The Crest lit up with a golden light as the door opened up, revealing a staircase that led downwards to a basement floor.
The quartet moved down the stairs in silence, many thoughts running through their minds as they masked these thoughts with different facial expressions.
Upon reaching the bottom, another motion-sensing rune did its job and activated the mana stone-powered bulbs, allowing them to see the interior of this new room.
It was a lab, much like the one on the ground floor but possessed much more things within it.
Multiple desks with still opened papers, looking like someone had been reading them a few minutes earlier, and various magical and biological equipment of varying shapes and sizes.
Hundreds of test tubes containing different coloured liquids were lined up against the walls, with a few being half a head taller than Laurene.
And one had to note that Laurene was at least 5 feet tall!
This showed just how large these test tubes were.
The thirteen-year-old stared at the strange tubes with a bit of annoyance in her gaze. She suddenly remembered that the previous 'Fourth' had created some sort of growth control magic.
'Maybe I should use it...?'
She shook her head as her thoughts started to go in a dangerous direction, reminding herself that she was only thirteen years old and still had more time for growth.
In this lab, the quartet could see baskets with artifacts randomly stuffed into them like they were clothes meant for laundry.
"Just who lived here? Every single thing in this basket is at least B-grade!"
The mage was having the shock of his life seeing artifacts that B-ranked Adventurers over level 200 would fight to the death for, tossed around randomly.
Laurene walked up to one of the desks and opened it up, revealing a small box that contained dozens of memory gems within it.
The Memory gems were devices that Evan would describe as 'Canned Knowledge'. Just by possessing a memory gem, it was possible to view the memories or whatever information was stored within in an instant.
It was very convenient for passing information over quickly and stealthily, sadly, these memory gems weren't exactly easy to produce and were very rare so they were only used for the most important and classified information that could not be kept in writing.
Inside the desk, there were dozens of memory gems with information on various subjects, ranging from dimensional rifts to analysis of the various breeds of the 'invaders' of a thousand years ago.
'Even if the previous 'First' ordered for the information to be destroyed, she still kept some memory gems, huh?'
"Perfect, just what dad needs.
It was worth it going over to that international ball with my mystic eyes active, the other countries now believe that we have made breakthroughs in researching the dimensional rifts and the events of a thousand years ago.
This would give us the upper hand and with this, we would hold even more information regarding the subject.
When the time comes, we would be able to 'influence' things in our favour easily."
The young hero was thinking out loud when she remembered something that made her burst into laughter.
"The surprised expression on the Great Eastern Empire's emperor's face when he saw my eyes was really a sight to see.
But Marquis Randall seemed to not be as surprised as the rest..."
'Could he have met Evan or another one of the heroes? It's probably not Evan as the Great Eastern Empire is on the other side of the continent and Evan definitely hadn't gone that far at the time.
So, it's probably another one of the heroes who's there. But which one could it have been?'
Of course, Laurene could have never imagined that 'Marquis' Randall had actually come over to the Great Western Empire in secret and met with Evan.
While she was lost in her thoughts, the guard mage and the grandmaster were perusing the memory gems and after going through a few, they realized why Laurene didn't want the information here to spread.
'The chaos caused by this discovery would shock the masses, to think that the 'Invaders' of a thousand years ago might return within a few decades.'
Arnold who was close to Laurene, had a frown appear on his handsome face when he heard her monologue.
'So that was her real goal for doing that, huh?'
He was oblivious to the gaze that Laurene gave him right after as he sunk deeper into his thoughts, analysing the young hero's actions and thinking about other matters.
Laurene decided to drop the less important things and immediately tackle the main reason she came over, tapping the bracelet on her arm and summoning her magic catalyst, Venus, as she walked towards a painting on the wall.
"Domina veritatis imperat tibi."
She spoke in the same strange language that she did earlier, activating her mystic eyes as the crest within them glowed with a golden light.
Placing her palm on the painting while holding Venus, on the other hand, she began to speak a chant, drawing the attention of all the other people in the room as they watched both the catalyst in her palm and the painting on the wall vibrate simultaneously.
After a minute of chanting, the painting on the wall disappeared as if it was never there, revealing a hidden space in the wall.
A small box slowly floated out as Laurene made a comment about things being easier than expected.
'Now, this is the main part. I have to rewrite Venus' code so it listens to me and me alone.'
She opened the small box and saw the small multi-coloured orb that rested on a cushion within it. The moment she took it out, the box dropped down to the ground as if it was finally affected by gravity.
"?!"
"!!!"
The expressions of all the beings in the room except Laurene changed as they instinctively raised their guards to the highest.
"Your highness...?!"
The grandmaster unsheathed his sword and was about to take a step forward but Laurene's cold gaze shut him up instantly.
"Don't disturb me."
She turned her attention back to the core in her palm, ignoring the fact that the amount of magic power being emitted by the core was enough to make a grandmaster over level 300 fear for his life.
