Kai slowly walked through the door behind the throne. And walked down a short corridor into a vast room.
It was designed in a clear circle. And in the center was a place where there were three notches in the ground.
Kai didn't immediately understand what the point was here, but when he looked around the room, he saw that the entire floor of the room was a large array, and all the writing just so happened to converge towards the center.
"That's right! The cauldron..." - Kai thought.
He remembered the huge cauldron on which the statue of the Astral Emperor of Alchemy stood... That cauldron had three points of support. Kai immediately realized that it was likely that the original Emperor's cauldron had once stood in this room. And the array in turn had most likely helped him in Alchemy.
"How interesting... I never thought it was possible to combine two crafts, for increased effect. I wonder what the array was intended for?" - Reasoned Kai.
He even went over and stroked one of their notches with interest....
"The array is definitely still working, I can see it from the energy inside. But it seems to need the cauldron to activate it. Without it, it's just useless." - Said Kai to himself.
Looking around the whole room, Kai saw many bookshelves there, but everything was similar to the situation in the city. The shelves were empty, only on some you could see what looked like handfuls of dust lying on them.
Suddenly Kai noticed that one of the books had survived, he ran to the shelf and very carefully pulled his hand towards it.
But!
As soon as he touched it, it crumbled into dust... It seemed that it just happened to have managed to retain its shape. Or in the past, it was made with much better materials than the other books in the Emperor's library. But alas, even it hadn't withstood the passage of time....
- Damn it... So what to do? There are no clues here either. - Kai said to himself.
But then he saw something in his side vision.
He turned his head and saw a ring lying on a huge stone table. It seemed that this had once been the workplace of the Astral Emperor of Alchemy. The ring was black, with light streaks of violet color.
- No way... - Kai said with shock.
He was in mild anticipation now, and prayed that the ring wouldn't shatter like everything in this room...
Slowly approaching the table, Kai very carefully, almost trembling hands reached for the ring. The moment he touched it, he exhaled with ease.
- Whew. Thank god it's intact! - Kai said with relief.
He needed some information so he could understand the structure of the city. And if there was any way out of here. If he had to search the entire city on his own, there was no telling how long it would take. This city was even bigger than the Border Beast City!
- Please be a spatial ring! - Praying said Kai.
He started to launch energy into the ring, but nothing happened.
- Oh, for crying out loud! Ah, stop! Wait ka... - Kai shouted out frustratedly at first, but then he remembered something.
He quickly bit himself on the pad of his finger, releasing a scarlet bead of blood outward and dripped onto the ring.
Boom!!!
At that moment, Kai felt the ring instantly connect with his soul.
- Yay! Fuck yeah! - Shouted Kai. He even wanted to jump for joy!
Though he kept himself under control and his emotions didn't affect him. But the whole situation as a whole was pretty dire. He had gotten to an unknown place, unknown how, and had absolutely no understanding of the prospects of getting out of here. So any clue could have cost a life for him.
Kai quickly calmed down and brought himself to an optimal state of mind. He put a ring on his middle finger of his left hand. He now had a ring on each middle finger. One black, the other just as black, but already with purple flecks.
He began to send his energy and thoughts into the ring to see what was there... As soon as the energy touched the ring, Kai felt his consciousness inside the ring.
"Wow..." - Surprised Kai let out in his head.
Kai was greatly surprised by the space of this ring. He realized that the ring given by his teacher was already incredibly expensive and valuable. In a long time, he hadn't seen such rings even from the wealthy craftsmen in the Border Beast City. From this alone, one could understand the value of magical items, especially of this type.
In Master Mo's ring, the space was like a small chest, which was already useful. But in this ring, the space was much larger... It felt like there was an entire room inside. The space inside was roughly like a cube with sides of ten meters. It could fit a simply unbelievable amount of things....
"Gosh... How was such a ring created?" - While Kai was wondering, he suddenly realized that there was nothing inside... Except for one book!
Kai slowly tried to reach it with his energy. At the same moment, it appeared in his hands. It was made of a material similar to the one Fabian had told him about. It was like a flexible stone.
Fabian had told him that even those scrolls had been tattered by time. But this book, it seemed as good as new.....
"It seems that even time flows slower inside this ring than outside!" - Kai realized.
"It seems that even time flows slower in this ring than outside!" - Kai realized.
- That's right... The Law of Time and Space! They always go hand in hand. If someone, was able to open up such a large space inside, they probably changed the flow of time a bit! - Said Kai.
- It seems that in ancient times, all the martial artists and craftsmen, were much stronger than the current civilization... - Assuming, Kai reasoned in his voice.
"Okay, no time to be surprised," Kai calmed himself down.
He walked over to the table, and sat down on the stone stool, taking his time putting the book on the table. He gathered his thoughts a bit and opened it.
"What a strange feeling..." - Kai thought.
He was now looking into the book, where the text was written in hieroglyphics that he had seen for the first time in his life. But what was amazing was that he understood what was written and could read it! This dissonance was breaking his brain, it was hard to realize what was happening.
The book wasn't big, it seemed there were only a few pages. Looking at the first one, Kai slowly began to read.
....
"Hear my words! The words of the Astral Emperor of Alchemy!
If someone opened this book, it means that not all was lost and life continued to exist....
Perhaps I have become naive under the sunset of my life, but I would like to hope for a miracle....
If you are reading this, I welcome you to Astral Grad! If you find yourself here, it is an amazing coincidence of fate.
It can either be your terrible death or your blessing."
....
- Are these the Emperor's personal manuscripts? I can't really get my head around the fact that someone wrote this even tens of thousands of years ago... - Kai said to himself.
- But if the Emperor is talking about a blessing... There must be a way out of here! - Now Kai cheered up a little, and lowered his head to continue reading.