"Stop!" The figure shouted. "Don't kill me! Do you know who I am?"
Salem burst out laughing.
"If family connections could save you, there would be a lot less death in the worlds." Salem said.
"Please!" The figure shouted.
Salem curled a shadow around the figure's throat and severed its head.
"He was weaker than I anticipated." Salem noted.
"Or you're just stupidly strong." Alina laughed.
Ruby stabbed her still-flaming sword into the figure's head, partially illuminating its grotesque facial features.
In the flickering light of the flames, the figure's eyes seemed froglike and bulging, its mouth stretching from ear to ear, with a long tongue extending past its pointed teath, and its nose was nowhere to be seen.
"Ew." Ruby said, taking a step back. "I had wanted to kill him myself, but now I don't want to touch him again."
"Let's just leave him here." Salem said, taking care to position himself away from the creepy figure.
After taking care of the obstacle that was the frog man, they now had another in their path.
The massive doors that guarded the Frost family's vault seemed to be protected by a puzzle.
"This'll be fun." Salem said, rolling his eyes and examining the puzzle.
The puzzle was a riddle. It read:
"I am a warm embrace
I am a cold hand
I am revered as much as I am feared
I am a release
I am peace
What am I?"
"Oh this is easy." Salem said. "It's death."
The door silently slid open.
"Why would it be such an easy riddle?" Alina asked, examining the walls for signs of traps. "Is it meant to lure us in?"
"Probably." Salem said, blocking the door with a nanobot cube the size of his torso. "This ought to help."
Reassured by Salem's confidence, Ruby led the way through the dark hallway behind the doors.
After walking leisurely for almost sixty seconds, the hall opened up into a massive circular room with a roof so high it was enshrouded by darkness.
Around the entrance there were neatly organized shelves full of gold, silver and jade items.
"There shouldn't be enough space in the mansion for this." Salem said. "It feels like they're manipulating space here."
"It does seem that way." Ruby agreed. "And just as a precaution, let's not touch anything, purely because it might be linked to the spatial formation they must have set up here. Break a part of the formation and we all are reduced into dust."
Alina quickly retractedher hand that was about to pick up a jade slip.
"Let's leave as soon as possible then." Alina said.
"Not so fast." A voice above them said. "You can't leave unless you haven't taken anything."
"What about the Frost family?" Salem asked. "How do they take things?"
"They leave items of equal or greater value behind." The voice responded.
"Who are you?" Salem asked in order of importance.
"I am the soul of this vault." The voice responded. "And if you break my one rule I'll kill you all."
"Charming." Salem noted.
"Quite." Ruby agreed sarcastically.
"Can you point us to the book for the Body of Immortal Frost cultivation technique?" Salem asked.
"What will you give in return?" The voice asked.
"I'm not going to take it." Salem said. "I just want to read it."
"How do you plan on practicing it then?" The voice asked.
"I'm full of surprises." Salem responded. "Why would I need the book?''
"The book is the coldest thing that my million years of life have allowed me to discover." The voice responded rather helpfully. "The cultivation method requires one to have as cold of an environment as possible."
Salem proceeded to pull the nitrogen out of the air and cooled it into a liquid, storing it in a small canister.
"What is that?" The voice asked.
Salem responded by opening the canister and pouring it into a nearby goblet.
"What is that?" The voice asked excitedly.
"Liquid nitrogen." Salem responded.
"What is nitrogen?" The voice asked, faltering on the syllables of the element.
"It's an element that is present in the very air we breathe." Salem said. "We breathe it, but it doesn't really interact with anything in our bodies."
"That container is equivalent to the cultivation manual and whatever else you may wish to take." The voice said. "This will contribute greatly to my cultivation."
"Glad to be of help." Salem said. "Where's the book?"
"Follow the path until you feel the cold." The voice said. "You may only take the book if you are capable. I cannot make this easier for you."
Salem shrugged and led them along the dimly lit stone path.
They walked for a great length of time before they began feeling the chill coming from the book.
"Do we...Just follow where it's coldest?" Salem wondered aloud.
"You do indeed." The voice responded instantly.
"Cool." Salem said, leading them through the icy mist that had condensed around them.
They followed the cold breeze until their bodies began collecting frost.
"Wow." Salem said. "That must be one cold book."
"Your liquid nitrogen is colder." The voice noted.
"Probably." Salem agreed. "It's hard to defeat seventy-seven degrees Kelvin."
Salem covered the three of them with flame infused nanobots.
"Why do we need this?" Alina asked.
"Comfort." Salem chuckled.
They continued steadily walking. Every step closer to the book made it more difficult to see.
At long last, Salem was able to just barely see through the fog enough to see a sky blue scroll floating at about chest height.
"I thought it was a book." Salem said.
"It is." The voice responded, confused.
"Your definition of a book and mine are very different." Salem noted, reaching out to pick up the book.
He picked up the book with no trouble whatsoever, easily lifting it closer to his eyes for a better look.
As soon as he lifted it to his eyes, the scroll abruptly warmed and unrolled in front of him, displaying itself for easy reading.
The fog that made it hard to see vanished, the wind stopped blowing, and the room warmed noticably.
Upon the scroll, the meaningless scribbles began arranging themselves in a recognizable fashion.
"You got the scroll to read in the language of Ancients!" The voice exclaimed. "You must be a powerful master."
"I personally think I'm still weak and ignorant." Salem said, memorizing the contents of the scroll.
"How can that be?" The voice asked disbelievingly. "You clearly understand the language of Ancients. Anyone who understands it must be powerful!"
"I just grew up with it." Salem responded flippantly.
"You mean to tell me that you learned the language of Ancients, a language that follows an entirely different structure than our own, when you were young?" The voice demanded.
"Yes." Salem said, replacing the scroll in the air it was hovering previously.
"Teach me." The voice coalesced into a transluscent blue figure that was kowtowing in front of him. "I can learn."
"It's not that you can't learn, it's that I don't want to bring you along." Salem said. "And please get up. I don't like people prostrating in front of me."
Alina looked like she wanted to dispute that but held her silence.
"I understand.'' The little spirit said, now kneeling. "Could you at least teach me a little before you go?"
Salem nodded.
"Is the ground part of the spatial formation?" He asked, gesturing to the ground beneath the scroll.
"No. It's just ordinary stone." The little spirit responded, confused.
Salem nodded and proceeded to write in the stone with a finger as if it were sand.
He wrote:
"Is cold merely the absence of heat, or a force unto itself?"
"I can't read it." The little ghost said sadly.
Salem gave a rough translation.
"How does that pertain to the cultivation method?" The spirit asked curiously.
"It helps you choose your path." Salem said. "A path of burning cold, or a path of jagged ice. The choice is yours."