Chapter 112: Ancient structure (1/2)

Layn never liked cultivation. Not because of how much power one could derive from it. The archmage simply couldn't accept to acknowledge a force that could only be used in fights.

That was the most pressing problem that Layn had with cultivation in general. In order to achieve any phenomena other than boosting one's physical status, one had to not only reach a suitably high cultivation base but then also learn all sorts of techniques.

When compared to magic, cultivation was just too stiff to be useful.

Taking the current situation as an example, with cultivation alone, Layn would drown thrice before reaching his destination. As it turned out, the lake was not only far wider but also far deeper than anyone expected. And it was this difference in scale that made Layn commit his first blunder.

'I forgot water diffuses magic a little bit differently,' Layn mumbled through his tightened teeth while breathing calmly. Surrounded by a set of seven different barriers, he couldn't afford to waste his oxygen mindlessly.

Diving lower and lower, Layn could see the pressure of the water pressing harder on his barriers. Under this force, all seven different barriers of his seemed to merge together, creating a single, thick entity that not only shielded the archmage from any form of physical or magical attacks but also working as a toxin filter and oxygen generator.

'Finally there' Layn thought when his feet finally touched the solid ground. Around two hundred meters below the surface, the lakebed was completely dark. As if he was blind, Layn could only use the faint aura of the core to guide his way forward.

And soon, the floor beneath Layn's feet broke down, forcing him down some sort of cave.

”Where the hell am I?” Layn instantly turned around, only to notice a line of gentle light illuminating the insides of the cave. A moment later, he managed to notice the general shape of the area after removing all the rubble from his imagined picture.

'A corridor of sorts?' Layn thought while moving down the place, following the trail of light.

Soon, he reached a downwards slope, a slope that likely used to be filled with stairs.

'So I need to go even deeper, huh?' Layn thought to himself before giving his shields a moment to regenerate the oxygen and taking a dive into the slope.

Several meters down the construction, Layn finally found something interesting. At the end of the corridor that he was traveling through, a massive room appeared. It was also the first place that was fully illuminated, allowing Layn to see how grand this place used to be.

High above his head, the dome spread for over a hundred meters up. Wide at fifty meters, it should fall under the pressure of the water above it… Yet no such thing happened. And the reason for it was quite obvious.

The structure of the dome was supported by a set of crystal arches, four for every quarter of the dome. Each of those arches had a crystal line connecting them to a huge crystal centerpiece that hung from those lines, roughly twenty meters above the floor.

It was also the first place where the water didn't access yet, allowing Layn to step on dry ground.

”Just what is this place?” Layn asked himself while pushing towards another corridor that he spotted on the other side of the dome.

Inside the structure, Layn could no longer navigate his way just by following the traces of magic. What he took for a single source of energy disturbance, turned out to be a complex structure with at least several provisional cores all connected in one single network.

Or at least, that's what Layn expected to find further into the structure, as otherwise, the whole place wouldn't make any scientific sense.

'Unless it doesn't follow the physic and magical rules that I know off,' Layn thought grimly, worried even about considering such an option.

'I knew it was possible ever since I first heard of this desert,' Layn approached the entrance of the corridor… Yet, he refused to enter. He stood by the wall instead. He then wiped the mud from the wall to reveal a complex image underneath it.

'So, I guess my guess was right,' Layn thought as he uncovered more and more images underneath the mossy dirt that covered the walls. 'For this kind of moss to form from the moisture alone… Just how long was this place here? Was it moved underneath the lake or did the lake cover it all?' Puzzled by his findings, Layn constantly attempted to make a sense out of it, only to fail over and over again.