The next morning, Petra woke up early and made breakfast.
As the only able-bodied person, it was Petra's turn to cook.
The medicine Petra had used was a very high level pill, so Rose and Wind would recover relatively quickly. As for Nebula, Petra had seriously underestimated the medicine Elena had given her. Because Lilly couldn't heal her eye, Petra had assumed that healing the body was its limit, it couldn't regenerate limbs. Looking at Nebula now, Petra could hardly tell that she was hurt at all.
This was a good thing.
Petra spent the morning tending to Wind and Rose. With the speed of their recovery, she suspected that before lunch, the two girls would be up and running.
Just as Petra suspected, the two girls were awake and gorging themselves like pigs for lunch.
"Do you want to return?"
The two girls shook their heads, crumbs still sticking to their lips.
This incident reminded Petra that she needed to get stronger. Not just her, but the other girls too.
When she was trapped in the prison stone, Petra immediately realised that the situation was bad. She had to tap into the slumbering power of the King's Hand to forcefully break through space and escape. Even then, she was still too late. If she had hesitated for even a moment longer, who knows what would have happened.
As for breaking through space…
This was a feat that few could do.
Even Petra was unsure as to just how difficult it was. At the time, she needed to try something, so she used the dormant power of the King's Hand that she wouldn't normally touch.
The moment Petra called it, she understood that this thing sleeping in her sea of consciousness was no longer a poison. Although that's what it originally was, it had long evolved to a point where Petra had a hard time even recognising it, much less understanding it.
There was a long period in Petra's past life where this thing had disappeared, leaving large portions of its history blank. Even in the end, Petra had no Idea how this thing ended up back with her.
When Petra used it, she understood that it didn't even need to show a fraction of its power. Its mere presence was enough to melt space and soften it enough for Petra's mental power to break through.
While using the King's Hand, Petra could feel something 'growing' inside her body. That's why she bled herself and used it to make the drug.
She had no idea what would happen if that 'something' completely took root in her body, but Petra was still extremely paranoid about anything related to the King's Hand. There was no way that she would allow it to continue to grow.
After Petra finished eating, she made sure Wind and Rose were fine, then returned to the snowstorm.
-
Through the Snow, Petra continued her adventure.
Now that they were moving with the Calamity Wolf, Petra felt like it was much easier to navigate around the snowstorm. Few low-level ice elementals would approach, and any intermediate-level ice elementals that would, either ran away or died in one attack from the big dog.
During the next few days of travel, they came across many interesting things.
On the first day, they discovered a massive frozen lake hidden within the trees. This place seemed to be surrounded by a natural illusion, making it difficult to find on normal days. Petra played around with the girls for a whole morning. The stupid dog slipped on the ice and was unable to get back up.
On the second day, they discovered a massive bone connecting to an underground skeleton. Judging from the size of the bone, this skeleton belonged to a mountain sized monster, but Petra had no idea what it was. Because it was buried too deep beneath the earth, this skeleton had to be left behind, becoming just another mystery of the forest.
On the third day, they passed under a group of ice elementals masquerading as sky jellyfish. This was like a flock of slow-moving birds that drifted on the wind like large balloons. They were unaffected by the wind, moving slowly and peacefully like background decorations.
After another day of travel, Petra and the girls discovered something very interesting.
The surrounding ice, snow, and earth looked like it had just gone through a massive battle, leaving the environment in disarray. The ground was cracked and broken, ice was scattered, trees were uprooted, and a deep pit was split open in the earth.
This deep circular pit had about a one-kilometer diameter, leading down into complete darkness.
Petra paused at the edge. "Do we go down?"
Nebula frowned.
Wind and Rose just waited for Petra.
Petra pursed her lips. "This looks like a pain in the butt to climb out of."
The big dog beside her nodded in agreement.
"I feel like there's treasure down there."
The big dog beside her nodded again.
"A lot of danger too..."
The big dog beside her nodded again.
There was a long pause.
Petra shrank her neck. "If we keep waiting here, won't the ground just collapse or something? Isn't that how this works? Why hasn't it happened yet?"
Three girls and one wolf looked at her, doubtful.
Before any of them could speak...
Rumble!
The ground suddenly shook.
Petra nodded, already expecting it. She looked at the five disbelievers with a deadpan face. "Told you."
Petra grumbled inward. 'How could I miss that disgusting smell of fate.'
The surrounding cliff collapsed...
