Entering the interior, Viltz began to descend a spiral staircase until he arrived in front of a door that led to a huge subway construction.
He passed through a couple of rooms until he came to a room where he encountered a couple of ghouls that he defeated with ease before solving a simple puzzle that gave him access to the next room, where the first thing he saw upon entering was a statue of a humanoid lizard.
"Hmmm, if I remember correctly, that guy appeared in this location, let me prepare a worthy welcome for you then."
Viltz began carving a runic formation into the ground and five minutes later, he finished and approached the foot of the stone statue, where a sword rested.
Grabbing the sword, Viltz immediately activated the staff's barrier spell and a second later, a small portal opened from which someone dressed exactly like the Operator he killed earlier emerged.
As soon as he appeared, the strange guy raised his staff and was about to attack when the runes under his feet suddenly activated.
Before he could even react, small branches pierced the ground and as if they had been sprinkled with steroids, they began to grow at a crazy speed and in less than a few seconds, they had grown into a large tree whose branches reached the ceiling.
The sorcerer Vran died helplessly, swallowed by the tree.
Removing the staff embedded in the tree, Viltz compared it for a moment with his own staff and realized that it was only a copy of the one he already had, without the optimizing ability that the original staff possessed.
He then checked the sword, it was a magically enchanted steel sword of exceptional quality but it could not compare to Aerondight.
Throwing the sword and staff at the portal, Viltz left that room and began to walk through the corridors until he arrived in front of a wall and using the magic bastion, he began to bombard it to make a tunnel.
After a long while of bombing, the tunnel finally connected to the other side, which led to some sewers.
A couple of drowners who were crouched down eating something got up and wanted to attack him but Viltz caused a rain of fireballs to fall on their heads, burning them instantly.
As he wandered around, Viltz encountered quite a few monsters but with the magic staff he defeated them with extreme ease.
Finally, Viltz arrived in front of a seemingly normal stone wall.
Casting a spell, the wall began to shatter as if it were a mirror, clearing the illusion and revealing a door.
The large stone eye above the door lit up with light, focusing its vertical pupil on Viltz as he recited a riddle.
"You see me fly, you describe me as tough. I can be your coin and heal all wounds, but not many things can stand my test. What am I?'
Viltz didn't hesitate as he answered, "Time!"
"Right..."
The stone door opened and the orange glow in the eye disappeared.
Viltz stepped through the door and into a circular room filled with murals of different constellations, an eye similar to the previous one lit up again and again told a riddle, only this time, to answer, Viltz had to stand near the mural of the constellation he believed represented the answer to the riddle.
Viltz stood in front of a mural of a three-headed dragon and a magic circle lit up under his feet.
"Correct answer..."
The eye went out again and the door beneath him opened, revealing a golem on the other side.
Viltz approached the golem and greeted him.
"Greetings, I know you are a guardian and I respect that.
Now, I know you exist by your master's will, thanks to the name he gave you."
The golem nodded.
"That's true."
"I am a guest here and wish to speak.
You were created to distinguish intruders from guests. You must stop the former and greet the latter right?".
"The intruders must be stopped."
The golem affirmed as his stone fists produced cracking sounds.
Viltz smiled slyly and asked the golem.
"Are you aware that intruders may try to trick you?"
"I have stone fists to defend myself against those armed with swords. I have my iron logic to defend against those armed with words."
"But intruders could include reality-altering sorcerers. They could be illusionists or simple liars.
Are you certain you can defend yourself against them?"
"My existence is certain, as is my master's will."
"Only your will and the will of the master will exist. Everything else is doubtful.
A malicious intruder could cloud your senses."
"I am the guardian, the master prepared me for such situations."
"He couldn't foresee everything, so he gave you a mind to compensate. You are much more aware and intelligent than a guardian needs to be.
Your master programmed you to greet guests and stop intruders. That is true, but everything else may be lies and you can't afford to attack guests, that would be against your master's will."
The golem seemed to become more and more confused as Viltz played with his mind.
"The guests must be welcomed and the intruders must be stopped. This is Dearhenna's will.
Are you a guest or an intruder?"
"It does not matter what you answer. Your senses deceive you. You can only trust your mind. You cannot assume I am a guest, for I may be an intruder. You cannot assume I am an intruder, because I may be a guest."
"This is a contradiction... A paradox... A nonsense..."
The golem seemed to short-circuit as its head began to shake for a moment before exploding into pieces of rock that flew everywhere.
"Poor thing, you finally couldn't stand a little philosophical debate, and here I wanted to keep chatting."
Viltz plucked the magic stones that served as a core from the golem's chest and proceeded to explore the lab.
