Raghu could be found sleeping on a dry rock after his exploration had ended. He had gone out for exploration to map out the cave he is currently in. He believes that this cave is part of a larger connected cave as he reached at one of the ends of his cave.
He could see a gorge descending down with a steep downhill which is also filled with water, which he assumes is the also filled with the same acidic water that is receding in the walls of his cave.
One must assume the worst and prepare for it, his motto has always been this. He wanted to be prepared and not work on assumptions taking into considerations the warnings that were given by CNC and then Nathan as well. they have been constantly warned to not take the challenge lightly as they will die here if they don't pay attention. Every small mistake has repercussions as you can never be careful enough.
As he is evaluating his circumstances he has come to a conclusion that he cannot stay here and he will have to move. Navigating through the cave towards the gorge and see where it will lead to, but before that he need to finds out if the water is acidic or not. He could see an opening leading to the other side of the ravine , but for that he will need to swim through the water and he is need to determine how deep the water is so as to take a plunge and swim across.
He planned to use some thing that he has for this. It is time for the belt to shine he thought. He wants to use the belt but he cant as the length is too short but he thinks can do something about this.
He plans to take cut his belts in a way it will be extended in length, he places it vertically and cut the belt into 7 smaller pieces , now he can tie them together to form a long rope of belt with one end that is tied to knife and the other he can hold while lowering it in the water below. He hopes that this will be enough. If this is not enough he can always use his clothes to as well.
Walking back towards the gorge he takes his self made rope and drops it in the gorge to check if the water is acidic or not. He plans to keeps the knife hanging in the water for 10 hours while he come back for a round of sleep as he doesn't know when he will be able to sleep again.
After waking up, he goes back to the end of the tunnel to retrieve his belt and knife and check if his assumption was right. To his relief he finds that knife has no reaction to water down below and the water droplets that's accumulated on the knife is not reactive to his skin.
Concluding that it's safe he plans to jumps down into the water and swim to the other side.
Looking at he place where he had spent the last days as he was unconscious for 3 days and then spent another day for exploration. Looking at the that dry part of cave with somewhat affection as that was the only place there which was not wet. Making sure to keep his knife in his boots and cursing his luck as he will have to get wet again, he takes the plunge into the cold water.
Damn, it is cold he blurted out as water has gotten into his nose and ears, He keeps swimming towards the other shore, it appeared quite near when he saw from other end, but it is a long swim. he is totally exhausted by the time he reached the other side and it takes huge amount of effort from him to this end of the gorge. He is still shivering from the cold as he constantly rubs his palms to generate some heat for warm up.
He can see a blue light shinning from the other side. But He does not want to rush and wants to dry himself first before heading there. he is also wondering why he was not feeling hungry or thirsty as well. But he figured that it has something to do with initiation and maybe his body changed. Maybe ill never feel hungry again he thought, maybe when his body gains strength his body does not need food and water anymore.
But he quickly dismissed that thought as he enjoyed his food and drinks dearly, may be later he will get to try a different variety for food once he starts to climb. Anyways this is not the time to worry about all this, he gathers himself from his lingering thoughts and starts to dry his clothes the old fashioned way.
He also discovered that technique mentioned on the books for assimilation of energy also works here so while his clothes dry, he plans to meditate for some time and assimilate energy in his body as that's what he believes is sustaining him. after a while, he starts to move towards the light as the path is still rocky and narrow he navigates along the stretch of the cave to arrive at another opening, but his one is huge .
The light seems to be coming from the the top of the palace that he see is built in here . the palace isn't grand , actually he couldn't even call it a palace, more like ruins. The whole place is run down and has several structures broken and he cant even tell if the structure will remain intact if anyone disturbed it. There is a shinning crystal atop the structure that is lighting up the whole place with blue light.
He is somewhat astonished to see this as this is last thing he expected here of all places. Thinking aloud ,looks like the acidic water that was flowing in several places is responsible for this as well. the corrosion of rocks and pillars is visible to naked eyes, he carefully navigates towards the ancient site. He has not heard, seen or felt anyone anyone around in all his stay here so he is somewhat relaxed as he believes the tests are individual and do not involve other candidates.
The building has 12 pillars left that are supporting the entire structure, there are remains of other 24 there as these seems to have melted or corroded. one section leads to upper floors and he believes there several more floors than he estimates, since he can't do confirm anything without checking it ,he plans to checkout this site fully. He heads to the first floor only to find it empty and he can only see several cobwebs around the corners.
He travels ahead to arrive at the second floor, something here gets his attention as he can see a folded paper stuck between the cobwebs . He moves his hand towards the paper to grab it , as he touches the paper ,it disintegrates into dust. At first he thought something will happen but nothing did, he does not know if the paper was so old that it disintegrated with just a touch. He is still thinking about what just happened but then something happens that stumps him ever more, the disintegrated paper reshapes itself back into its original self and can be seen back in cobwebs again.
This is unusual, it's like itself time itself was reversed to restore it back to its original state. He tries to touch it again, only for the same scene repeats itself again. He now wants to confirm if this happens for everything here or not. He leaves it as it is and starts to travel to other floors navigating to other 4 floors as well. He finds several more pieces like this in cobwebs that exhibit the same behavior.
This is concerning to him but he still continues to travel upwards making him arrive at the top floor. This is the floor that has the maximum light as it is well lit up due to the crystal shining brightly and lighting up the the whole ruin and cave. His eyes are taking time to adjust to the light and when his eyes finally adjusts he is horrified to see what's in front of him.