-
In the darkness, Petra opened her eyes.
She stood up and patted her little butt, looking around. It took the girls a few moments to find each other, but after they did, they realised that none of their bags were damaged.
Petra turned to the large wolf. This big dog was also fine, despite being so large and falling so far.
After making sure they were ready to move on, Petra turned her attention towards the surroundings.
The bottom of the pit led down into a shallow slope. A large pile of snow filled the slope, cushioning their fall. Petra stood in the center, one direction leading back up, and the other leading deeper into the darkness.
Skylight leaked down from above, but only a thin ray of light reached this depth. Through the passage down, everything turned black.
Petra and the girls dove deeper into the cave.
Petra created a series of glowing green lanterns using her mental energy, letting them float around her.
After fifteen minutes of walking, the girls stood before a large 'gate'.
This gate towered fifteen meters tall and was carved with complicated runes.
What Petra found particularly interesting was, unlike the runes that she had seen so far, these runes were much larger, not adhering to what she knew about rune language. Some stretched over two meters, and some overlapped to create astrological patterns. The gate was made of stone, but Petra could feel an invisible power overlapping through space. Although what appeared was pure stone, Petra had no doubt that this 'gate' was a far more complicated construction, likely combining the fields of space, time, and the soul.
Those things aside, there was another thing that concerned Petra.
The larger runes were drawn with many smaller runes, each long line of complicated writing intertwining like paint on a paintbrush. To most, these smaller runes were abstract, but Petra actually recognized the language used to carve them.
These smaller runes looked like a more developed form of the Ancient Babylonian language from back on earth. They had been used to draw the large runes, but instead of carving out the runes, they painted them with text-like prayers.
Although Petra could read Ancient Babylonian at a very fundamental level, the text before her made what little she knew about it look like a joke. The language from back on earth was like a rough draft of the language on the gate. The text displayed on the gate was far too advanced to even make a guess.
Petra wasn't one of those protagonists who suddenly had a mental breakdown at the sign of other earthlings. She wasn't going to fall to her knees and curse the cruel fate of all things. Not to mention that she didn't even know if they were earthlings, that whole stick was just stupid. She also wasn't going to do anything useless like make a vow to find her fellow countrymen.
Petra simply found it interesting, that was all.
After that moment of enlightenment, Petra moved on to figuring out how to open the massive gate.
The gate depicted the final records of this ancient ruin. Together with a brief history, the method to open the door was also revealed. On the left and right of the door were two large hollow spherical runes, similar to a sun. To open the gate, one needed to provide both 'Order' and 'Chaos.'
Petra didn't understand, but something incredible still happened.
Deep within her Sea of Consciousness, in the core of the Inner Library, the small black and white tree pulsed with a grey light. At the same time, something within the King's Hand seemed to stir, but only for a moment, leaving a small ripple on the surface of the black sea. This grey light passed through Petra's body and road on an invisible wave of mental energy, 'attacking' the runes on the door.
The two sun shaped runes flashed with light before seemingly accepting 'something', and rotating away from each other. Following a series of complicated clicks, the door slowly opened.
Petra stood there, dumbfounded.
She had no idea what just happened.
She looked at the girls, but they just looked back, equally confused.
Only Nebula had a slightly contemplative gaze.
With the door opened, the girls walked in.
-
Inside the Ruins.
The interior of the ruins was a strange mixture of desolation and perseverance. Large parts of the overall structure were dilapidated and decaying, but other areas, the more important ones, were well preserved and barely had any signs of age.
The girls stood in the grand hall, a large cylindrical room that branched out into the other parts of the building. In the center of the room was a large crystal that had fallen to the ground. This two-meter crystal was large enough to crush Petra's little body flat. Petra inspected it, only to find that it was similar to the rune system outside, large patterns formed by ancient text, only miniaturised and compressed into a three-dimensional space and retained within the crystal.
Petra understood that this crystal was a masterpiece that far exceeded what the high elves had achieved.
Being the greedy dragon that she was, Petra had the girls help load the crystal onto the big dog's back.
After securing it, Petra continued to look around, memorizing every pattern and script she could find.
The girls slowly moved through the ruins, looking for treasures, completely disregarding their safety…
Ten minutes later, they found the library.