He first approached a table and broke an illusion spell, causing a strange box-like artifact to appear on the table.
"Hahahaha! With this, my plans can move forward smoothly in the future! If I manage to improve it, there is no person in the world that escapes my sight!"
The device in front of Viltz was a prototype megascope that allowed its owner to see certain people he was linked to.
Turning on the device, Viltz focused on who he wanted to see and suddenly, the scene of a ten-year-old boy training with a wooden sword in the garden appeared before him.
Switching scenes, he saw a little girl playing with a small puppy.
"Come on Sasrir! Catch the stick!"
The best thing about the device was that it allowed watching the scenes in real time with audio included, and the best thing was that the other party wouldn't notice anything even if it was a source.
Switching scenes, Viltz saw Vice Chancellor Mardin in a meeting with the other members of the chapter.
"How are things going with Nilfgaard?"
"As usual, constant wars and fighting, instability in the south continues as usual..."
Switching scenes, Viltz saw a young blonde girl taking a bath.
Turning off the megascope, Viltz began to search for the other item he came for in this lab.
After rummaging around for quite a while, Viltz broke a floor tile, revealing a secret compartment in which was a wooden box.
Opening the box, he pulled out a grimoire of yellowed pages.
"Well, that should do it."
Picking up the Megascope, he opened a portal to his lab.
The next day, Viltz used the magic mirror along with the megascope to test a theory.
When the mirror showed the previous scene of the lab's location, Viltz tried to magically connect the two artifacts.
A whip of chaos power came out of Viltz's left hand and connected with the mirror, while another similar whip came out of his right hand, connecting with the megascope.
The megascope lit up and an image began to be projected on its surface.
As more of the chaos energy poured out of Viltz, the image became clearer and clearer.
In the image could be seen the interior of a gloomy, dark laboratory.
Viltz wasted no time and with a thought, he made the magic staff fly in front of him.
The staff glowed with a blue light as both he and Viltz disappeared from the scene.
Looking at the place where he stood, Viltz let out a big laugh followed by a sigh of relief.
"Fortunately, my plan was a success. If I manage to upgrade the megascope, there will be no place in the world I can't step on."
Snapping out of his reverie, Viltz grabbed the magic staff floating beside him and began to inspect the lab.
What caught his eye most was a white, human-sized egg-shaped capsule in the center of the lab.
Deciding that he would save it for last, he began to check out the various things in the place.
The first thing he ransacked was the stack of books and notes on a desk, sending them straight to his lab, followed by the magical and elemental stones in the various drawers.
On a pedestal, three marble anaphorae similar to the ones Viltz found in the lake were carefully placed, which he teleported to his lab without hesitation.
Finally, he ransacked a complete set of armor, sword and magic staff that was on a counter in a corner of the lab.
In one part of the lab there were different glass jars with remnants of organs and ingredients that due to the passage of time had already half rotted despite the various preservation techniques they had implemented.
To be sure, Viltz carefully checked the lab for any magical traps or runic circles that whatever was in that capsule could use to its advantage should it suddenly awaken, and indeed he found something, he realized that the lab was located in a wind elemental circle connected directly to a ley line which in turn connects directly to the wind elemental plane.
"Such a complicated magical formation, I can't even detect the energy signature that would normally radiate from a ley line, is all the energy produced focused on the capsule... it's a fascinating invention, not even a hint of energy escapes.
As you would expect from the legendary sorcerer Geofrey Monck.
I wonder what species of being resides inside that capsule."
To be on the safe side, Viltz decided not to wake whatever was sleeping in there, he had already gotten everything he needed anyway.
"Greed is poison and curiosity killed the cat, I'd better go."
He opened a portal back to his lab, leaving the place.
As Viltz left, suddenly the portrait of a bearded old man hanging on one of the walls seemed to come to life when he moved his lips, forming a smile and began to speak to himself.
"An intelligent young man who knows his limits, if he had tried anything funny he would have forced me to deploy some of the ley line energy to deal with him, I wonder how he managed to appear directly in the lab, outwitting all my traps. Did he use a wish? But I didn't feel the presence of any Djinn impregnating his body..."
The old man in the painting stroked his beard for a while before staring at the capsule and sighing, "Having to wait 1000 years turned into a painting is pretty boring you know, even if I am your spirit clone, at least have left me something to entertain me! Now all I do is sleep most of the time, at this rate I'll become a real senile old man!"
Sighing again, the old man looked at the countdown on the bottom of the capsule, where it marked that there were still 735 years to go before the capsule would open.
Letting out a final sigh, the old man closed his eyes, bringing the picture back to normal.