Chapter 184: Exploration (3) (1/2)

Chapter 184: Exploration (3)

Translator: LeoEditor: DarkGem

The dirty floor was covered in dust, which made the dark red blood trail very conspicuous.

Angele did not find any other strange things in the room.

He followed the trail of blood to the wall.

It seemed like the blood came from the other side.

The surface of the wall was gray with a silver glint to it. Angele raised his head and saw a head-sized glowing sapphire inserted into the surface of the wall.

The clean blue light cast a reflection on Angele’s robe, and on the sapphire, there was a hidden bloody handprint. It was quite difficult to see and Angele assumed that the handprint was left there by the injured person.

He raised his hand and pressed on the sapphire.

*Crack*

The sapphire was pressed into the wall and moved to the left, revealing a small hidden compartment.

A thin book with a yellow cover lay in there quietly. There was nothing written on it, and it looked old.

Angele grabbed the book and found a set of black metal keys under it.

There were about ten keys hanging on a silver key ring, the sizes, and shapes of the keys varied. It seemed like they were used for different locks.

Angele tied the keyring to his belt and opened the thin book.

‘April 12th. I arrived at this new ruin we found. Master Mahamt of the sect found this place and captured it. It’s a ruin of an ancient organization named Axis of Time. The place is nice and the weather is great, but for some reason, we can’t find any creatures on the island. It’s strange. As a member of the sect, I have to obey the orders… I really miss my wines…’

‘April 15th. Our supplies arrived and everything is proceeding well. There are not many of us here, but we're important to the mission. I want to write down more, but Haner asked me for help in the laboratory. I’ll leave it here’.

The next several pages were missing. It looked like they were torn off by someone, but Angele already knew that this was a diary of one of the Two Head Sect members.

He kept turning the pages, skipping the records about daily life.

Angele reached the end quickly.

‘It’s July already. Quella told me that his pocket watch stopped working and he wanted me to fix it. Seriously?! Those gear wheels inside had broken into pieces and there was nothing I could do. Too many explosions had happened in the laboratory… Quella complained that the items crafted by the mortals were too weak… and I have nothing against that opinion’.

‘Something isn’t right recently. The captains arrived at the facility and put restrictions on several areas. What are they planning to do? I haven’t seen them in years, and they want to take everything from us? We contributed the most to the project, and they’re not allowing us to enter the area with the rarest resources… I’m a wizard too, I need to find a way to enter those areas someday…’

‘October 11th. I finally acquired the keys to the restricted areas. God, it takes ten keys to open all the entrances. I’m preparing to enter the area today, wish me luck’.

That was the end of the diary. Angele turned the book around but did not find anything on the back.

He grabbed the keys and found that the word '4' was engraved on each of their handles in Anmag.

Angele knew something unfortunate had happened just by reading the diary. The man's mission had probably failed. He checked the diary again and found a well-drawn map of the ruin. Each of the areas was labeled with names, and five black circles were marked in the corners. Numbers from one to five were written inside each of the circles.

The number four circle was not far away from the laboratory.

Angele opened the diary and read the last several pages again.

‘And they’re not allowing us to enter the area with the rarest resources…’

The wizards sent to the ruin by the Two Head sect failed to completely explore the ruin and for some reason, they set up restricted areas to store the rare resources. Angele guessed that they might have found something else in those special areas and the secret was reported to the leaders at higher positions.

The wizard who wrote the diary had probably died when trying to break into the area four, but Angele did not understand why his diary and keys were still there.

He rubbed the map with his fingers slowly.

‘Should I go there?’

Angele hesitated. Based on the information he acquired from the diary, he was certain that something was wrong with this ruin. However, it seemed that if he wanted to maximize the number of resources he could get, he would have to enter the restricted areas.

‘I need to proceed with caution, those areas aren't restricted for no reason. Better rewards come with higher risk… Damn, I wish I could reach the next stage now so I could learn some better damage spells…’

Angele kept thinking and in the end decided to check the areas outside those circles. If things did not look too bad, he would use the keys and go inside for rare resources.

He scanned the diary and stored the information into the database, the whole process taking about a minute. Angele then threw the diary back into the hidden compartment. With a flick of his finger, Fire energy particles ignited the book. In the bright orange flame, the diary turned yellow, twisted, and became a pile of ash.

Angele turned around, left the laboratory, and returned to the tunnel. The place was extremely silent, he could not hear anything, and he doubted if the air was circulating.

The floating fireball on the left side of his face only brought him minimum visibility.

He recalled the map he just read and located his current location. Slowly moving forward under the dim light, he reached another crossroad.