The library was an incredible structure. Unlike the rest of the rooms, the library was almost untouched by time. The cross-like room extended in all directions, but the floating cube-like islands made it difficult to tell its true size. Petra could feel a strange 'terminal' through the air. Her mind moved, and the entire room rearranged itself, bringing the requested island to the front.
'It uses some kind of mental interface, almost like reading brainwaves.'
Petra stepped on the floating island and began looking through the field of bookshelves.
She felt like it was time to test the limits of the Inner Library.
The Witches Inner Library was a unique method to collect knowledge.
This was a skill unique to Primordial Witches, but Petra didn't know that.
Petra spent most of her time learning the basics of mental strength, but that didn't stop her from learning how to absorb knowledge and make a mental copy of it in her inner library.
Unlike the old man's book, which split apart and filled the shelves with 'physical' copies of each book, The Inner Library's method created a virtual copy of information and stored it. Petra could then read within her Inner Library, or materialize a copy of the information from mental energy.
Petra let her mental power slowly extend and shroud the surrounding bookshelves. She followed the method of copying information. One word, one line, one paragraph, one page, one book, one shelf, one bookshelf. One row, two rows, three rows, and eventually Petra's mental strength was reading the whole island. The whole process would take 30 minutes. Looking around, there were hundreds of floating islands, and most were larger than this one. If Petra wanted to copy it all, she would need to spend a day or two just copying.
* * *
While Petra was swimming through the abyss of knowledge, another group of troublemakers was slowly approaching.
After Soryn and Bell entered the massive underground dome, they quickly disappeared into the artificial forest.
A day after they entered the forest, the Demon Hunter caught up. Standing at the edge of the forest, he looked over to his tracker.
The Tracker frowned. "I lost the scent, no, I can't use my blessing here."
The Hunter nodded. "Then the old-fashioned way."
The duo followed the girls and disappeared into the forest.
* * *
Void Walker Ruins, Library.
Two days later, Petra finished recording all the information in the library. Although she had recorded it in her Inner Library, that didn't mean she understood it. Like the knowledge from the black seed and the old man, Petra would have to digest the knowledge when she returned home.
The biggest gain from this was the knowledge of 'Celestial Script' used by the old inhabitants of these ruins. With this, Petra could slightly understand the language recorded on the walls.
The girls had spent the last few days reading. Unlike Petra, they couldn't 'read' a book within seconds.
There next destination was the room called the 'Creation Pool.'
When the girls arrived, what they found was an abandoned laboratory that couldn't escape the claws of time. Most of the medicine, poisons, and drugs were destroyed or rotting, and the few that could be salvaged were unstable or would self destruct if moved.
Petra turned her attention to the large pool in the center of the room. Although this pool was almost empty, there was still a little bit of glowing green liquid at the bottom of the pool. It was almost as if it were waiting for one final visitor.
The remaining liquid was just enough to fill a normal sized flask.
After Petra took it, she felt like something had changed. It was like the final wisp of something had completed its mission and silently disappeared. The 'creation pool' suddenly seemed a lot more ancient and desolate. Petra didn't realize that there was originally spirituality contained in the stone pool, but now it was clearly gone.
Petra backed away.
For some reason, she felt a little sad.
Pursing her lips, Petra took another look around.
Everything that could be collected was collected. Now it was time to move onto the next room.
Leaving the creation pool, Petra didn't see the faint silhouette that appeared after she was gone.
'How odd, how odd, so this is her daughter? She finally succeeded? Ah, how I wish I could have met her. Mmm, perhaps it's not too late... Ha, ah ah ah, she considered this too, huh? I would expect no less from that woman. I refused so many people, just to find myself here... Should I just do it? Mmm, why not... look where my stubbornness has gotten me. It's time to go...Ha, I'll have to give up so much."
The unseen figure suddenly stepped out of the creation pool, disappearing into the void.
After she disappeared, all that was left was a whisper.
"If I'm going to serve something, I guess the 'Child of the End' isn't a bad choice..."
-
Petra and the girls walked through the dilapidated tunnels of the ruins and towards the final room.
Over the last two days, when they weren't reading, the maids had explored the ruins.
All that was left was this room…
Petra walked up to the sealed door that led to the 'Experimental Garden.'
Using the same method she had used to open the front gate, the large door slowly opened.
The door to the garden was split open, and Petra was met with the face of a young girl with blonde bell shaped hair. Her body was impaled with hundreds of black thorns, leaving her in a bloody mess.
Behind her, two men, each clad in black, slowly approached.