Chương 11: The Oldest Complex

[Clear Vision]: the murky water before him turned clear. Well, his perception of it, anyway.

"Much better," WARHOL breathed. He was underneath the water, now. An unremarkable place. Seaweed, driftwood, a few pieces of precious metals, humanoid skeletons. All of the things one would expect from the bottom of a cliff face which had claimed many a boat and soul over the centuries. The entryway into the complex was at the very base of the cliff, tucked between boulders, and obscured behind seaweed Warhol was sure someone planted for the express purpose of hiding the passage inward.

"Didn't hide it too well, did you?" he spoke to a long-since passed somebody. The passage inward was a circular door carved into the rock. He waved his hand over the door, expecting it to open. But the door did not open. Curious. Upon closer inspection, he saw why it did not open. It was a mana lock. It needed a certain amount of mana imbued within it before it was willed open.

Such locks were rare, both in antiquity and modernity; in the ancient world, they were rare because of the artistry required to forge a lock. In the modern world, it was considered 'new' technology after having an epoch where the technology was lost. Warhol took a quick glance at his mana total: [99, 999, 999+]. He figured he would be safe. He placed both hands on the door and began to fill the lock with mana.

He thought the lock would need only one second of mana for it to unlock due to his incredible rate of output. As the seconds went by and the lock remained locked, he wondered just how much mana such a device needed. Once a full minute elapsed, he chuckled.

"What an impressive creation!" Then ten minutes went by and he became bored. He checked his mana: [99, 999, 999+]. He sighed and increased his output. He should've figured that such an ancient, huge complex would demand a significant intake of mana before it allowed him entry: he injected more mana [-10, 000, 000 Used]. It took him over thirty minutes to fill the mana lock. At the rate of his output, it must have cost millions of mana; it would have been impossible for an antiquated magic user to fill the lock.

More likely, the people of the ancient world would have needed a vast horde of specialized and leveled sorcerers before they could even dream of opening such a lock. When the door unlocked and opened, he along with a huge sum of water was taken into the doorway tube. He allowed himself to be taken into the tunnel. The sensation, the ride, all of it was quite fun. The tube way spat him out in the middle of a great, dark chamber. The floor was a mesh, lattice framework to allow water to drain back into the ocean.

It was pitch black, so he couldn't see a thing. [Clear Vision: Night Vision] and the darkness faded until it was but a memory. Nestled in the middle of the giant room was a floating power crystal whose residual energies, though only a fragment of their former selves, retained a potency that was all but unheard of in the modern world. Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator. Warhol floated upwards and examined the power crystals.

Like the entryway, the power crystal, too, had a mana lock; though he suspected in the crystal's case, it was less a 'lock' and more a 'need for power.' All the same, he pressed his hands on the crystal and injected it with enough mana to fill the magi-gems of half the world's citizens: [-1, 000, 000 Mana Used]. The power crystal cackled to life and sent energy outward in ethereal streams to lesser crystals scattered throughout the space.

In fits and bits, engravings within the chamber's floors and walls energized and let off a silver glow. The chamber filled with light and though Warhol no longer needed the [Night Vision], he kept up part of the incantation so as to ensure he saw every part of the chamber and the chambers to come. With the whole chamber revealed, he saw several passages which led deeper into the facility. Each of the doors had a mana lock.

He imbued each door to unlock it and then entered to find chambers with their own floating but de-activated power crystals. Each door a man lock, then power crystals behind each door... Warhol had a funny feeling he was going to be spending a lot of time injecting mana into this place. Well, he better get started, then... Warhol was above the complex, taking a break, and enjoying the beautiful spring day, complete with songbirds chirping in a hundred-thousand trees.

He would return to his stint as a human battery charger later, when he had some dried fruit and a cup of green tea. Even human chargers need to rest! Having finished his snack and finished sticking his dishware back into the dimensional pocket he had annexed years ago, he was about to [Teleport] back into the complex when he saw something fall from the sky. A bright streak raced across the sky — it was a meteorite!

The scientist and alchemist in him couldn't pass by the opportunity to investigate a visitor from space, rocky as it was. He raced-floated through the sky using [Levitate] until he came across the crash site. A crater of moderate size set this ream of grassy lands apart from its kin who stretched for hundreds of miles. Inside the crater was an object encased in rock. He floated himself next to the object and used a focused [Flame] incantation to slice away the space-rock.

When the space-rock all fell away, the object was revealed to be something he had long thought discovered in this world — an artifact, a relic from the ancient world of great power. The artifact in question emitted a strange power which gave its identity away the moment he noticed its unique energy signature. It looked like an ordinary athletic ball. Well, except for the spikes which jutted out from it when he tried to touch it. That alone made it very unlike an athletic ball...

He went to grab hold of the artifact but could not due to its scalding heat. He had been foolish to think he could grab hold of it using only his magically shielded hands. No problem.

"If you won't come physically," he muttered to the ball.

"Then I will pluck you like a blueberry with a magic hand!" He incanted [Ghost Hand] and picked the object up.

"Not so touchy now, are you?" Object mockery aside, he dropped the ball into his dimensional storage space and contended himself for later study.

"An artifact?" he again muttered to himself like one of those beggars milling aimless upon the street of any major city.

"From space?" The very idea was incredible. Artifacts were not know to come from space. Ask any world leader about their nation's respective artifact and they would go on a long rant about how the artifact came from one of the God's messengers or how it was made by some legendary blacksmith or looted and purified from some demon warlord. One thing everyone agreed with was that artifacts did not come from space.

"First the Oldest Complex, now space artifacts," Warhol looked to the sky.

"What is going on up there?"