Chapter 380

Although his initial urge was to immediately withdraw from the chamber and examine the resonance, Nick knew that taking out the problematic artifact could cause a stronger reaction, and he had learned his lesson about meddling with the local magic too much.So he ignored the low hum coming from the Final Temperance, the grimoire containing the chronicles of the deity Semreh, and took a moment to explore the ancient ritual chamber.

The mana here felt stagnant, having been left untapped for a long time. It was a unique sensation because he could tell that great works of magic had been performed in this place, yet it held no strong intent, no significant message left behind for him to read.

Lifting the Shard up, he illuminated the ceiling and was unsurprised to find a much more complex runic circle inscribed on it.

Grateful for the time he’d spent learning Irvinic, he gradually started translating the strings, walking around the room with his neck stretched upward as he worked.

“Through hubris can humanity reach beyond their limitations and achieve , but that very same hubris brings about their downfall,” he read, squinting at a particular rune he’d not encountered before.

Still, he didn’t need to know the details to understand the meaning. As he continued reading, similar passages were interwoven with more traditional ones designed to enhance mana flow and stability.

“This might actually be an honest-to-god relic,” he murmured. With how active magic was in this world, it wasn’t often that ancient magics were revealed, since old monsters capable of imposing their will upon the World still walked the land.

The longer he studied the room, the more convinced he became that it had been the site of many years of experiments, some of which the caster wanted to keep hidden from the judging eyes of higher entities.

It was the only reason he could think of that would justify so much effort in shielding the chamber. As far as he knew, Berea had only pushed this far south a couple of centuries ago, which meant this room predated its presence.

“It is still working as intended,” he finally concluded. The runic magic was old and had gone unattended for a long time, but it remained intact, and its presence explained why he had been unable to sense the chamber’s presence, despite having walked above it.

The dungeon’s interference in the ether definitely had something to do with it, but he still should have felt something if the runes hadn’t been working.

Only when he was certain the magic wouldn’t fail on him did he finally feel comfortable summoning the Final Temperance out of his storage ring.

The grimoire appeared with a flash of golden light, reacting more strongly than at any other time besides when he was learning .

It floated in front of him, its pages flipping on their own until they reached a specific point and stopped.

With some caution, given that divine magic was involved, Nick stepped closer and peered at their contents.

On the night before the fourth day of the sixth month, Semreh, dressed as a respected healer, resumed his travels, confident that his people would not suffer a short absence.

His journey took him through various communities, where he kept up his charitable work, tending to the elders, healing the sick, and spreading hope.

On the twelfth day of the seventh month, he reached a new land, a humid, dangerous place where his Word had not yet arrived. Still, the people there were healthier than anywhere else he had been, and curious about why that was, he asked a wise woman.

She, recognizing Semreh as a being of pure intentions, led him into the depths of the Mire Swamps, where a strange man lived.

This man was known to wander off in search of new knowledge sometimes, she explained, but often enough, he would spend his time as a healer, taking care of the surrounding villages who, in turn, looked after him, keeping him well fed and maintaining a low profile.

At that time, the Mire Swamps were the last patch of civilization before the Southern Mountains and the Plains beyond, which were frequently fought over by rival clans trying to wipe each other out.

Semreh journeyed into the swamps, searching for this mysterious healer, eager to exchange knowledge with him to improve his own skills or provide better support to the locals by teaching the man.

At the center of the dangerous land, he discovered a simple hut where a man lived alone, tending a small herb garden and fishing from a surprisingly clean pond.

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The two, despite never having met, recognized each other as powerful practitioners who had risen above the limits of ordinary men.

They exchanged many words and meals, studying and discussing topics no other man could understand, until Semreh felt he knew the other better than himself.

Thus, he asked, “Why do you hide yourself in this wasteland when your people would welcome you with open arms?”

“Because I have been working on something they would not understand,” the man replied, and after some prodding, revealed his grand work.

He’d been conducting a study on the nature of power, with the deliberate aim to allow any man to break free from the chains of mortality.

Intellectually, Semreh valued the work, but he warned the man that it was too dangerous. Breaking the barrier between humanity and its nature artificially, when the soul wasn’t ready, could summon terrible powers.

But the man refused to listen, and after another day, Semreh left, continuing his journey to spread health and his message to everyone.

The book snapped shut a moment later as soon as he finished reading and went inert, forcing Nick to grab it out of the air.

