Chapter 147 Volume III - Chapter 68: Toward the End of the Dungeon
"Alex! The rope's breaking!"
"Wh- what?! H- Hel... Huh?"
Alex stopped when he saw me smiling and about to laugh. Then he turned around without saying anything. Then... with a quick movement, he took out a needle and brought it to the rope I was tied to.
"Okay, okay! I'm sorry, I'm really sorry! It's just... you were so open that I couldn't help myself."
"Tch."
Alex put the needle back in and I smiled.
There was a huge, open window just below us.
"We're going in. We'll probably be fine, but be careful."
And with that we went further down and went in through the glass. As we entered, we were greeted by a truly enormous room, but that wasn't the main thing.
The important thing was that the room was literally covered with runes. The walls, the floor, the ceiling and a door at the other end of the room that was the entire length of the wall... Everything was covered in runes.
"This..."
Alex admired the runes more than the room itself. The previous thought of heights seemed to have completely slipped his mind.
"What is this place...?"
"The room with the door that leads to the heart of the dungeon."
Alex approached the door along the wall covered with runes and placed his hand on it.
"The heart of the dungeon..."
He paused for a moment.
"No wonder you need my skill. These runes... They're so complicated, so intertwined that you can hardly understand anything. There are ones that are just there to confuse, ones where you have to solve one stage before you can solve another, and more..."
Without even blinking his eyes, he looked around like a little boy who had found a new toy. Smiling, I put my back to the wall and let myself fall to the floor.
"Good luck then, you take it from here."
Alex waited in silence for a while.
"Lheal... That plant is behind this door, right?"
"Yes."
He clenched his fist and focused resolutely on the door.
"Okay, just sit and wait."
He took a deep breath and closed his eyes. For a moment, I felt that the mana in the room was strange.
It wasn't like the mana was concentrating on him, it wasn't increasing in purity or anything. It was just... a strange feeling.
It was as if the world, in which we had been traveling like a grain of dust until now, had suddenly shifted its focus to us. The mana in the atmosphere was suddenly still, looking at Alex. No... it was waiting for him.
Alex slowly opened his eyes.
His eyes, normally brown, were now silvery. He used to have ordinary, if sharp, eyes, but now... it was like he was someone else. Those eyes felt like eyes a human shouldn't have.
It was as if he wasn't looking at me with those eyes, but into me, into the depths of my soul. They were clear, calm and cold, as if there was nothing I could hide from them.
This is the greatest power Alex holds. A power that it is impossible for anyone who knows the details to envy him.
Alex's skill not only allows him to see things he can't normally see with his eyes, it allows him to slowly acquire the knowledge he wants about everything he sees with his eyes, as long as he has the mana to do so.
For the simplest example, when he wonders how hot the weather is, he can get this information by activating his skill. When he sees someone who is sick, he can find out what their illness is. He can pinpoint someone's age and even get a glimpse of their skills.
There are limits to this skill, though. He can only learn objective things, he can't glimpse any of the subjective things, and on top of that, the skill has some taboos. Things like looking into the future, knowing when someone is going to die.
Of course, it needs an enormous amount of mana to do the things it can do, and the skill has some major flaws. Flaws like, for example, that when the owner dies, the skill can be taken over by the person who killed them. It's quite obvious what people who know about it would do to get it.
And then there is a much, much bigger flaw, and that is precisely why, even if I really admit that I am jealous of the skill, I could never take it for myself. Taking it would mean that even if it doesn't affect me now, in the future my actions would be severely restricted. Having that ability in my possession would ruin all the plans I have made and will make for the future.
Anyway...
"How many hours do you think it will take?"
Alex spoke, his eyes shimmering with a silvery color as he looked back and forth between the runes, never losing focus on them.
"I'm not sure, but I'll probably run through my mana a few times... at least... let's say six times. I'm guessing it will take me about five hours minimum."
"Five hours..."
"Exactly- Aha!"
Alex focused even more on the runes, as if he suddenly understood something.
"So that's how it was..."
"Have you solved the first stage?"
"No, of course not. If I could do it that fast, it would have been done in an hour at most. I only figured out the meaning of a few runes, especially some of the runes that will get me started. For example..."
