Vol. 2 - Chapter 18 - Fortress Ruin Vault

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The banquet kept on going for more hours until the food was finished. One thing was for certain when the villagers left the banquet, they did with wide smiles and brimming with satisfaction.

Meanwhile, Elder Aridai, quickly turned to the players, giving them quests to clean the aftermath of the banquet which the later part gladly took it, enjoying some more EXP from who they called 'Santa Clauss' for bringing them gifts ahead of time.

Orpheus left together with the innkeeper's daughter, still talking with her in a friendly manner, retreating to advance on what he was doing, while Ape Wine moved toward the forest to hunt some beasts to keep on gathering experience and grow along with the rest of players.

As for Mathias? He retreated with his family after thanking the elder for the high honors he received, moving back to the Arundell House, Eirene also followed them, where the cavalry leader Ulmo acted as her bodyguard, not saying anything else besides giving Mathias a cold stare.

Mathias followed suit by grabbing Theo and walking together where he whispered to him to not stress him too much.

"Little Theo, it will be fine. This little girl just wants to talk something with you, be honest and make a good impression. Elder Aridai and I had to do some convincing to have her agree."

"It wasn't needed, big brother. Sigh, what should I do? What if I get nervous?"

"You'll be fine. Believe in yourself and your dreams and you'll see how fine you will be at the end." said Mathias while ruffling his hair, and after some minutes the entire group arrived back home.

Soon after, Eirene asked for Theo and herself to talk alone, which Jasmine guided them to her salon, leaving after guiding Eirene inside. After she returned back to the main room, she gazed at Mathias, before telling him.

"Dear, I don't know if I should praise you or nag you for what you did. Hah, I hope everything will be good and it doesn't cause any trouble with the Duke House."

Ulmo, the cavalryman leader who was also inside the main room, turned his attention on Jasmine, remarking to her.

"Lady Jasmine, this is up to my lady. My Lord has given her the freedom to decide for herself. However, this might be interpreted by the other noble's houses by being associated with the Arundell Family. Even though Arundell Family is an influencing family, you are in the end commoners and this association between my Lady and that son of yours can create aftereffects."

Mathias shifted his gaze at the cavalryman who was a level 205 NPC, and with a calm voice, he told his mind.

"Lord, I don't wish for the young lady to take my little brother to Grenhaler if it will bring harm to both parties. Instead, if the young miss would bring a book and guide Theo in her visits to Cidarian, it would not bring suspicion to the noble houses."

"That thing. You are not wrong. It might be the best approach, but this if my lady wants to guide that boy. With no disrespect to Lady Jasmine, but you must be fully aware of what it means for a noble to be associated with a commoner, especially a young lady and a young man."

Jasmine remained calm, not bothered by the knight's comments, and only gave him a nod.

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Meanwhile, inside the salon room, Theo guided Eirene to a comfortable chair at the worktable, saying with an apologetic tone to the young miss.

"Lady Eirene, I am sorry that you had to be dragged into this mess by my brother and Elder Aridai. If you dislike this idea, I will be fine. I know that in the future if I pursue this dream of mine I will become a great doctor."

Eirene, who was slightly bigger than Theo, looked at him with interest, as she listened to his apology and also him trying to delude from the idea that he wanted to become her disciple.

"So, you don't wish to learn from me?" asked Eirene after listening to Theo talk, shutting him immediately, which looked comical, making Theo shutter a bit from nervousness.

"Of course, I want to, but I am a commoner, will it trouble you if people know you are teaching someone like me?"

"Okay, this is all I wanted to hear. You will come with me to Grenhaler and act as my servant, to disguise this premise I am teaching you the craft of the Great Mage."

"Wait, what? But, my lady, wouldn't that trouble you?"

"It will be fine, people will only know you as my servant. However, don't worry you will not become a real servant. It is just the story we will tell to the people who ask questions. Ahh but before that, I will have to tell father and get his agreement, otherwise it will be hard to explain to him if I bring you home."

Theo could only look down, embarrassed of the idea of burdening this young miss, however, he didn't decline this offer, grabbing on his straw since it was the best possible scenario for him.

