Chương 54: Testing Artificial Waters

With his son back at campus, WARHOL [Teleported] himself back to his secret cave under his civilian home, The Grotto. Surrounded again by the depth of purified earth and thousands of layers of protective and privacy-focused glyphs between he and the outside, Warhol breathed easy. He incanted a [Clean] spell and his whole outfit, chest plate, boots, cape and everything, returned to a Like New condition.

He waved his fingers and the kettle threw itself on the fireplace as it erupted with flame while the tea canisters and measuring spoons fitted the filter with the exact number of lose leaf spoonfuls he liked. He sat in his wheeled chair with the nice goose down and moaned easy at again having the comforts of home. Well, his secret base, but the two were one in the same, so what difference did it make? He closed his eyes and thought on the swamp encounter. It came down to this: he expected more from his son.

Why did he expect more, though? They had surprised him on Murder Island. Converted bandits into god-fearing souls, tamed a monster, even, all while pacifying resistance from the abominable Bandit King. He just figured his strategizing would have been better than what he saw. Then again, did it matter? Wasn't the whole purpose of the excursions to grind levels for the boy? Had the swamp not taught the boy about status ailments? Or about the need to be aware of how the enemy reacted to elementally infused attacks?

That had to have made an impression.

"I can't overthink this," he sighed.

"I have artifact stuff to look into..." Warhol reached into his personal dimensional pocket and withdrew the spiky, spherical artifact. He again made an impressive purification array and overwhelmed the artifact with heaps more cleansing magics than was needed to clean it of its remaining, deep-seated corruption. Not letting up with his purification incantation until he was doubly sure it was scrubbed of any and all negative and alien energies, he wasn't taking any risks this time.

By the time he stopped with his incantation, he had to rest and snack to restore his mana; was it overkill using as much as a quarter of his mana in a single cleansing complex? Absolutely! Was it necessary? Also, yes! Warhol brought the artifact to one of the backrooms. There, he tested it for hidden clauses which old-world artifacts often had, inscriptions, essentially, that dictated how the artifact could be used and the conditions of that use: he found inscriptions on its inside dictating its clauses.

He was surprised to see the clause was simple: The artifact was of belonging to Null, the War God, and would allow him to 'convert' the spiritual energy of monstrous creatures for his own benefit. What those benefits were, however, he didn't understand; also, although Null's name was as clear as day, there appeared, in a script he couldn't read, another name, a name which appeared to call upon an Eldritch Being. How that could be when Eldritch Beings had left the world thousands of years ago, he did not know.

There was a lot about this artifact that was unknown — its creation, how it was lost from the world and ended up in space, what its purpose was aside from its implied benefits, whatever such were, concerning monster-energy conversion. If he wanted to understand this artifact, he would need to commune with Null himself, which was a problem in itself since few Gods, let alone Null, notoriously reclusive, talked with mortals anymore. Prying use from this artifact would mean a series of dangerous, subtle experiments.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it. Which was fine by him! If there was one thing Warhol loved in life, it was experimenting! Besides, how often did one get to tinker with something as powerful as an artifact? That's right, not often indeed! He disconnected the artifact from his many hand-built scanning tools. If he wanted to probe this thing for use-value, he had to get out into the field.

Warhol opened a portal to the Flatlands — a huge stretch of prairie in the Western Continent — and stepped through with artifact in hand. Warhol placed the artifact on a boulder, the only thing of its kind for miles. He would know, he [Searched]! A [Float] incantation later with an [Indomitable] for good measure and he was ready to begin testing. The thing with artifacts was one never knew how they would react to magic. Some might absorb the magic without incident or simply bear the brunt of the spell.

Others might react... explosively to said spell and cause a chain reaction which could blow up an entire city. It was hard to tell. Out here, though, he would be safe, and others would be safe, should the artifact have hostile intent in mind. Warhol incanted [Fireball] at the artifact; seconds later the fiery sphere slammed into the boulder-bound artifact. And — nothing happened. Next, he incanted a [Ice-Spear] spell. The ice struck and was immediately melted. Nothing else.

"Huh. Most artifacts are touchier than this fella, it seems... strange. Bit refreshing, though." He next tried the whole range of elemental magics: [Wind Bolt], [Earth Whip], [Water Ball], [Lightning Strike], [Dark Decay], [Light Ray], [Neon Shatter], [Cosmic Crunch], but no matter what he tried, nothing worked. Only a final element left — [Void Encapsulation] — he braced for another failure. This time, however, when the spell hit the artifact, it emanated a brilliant dark sheen, like if sunlight could turn dark.

His spell vanished in an instant, however, and left the artifact unscathed. He made a mental note: 'Void Element — works?' Of all the elemental incantations he tried, only Void had any effect on the artifact, which meant, he needed to try all manner of void incantations upon the item. He tried hostile incantations, buff-oriented incantations, and defensive-oriented incantations, but nothing was produced anything outside of that bleak sheen when the spell impacted the artifact.

His final incantation was a nearly useless spell called [Void Heal]. He had only bought it in the Holy Shop because it was on sale in a suite of Void Incantations and he had points to spend, so why not? Functionally, the spell had little application in the real world since it negated healing incantations, but only on Voided Entities; despite his long-lived life, Warhol had never encountered a Void Entity. His spell hit the artifact and boy, did it produce an effect!

That same dark sheen as before emanated from the artifact. This time, the incantation came with a reality-shaking rumble. How the artifact could effect the heavens and earth, he could only speculate. Yet it was clear as day to him — when his spell reached the artifact, the device had absorbed the spell, produced light, and caused reality itself to shake, as if a child had shaken the world trapped in a snow globe. A terrifying thing to witness.

He blinked back down to the artifact and observed it before picking up: "Nothing out of the ordinary," he mumbled.

"Condition, pristine. No steam or heated marks upon it. Looks normal. Huh." Once it was in his hand, it was cool to the touch. Another unusual tidbit. Normally, if artifacts produced chaotic effects, they were impossible to hold after, the strain they produced causing their bodies to bear extreme temperature or elemental conditions that would prove untidy to human hands. This artifact? Its shell was cold, but that was it, not even inhuman levels of cold, just chilled.

"An elemental, Void artifact, aligned with Null, and possibly an Eldritch Being," he summarized.

"One that reacts to rare void healing incantations. Yup. No doubt about it, this thing is trouble!"