Chapter 852 The Underground Palace <TOC> Chapter 854 A Familiar Place
Translator: SumTLMan
The chain hammer was a masterpiece, and according to Rosset, the next time the precious droplets fell, it would be the weapon they intended to craft.
However, Angel merely glanced at the chain hammer, focusing his full attention on the stalactite at the tip of it.
The stalactite’s shape was similar to the other stalactites in the underground palace, resembling an inverted mountain, its color as pure and white as jade bamboo.
In terms of appearance alone, Angel didn’t notice anything special. Moreover, he didn’t feel any energy fluctuations. After observing for a while, finding nothing, Angel launched himself into mid-air for a closer look.
Whether it was the sensory perception of his mental tendrils or the close inspection with his naked eye, he saw nothing. Even when he touched it with his hand, it felt like ordinary stone.
“Are you sure this is where the stalactite fluid drips?” Angel looked at Rosset inquisitively.
Rosset nodded, “Lord Wizard, I personally witnessed the transformation of Tavel’s Wrath of Mularshil ten years ago.”
Rosset began to meticulously describe the situation at that time.
Back then, the Knight’s Sword was just a common Knight’s Sword, without such a flashy name, but in terms of appearance, it was already an artistic treasure. Rosset, based on the records of the previous King of Shannon, had calculated the timing and waited in the underground palace for half a month, finally witnessing the transformation of the Knight’s Sword.
That night, without warning, Rosset felt a gust of hot wind coming from the stalactite, and upon looking up, he found a droplet of liquid, emitting a fiery red light, forming at the usually dry top of the stalactite.
The liquid emitted an intense heat, and Rosset immediately guessed that it was a droplet of elemental fire.
So he began contemplating a name for the combination of this droplet and the Knight’s Sword. By the time he decided on the name “Wrath of Mularshil”, the precious droplet had already fallen onto the Knight’s Sword. The sword emitted a bright red light for several seconds before gradually returning to calm.
After listening to Rosset’s narrative, Angel couldn’t help but rub his temples. This guy seemed to have missed the point, focusing on his process of naming, from “Dragon of Fire,” “Flame Heart Eye,” and how it eventually transformed into the final name.
Although Rosset’s focus was somewhat skewed, Angel was basically sure that Rosset wasn’t lying.
There must be something peculiar about this stalactite.
But what the peculiar thing was, Angel found hard to discern for the moment. Even when he looked with the Eye of Nalda, he found nothing unusual.
As Angel found himself at a loss, a recollection from Rosset’s description dawned on him – the elemental aggregate fluid mysteriously appeared atop the stalactite.
Surely, such a sudden appearance required some sort of conduit?
With that thought, he decided to examine the structure of the stalactite’s apex. Upon inspection, he spotted an unusual detail – a minute hole at the very tip of the stalactite, smaller than an ant’s burrow, comparable to the size of a needlepoint.
Given the stalactite’s porous nature, Angel had previously overlooked it. However, the location of this particular hole – right at the top – sparked his interest.
Could this possibly be the channel through which the elemental aggregate fluid emerged?
With this notion, Angel fine-tuned his mental tendril, delving into the narrow aperture. As the hole extended inwards, Angel’s mental appendage stretched deeper and deeper.
The hole was long and winding, and eventually, it extended beyond the current stalactite, even reaching beyond the confines of the treasury…
As his mental tendril probed further, Angel’s heartbeat quickened. He felt the endpoint of this hole might indeed conceal the secret of the stalactite fluid.
No wonder he had previously been unable to detect any trickery around the stalactite – the primary subject wasn’t even there!
Angel had already begun to speculate:
Could the end be a concrete manifestation of elemental aggregation? Or, as he had surmised before, a Mysterious Object? Or even some other fantastical treasure?
However, when Angel’s mental tendril finally reached the terminus, he realized his conjectures were entirely incorrect.
There were neither treasures as he had imagined, nor any traces of elements. Instead, it was…
A door!
Or rather, a door painted on a piece of paper!
It was not a true door but a thin piece of paper, on which was drawn a detailed door. The door was adorned with an array of marvelous creatures: winged sprites, electrically charged mice, turtles with fishtails… Nevertheless, these creatures all shared a common characteristic – they all appeared to be in their elemental forms.
The artist had masterfully delineated these elemental beings with a stroke of the brush.
Angel had not anticipated in the least that the end of the hole would lead to a painted door.
What could lie beyond the door? Angel ventured to extend his mental tendril towards the painted door in cautious exploration.
As Angel reached out with his mental tendrils, the eyes of the elemental creature drawn on the canvas suddenly moved. A delicate spark of electricity danced from the painted mouse, followed by the fiery breath of a dragon that engulfed the doorway in a halo of flame… Ice arrows, bolts of lightning, jets of flame — all elements of nature assaulted Angel’s mental appendages.
