Chapter 67: Breaking the Seal
Serie chuckled. "The entrance to the treasury is above our heads? These Dwarves are quite interesting."
An ordinary person truly wouldn't have thought of it.
After all, upon hearing the riddle about where stars and the silver moon intersect, everyone would instinctively search the open ground.
And while this place resembled a great hall, the ceiling above them was entirely made of rock, with no stars or silver moon visible at all. Naturally, they wouldn't consider it the location of the treasury.
Even if they did consider it, they wouldn't have thought the entrance was above their heads.
These Dwarves were cunning. Serie had to admire their misdirection, hiding something so obvious in plain sight took particular genius.
But did this treasury really require such a complex design?
Serie felt slight doubt. The riddle seemed almost too elaborate for what should be straightforward storage.
"But how do we get up there?" Eric gazed worriedly at the dome, over twenty meters high.
This wasn't the cliff they had climbed earlier; there was nowhere to climb at all. The smooth stone walls offered no purchase, no handholds. Unless Kurtz carried him up, he could only stare helplessly.
"How about you carry us up, Kurtz?" he suggested, though his voice held little confidence.
"No need!" Kurtz shook his head, pointing in a particular direction. "The intersecting place is here, so we just need to reach this spot."
He looked at Serie. If she used ice magic, she should be able to create something like a cloud ladder. Their past experiments had proven her precision with such constructions.
"This height is certainly manageable."
Serie understood Kurtz's meaning. She and he often used ice magic for experiments, so they had naturally done similar things.
The memory of their practice sessions flickered through her mind as she recalled countless hours spent perfecting the delicate balance required for structural ice work.
Serie released her magic, and a crystalline ice staircase spiralled upward from the ground, each step forming with precision. The structure gleamed in the dim light, standing in the exact position Kurtz had indicated with mathematical precision.
"That's impressive!"
Kurtz praised Serie's precise control. The staircase was a work of art, with not a single unnecessary crystal; each step was perfectly sized and positioned.
Although he could do the same thing, in such a place, saving magic was paramount. It was the same reason they went to such lengths to climb the cliff instead of just flying up.
Having Serie do it allowed them to achieve the perfect effect with the least magic.
"Let's go."
Although Kurtz's praise was welcome, Serie didn't show it, trying hard to keep her lips from curving upward. She had a reputation to maintain, after all.
Everyone walked up the stairs, their footsteps echoing softly against the ice.
When they reached the end, where the intersecting stars and white marks disappeared, everyone saw that the symbols seemed to pulse faintly in the torchlight, ancient magic still coursing through the carved stone.
"Where's the mechanism?" Eric stared intently at the smooth stone wall, seeing nothing. His fingers traced the surface, searching for hidden switches or pressure points.
"How is it? Can you feel it?" Kurtz asked Serie.
He had already observed it. There were no protruding stones on the wall, clearly indicating that the Dwarves' mechanism wasn't the simple 'press-to-open' type.
"It seems to be an ancient seal, the same type of magic as the black box containing the eternal ore, and it's extremely sturdy. It should be of the highest grade."
Serie's expression grew serious as she examined the magical construct. The complexity impressed even her, layers upon layers of interwoven spells, each reinforcing the others.
"This is troublesome, then. We can't possibly have to go find a key, can we?"
They had found the location of the treasure, but still had to find the key to open the treasure's door.
It had the feel of a forced side quest in an old RPG, Kurtz's modern sensibilities rebelling against the arbitrary complexity.
"It can be forcefully broken, but I'll need your Holy Sword."
"It's for replenishing magic, right? No problem, take it."
It was clear that the Dwarf Treasury's seal strength was incomparable to that of the eternal ore black box. Serie estimated that she would consume a great deal of magic.
And when El's Light was forged, this situation was already taken into account.
This thing came with a power bank function, a convenient feature that Kurtz had specifically requested during its creation.