“This is a lot,” he muttered, trying to come to terms with what he’d just read. He’d already suspected the nature of the Well, given Calder’s memories and what he’d been able to piece together of the Hones’ motivations, but now he had confirmation.

In the end, it didn’t really matter. What he knew was that this Well provided a way to break through to Prestige without fulfilling all the natural requirements.

That alone justified House Hone’s war against every other noble in the region. If they could monopolize the source of such a priceless resource, their future would be all but guaranteed.

It also meant there would be no reasoning with them. Whatever they thought they had to do, they would do. This was simply too big a deal to let morals come into the equation.

Nick spent a few more minutes impressing the runic chains into his mind, confident that he would be able to repurpose them someday, before finally returning the Final Temperance to his ring and heading toward the side corridor he was pretty sure would lead him to an exit. Hopefully.

Most of the swamp’s danger wasn’t from the monsters it housed, although they were definitely capable of causing harm if underestimated.

No, the biggest obstacle it posed was the difficulty of navigation. Nick had been pushing himself hard, stretching to its limits to filter out the dungeon’s oppressive interference, but there was only so much he could learn when everything looked the same.

Still, he managed to gradually find his bearings after emerging from a tangled mess of reeds, roots, and wriggling things he’d purged with a vengeance.

Once he was finally certain he knew where he was, turning around and heading to the temporary camp his team had set up wasn’t difficult.

Unfortunately, he did not find his friends waiting for him there; instead, he saw the ruined remains of their setup.

Focusing hard, he was able to perceive the spiritual echoes and learned that, contrary to his fears, the destruction was not caused by a deadly battle between his team and the Hones, but by a group of monsters who had apparently taken offense at the tents.

Sighing out a breath of relief, Nick was still left with the conundrum of where to look now.

“If they haven’t regrouped here, it either means they couldn't or that they didn’t want to. If they couldn’t, they might have been captured or worse, and they could be anywhere. If they didn’t want to, it means they thought this place would be monitored or that they found a better opportunity.”

Those options were all perfectly possible, for all he knew. Still, if they were dead or captured and taken away, there wasn’t much he could do about it, especially if he waited here.

On the other hand, if they were still active somewhere in the swamp, he had a couple of places he could check, so Nick turned around and headed toward the black pool, where the Southern Guardian had last been.

The adventurers, especially Tessa and Ord, who had been showing signs of regretting taking the mission, might not have agreed, but emergencies called for compromises.

It took him a solid hour to get close again, mainly because the sun had set and the swamp had gotten more active, forcing him to fend off attacks from both salamanders and goblins.

“Just go down, you ugly bastard,” he grunted, unleashing another barrage of upon the tougher-than-average salamander.

The damn thing had the nerve to warble back at him, tanking two of the spells and rejecting more with a wave of muck.

Still, it was clearly weakening, and Nick only needed to press a little harder to finally pin it down.

Lightning magic, or flashier spells like , would have been useful in a situation like this, but in the eerie night that had enveloped the swamp, fighting with subtle magic was already dangerous enough.

He didn't want to reveal his position to anyone who could see, so he was limited to weaker spells, which was why it was taking him so long to kill it.

Eventually, though, he had enough, and in his frustration, pushed his emotions into the next round of , and something at the back of his mind clicked.

Unlike his usual way of casting wind magic, which allowed some flexibility in the spell's conceptual origins, this time he felt the spiritual energies flow through the rest of the matrix, altering parts and giving the entire structure greater metaphysical weight, and he knew he had finally achieved the enlightenment he’d missed a while ago.

The process was remarkably similar to , but even more instinctive, thanks to the solid foundation his soul had gained as he worked on the Tree of Life.

The spell that escaped the Shard this time only vaguely resembled a .

It was still a spiraling, piercing magic, but that was where the similarities ended. While the basic spell was almost invisible, causing only a slight distortion in the air as it moved, this new one was clearly visible in the dark, an amalgam of green winds of varying intensities.

They fought fiercely, making a hissing sound that was almost like an arrow in flight, but more resonant. The moment he released it, the recoil nearly pushed him back with force, and he knew more of himself had gone with it.

The salamander, which had managed to survive his previous spells with only cuts and bruises, prepared for this latest attempt as well. But unlike before, the spell passed through its thick skin, blubber, skull, and then emerged on the other side without damaging it, yet the light went out of its eyes.

CONGRATULATIONS!

You have developed a new spell!

+200,000 Exp

You have participated in the defeat of

+ 181,303 Exp