During this first day of travel, we were accompanied by an adventurer who would return Patrick Bateman to Sharia, after saying goodbye to Patrick, Elinalise and I entered the forest.
The forest is called Lumen which in the Demon God's language means stomach, this choice of words only made sense once you entered the forest.
The vegetation was incredibly dense, there were so many tall and old trees that the branches blocked the sun, it was a bit of a gloomy place, to be honest.
The ground was full of roots, so it often felt like you were walking on an uneven wooden floor, you had to constantly watch your steps.
The large trees had much larger roots and in some places, they even formed a kind of natural staircase.
It was almost like an open-air dungeon.
Even experienced rangers could easily get lost in such a place, it would be too easy to become the prey of some monster.
No doubt in this forest, many human bodies have been digested by this forest over the centuries.
Still, this was nothing to a veteran adventurer like Elinalise, we were alert, of course, but calm, Elinalise took the lead and I followed behind at a certain distance.
As expected from an elf, she knew her way around this terrain, and thanks to her excellent hearing, she warned me in advance when enemies tried to ambush us.
"Three monsters at two o'clock!" she shouted
"Understood!" I replied.
At the command I launched myself at a green boar just as it tore through the foliage, sending its head flying back with a splash of blood, its two companions immediately turning and fleeing.
Elinalise was in charge of the "search" and I of the "destruction" So, so far we had eliminated all threats before they came close to us, so far we had not engaged in any real combat, which seemed fine to me, Elinalise seemed to guide us around the dangerous areas where the animals congregated in greater numbers.
Evidently, this was an instinctive skill she had acquired over the years and not some kind of natural elven instinct.
"I think I found it, this is the monument we were looking for right?" she said while looking at me with a raised eyebrow.
After a while, Elinalise spotted what we had come to look for, it was a flat stone slab with a symbol carved into its surface, which was in front of a thick wall of vegetation, I had resigned myself to the possibility that we would be searching in this forest for two or three days, but we had managed to find it before the sunset, considering that we arrived here in the morning.
The engraving on the stone looked familiar to me from the monuments of the seven world powers, it bore the Dragon God's crest, a sharp, angular pattern made up mostly of triangles, it reminded me a bit of the magical symbols when some anime character enhanced their powers, though the specific details were totally different, maybe they were both meant to be different representations of the face of the same dragon.
"Is something wrong?" Elinalise asked as she approached me.
"No, it's nothing" I replied
Elinalise had noticed me studying the symbol closely, but I decided not to pursue this line of thought, we had other priorities at the moment.
I closed my eyes as I tried to remember the spell.
After a few minutes, I was finally able to find the memory I needed.
"I'll start removing the barrier," I said
"Okay," Elinalise said and turned around to watch my back as I worked.
I placed a hand on the stone's surface and closed my eyes remembering the specific spell I was to use.
"The wrym only lived for his ideals, no one could escape the reach of his powerful arms, he was the second to die, a Dragon General, his scales green and gold, his life the most ephemeral of dreams, in the name of the second Dragon Emperor Shirad, I break his seal," I said.
The instant the last word left my mouth, I felt mana flow from my arm to the tablet, and the world began to distort before my eyes, the air itself seemed to swirl strangely for a moment, when this happened, the thick wall of trees and plants in front of me had disappeared, leaving a stone building in its place.
"Wow! I've never seen an enchantment like this" Elinalise said looking at the structure in amazement.
It wasn't anything I'd seen before either, but the way that board had sucked up mana looked familiar to me, the thing was probably a large, motionless magic instrument.
If we were to split it in half, we'd probably find a bunch of complex magic circles engraved inside.
However, this incantation seemed to me to be original to the Dragon God, with all the references to various dragons, that sacred emperor, he was one of the five dragon generals from the old stories, right?
"Let's get going then" I said
"Okay" she replied.
The building in front of us was a single story structure, there were ivy vines along the walls, and there were places where the stones had crumbled over the years.
"Hmm...the place looks like a basic ancient ruin doesn't it?" I said to Elinalise as we entered the place.
"I've seen a few labyrinths with entrances that looked a bit like this" she replied.
"Oh right, you don't have any experience with labyrinths do you?" she said as she looked at me.
"No, none" I said shrugging.
"In that case make sure to keep a close eye on me, just step where I do" she said smiling at me.
"Sure, but, I don't think this place is a labyrinth right?" I asked.