'If that thing exploded...'
The mage who was more sensitive to magic was in a worse situation as he knew just what would happen if that orb were to explode by accident.
'With the amount of magic power in it, I dare say that half the empire might disappear...'
If only he knew that what he sensed was what remained after the core had lost magic power over the past millennium.
Meanwhile, Laurene had multiple complex magic circles floating around her as she worked her mystic eyes to full power to decode the magic circle's true nature and formulate a way to rework it in her favour.
'Even if I have the memories of the one who made it and know how to change it, I need to be sure what I'm doing won't trigger some hidden self-destruct function or something.'
She let the magic catalyst and its core float side by side as she modified the magic circles with her hands, pulling out a magic pen mid-way to rewrite the rainbow-coloured runes that suddenly appeared on Venus' black surface.
She didn't know how long it took, but she eventually completed her task and slowly pushed the core into the magic catalyst.
There was no rejection as the multi-coloured core slowly melded into the catalyst.
"Done!"
Just as Laurene let out a shout of joy, Venus glowed with a bright multi-coloured light as the magic power that the guard knight and mage had sensed died down as if it was being rapidly absorbed by something.
Multi-coloured rune lines manifested on Venus' surface as the magic power amount reduced with each new rune line.
The magic catalyst was created to aid a near transcendent level archmage in battle, so a mere master level Laurene naturally could not use it to its full potential.
She could not even use it in that state in the first place, much less use its full potential!
Each of the rune lines was a seal that locked away the full power of Venus and brought it down to a level suitable for her to use with ease.
It was the last thing that the previous fourth coded into the core, to allow herself to use it after her reincarnation when she would have been at a lower existence level.
"Good. Now I can.... huh?!"
Laurene let out a voice of shock when the multi-coloured light died down and she grabbed the magic catalyst that had returned to its normal plain black orb appearance.
**KER-CHINKK!
It was as if a gear in her head fell into place, with decades worth of memories suddenly flowing into her head and joining her previously inherited set of memories.
The ones she already had scattered like a puzzle missing various vital pieces and the newly acquired memories fit into each of those pieces perfectly, shocking Laurene to the core.
When the memory transfer finished, the young hero dropped to her knees much to the shock of the others present in the room, but she honestly could not care less at the moment.
'To think this was the case!'
What Laurene thought were the previous 'fourth's' memories were only two-thirds of the full thing, edited in a way that she would not feel that something was out of place until she discovered the remaining one-third.
And as for the location of the remaining one-third, it was inside the core of the magic catalyst she had just fused together.
The previous fourth was a mage who kept countermeasures for almost every situation, even the possibility of her soul failing to safely reincarnate into a new body!
The core of the magic catalyst Venus contained not just one-third of the previous fourth's memories, but one-third of her soul itself!
In other words, what had gone through the faulty reincarnation magic, was only two-thirds of the near transcendent level Arch mage's soul!
She had kept the other one-third elsewhere, along with one-third of her memories in the event that the reincarnation failed!
She had even extracted her own memories to prevent her backup plan from being found out.
In other words, the soul of the previous fourth had not been lost forever!
Looking at the magic catalyst in her hands, Laurene really could not see any indication that one-third of a powerful arch mage's soul was now resting within it.
'I could refine it and use it as fuel to make Venus stronger, but that would be unwise. I'd keep it and wait until the consciousness awakens as there might be other sealed or erased memories that can't be recovered until it does.
Besides, Venus completely belongs to me now so it's impossible for her to take control of it even if her soul is embedded in its core.
At most, I would gain a sentient magic catalyst...'
As her thoughts reached that point, Laurene snapped back to reality and felt magic power wash over her body.
Looking up at the mage guard who was trying all sorts of mental magic he could on her to no avail, Laurene asked.
"How Long Was I Out Of It?"
"Your hi-!"
"How Long?"
"...A bit over five minutes."
The young hero nodded to herself before standing up from the seat she had been moved to and turning her gaze in Arnold's direction.
"What?"
"No, nothing."
'That magic catalyst is more powerful than before, even if I'm higher levelled and have a magic destabilizing skill, I doubt I can beat her if she uses that thing against me.
Besides, why can I feel a faint presence coming from it?'
Arnold scratched his hair while gazing at Venus with a look of confusion.
'Forget it, I'm probably tired from the stress.'
Little Arnold did not know that his 'Hero Killer' title was simply reacting to the soul of a hero that was held within the magic catalyst.
Laurene on the other hand was telling the grandmaster guard to send a message to her father to send the special research group over and make them sign binding magic contracts not to disclose of the details of anything inside the lab until she gave them permission to.
'We can't have them creating unrest because one idiot decides to blab about the demons too early.'
Those were her thoughts as she walked out of the base with the other three trailing behind her.
'I'm gonna have to modify all my plans...'
The young hero gazed in the direction of the Cheverton Duchy in the north as the crest within her eyes glowed with a golden light.
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