Chapter 1510 - Learning From The Past (Part 2)
'The Eyes of Menadion are an amazing tool.' Lith thought as Solus's new form revealed to him a well-hidden dormant array.
Usually, an inactive magical formation was impossible to detect without wasting the mana necessary to cast an array detecting spell and the time to study its findings.
On top of that, the Eyes also showed him the focus points of the magical formation, making it a child's play for Lith to destroy them and deactivate the array with minimal effort.
The Adamant cylinder and its runes were no trap. Lith and many members of the expedition had found quite a lot of them already.
Back when the city had been built, there was no such thing as dimensional amulets so that the Urgamakkans needed the cylinders to safely store important documents and preserve them from the passage of time.
'What's in it?' Solus asked.
'A tier five Spirit Magic spell.' Lith replied after translating the ancient language with the help of a book that every member of the expedition had received and that he had stored inside Soluspedia.
'It's a bit rough around the edges and some parts are abstruse, but with Faluel's help we might turn it into a fine addition to our grimoire.'
Every time they discovered something new, they would take a break to contact the Hydra, ask her for guidance, and get some rest from the Eyes.
Unbeknownst to them, they also gained merits in the form of plus signs that piled up beside Lith's and Phloria's holograms.
Not everyone shared the same deep bond of trust with their mentor, however. Many young Awakened would keep anything they found for themselves, sharing it solely with their companions.
"This is the best mission that the old fart has ever assigned to me." A Sprite said to his fellow Fae. "So far, we've found Spirit Spells that will allow us to crack the secret of true Spirit Magic and artifacts that despite their age are still quite good."
"Shouldn't we call our respective masters and show them our loot?" A Dream Lotus, a humanoid Fae that looked like a brown-skinned youth with petals for hair, asked.
"Why should we do that?" A Titania replied and the others nodded with a sneer. "They didn't teach us how to get a violet core nor true Spirit Magic. All of our masters have worked our assess off and yet they gave us artifacts so crappy that they are barely better than millennia-old junk."
"Agreed." A Wisp of Will said.
He was actually a firefly that after Awakening had gained a shiny humanoid body that closely resembled Solus's energy form. Due to the fact that insects would rarely get along with Beasts, he had chosen to group up with the Fae.
"I say that we keep this stuff for ourselves. None of us has been chosen as an heir so rather than gifting the fruits of our hard work to those ungrateful assholes of our masters, I say that we should take our time studying them until the end of the expedition.
"This way, if we fail to decipher them, we lose nothing by sharing our findings. If we manage to crack their secrets, instead, we can pretend that we came up with such spells and artifacts on our own. It will raise our status in the Council!"
The group agreed unanimously, gaining several minus marks each and greatly embarrassing their masters. The youths had covered themselves with a Hush spell, but even that couldn't keep their words hidden from the surveillance arrays.
"These people were amazing!" A bright blue-cored Nue said while reading a scroll that described a breathing technique that was supposed to lead to the violet core.
"Indeed." A Behemoth in her human form said. Claws were terrible for handling delicate objects, let alone paper.
"Some of the stuff we've found is actually superior to the techniques our masters taught us. Once we update them with modern runes, we will be unstoppable."
While negative marks poured all over the fake city of Urgamakka, the two Liches laughed so hard that sometimes they died due to the lack of oxygen, and then they came back to life a few seconds later.
"Great joke, Zolgrish. You really are a bag of fun." Time and death had made Inxialot forget the real cause of his hilarity.
"Me? Wasn't it something your beloved Gravy said?"
Before the Liches started quarreling again and endangered Ratpack's life with their spells for the umpteenth time, he showed them a replay of the latest events on the displays of the control room.
"Oh, yes. Those morons. How can they believe that past magic might be stronger than modern techniques? It would require everyone to sit on their thumbs for decades, letting the magical research go stale." Inxialot said with a sneer.
"It's as dumb as expecting to find the blueprints for a spaceship inside an ancient ruin." Zolgrish replied.
"That's not true. They would actually find one if they searched my home. Nero always says that my lab resembles an ancient ruin."
"Don't be silly. A Lich's workplace doesn't count. We keep working through the centuries and improve our skills. I'm talking about ruins filled with corpses." Zolgrish replied.
"But we are corpses!" Inxialot pointed out.
"Wait, Raagu right then? Cat talks?" Ratpack was flabbergasted.
"Of course not, silly undead." The Lich King laughed. "Nero just leaves me notes to remind me of buying him food or to point out some mistakes I make in my calculations."
"The cat writes?" Ratpack stared at the feline in amazement.
"Well, duh! I taught him!" Inxialot, Zolgrish, and Nero laughed at Ratpack's stupid question.
"Cats no write and they no laugh either!" The small undead pointed at the absurd creature sitting on the lap of his equally absurd master.
"Stop making a fool out of yourself! If cats didn't laugh, how could they express their joy? All the cats that I have ever met laughed." Zolgrish said with the confidence of a man who couldn't tell a feline from a Dryad.
***
Later, at sunrise, after a short nap to unburden his brain from the effects of the Eyes of Menadion, Lith and Aalejah walked away from the camp to a private spot where no one would disturb their experiments.
Due to the fact that the Council couldn't use anything but automated defenses to protect an allegedly abandoned city, as long as Inxialot behaved there would be no sudden senseless attack.
Thanks to the carefulness of the members of the expedition, Lith could afford to not reset Invigoration's effects and use Abyssal Gaze to refine his deep violet core non-stop until sundown.
Phloria would remain behind to keep guard while also using the link between the two pieces of the Eyes to record the training sessions and help Solus by sharing her burden.
All Lith had to do was to place his equipment in a convenient position from where Solus could take a good look at the experiments.
"I think to know why none of our efforts panned out." The elf said. "Even though your Tiamat form is bound to share the powers of its three components, that doesn't mean that they don't get in each other's way."
"I think we should change your training method. From now on, shapeshift into an aspect of your choice and we'll try to find the bloodline abilities it possesses."