Chapter 234 (1/2)

Chapter 234 “Gate”

“This is… how did you do it?” Thunder, not believing his eyes, stared at the walls with his mouth hanging wide open.

On top of the walls, tens of small holes opened up and each of them contained a stone which emitted a pure white light. But not only on the wall, even at the edge of the ceiling this fantastic stones were embedded, surrounding the whole room. In the soft light of the stones, every detail within the hall became visible at a glance.

It was the first time that Ashes saw the explorer show such an expression, and seeing it immediately filled her heart with joy, “Don’t you know? By willing magical power into these stones, witches can arouse additional abilities.”

“Then what is with these stones, are they also Magic Stones?”

Thunder cautious and solemn took one piece of the light stones and held it within his hands, but even after taking it out of the hole, the light the stone released didn’t weaken to the slightest amount.

“I don’t know,” Tilly shook her head. “These stones may have been here for hundreds of years – in case the ruins have such a long history. Previously they were all hidden behind a slate, therefore not visible to our eyes. And if you want to start the unique mechanism, you can only accomplish it with a witch’s ability.”

“Wasn’t it you who lit them light up?”

“No, the ability to light up comes from the stones themselves,” Tilly grabbed another piece of the magic stones and held it in front of her eyes, the pure white light then caressed her beautiful face, “In case they were a device which required magic in the same way that the flame cannot easily leave the candle. From my perspective, besides containing these stones, there is nothing special about the holes in the wall.

“If it really is like you said and they can light on their own, and they continued to light for hundreds of years, then their value is practically unable to be estimated,” Thunder clicked his tongue in wonder. “You must know that the Kingdom of Eternal Winter produces crystals, which have the size of a fist already sell for several hundred of gold royals, but their brightness is even less than half of this.”

The moment the sailor heard such an astonishing price, their kind of gaze with which they looked at the stones immediately changed.

“According to our agreement, you can take away half,” Tilly non-committally stated as if this was none of her concern. Now that she had sufficient light, she began exploring the hall even more carefully. Unable bear seeing Tilly tear at the seaweed with her own hands, Ashes bluntly lifted her huge sword and swung it, sweeping away the seaweed on the wall as if she was simply mowing grass. A second stone embedded within the wall was quickly uncovered.

In accordance with the previous method, Tilly once more poured her magic into it. Along with a sharp and clear sound of metal clashing, everyone was amazed to see, how a huge stone slab tilted down above Tilly’s head. It was connected with taut copper ropes on both sides and in between them there were unexpectedly a neatly chiseled out flight of steps. One side of the stone slab finally stopped on the ground, while the other end led to the ceiling, looking upwards Ashes saw a saw a horizontal metal door blocking the end of the passage.

“Tilly,” Seeing that the 5th Princess didn’t hesitate to climb the stone steps, Ashes couldn’t help and shout out loud, “Let me go first.”

“It does not matter, this time it isn’t the… treasure chamber,” she quickly climbed to the top of the stone staircase, placed her hand on a magic stone beside the door, and as if was answering her, the metal door quickly opened.

Seeing Tilly climbing through the door, disappearing in the ceiling, Ashes had no alternative other than to follow closely while keeping her sword at hand.

The moment Ashes went through a hole in the roof, her eyes went wide, above the ceiling was another room, which was much smaller than the hall below, while the walls were also embedded with illumination stones – but what surprised her the most, was that there were nearly no traces of water here.

Wooden tables, chairs, shelves, cabinets… all the furnishings were still intact, they were only covered with a thick layer of dust, and she could even see some broken spider webs. The shelves were all filled with rows of books that were dyed gray from the dust. In addition to the spread-out book on the table, a cup was also placed together with a kettle, and a pen-holder. From the quill, only a lone pole was remaining and the ink had long since dried up. But even then, this room full with filled with shelves and the hall below was covered with algae seemed to be two completely different worlds.

Thunder, who was the third one to climb the stairs, sucked in a mouth of cold air when he looked around in wonder, “This is…”

“An abandoned dwelling place,” Tilly answered and took up the unfolded book on the table. She gently removed the dust from it and afterward began to look through the pages, “It seems that somebody had lived here for a very long time.”

“What is written in the book?”

“I’m unable to read it,” She shook her head and showed the book to the other two, “The text is written in symbols I have never seen before.”

“It seems that the books on the shelves are the same,” Ashes said, while removing the dust on the spines, revealing a text written in strange wavy lines, leaving her unable for her to grasp its meaning.

“We can take them back with us and study them slowly,” Tilly laughed. “By agreement, all the books and magic stones we discovered belong to us.”

“Of course,” Thunder touched his beard, “But when you have grasped their meaning, I hope you will share their ancient story with me.”