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They kept on talking with Theo still remaining shy being this close with Eirene, which made the young girl even more curious. Once they walked from the salon, they were welcomed back by everyone staring at them, or specifically at the door.

"Aunty Jasmine, I will have to get father's agreement, and once I do, the next month I visit Cidarian, Theo can come along with me to Grenhaler."

"Are you sure my lady?" asked the knight the young girl, who nodded her head, moving out from Arundell house after bidding her farewell.

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Following the departure of the young duchess, Mathias turned his attention to Theo, where he asked him if there was something changed, to which the young boy filled his family with what he and Eirene discussed.

"Haha, brother, you will become a servant? I can't wait to see your sulking face." said Aendyr starting to make fun of Theo, who got embarrassed.

"You find it funny, little one? I got your training also covered since I am preparing to leave Cidarian by night. You will be under the mentorship of Guard Captain Odyr until I visit you and see your progress. You better don't slack, future Red Knight, or I will look down on you once I become the Commander of Saharan Empire, Red Knights."

"Ahh, you already found someone to train me? Wait, is that uncle who is a farmer?" asked Aendyr, quieting down from his laughter, staring at Mathias with big eyes.

Smiling to hold off his chuckle, soon things calmed down, and it looked as things returned to their normal.

By the time night arrived, he spent his time talking with the Arudenll family. Right before making his mind to leave, he gave Jasmine half of the monetary rewards he received from Elder Aridai.

"Keep them, safe mother, use that gold to spend it on the education of those two pups. Aendyr needs training equipment, and while sir Odyr said he will train Aendyr for free, some coins would drive him to give more from himself. As for little Theo, I will not be here to wish him good luck on his journey, but that gold will also be part of his allowance."

"Son, there are 100 gold coins here. Are you sure you don't need them?"

"I don't, those two need them more than me to achieve their dreams."

Looking at the window, where it was night, he gazed back at his family, and patting Theo's and Aendyr heads, he told Jasmine and Charles.

"It was a pleasure meeting you guys. Next time, I return I promise I will bring Fayrene with me. I don't know when that will be, maybe in half a year, or a year? However, we will keep in touch."

"Big brother, please stay for one more day." said Theo next to Mathias, which made the young man next by to ruffle his hair.

"If I stay won't Fayrene get upset with me for making her wait too long for me?"

"I understand."

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When he was ready to leave, all the family went to the courtyard gate, sharing their last moments with Mathias, who give them an embrace starting with Charles, and also telling them.

"Father, don't forget about the cheese, but it is fine even if you forget about it. I will remind you on the letter in the future, so better check them. Also, don't forget what we talked."

"I will not, thank you for the good time we spent together, son. And take care of my daughter when you arrive on Titan." said Charles, tapping Mathias back, where later the young man returned to Jasmine, where he gave her a pure warm smile.

"Mother, it brought me a lot of pleasure getting to know you, talking and working together. I really don't know what to tell you, as if I mentioned everything on my mind."

Jasmine went to give Mathias a hug and later arranged his long hair, as she was doing that telling him with some emotion.

"Son, be careful on your way to Titan. Gravelmark is still full of unknowns even to us villagers of Cidarian. Maybe you should stay until tomorrow when it will be morning."

"I will be fine. Right, I almost forgot, I left you a gift on your fabric cabinet, by the time me and Fayrene return to Cidarian, I am expecting to see a new invigorated Master Tailor with desire to bring to greatness the art of tailoring."

Jasmine tried to keep her emotions in check, as she caressed Mathias cheeks, nodding her head, and after saying his last words to Jasmine, he lowered himself on his knees taking both Theo and Aendyr in a hug.

"Boys, I will not be home to watch you, but I want to believe you learned some things from me. As for my parting words, just follow your dreams and be good, listening to father and mother."

"Visit us often, big brother." said the two boys sniffing, containing their crying, to which Mathias just got them closer to him, keeping quiet, as he calmed down.

"I will."

"Take care everyone, and stay healthy." said Mathias after separating from the twins, and giving Jasmine and Charles a last bow.