Alex raised his hand and held it out toward one of the runes by the door. The mana flew out of his hand and into the rune, and he activated it. In an instant, all the runes in the room lit up, and in a short moment they went out. Then, like a heartbeat, they flashed a few more times and suddenly patterns began to fly around the room.
They swirled and swirled around the room, literally bursting from the runes all around. Alex studied each of the motifs carefully. His eyes were like ruffles, spinning everywhere at a fast pace, and some of them would stop a little longer than usual and then move closer to him as he transmitted mana to them. Alex was making new runes from the motifs he collected, connecting them like a circuit and incorporating them into the rhythm of the heartbeat in the room.
It was a truly spectacular sight. It was quite a show and I could have sat and watched it all day long.
Although... there's nothing else I can do anyway, so I'll do what I said I would do.
Alex continued the process. Minutes passed, hours passed, but he didn't even rest. He drank who knows how many mana potions, and I started to wonder if he would vomit them up after a while, but he didn't. As time passed, the room became more magical and mystical. The motifs became more and more varied, spun and spun, and the mana spread throughout the room.
Mana took shape after shape. The inside of the room became a riot of colors, different motifs paired with each other to form runes, which slowly formed into a gigantic formation inside the room. Some of the runes shimmered on the walls, others, already glowing, faded.
It was marvelous just to watch. But no matter what, everything had an end.
Almost six hours passed. Alex drank mana potions continuously to keep his mana in balance, he might even have exhausted the supply because it had been a while since he last drank a potion.
His eyes were bloodshot. Literally bloody. The first blood came from his eyes half an hour after he started the procedure, and it intensified several times as time passed.
Nevertheless, Alex continued without rest. Even if I tried to stop him, I didn't touch him, knowing that he wouldn't stop, no matter what, with the plant that would save his mother behind the barrier in front of him.
"Alex, will your eyes and mana hold out?"
In spite of these words I said at the sixth hour, Alex did not respond. He just continued to do his work and I decided not to disturb him. I leaned back and closed my eyes, focusing on the general aching in my body and trying to get used to it.
At this moment, the riot of colors in the room suddenly intensified and I reflexively opened my eyes. Alex had his hands raised, looking like a conductor leading an orchestra. The silvery gleam in his eyes slowly began to fade, sweat beaded on his forehead and his eyes began to tremble.
An intense excitement suddenly made me forget my aches and pains. Alex was finally finishing the job.
Some of the motifs floated and swirled in the air. Then, they suddenly disappeared like dust. The flying colors began to recede into the formation of runes and the mana in the atmosphere was drawn into the room.
Outside, the snowfall suddenly intensified, thunders echoed, and were accompanied by the roar of monsters.
Alex seemed to be struggling even more as he bit his lip, the veins bulging around his eyes.
As Alex continued, I sat up from where I was leaning and approached the open window through which we had entered the room and looked out. Nothing could be seen because of the blizzard.
Considering the clarity of this place just five minutes ago... this formation is something that affects the whole dungeon. But it's also strange how effective it is.
I turned around again and continued to watch the process.
All the color in the room had been absorbed by the formation. The formation itself was almost the size of the entire room.
Only a few seconds later Alex suddenly started coughing. He released his hands, which he had used to channel the mana more easily, and fell to his knees. The silvery glow above his eyes gave way to its original color of brown, and his eyes teared rapidly, a sign of the pain he was in.
Wiping away the tears that mingled with the blood, Alex collapsed. His eyes were closed, breathing rapidly.
"Are you oka-"
My words were interrupted by the sudden flashing of almost half of the runes in the room, followed by an earthquake-like tremor. I quickly crouched down on the floor, just in case, and waited until the tremor subsided. Outside, the storm became even more violent and the thunders echoed one after the other.
The runes lit up again, blinking a few times rhythmically like a heartbeat, and then suddenly burst into flames.
The door, the only obstacle between us and our target, shuddered with a heavy frictional sound as the runes began to burn, and began to retreat, first backward and then to the right.
An involuntary smile formed on my face.
"You did it, huh…"
"Of course, I did."
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