Clutching the box, Hana gently opened it. She expected something strange to happen subconsciously, inside she found a letter, a much smaller scroll and several small crystals surrounded a single larger silver crystal in the center.
Inside the bottom of the box, a single silver crystal was surrounded by different colored crystals. Hana picked the letter up and started to read. "The silver crystal is a teleportation crystal, do not consume it. In case you're wondering, yes, we're doing fine. We both miss you but you have to grow up and experience something other than the City. A War zone is not a place for a child to mature. We have a responsibility, your father and I." Hana wiped her face and kept reading. "You're growing up. We might have hinted at a few of the reasons that we sent you away, one of which was your repeated request to leave and another was.. The Aura. Your aura is profound and it was becoming corrupted by the violent souls outside of the Tower City. Its very important that you know your own body. You are unique, a Child of the Espers, The Daughter of the Esper Emperor, Inheritor to the Onmyoji and successor to the Zao Family Bloodline. Each of these titles is rather unique in its own, but you child, my Dear, Sweet Hanahaksu, have them all. Your destiny, while unknown will be to one day stand beside us in your own way. We both know you have the strength to overcome demons, even the ones inside ourselves. Keep your heart as pure as you can. P.S. Your Grandfather has been personally informed about our concerns and will keep your identity hidden, do keep your head up, there is a lot to life and it doesn't all come at once. I love you Hana, Good Luck." The message ended and Hana watched the scroll begin to ignite. She let go of the ends and it evaporated.
'Mom, you really sent me a care package?' Hana smiled inside, keeping her emotions hidden. The contents were of the box were a secret, even a reaction is a tell of whether the contents were good or bad. "I had better go find my room." Putting her things away and searching the grounds for a few minutes, Hana got lost.
"Where is this?" Hana kept going down a set of stairs and they came to a dead end. 'This can't be right.'
Stretching her spiritual sense out, Hana could feel that there was a thick layer of metal below. 'A Metal cave?' She cleared the rubble up to the large and thick plate. Knocking on it made a dull thud, it was well braced and extremely large. Using a Hammer, she struck at it comically and put the thought away immediately afterward. 'Okay, not that way. There is no way that this plate goes on forever.' Hana produced a ball of black flames and tossed it onto the plate.
There was no reaction.
Feeling the plate with her hands, Hana could sense many different and refined metals mixed together. 'This doesn't feel like normal metal, it sort of reminds me of Uncle Mu.' Hana cracked her knuckles and started digging to the left along the plates edge. 'I'll find my way around, Uncle Mu couldn't trap me in the Tower, if this is his work, there's bound to be a way around it.'
Somewhere deep in a cavern at the edges of a pit wielding a great hammer, Cheng Mu sneezed.
Hana's hands were caked with mud, she cleared the debris rather quickly until she came to a large lodestone that didn't match the plating. 'This has got to be it.' Hana grabbed the hammer and started swinging. Bit by bit, chips began to break away from the sedimentary pillar. It was a very hard rock and took Hana several hours to break away. When there was finally a moment when her hammer got lodge into the pillar's edge, she noticed that it smelled of mold and mildew.
Pulling the hammer back, she took a look and saw a large flat surface. Hana shoved a Glowrod down the hole, then another. She threw thirteen Glowrods down and then began to beat the lip of the hole with the hammer. Eventually there was a gap she could fit through and Hana made her way down.
"What sort of place is this?" As she decended, her wings helped soften the fall. Hana threw dozens of Glowrods out and brought a much needed change to the surroundings. There was a golden shimmer under her feet. "What's this?" Kneeling down, she swept some dust away and noticed a few markings.
She cleared more.
There were lines all over, it seemed to be upside down and the markings were something Hana had not expected. The exterior of the object was well over five meters wide. It was thin in comparison but it had a door on its face. The door had a set of dials and levers, small puzzle like things adorned it in every angle. 'Wow, they spent a lot of time on this thing.'
Hana looked over at another spot of significance. She started laughing. "I would have done something like that." at the corner, one of the edges, an entire corner of the large puzzlebox had been cut open. Peering inside, Hana couldn't see a thing. She dropped a few glowrods inside and suddenly there was a whirling action. Five blades shot out and toward Hana's face.