"You better keep in touch and don't forget what you promised me." said Jasmine with a smile on her face, which made Mathias laugh while nodding his head, and only after that, he departed from Arundell family, still laughing in a merry way.

The Arundell family watched from their gate as Mathias was no longer in their view, before returning to the warmth of their house.

"It will be fine. Is not like he will disappear and never appear. Now, you two have also become busy with work, so don't complain in the future."

"Yes, mom."

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Walking on the path toward the Eldeyin Forest, Mathias returned himself to that silent environment. Even the wild beasts as he went on toward the mountain, couldn't be spotted, as if their population declined exponentially. It was a good sign, reducing his worries, but as he passed by the center of the forest, where not too far was the 'Spider Lurking' instance, he stopped for a moment and talk with himself.

"I am level 23 while that Lurking Spider is only 35. Sure, but what if that monster also grew in strength? I can't be the only one leveling up the monsters here also level up with time. Sigh, I should not disturb her as I promised."

Ending his conflicting moment, he walked the forest path, only encountering at the end of the forest some wild beasts that instantly fled when noticing Mathias, even the annoying Forest Owls had chased from disturbing him, and so turning his journey toward the start of Gravelmark Heights base quite the enjoyable hike.

It took him about 3 hours to hike the entire forest of nonstop walking, and after he when he arrived at the Fortress Ruins, he chose to explore those ruins with the intent of finding anything else beside what the bandits managed to dig.

As soon as he got to the Fortress, he found some giant rats that scavenged for what leftovers was forgotten by the bandits in their camp.

[Giant Rat - Lv. 17]

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Seeing those rats, lurking around this fortress, he didn't think too much into it, since nature had its way of balancing things, thus when the bandits were defeated by Mathias leaving a vacuum in this region of the Gravelmark, it was also the moment the rats arrived.

Nevertheless, he stopped for a brief check wondering from where those rats came from since when he moved from the forest there was total silence.

Bringing Ragnius out and buffing himself, waiting for his mana to recover from the spell casted, he sprawled to action killing off the rats which sounded some alarm, scattering the rats in all directions, it got chaotic for him too keep up with the fleeing rats which gave him absolutely no experience, about 5 EXP per kill.

Seeing no end to this scene, he quickly acted by using his arcane energy to brand one of the rats fleeing.  That arcane brand was more like one of the runic letters from the Ancient Tome, but once he marked that fleeing rat, he could feel his presence and also sense his location, as if he just unlocked a sonar.

"I didn't expect that to work. Ahh, let's move on after those rats since the energy I feel starts weakening. It could be something about the amount of energy I put on that brand since I consumed only 50 MP for that."

Quickly entering inside the fortress, and arriving in front of a destroyed passway filled with rubble, he noticed in the right corner of that rubble, a gap enough for a human of normal proportions to fit in.

"There must be something hiding behind these rubbles, otherwise I can't explain this gap made for someone to enter inside and explore. It must be the bandits who cleared out and explored the forest, and maybe got their hands on that vial."

Lowering himself down on the dirty floor, he looked at the hole, but couldn't see anything, just after he sent a flicker down the gap made from arcane energy it illuminated the gap like a firework in the dark sky. What he noticed was a dead end, or better said a wall where some rats moved around.

"Seems okay for me to slip inside." remarked Mathias, taking his hat off and placing back on the inventory before starting to crawl in the gap, slowly and steadily.

[You have suffered 15 damage.]

[You have suffered 12 damage.]

The rats that started becoming cornered by Mathias acted upon instincts as any creature that only had three options, freeze, fight back, or be submissive, and so, attacking and biting him.

'Ahh, annoying bastards. If I pull the barrier I might collapse those rubbles on me. Endure, their attacks are nothing.' reprogrammed his mental state Mathias, trying to ignore the stinging pain from the rats biting his legs, and all over the places.

Once he got away from the entrapping enclosure, he activated Arcane Barrier which blasted away from his body all the rats that took on the taste of blood.

*Screech*

From above his head bats started screaming, from the disturbance created by Mathias activating his defensive spell which illuminated the hallway he was currently in. Still, taking note of the bats which were level 20 mobs, he gazed with a serious expression, waiting for them to attack him.