A wave of intense pain washed over him, darkening his vision, and he found himself tumbling from the sky.
Fortuitously, Toby reacted quickly, erecting a gravity line net to catch him. Had he fallen without this safety net, the fall might not have been fatal, but it would have been embarrassing, to say the least.
It took a while for Angel’s vision to clear and his pale complexion to return to normal as he stood up.
The elemental creatures depicted in the painting were not particularly powerful, but his mental tendrils were quite fragile, easily overwhelmed by their elemental attacks.
Indeed, in the Wizarding World, few possess strong mental power. Angel was considered above average.
“Lord, are you alright?” Rosset and Tavel exchanged glances, asking cautiously.
Angel waved them off, feigning nonchalance, “I’ve been overworking these past few days, using too much mental energy. I think I’m just fatigued.”
Rosset nodded, not pressing the matter further.
After resting for a while, Angel decided to venture into the painting again with his mental power.
This time, he hovered cautiously at the entrance, finding that as long as he didn’t probe into the painting with his mental energy, he encountered no problems. But the moment he moved slightly forward, the elemental creatures in the painting immediately emerged to cause mischief.
After many fruitless attempts, Angel had no choice but to temporarily abandon this path.
He exited the treasury and arrived at a corner of the underground palace, silently looking up. The entrance should be right above him, he contemplated whether to resort to brute force.
Stealthily, he extended his mental tendrils upward, not through the hole, but directly through the ceiling above.
But as his mental tendril touched the stone ceiling, a bad premonition tingled from the tip of his tendril. A shudder ran through him as the tendril that had made contact with the stone ceiling was suddenly vaporized.
Last time, his mental tendril was merely injured, this time, it was severely wounded. It felt as if his soul had been torn apart, the intense pain caused Angel to fall to his knees, curled up in agony.
It took two hours for Angel to recover.
His complexion was even paler than before.
He began to understand that the only way to open the door seemed to be through that hole. Any other route would result in complications… Why this was the case, he couldn’t figure out, but he suspected some powerful entity had set up a restriction.
As for his previous idea of using force to break through, he now dared not even consider it.
If Angel wished to traverse any of these tunnels, his mental tendrils clearly could not withstand the onslaught of the elemental creatures. Unable to pass that trial, he would never manage to unlock the door.
Unless… his physical form could shrink enough to enter.
With his physical form, he could completely ignore the elemental creatures. However, the only method he knew to shrink his physical body was the spell of transformation.
And the spell of transformation was reputed as the most challenging spellcraft. Even more so than many other spells.
With a sigh, Angel concluded that he was currently unable to enter through that door.
What lay behind the door? Why was there a painted door left there, and who painted it? These questions itched at Angel’s curiosity, as if a grand secret was hiding behind the door.
Perhaps, the “mystery of elemental disappearance” might indeed be resolved beyond that door.
After all, no one would believe that the Old Land Continent could breed elemental creatures. Even though they were merely painted, the flames that scorched and ice arrows that attacked were all too real.
Furthermore, the secret of the elemental aggregation fluid might be tied to the mystery behind the door.
Though he was temporarily unable to access the door, Angel was not content to simply give up. He began to meticulously question Rosset about the stalactite.
The Shannon royal family had presided here for countless generations, they must know something.
Under Angel’s detailed questioning, Rosset, in order not to offend Angel, eventually relayed some of the tales passed down through the generations.
However, as Rosset spoke, he often strayed from the main topic. When he was discussing the first generation discovering the stalactites dripping elemental fluid, he would detour to talk about a certain beautiful daughter of the royal family who was famous as one of the four great beauties of the Goldfinch.
At other times, he would discuss the name of a certain sword, conceived by many people after deep thought, the mere mention of which still resonates today.
Rosset loved to gossip about the royal family of the time, completely oblivious to the fact that he was revealing the private affairs of his ancestors to outsiders. If their spirits were still around, they would probably be unable to contain their rage.
Angel wanted to interrupt Rosset’s narratives, but he was worried that doing so might cause some key information to be lost. So he endured the gossip that made him roll his eyes.
After listening for a while, Angel’s only thought was: the more glamorous, the more corrupt.
Moreover, whenever Rosset spoke of some romantic secret history, he never stopped making that “hehehe” lecherous smile. He did not possess the demeanor of a country’s ruler at all. Instead, he looked like a sleazy man who had peeked at a young woman bathing and felt it was worth it, even if he got beaten up for it.
In the end, it was Princess Shannon who could no longer bear it. Whenever Rosset started to veer off into inappropriate topics, she would smile, remain motionless from the waist up, but stomp hard on Rosset’s foot with her iron boot.
Finally, after Rosset had been trampled several times by Shannon, Angel heard a piece of information from him.
“Actually, apart from the gentleman, there was once a peculiar person who came here.”
“He might have been a transcendent, too.”
Chapter 852 The Underground Palace <TOC> Chapter 854 A Familiar Place