Supreme Magus

”Excellent thinking, Quylla.” Phloria said while placing food and moss at the four corners of the cave. ”Defeating the Golems would have been a hollow victory if we died right after taking care of them.”

”Yeah, but once I got the idea, anyone could have done it. I would have much preferred to help the others on the front line rather than play gardener and leave to others doing the dirty job.” Quylla replied.

”You and me both, sis.” Phloria said.

”Now you know how it feels to be me. It sucks, right?” Both women chuckled.

Lith was impressed by the Professorsʼ prowess. Sure, they had the protection of the arrays whereas he had been forced to fight inside the formation, but defeating three Golems had taken the Professors the same time he had needed to crush just one and with Morokʼs help at that.

ʼI really need a good weapon. Thereʼs only so much I can do bare-handed, especially against an enemy capable of blocking my best elements.ʼ Lith thought.

He had yet to have the time to relax that the ground trembled. Lith used Life Vision to see through the wall surrounding Kulah. A giant pillar of red light was enveloping the second building, the one from which the Golems had emerged.

ʼThatʼs an array, the question is: what is trying to achieve?ʼ

ʼBased on the runes itʼs comprised of, it seems some kind of huge self-destruction array. Too bad that because of the Golemsʼ plan to asphyxiate us now thereʼs not enough air inside Kulah for the array to work.

ʼOur array keeps the oxygen inside our camp, out there you couldnʼt light a match, let alone a bomb.ʼ Solus explained.

After a few failed attempts, the pillar turned from red to a mix of orange and black. Since it couldnʼt explode, the array made the building implode under its own weight by using earth magic.

Then, it conjured a focused mass of darkness magic that fed upon everything the armory contained until the nothing but dust and debris were left. No one had told him what the building contained, otherwise Lith would have probably started cursing on the top of his lungs.

He was in dire need of a new weapon and all the marvels the Odi had left behind were now lost forever.

The sound of the collapsing building alerted the camp, but no one was willing to go outside after such a heated fight. Lith kept staring at Kulah even after the ground stopped trembling.

The destruction of the Golems had triggered some kind of safeguard that was now flooding all the buildings with the world energy that the magic crystal cables extracted from the underground mana geyser.

Lith could see them through the wall thanks to Life Vision.

ʼWhat could they possibly need all that energy for?ʼ Lith pondered.

ʼThe world energy is simply flowing through the buildings, without any apparent effect. No new array has been activated nor the mana is accumulating in specific points to power up weapons or new constructs. Do you have any idea, Solus?ʼ

ʼNone, but we already know that inactive arrays are invisible even to my mana sense. We need to get close and cast the array detecting spell to make sure that the coast is really clear from danger.ʼ She replied.

ʼThe Odi were indeed arrogant, but they spared no expense on security. There must be something worth protecting. Maybe even the secret of body-swapping you are looking for.ʼ

Lith couldnʼt tell if Solus was more excited or worried at the idea of getting closer to an answer to his reincarnation problem and maybe even her lack of a human body, so he asked her what the problem was.

ʼI really hope this gets us somewhere, but at the same time, Iʼm very scared. Not only because Iʼm afraid that using the technology developed by such monsters could affect us negatively, but also because of the implications finding the body-swapping spell implies.

ʼThe Teks are alive, so nothing prevented one of the surviving members of the Odi to hide down here and use their bodies to prolong their lives while researching a way to once again become the dominant species or waiting for young, powerful mages to be delivered at their door.

ʼLike the members of our expedition. What if this is all a test? And not one of those ridiculous ”tests to search for a worthy heir” that the bards sing about but more like a ”test to find a body worth possessing”?ʼ

Solusʼs words sounded dangerously similar to the worries Lith had hidden for many days. According to Morokʼs story, when he first reached the ruins with a group of miners and Crystalsmiths, they had been attacked multiple times by different types of creatures.

The expedition, instead, had been attacked only once on the day of its arrival. It made sense, in a twisted way, since Morokʼs first group consisted of weak individuals, whereas the current one had wiped out the waves of Teks in a matter of seconds, hence ʼpassing the testʼ.

ʼViewed in this way, maybe the Odi werenʼt so stupid after all. The Teks could be considered the admission exam, the array on the front gate was just a test of intelligence, and so on.ʼ Lith thought.

ʼIt would also explain why the Golems had no weak point. They were the first real safety measure we have encountered and maybe by defeating them we have proven our worth.ʼ Solus said.

Lith stood there for a while, hoping that with time the flow of world energy would stop and Kulah wound go back being dormant, but even after several minutes, the situation was unchanged.

He tried going outside the barrier, but the oxygen coming from the tunnels wasnʼt enough, making Kulah uninhabitable. The Professors were resting to regain their mana, studying the Golemsʼ remains while Assistants and Soldiers continued planting new moss patches.

”It might take a few days to get some fresh air, we might as well get comfortable and catch up a little.” Phloria noticed his worried look and tried to cheer him up.

By the time Lith was done explaining to her his new theory about Kulahʼs real nature and the changes that had occurred to the city after the destruction of the second building, she was the one needing to be cheered up.

”By the gods, if you are right, then we need to get out of here as soon as possible. Iʼll have the Professors reinforce the arrays again while the cave gets filled with oxygen.” Phloria said.

”Excellent idea. In the meantime, I think Iʼll go examine the tunnels. With Kulah open, there was no time for playing adventurer, but now I have a reasonable explanation to explore them.

”If I find traces of creatures living in the vicinity of Kulah, then all my theory is just my paranoia going wild again. If I discover hidden passages or more signs leading here, instead, it will mean that our trouble has just begun.”

Lith would have really liked to sneak out of the camp to check if Solus could assume her tower form inside Kulah. It would give him an immediate escape route in case things went badly or an access point in case he ever decided to return.