She blocked it with her wings. There was a pinging sound followed by a lot of creaking and the distinct whirl of gears echoed inside. Frost began to fill the room, once the temperature got cold enough, anything inside would be turned to lifeless ice.
'Seems like there are traps.' She backed away and stood in the severed corner staring at the floor above her. 'Its hard to imagine that they would expect an intruder on the ceiling portion. This thing is upside down, is it just that well built?' Hana experimented.
She threw a rock, 'Nothing.'
Frustrated , Hana threw a multitude of her possessions that wouldn't break into the rooms interior. Then, another trap. The floors compressed rather quickly. Hana moved her wing in time, narrowly evading a close encounter with a Paneni Machine. The floor and ceiling met, crushing everything between and then a formation activated on the left hand side, a vacuum vortex swallowed the debris and pulled Hana towards it. It stayed active for a while, presumably to take the air from the room. With a hole in its corner, the function had merely become a vacuum cleaner.
"I wonder who made these? This doesn't seem like the Zao Clan's doing." Hana wondered what to do, then, she heard a voice behind her.
"You are correct." The voice had a figure, it appeared in a showy manner and startled Hana out of her skin.
"'%$#^!" Hana cursed, "You scared me. I forgot all about you. Dissait, what do you know about this thing?"
He pointed, "This was a vault from Minaur. The Emperor deemed it unsafe to leave in the hands of others, it was buried here with the help of a select few. I was lucky enough to be informed but never had the opportunity to see it. The Elder Council said that it was where the World Tree Seed had been kept for many years. Its Aura is too strong and attracts beasts now that its broken open. The Esper Emperor buried it and had it sealed."
"Ahh, the World Tree. My father once told me about the World Tree. He said that Prince Zhan gave up his humanity to be with the spirits of his fallen daughters, turning into a Foiled Jiao and became the Serpent King." Hana prattled off a sentence that stopped Dissait in his tracks for a moment.
'This girl.' "You really have read a lot, your parents must be proud of your studious attitude." He complimented her and tried to further wrap his head around how she knew such sensitive information.
Hana could not keep her eyes off the patterns on the walls, she stepped forward and activated it again. Pulling out the Formation device, she started to scan them. An hour passed and the traps had gone through several rotations. Hana was confident that she could enter the room and avoid the traps, she brought out a new hammer, this one was much stronger and made of Elementium.
Hana swung it wildly and crashed it against the formation's edge near its start point and canceled it. 'Maybe this is easier than I thought.' Hana was thinking but another trap activated and she place the hammer between her and the enclosing walls. 'Its now or never.' Hana circulated he energy and filled the Hammer till she thought it would explode. The walls creaked and the winding stopped.
The vault's mechanism had stalled.
Hana did a small dance in celebration and then walked over to the wall.
She placed her hand onto its surface and saw formations had been carved into small doors along wall like lockers. Hana poured some fire into the lock and the door popped open, there was a small bag of items inside. She put them away without looking and went to open the other doors, only when she was done did she choose to walk back outside of the Vault.
"Wow, that was a lot of stuff." Hana started to spread it all out, there were several dozen items and some of them gave off a strong murderous intent, one in particular caught her eyes. A Small Brass Hammer was beckoning her to pick it up.
Dissait warned against it and even stood between Hana and the Hammer. 'This is not a good object to wield, I'm sure that it why it was locked away.' "Young Miss, this is not a good item to hold. You should have it inspected before recklessly wielding it." His words were sound and Hana didn't want to be stuck with a cursed item either.
She shrugged and picked up a scroll from the pile. A one time use item, 'Beastial Soul Migration' Hana sank her spiritual sense into the scroll and understood its use. "So this will transmit a beasts soul.." Her own formations had Soul Extraction, she wondered if it was meant to be.
"Are there any places nearby with lots of beasts?" 'I need to start training against them if I am to ever meet expectation.' Hana had one thought while she asked Dissait. 'I have to get stronger.'
"I have a few ideas, but lets talk in a more settled environment. This place was sealed for a reason, please make sure to seal the breach." Dissait leapt up to the hole in the ceiling near the broken stalactite. There was enough room for a footing before re-entry into the stairwell and underground cave. "Miss Hana, lets go back."
Hana gathered all of the loot from the Vault back into her storage except for a small orange colored ball. Hurrying to catch up, she met with Dissait in the Estate room.