The door was broken and had fallen on one of its hinges... Ikky crossed the door more afraid than anything else, leaving two backpacks on the threshold. He was wounded and in a state where he couldn't face a fight, but he couldn't do anything else having come so far. He loaded his weapons, advancing with the new spear, the long sword, the axe and the knives and daggers that he could hang on his belt or hide without getting in the way of moving.
Still leaning on the spear that served him more as a staff than a weapon, he advanced down a descending corridor, in which a light could be seen at the end. He didn't take the shield because, having one arm practically useless, he thought it was better to tie it to his back so it wouldn't get in the way or if someone ambushed him at least he would have some protection.
On the walls every few meters, there were empty porticos, announcing that there had been torches there. The path was straight, and after about 15 meters it opened into a room. It was a perfectly circular room about 8 meters in diameter, in the center a metal rock one meter high by two meters wide was crowned by an uncut gem, like a rough ruby the size of a human head that emitted a reddish light. Tied to the metal pedestal were the bodies of four decapitated bipedal beings, one of them the size of a human and with an elongated skull, another had two extra arms and was smaller, even smaller than a dwarf, another was undoubtedly a goblin and the last was larger than Ikky, more than two meters tall and had natural horns coming out of his temples and different parts of his head, by the width of his shoulders he must have been the owner of the heavy Hammer.
The skeleton also revealed a tail, unlike the rest of the more anthropomorphic corpses. It seemed that in that composition there must have been another prisoner for sacrifice, but the ropes were cut. The image of the dwarf, who had died near the exit, came to Ikky's mind. Did he manage to free himself and escape? Although it seemed that he eventually died from his wounds. The bodies seemed to have been there for a long time due to the state of the bones, now devoid of all flesh. Longer than the corpses in the feline den due to the clean and fleshless state of the bones.
The wall opposite the tunnel he came through had strange drawings carved into the stone. Runes? Something written? Mere decoration? What was clear was that all the engravings formed an arch or some kind of door.
Since there were no other enemies or other entrances, Ikky walked back down the corridor and brought all his luggage. Everything hurt, if it were for his physical condition it would have been better to leave at that moment, but Ikky sensed that he was at the end of that phase.
Carefully, the player approached the stone altar. It began to react to her presence, and it began to pulse like a heart. Ikky didn't even know how to describe it; I only know that it was charged with energy, energy that seeped into her body in small waves.
"Congratulations on being the first player to have detected the nature of magic in this phase of the tutorial."
Just like with the stone, he did the same with the gem, and the back wall emanated other different but perfectly noticeable energies. However, nothing else happened. If it was a puzzle, it was not as simple as putting your hand out and everything starting to work.
Ikky checked his statistics, his ability to detect magic must have been a passive skill, since he had not done anything to activate it, but even so, the skill's progress had gone from 1 to 37 in an instant. The fact that he had been the first to come into contact with magic meant that no other player had chosen that skill, or if they had, they had not survived the cavern until they reached that room.
Deep down, knowing that he had achieved another ito, another unique achievement, meant that his rewards for this phase would be better than those of other players. Although he was hurt, in pain, and everything served to encourage him that he was doing well despite his doubts about his own ability with which he started that strange game.
Sitting on the ground for a moment to catch his breath, Ikky stopped to reflect on everything that had happened so far.
Four beings of different races entered the cave armed, coincidence? Or were they looking for that altar? The goblins had performed a ritual in which they did not hesitate to sacrifice one of their own, but for some reason they needed the other four, and they did not sacrifice any more of their own as the dwarf fled. A gem and a strange metal that oozed energy, strange engravings on the wall. A secret door? A portal? But where?
Things did not happen by chance, things were not by chance, especially in a game in which they want to demonstrate or teach something. The lore was never casual, it could have been just a secondary story, an unimportant detail in a larger world, but he doubted it was casual.
There were two possible explanations, either the adventurers had gone there to destroy the altar and interrupt the ritual, or they themselves wanted to use that strange stone.
If the ritual had required death, and not just blood, the explorers would not have entered. The other option is that they had gone to prevent the goblins from opening the portal or the secret door.
But Ikky was not there to try to bleed himself dry for a ritual that he did not know if it would work, he wanted to complete the hidden piece, but weak as he was, risking his life was not a viable option.
At the moment when the player was about to abandon that search and head to one of the two exits he had found, he remembered the dying feline.
From the looks of it, the ritual required the blood of different species and also that they were alive at the time of the ritual, it was the only certainty that Ikky had in that whole story.