Chapter 652: Inner Chambers (1/2)
The Dimensional Seed had been the ultimate goal for so many people since its existence was discovered, and Zac was finally standing right in front of it. Just looking in its general direction made Zac’s mind scatter again, forcing him to turn his head away. The treasure might not be actively dangerous to interact with, but there was still a vast chasm in terms of grades between them.
It was just like with himself; if he completely unleashed his aura next to someone at Level 1, they would probably die from the pressure. And the difference between him and someone who hadn’t started cultivating was probably a lot smaller than the difference between him and the object hovering two hundred meters in the air.
Zac didn’t know what he expected the spatial treasure to look like, but he did realize that taking this thing might have been a fool’s dream. First of all, he wasn’t even sure he would be able to even get close considering how intense its energy fluctuations were. Secondly, it was pretty big, much too big for the box he had spent an exorbitant amount of money on.
The Dimensional Seed looked like a pulsating black hole, whose oscillations contained the breath of pure Dao in a way that made Zac's brain almost short-circuit when he tried to understand what he was looking at. Its diameter fluctuated between ten and thirty meters, so unless there was some sort of smaller core in the heart of that anomaly there was no way it’d fit inside the box. Not that snatching this thing was his main goal.
Besides, it felt all-too-apparent after seeing this treasure that it would bring more problems than it was worth. Something emitting spatial fluctuations this powerful probably couldn’t be stowed away in a Spatial Ring, and it was only a matter of time before some old monster learned of it and became greedy.
A treasure like the [Eye of Har'Theriam] was extremely rare and had amazing effects, but its use was ultimately limited to E-Grade juniors. Yet it had caused Yrial endless troubles when it was exposed. The thing in the heart of the chamber was clearly meant for higher-grade cultivators, and Zac couldn’t even imagine what kind of storm such an item would elicit.
Zac shook his head and instead started to inspect the rest of the enormous chamber. There seemed to be a thousand pillars rising from the ground, all of them pointing toward the Dimensional Seal in the air. They were roughly five meters across at their base, but they turned to thin spears at the end. It was the same with the domed walls and ceiling, with spikes hundreds of meters long all pointing toward the heart of the room. There was even one twenty meters above their heads, angled upward.
The spikes weren’t placed completely uniform though, and Zac almost got lost in thought as he looked at them. It felt like there was some hidden meaning to the pattern they created, like they formed some sort of array. The meaning was far beyond his understanding, but Zac had an idea what they were there for; to suspend and seal the Dimensional Seal.
The pulsating anomaly was trapped inside a sphere seemingly made from thousands of different Daos. Each pulse made the barrier flutter, but it was clear that the containment shield was stopping most of the energies from escaping. Perhaps it would have been impossible for them to stand in this place without the pillars keeping the treasure sealed up.
One thing that made the thousands of spears stand out from all other Technocrat tech Zac had encountered so far was that they seemed to run on something other than Base Power, or that plasma energy that the Little Bean used. It was rather Dao that ran through the metallic spears. It wasn't Spatial Dao though like what the Dimensional Seed emitted, but rather all kinds of mysterious energies.
It made Zac realize that it might not actually be the Dimensional Seed that was the source of those ripples before, at least not the sole source.
“This…” Kenzie whispered as she looked around with shock in her eyes. “It’s so similar…”
“Similar to what?” Zac asked with confusion since he had never seen anything like this.
“Ah? Nothing,” Kenzie shrugged.
Zac slowly nodded before he turned to Rhubat.
“Can you sense something? Are they here?” Zac asked.
With hundreds of thick pillars covering the ground, visibility was even worse than in a forest and Zac couldn’t see further than a hundred meters on the ground. A whole army could be loitering on the other side of the innermost chamber without them having any idea of it.
Not only that, but the spears also gave off a weird humming white noise that made it hard to just hear each other when standing next to each other. Zac would probably be able to scream at the top of his lungs without exposing their location.
“We can’t sense anything. Between these pillars and the treasure itself, our senses are almost completely blinded,” Rhubat said with a shake of its head. “It’s like standing in the middle of a sandstorm.”
Zac hesitantly looked around the chamber once more, not sure what they should do next.
“Let’s scout out the room, make sure we're the only one here. Perhaps we can set up a trap if we can figure out where the others will come from,” Zac eventually said.
The group didn't spread out in case there really were others in this place, rather opting to stay together as they walked between the spears. A few of them emitted Daos that felt completely foreign to Zac, whereas others felt a bit more familiar. He gazed at the thousands of spears, and he couldn't help but wonder if all the main branches of the Dao under the System were represented in this chamber.
Was it perhaps possible to find the pillars that were related to his own path and use them to progress further?
”They are powered by Origin Dao,” Kenzie murmured. ”It's not true insight, but rather a forced mimicry... Still...”
“What!” Rhubat suddenly exclaimed, starting Kenzie out of her musings. “There is someone inside the anomaly!”
“Impossible,” Ogras blurted as his eyes darted up, but he was immediately forced to look away again.
Zac tried to forcibly look at the Dimensional Seed with [Cosmic Gaze] to see what Rhubat was talking about, but it was even worse than staring straight into the sun. Kenzie summoned a handful of drones, and a video feed appeared on her screen as she tapped away. The image kept shifting like she was adding various filters, and Zac’s eyes widened when he could see a vague outline of a person for a moment.
Someone was really sitting on top of the Dimensional Seed and was hidden by the powerful emanations.
“It's true!” Kenzie exclaimed. “They are even inside that inner shield! How can anyone withstand that?!”