It could redirect the magic within it to quickly restore one's own magic, though the conversion efficiency was very low.
It was only about one-third efficient, but perfectly sufficient for emergencies.
"So, do we forcefully break it? We won't be able to take anything out of here."
After getting Kurtz's consent, Serie didn't immediately begin breaking the seal. Instead, she continued looking at Kurtz, asking for his opinion again.
After all, this was the Dwarf Treasury. Once she forcefully broke the seal, there would be no protective measures left.
If they could take all the treasures and equipment inside, it would be fine, but they couldn't. In the end, they would only benefit the demons here for nothing.
She didn't want to see an army of monsters equipped with elite gear crafted by Dwarves, which would be genuinely terrifying.
"Break it first. We can't come all this way for nothing. How much magic does it need? If it's a lot, we'll do it in batches."
"No need," Serie shook her head. "This magic seal hasn't been maintained for a hundred years. I alone am enough."
Time had significantly weakened the ancient magic. What might have once required multiple mages working in concert could now be handled by her alone.
"Then let's begin."
Serie began to cast magic, forcefully breaking the seal above. Her hands moved in precise patterns, weaving destruction magic with surgical precision. The air crackled with raw magical energy as she worked to unravel centuries of Dwarf craftsmanship.
After a period of time, with a crisp cracking sound that echoed through the chamber, the Dwarf Treasury's seal broke.
The stones on the wall began to move slowly, emitting ancient grinding sounds, and revealed a narrow passage just wide enough for one person to pass through. Dust and debris fell like snow as the mechanism activated for the first time in generations.
At the same time, Kurtz handed the Holy Sword to Serie.
When this Holy Sword was forged, he had asked Duller to use some minerals that increased its weight. Only by continuously filling it with magic could its weight be reduced.
However, he also considered special situations during combat, so he added a special safeguard.
If enough magic were infused the previous night, it would remain light throughout the next day. This was also the main reason Somo could easily wield El's Light just now.
Serie took the Holy Sword and began to quickly replenish the magic she had just consumed, using the magic within it. The familiar warmth of restored power flowed through her as the sword's stored energy transferred to her reserves.
"If this were during the Dwarf Kingdom's heyday, we'd be considered intruders, wouldn't we?" Norn said self-deprecatingly.
"It's fine!" Kurtz turned his head. "We can take back a few lost treasures. Maybe the current Dwarf King will even thank us!"
Everyone chuckled at Kurtz's remark, though the nervous edge to their laughter revealed the underlying tension.
They proceeded along the passage. After walking through the narrow corridor for an unknown period, footsteps muffled by accumulated dust, they finally reached the end, where a stone door inlaid with Star Ore appeared before them.
"It's a bit small!" Kurtz said.
He had initially imagined the Dwarf Treasury's door to be several meters or even dozens of meters high. After all, with the Dwarves' capabilities, creating such a large door and controlling its opening and closing with mechanisms wouldn't be difficult.
Moreover, given the legendary quantity of treasures in the treasury, a vast space would be needed, and a giant door would be standard.
But the stone door before them was at most two meters high.
Perhaps for Dwarves, whose average height was 1.2 meters, it was pretty tall, but in Kurtz's eyes, it was just normal size from his previous life, not even as good as some warehouse doors.
"Indeed, this doesn't seem to be the Dwarves' preference."
Somo also chimed in, agreeing. As a Dwarf himself, he naturally knew the Dwarves' love for grand architecture, and this stone door clearly wasn't in the Dwarf style. His brow furrowed with confusion at the discrepancy.
"We didn't go the wrong way, did we?"
"We'll know once we go inside."
Serie was the first to push open the stone door. The door offered no resistance; clearly, the Dwarves hadn't placed the same seal on it. Ancient hinges groaned in protest, but the door swung open smoothly.
What greeted everyone's eyes was a space that was neither too big nor too small, anticlimactic after all their expectations had been.
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