Rio was running through the forest of Rock Mountain towards the east. He had acquired all the information he needed from the village head. Apparently, the light came from near the peak of the mountain. When the villagers tried to go near that light, they would end up back in the village somehow.
Rio had to make sure that he could at least reach the peak of the mountain. That it was not the work of light, but something active even at daytime.
While moving, he could spot a track leading towards the peak and few red markings on the bark of the trees. He could guess that those markings were left by the people before, in order to not get lost.
Suddenly, those markings stopped abruptly but the path carried on. Rio continued to go towards the top but he sensed a slight disturbance in space and found himself standing where the markings ended.
'Looks like an illusion array.'
He needed to confirm that it was not a mistake and started to head off towards the top once again.
After a few moments, he found himself at the same place. 'This sure is a nice array.'
His eyes started to glow golden for a second and started to revert back to blue.
'I can't find the eye of the array too. This is sure to be an advanced array.' He used his 'Inspect' magic around him but found nothing.
"Okay, seems like I will use you earlier than I expected." Rio slowly pulled out the gun gifted to him by Kal.
Pointing it towards the peak, he shot out a bullet and quickly moved away from the place. The bullet went straight for a while and suddenly it came back towards where Rio was standing.
"My deduction was right. This illusion array makes use of dimensional magic to not only fool a mind but the body too. The bullet just came back, which meant there was a dimensional gate but the array concealed the gate so no one could sense it.
"A smart move, a bit too smart I would say."
Rio took a flight to check if this was the same for air too. He returned back and was flying up instead of down. "This is tricky..."
Next, he opened a dimensional gate and it opened back at where he was standing moments ago.
"..."
Rio walked towards the place where the bullet seemingly reflected.
"Dimensional Magic: Stabilize."
He could sense the dimensional gate slowly closing as he returned the balance in the surrounding space. "This must be enough for now."
Rio stepped forward, expecting to bypass the array and go to the peak, but suddenly the balance in space was starting to get upset. "Fuck! The gate is opening again."
Without much thought, Rio blinked to the top of the mountain and suddenly heard a loud bang from where he stood before. "It seems the surrounding space collapsed on itself due to my interference."
Rio sighed and walked to the peak while looking at his surroundings. He was now near one of the big rocks on the mountain situated at the peak. He looked up and saw it was just starting to get dark. "Oh well, looks like I am ahead of schedule."
He planned on walking deeper in the forest and found a suitable spot to rest. He pulled out the lunch box Iki prepared for him and started to unpack it.
"She sure exaggerated it, didn't she," Rio said while sighing and looking at the box filled with onigiri and sweets.
A smile was seen on his face. "I love you, dear sister."
.....
After Rio was done resting, he planned to go deeper in the forest and could see light shining from the path ahead. He quickly dashed ahead and could see an altar-like stage.
There was a huge circular platform there with five pillars on the side and a tablet at the very front of the altar. There were an array of runes drawn around the circular platform and even some runes were present over the pillars. He could see a hand-like imprint over the tablet.
"I knew things won't be this simple." He had his suspicions before but now he was sure.
The array drawn on the altar was clearly a dimensional array. Whoever planned this had made sure to conceal the existence of this altar. But somehow, the light from the array, which was suppressed by the illusional array, got past somehow.
When the two B-Class Adventurers came here, it had triggered the Illusional array to malfunction and led the light to be seen from afar. Instead of suppressing the existence, the dimensional disturbance amplified the light. While he was fixing the balance of the space near the illusional array, he noticed how the dimension acted like a concave mirror.
"I guess they were not able to stop the path of light without an opaque object, but an opaque object would hinder the movement and is much impractical in this case. One can't make a dome centering the altar just to stop the light.
"So they did the next best thing. By spreading the light it decreased the brightness of the altar and also made it hard to see from afar. And the Illusion array is a safety measure to keep man and beasts alike away. Not like anyone goes to the peak daily anyways."
Now, most of the things were fixed together like a puzzle. The only thing left to know was what was the need for so many measures? Why didn't they even realize their blunder? That people could see the lights of the altar?
Most importantly, where did the dimensional gate lead to?
'Should I let the Association know, so they can deal with it on their own?' But he quickly rejected that thought.
'Nah, I feel this is something important and that I shouldn't miss it. I might even gain new knowledge.'
Rio's thirst for knowledge would put even a researcher at shame.
"Now how to activate this altar....." From the design, he could see that it was something in between a modern and a bit of an ancient array.
The runes used to carve it were modern runes, but their use was ancient. Most probably the person fixed the array with modern runes, to replace the old ones. After all, the altar looked quite old and surely won't be able to avoid damage.
He walked up to the altar and placed his hand over the tablet's hand imprint. Then he injected his mana into the altar via the tablet and waited.
"..."
"Why did I even think it would work....? Sigh...."
'Clearly, the owner won't be dumb enough to make it so simple that anyone could use it. Pretty sure there is some safety measure or-' He was not able to complete that thought as he fell down a dimensional gate which opened below him.
'I-..... Never mind I take it back. Maybe, people, these days are really dumb.'
Unknown to Rio, the pillars around the altar acted as energy conductors and would gather the surrounding world energy to fuel the array, as long-distance gates took too much energy to work. The creator had put the safety measure that the altar would recognize their imprint and would activate the pillars to fuel the array.
If an intruder tried to activate the altar, then the altar would sap the mana from inside them to fuel themselves and store in the pillar if the array was not activated. Resulting in death due to lack of mana.
However, Rio had a huge supply of mana inside him. The array took the negligent amount of mana from him as compared to the mana he has in his body so, he didn't even realize the sudden mana leaving his body.
.....
At the same time.
In a certain dark room, a person woke up from their sleep and looked at their magic device indicating that someone tried to use the array placed by them.
"Oh, God! I don't want to go and clean the mess while I was sleeping. I just hope whoever activated the array is alone and I just have to take care of the body. If there are more people around, then this will get bloody and tiring." They said while yawning, and carrying their pillow with them, while a dimensional gate opened in front of them.
.
.
.