"Better safe than sorry" she replied.
"Okay then, Gino, let's go, get ready to cover me in case things get ugly" she said.
"Understood" I replied.
Cautiously Elinalise and I made our way deeper into the stone ruins.
The interior was also made of stone, here and there, tree roots could be seen peeking out from the trees, a classic forest ruin situation practically
However, it wasn't that big of a structure, in fact, it seemed like there were only about four rooms, we moved slowly through them, making sure to investigate every corner.
The two rooms closest to the entrance were completely empty spaces of about seven square meters.
In the fourth and final room, we found some stairs that went down into the darkness.
"Oh god now this seems suspicious to me." Elinalise said
She scanned the area around the stairs and checked every corner of the room.
I guess stairs are popular places to set traps.
"Well then... I think we're good" Elinalise said.
In the end she didn't find anything, I wasn't too surprised, if someone wanted to set a trap in this place, they would probably have set some at the entrance as well.
"I'll go down first, watch my back, Gino" she said.
"Understood" I replied.
Elinalise walked down the stairs very slowly and carefully, I made sure to follow her steps exactly, strangely the ruins didn't get darker as we descended.
The reason became clear when we reached the bottom of the stairs.
"Well, there it is" she muttered.
There was a huge magic circle on the floor in front of us, as big as one of the rooms above, and it gave off a white and blue light.
"This would be the teleportation circle, then" she asked
"Yes, this is it" I said.
However, Elinalise didn't seem to be in a hurry to try it out, she looked at the magic circle with a doubtful expression on her face.
"Is something wrong, Elinalise?" I asked.
"I have some rather painful memories related to teleportation, that's all" she said as she approached me.
Smiling, Elinalise took my hand, her grip was strong, despite her thin fingers, it was the hand of an adventurer, it was also a little warm.
"I hope you don't misunderstand me Gino, it's important that we are in physical contact when we teleport" she said with a smile.
"It's okay, no problem" I replied with a smile.
"Well then, let's go?" she said with a smile
"Let's go" I replied
and so the two of us jumped together into the teleportation circle.
Teleporting feels a bit like waking up from a dream, maybe I had lost consciousness for a moment.
Looking to my side, I saw that Elinalise was just as shocked.
"I guess we're here," I said.
"Well, maybe..." she muttered.
We were still standing in a stone ruin, just like before, and the chamber didn't look any different at first glance.
However, after a few seconds I started to notice the small piles of sand in the corners, and the lack of vines on the walls, the stone was also tinted a slightly browner color.
I cautiously stepped out of the magic circle, once we were completely out of the teleporter, it started to emit that white and blue light again, it seemed ready and waiting to return us to the other side.
"Oh, wait, we should check that we can get back to the other side, right?" Elinalise asked.
"Don't worry, this will take us back to where we came from" I said with a smile.
"Are you sure? I already...forget it, you already knew about this for some reason, right?" She said with a small smile.
I just smiled at him and started walking to the first floor, as I climbed the stairs I noticed the sharp change in temperature, the air was brutally hot, at least it didn't seem too humid, which made sense if we were in the middle of a desert, as we were supposed to be.
But for a boy like me who had lived his whole life in the snow, this place was like hell, and my testimony was the drops of sweat that ran down my forehead.
The first floor was practically identical to the ruin we had left behind in the forest, the main difference being obviously the sand that carpeted the floors and the lack of vegetation on the walls.
There were also four rooms here, and the layout was identical.
After exploring the ruin thoroughly, we set foot outside for the first time.
It was hot, very hot, the word hot, to be honest, was inadequate, the wind hurt my face. All I saw in front of me was a sea of wavy sand dunes, it looked like one of the pictures I had seen of the Sahara in my previous life.
The sun was about to set, the temperature dropped to below zero degrees, something I am used to but that would be leaving Elinalise behind.
"What do you think we should do, Elinalise?" I asked her.
To my surprise she was blushing as she looked at my sword, but when our eyes met she cleared her throat and composed herself.
"We won't get very far before the sun sets if we go out now, it's a little early but we should take advantage of the opportunity to rest with a roof over our heads" she said while avoiding looking at me.
And so we decided to spend the night in the ruin.
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Hello! Help me reach the goal of 1000 power stones before the week ends! And don't forget to comment what you thought of the chapter!!
I also warn you that tomorrow will be a +18 chapter so you are already warned, you are not obliged to read it but at least comment on it!!