Dark Lord will become permanent - Status: Maximum space reached, no more chamber can be created – Origin: Crafted by the 1st Dark Lord using the 1st Dark Lord’s corpse.

===

“…System, do I have any information on other Dark Lords besides the 12th?”

[Searching. The user has yet to acquire any information on any other Dark Lords besides Dark Lord No.12]

“Right.” Toby nodded. “But first.” He raised his right flipper in the air. “Hell yeah. I got a cheat.”

Turning his attention back to the notebook again, he tried to do something like all those protagonists do. He pointed his flipper at the notebook and said in the coolest voice he could. “Come.”

But nothing happened.

Scratching his head, Toby touched the notebook and said, "Inventory." Nothing happened. So he tried something else. Inventory. When he thought that, a swirling circle made of black smoke appeared behind him. Just above his right shoulder.

Toby turned back when he felt the circle's presence. He tried poking his flipper inside. His flipper went through to the other side with no resistance at all. He pulled his flipper back and thought World Tree Spoon. The spoon poked itself out of the swirling smoke circle and fell to the ground.

He picked up the spoon and shoved it back inside the circle. The spoon disappeared inside the circle like it never appeared in the room. Where did that go?

Suddenly, images of the 12th chamber appeared in Toby’s mind. It was still a mess with piles and piles of junk. But what caught Toby most was that the spoon was back in its original spot on the table.

“Sweet.” Toby picked up the notebook and pushed it inside the circle while thinking about placing the notebook on the table. The notebook disappeared, and Toby sensed that it indeed appeared on the table inside the inventory.

“Nice.” Toby celebrated a little. “Let’s go back.”

It took a bit longer to travel between the cave and the black tree compared to traveling between the tree and the cabin. Not only the distance was further, but the fact that Toby couldn’t freely fly using Mana anymore also affected it.

Yet, thanks to being slower, Toby noticed for the first time how desolate this forest was.

When he first arrived, he thought a forest like this was surely full of all kinds of animals and monsters. Yet he had been here for also a month, but there was nothing but bugs, birds, and small fish. Lily showed him the fireflies, but other than those, there was nothing. The forest was strange to the point of being creepy.

When Toby returned to the cave, he saw Grillion and Lukas had already prepared all they needed for their travel.

“Ah, you’re back, little Toby.” Grillion greeted him.

“Welcome back, big bro Toby.” So did Lukas.

“How’s Lily?” Toby asked.

Grillion and Lukas beamed. Grillion pointed his thumb inside the cave. “Why don’t you ask her yourself?”

Toby floated inside the cave without another word. Inside, Lily was sitting straight as she prepared her bag. When she saw Toby, she bowed.

“Thank you for saving me. I owed you my life.”

Toby tried to say something but he couldn’t. The word just wouldn’t come out. He just stared at Lily, then smiled and slapped his belly. “Don’t be such a stranger. It’s what I do. I’m a Healer.”

Lily touched her neck. “Did you also get rid of this mark?”

“Mark?” Only then did Toby look at Lily’s neck. She used to have this red scar around her neck like she was forced to wear a burning steel collar for a long time. But now, it was gone.

“Huh. Neat. I didn’t even notice that.”

Lily tried to say something. But she didn’t. Instead, she just bowed again, deeper this time. “Thank you.”

Toby nodded. “We should get going. Gramp and Lukas should have told you where we are heading, right?”

“Yes.” Lily nodded. “I’m done preparing. We can go now.”

“Sweet. Let’s go.” He turned around and floated out toward the entrance. As he was going out, Lukas came in.

“Forget something, Lukas?” Toby asked.

“No,” The boy shook his head. “I need to carry big sis Lily.”

“What?” Toby turned around. He saw Lukas trying to carry Lily on his back but failed spectacularly as the boy was a head shorter than the girl. When he tried to put her on his back, Lily’s leg dangled and dropped to the ground. Unmoving.

“Lily… your legs.” Toby floated to the kids.

Lily looked directly into Toby’s eyes. Her gaze, unwavering. “I’m still alive.”

Toby closed his eyes and clamped his mouth tight. It was taking everything he had not to yell at himself. He took a deep breath, then exhaled.

“Lukas, let me carry her. I have a Skill for that.”

“But…” The boy tried to protest.

“Lukas, listen to Toby.”

The boy's ears and tail dropped down like a wet puppy as he pouted. “Okay.”

Lily patted the boy’s head. “It’s not that I don’t trust you. It just feels quite uncomfortable if you keep grabbing my behind every time I’m about to slip like this.”

Lukas’s face and ears turned red as he kept his face down.

Toby laughed while Lily chuckled at the innocent, cute, yet determined boy.

Toby used [Float] and [Push] on Lily too and made it look like she was floating through the air while sitting on an invisible chair. The three carried their bags and moved to the entrance where Grillion was waiting for them.

“Next stop. Eldium.” The goblin smiled.

-----

“Do you know why I summoned you here?” The Prophet asked the knight.

The knight, who was kneeling, did not answer. The room they were in was still as desolate and filled with Air Element as before.

“You can speak.”

“My apologies, Lady Prophet. But I don’t know.”

The Prophet tapped her index finger rhythmically on the chair’s handle. “You failed me.”

Only then did the knight look up at the Prophet. Her eyes were burning with ambition and cold rage as she condemned the knight.

“I shall do whatever it takes to make up for this mistake.” The knight bowed once more.

“Go to Eldium and bring the boy to me. If you found the Dark Lord, hunt that thing down. It must have only been born since Heroes only started to emerge in the past five years. Bring it to me, that thing has its uses.” The Prophet stood up and walked toward the mural depicting the five temples behind her chair. She said as she looked at the mural.

“Don’t fail me again, Hero of Lightning.”

“It shall be done. Prophet.” The knight walked out of the room while clenching his fists.