In the end, the bats calmed down when the intensity of the arcane barrier lessened, and didn't follow suit in attacking Mathias.

'There are so many bats here. Never in my life have I seen such a scene. Only in documentaries, did I spot such a scene.'

Shaking his head, he saw a rat who tried to rush back to attack him, but with an already annoyed mindset, he sent that rat flying with a leg kick, as if it was a soccer ball.

Getting out Ragnius he started to slaughter the rats, and also build up with the minuscule exp they offered Ragnius which was already (74%) from all the fighting he did from the moment he was reborn for the live version, and following the branded rat, he could see there was more to this fortress.

Walking and making a turn after the end road, he could see something akin to an underground vault that had its door opened. Not wasting any time, he lowered himself stepping into the vault where he could see an underground study room.

Using his arcane power to light this room, he could see the mess it was, and also the rats moving around like they were drugged. However, he ignored them and walked toward the center of the room, where the skeleton of a person was on the floor, with a book on his study table still open.

When Mathias placed his gaze on the page, he couldn't understand a single thing, with the words being in a foreign language unlike the common humans spoke.

"This should be elvish. I wonder what happened here and what this book is."

Mathias couldn't get any information from the book even after touching it, it was all in [???]. Nevertheless, as he spent more time in this room, exploring it, he saw a lot of glass tanks of human size all broken, but getting closer to those tanks he could see some human parts.

Minutes passed and the more information he gathered from this place, it only required a book that was written in the common language for him to understand a bit what was this place.

[Journal of Experiments]

Year 976, Month of Silversight, Day 13, My Castle has been constructed after buying the dwarven slaves from the market. Today, after settling most of the insignificant administrative rights, I went to kickstart my studies on eternal life. The elven book contains words I can't decipher.

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Year 977, Month of Suren, Day 22. After one year of studies, I could only decipher certain words, maybe I should use some elves for my studies, and speed up my research in deciphering the book. In the meantime, I decided to use the books I managed to get from the Yatan Servants to progress on my eternal life quest. The progress is small, but I started to get the hang of building a new life that will be the catalyst to eternal life.

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Year 978, Month of Teysuren, Day 14. The progress is small, I still couldn't get my hands on the elves. ...

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Year 979 …

Year 980 …

Year 981 …

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Mathias read carefully each of the pages and slowly he was creeped out by the content he was reading, about the wicked tests he would put the captured people he would chain in this room, and testing his crazy ideas on them. He remained in place, and even his arcane barrier, which waned off, made the atmosphere darker, with the only source of light being Mathias's index finger shining, making his reading easier.

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Year 1001

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Year 1016, Month of Truefrost, Day 7. After all my tests, and all those years that have passed, I am but only an old man with desires of immortality. I am ready to try the immortality spell on myself. Also, I managed to get my hands on an elf, after all these years, and force him to confess to what the book that grinded my heart meant. That elf could only be useful in translating some pages, before not having an answer for the rest of the words.

What the elf could translate was about a letter where some Leylin addresses his future students, mentioning some names that don't make sense to me, before ending his message with some blessings, leaving at that, while the rest is undecipherable. However, I no longer care, it is just some insignificant book written by some fool, I will soon become closer to gods with my spell.

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Mathias turned the page but couldn't see a continuation to the notes taken by this Great Mage of the past, and was left with a blank story.

"So what happened to you? You got scammed by the Yatan Church and some Great Demon, and got yourself killed in the process of some unattainable wish?"

"Hah, Immortality? Why would you want that, just to suffer the passing of time, losing anyone close to you?"

"Even those experiments of yours seem like they turned you more into a brain-dead old man who would do everything without questioning the information, and if it is worth something. Probably that Vial even comes from your failed experiments, but you were just too preoccupied with your immortality to even write it down, sad.

Still, those magic books of yours will do wonders for me and for Fayrene's dream. I'll not let them rot in this cellar."

Speaking his mind, he activated the arcane barrier, and with a constant source of light showing ahead of his field of vision, he began taking all the books from the library of this wizard of the past, without having much clue what they contained, and only after cleaning out this vault of its contents did he move out, getting outside of the fortress.