Ben enters the underground room and then the stone door closed. It gets very dark so Ben wants to make a light orb. But then some lacrima lamps on the wall lit up.
It is very convenient now because he doesn't need to spend his MP, even though the light orb just needs a little MP. Before he continues to walk down the stairs, Ben inspects the lamps. He is interested in the automatic mechanism of these lamps.
"Wow, this is high-tech. The lamps can turn on automatically when they detect someone passing by. I don't know if there's such mechanism in this age because I never found it," says Ben as he scans a lamp with AI Chip.
AI Chip finds that the secret is inside the lacrima crystal. It has some runes installed in it and they're rather complicated. But it's not a problem for AI Chip's scanning ability that gets enhanced by Ben's magic sense.
After scanning a lamp and finding out how it works, Ben resume walking down the stairs. He goes down rather deep and finds many drawings on the wall. Ben looks at them and scans all of them with AI Chip.
He keeps walking until he finds a giant stone gate that has 2 door sides. The gate also has drawings on it, which are 2 scary-looking Red & Blue Demons. There's also a small plate in the center of the 2 sides.
The plate is composed of 10 circles that have random pictures. Ben knows that it is a puzzle and he needs to solve it if he wants to open the gate. But a puzzle like this will have something like a punishment that will fall on him if he failed.
It's not a problem though because he has AI Chip that can simulate the puzzle before he works on the real thing. AI Chip only needs half a minute to solve the puzzle. Ben moves the circles following AI Chip's guidance.
Without any surprise, the gate is opened after he finished the puzzle. Such a trick won't work on him who has the best computer, AI Chip. If AI Chip failed on this kind of thing, then no one will succeed.
He enters through the opened gate and finds a dark big room. This room is rather empty and there's nothing in it except for 5 pillars. These pillars are connected by a pentagram drawn on the floor.
Ben knows that all of those aren't normal pillars & pentagram. They must be triggers to something in this room. The problem is, it might be a good thing or a bad thing.
So like usual, Ben asks AI Chip to scan the pentagram and pillars. He needs to be very careful in a place like this because it can cost his life. No one can help him here, so he can only depend on himself.
Ben's cautiousness is not baseless though. AI Chip really finds hidden runes on the pillars and the pentagram is made out of runes too. But AI Chip can't find out the function of those runes.
"Hmm, this is very tricky," says Ben as he thinks of what he needs to do.
Ben looks around to find any clue that might help him solve this problem. He knows that simply flowing Devil Slayer Magic won't be enough. They won't use the same trick twice.
After looking around for half an hour, Ben finally knows what he needs to do. Well, guess what he needs to do. He needs to activate the pillars in the correct order to activate the pentagram.
Ben knows it after looking at each pillar's details. They look very similar, but there are some differences that become his clues. Each pillar has patterns and drawings that look similar, but Ben & AI Chip found the differences.
"Hmm, looking at the patterns on these pillars, then the order should be pillar 4-2-1-5-3. I hope it's not the opposite or even another order," says Ben.
[Don't worry. I think you can handle the problem that will appear if you're wrong.]
"That's not the problem. I won't get anything if I fail to activate it correctly," says Ben.
Ben then goes to the center of the pentagram and suddenly 5 small pillars come out of the floor. On top of them are small transparent crystal balls. They're positioned in line with the real pillars.
"I need to flow my MP to these crystal balls, huh?" ponders Ben.
Ben takes a breath and prepares himself before flowing his MP on the crystal balls following the order that he has made. The pentagram & pillars glow in yellow color every time Ben flows his MP.
Then after he finished flowing his MP on all 5 pillars, the patterns on the wall, floor, & ceiling also glows. Ben doesn't know what happens and can only prepare himself if something bad will happen.
But his worry doesn't come true because the light gets dimmed and nothing bad happens. Then, an altar suddenly appears in the backside of the room. There is a small shelf on the altar that has some books on it.
Ben approaches it and picks a book after confirming that it's safe. The books are written in an old language and luckily, Ben has learned some of it from Roubaul. He read one of the books and gets very surprised by its content.
"Curse," says Ben in surprise.
He checks the other books and they all are about, Curse. This is what he has looked for for some years since he knew about Curse. It is different from Magic, so of course, it makes Ben curious.
Ben is very excited now after finding these books about Curse. Furthermore, he gets these after getting Devil Slayer Magic. His luck is very good today.
Then Ben inspects the Altar thoroughly to find if there's more secret. But he finds nothing except for runes to preserve the books so they won't get destroyed by something. So Ben picks the book and puts them inside his backpack.
He leaves the underground room because there's nothing else there. The altar also returns to its initial position and the room gets dimmed again. Ben goes out through the same path and the same stone door.
"Hehe, what a big harvest," says Ben happily as he leaves the ruins.
Ben goes to where he parked his car and leaves the area. He doesn't want to stay here for too long because he wants to try his new magic and learn the Curse. Ben has canceled his previous plan to try his magic here because it is not safe.
The Dark Valley has been visited by many people before Ben. So there might be more people who will come here. It will be bad if they find out that Ben has taken Midas' corpse and gets the Sun Devil Slayer Magic.
It's not like he is afraid of them, but it can lead to bigger problems. People who want the magic might attack his guild. Furthermore, the Magic Council might try to do something after knowing that he has 2 Slayer types of magic. And now, he has the books about Curse that are only known by Demons.
"The Magic Council is the biggest pain in the ass. Having Dragon Slayer Magic has made them get interested in me already. If they know I have a Devil Slayer Magic too, then they will want me to join them in any way. Sigh, if they aren't the source of our jobs & money, then I won't follow them at all. So troublesome," says Ben while driving.
With that, Ben's personal mission has done. But is it the end of the problem?______________________________________________________________
You can read up to 30+ chapters ahead of this fanfic novel & the other one on my Pa_treon page if you are interested.
I've uploaded:
1. Chapter 140 of Fairy Tail: Sun Eater
2. Chapter 151 of Transcended as Lord Buggy
https://www.pa_treon.com/CaptMermain
(the web didn't use _underscore_, it's to avoid censorship)