There was a gut-wrenching handful of seconds when the whole thing started to move downwards, and Sylver watched the only exit out of here become smaller and smaller until it was closed off completely. Even if Sylver knew he would eventually dig his way out of this stone elevator, the thought of being trapped underground still made him sweat.

Thankfully the pillar continued spinning downwards, in a corkscrew motion, and eventually opened up into a somewhat large hallway. The walls, ceiling, and floor were all made from that same metal/plastic material the buildings above had been made out of.

It was dark, but his [Perfect Night Vision] made it look as if everything was brightly lit.

Sylver stepped into it, and just in case, sent his shades ahead of him to scout it out. 

They returned almost instantly.

As Sylver had expected, they couldn’t see shit. They could materialize and could very easily move through the darkness, but otherwise, it was as if they were in a dungeon.

Although this wasn’t a case of mana interference, Sylver’s [Lesser Perception] felt like its range had been halved. He still had his eyes, thankfully, and he could feel things with his mana, but either by design or due to back luck, he no longer possessed a full 360 degrees of vision.

The uncomfortable shivering he felt from Mora, confirmed that he wasn’t the only one being affected by this blinding effect. Sylver could feel it interacting with his primal energy field, but he could also feel that it would react very badly if he attempted to mess with it.

At the moment it was an annoyance and wasn’t worth accidentally alerting the entity in charge of this place. Assuming it wasn’t fully automated, but even if it was, people capable of building these sorts of spells were always significantly smarter and more prepared than Sylver used to initially assume.

A mistake he paid a very steep price for and promised never to repeat.

With Mora walking alongside him, Sylver quietly walked forward and very soon found himself standing before 3 passageways. One that veered left, another that continued forward, and a third that veered right.

Luckily, Sylver didn’t need to rack his head regarding which passage to take, since there was a very convenient blue arrow drawn on the wall of the passage on the left.

As Sylver approached it, he noticed that there were 2 similar arrows on the other 2 passages that had been crossed out.

“We’re in a maze…” Sylver said, as he touched the arrow without the cross with his finger and sent a pulse of mana through it. 

He proceeded to do the same for the 2 with the crosses.

“And they’ve been here for a while,” Sylver said, as he traced his hand along the edge of the passageway.

“How long?” Ria asked, as Sylver continued feeling up the perfectly smooth edges, but couldn’t find anything out of place.

“The paint on the middle one is at least 2 years old. The paint on the one on the right is a year old, and strangely enough, so is the paint on the arrow on the left passage,” Sylver explained.

“So, they’ve just been guessing where to go, and it took them a whole year to realize the middle path was wrong?” Ria asked.

“Could be…” Sylver said, as Ria floated out of his robe, floated up to near the ceiling, and stared at an empty spot above the path that lead left.

“Can you not see this?” Ria asked as Sylver did his best to focus on the perfectly smooth piece of metal she was pointing at. 

He threw a sheet of paper and a pencil towards her, and after a couple of seconds, Ria had drawn a perfect picture of what she was seeing.

Sylver squinted at the symbols on the page, and it took him too long to realize what he was looking at.

“It’s… One of the precursor languages… In fact, I think this is the same dialect the dragon spoke in…” Sylver murmured to himself, as he once again had to beg his mind for a translation.

“The one on the left has something like “thrust, swipe, slice,” the middle one has “stab, pummel, throw,” and the one on the right has “shoot, slash, and twist…” No, that’s not quite right…” Sylver murmured to himself, as he closed his eyes and tried to reach so far back in his memory, that he may have looped around.

“They’re all verbs, but there aren’t any nouns. Why would there be a random assortment of verbs like this?” Sylver asked although he didn’t actually expect an answer from Ria.

“The only one that’s consistent is the first one. Thrust, swipe, and slice, all things someone could do with a knife,” Ria offered, and as far as explanations went, that fit surprisingly well.

Sylver strained his brain for a while longer and managed to translate another 5 words.

They fit.

Only the text on the left had verbs that could be done with a bladed weapon, the other two either spoke about 2 separate weapons or some sort of very strange chimera of a weapon.

More importantly, Sylver’s gut was halfway through the left-most passage; it was sure Ria was right, even if Sylver wasn’t. Clearly, it understood more of the words Ria had written out than Sylver did, and to his experienced gut, the connection was crystal clear.

“My best guess is I need to either be of a certain bloodline to see the text or possess some kind of special item for the text to be made visible to me… But since whatever is blocking my senses can’t affect you, you can see it as if you had the item or bloodline…” Sylver thought out loud, as he stared at the empty spot above the passage, extra hard, as if that would achieve anything.

He stored the page away, and with Ria and Mora following closely behind him, entered the passage on the left.

To his surprise, a wall didn’t close behind him, and he didn’t find an invisible barrier that stopped him from going back. Sylver could very easily leave the passage on the left, and try his hand at the middle passage.

“Given the fact that they had to guess, and seemed to guess wrong twice, can we assume this group doesn’t have the right item and bloodline either?” Ria asked as Sylver kept one hand on the wall while he walked, and Mora copied him, even if she didn’t understand why he was doing it.

“Unless there’s a different entrance, they have a key or something. Although it could be there are multiple keys, and the real test is further ahead… Anyway, since you’re unaffected by magic or Ki, this whole thing should be a piece of cake,” Sylver said, as he heard a very high-pitched screech further down the corridor, followed by the sound of something very small and fast-moving towards him.

Lots of somethings.