Odyssey of the Blind God

Despite being utterly exhausted, the three young Originals stood in front of the six destroyed Puppet-type runic armaments.

While the main circuits of four had been damaged severely so as to defeat them, the other two Knights looked worse.

"If we research them well, we should be able to reproduce them, right?"

Mathias was excited at the thought of controlling Puppet-type runic armaments. He imagined how splendid it would be to control dozens of more Guardian Knights to let them fight in the front while using his Elemental affinity to fight in the back.

There were lots of things Mathias wanted to test out and that was something one could clearly see in the excitement his expression carried.

'Researching the Guardian Knights' runic constellations? That will probably take years. Let alone the costs, and the required time to reach at any conclusive results is way too long.'

Nial could only smile wryly. He understood what was on Mathias' mind but Nial was pretty sure that selling the Puppet-type runic armaments might be their best bet.

"Maybe repairing them might be easier than trying to reproduce them…at least it would be much faster." Bella just said, while smiling faintly. Her train of thought was similar to that of Nial's.

She could also tell that Nial was of a different opinion than Mathias who frowned slightly while looking at his friends before shrugging his shoulders.

"Each of us will get two Guardian Knights, right?"

Both Nial and Bella nodded at Mathias' question before they blurted out at once,

"If nobody wants the highly damages Guardian Knights, I will take them."

"I will take the severely destroyed ones."

While Nial was not really bothered about making a bigger profit by demanding the less damaged Guardian Knights, Bella had a different opinion.

'I've already stored the portable garden, so I should take a step back!

Bella felt as if her greed would overwhelm her the moment she would demand the best treasures every single time the group would make an interesting discovery.

In the past, she had never been that greedy, but the memories of numerous events, both good and bad, were more than enough to remind her that those with strength, wealth, and connections possessed all the power in humanity's shelters!

That was why she had been focusing on procuring more wealth as her strength could be nurtured much faster as long as she had a big enough fortune.

"You guys can take one severely damaged Guardian Knight each, and I will store the remaining little damaged ones then!"

Mathias was excited and stored his gains in his spatial ring right away.

On the other hand, Nial stored the Guardian Knights before grasping the three-meter-long longsword that had belonged to one of the Guardian Knights.

'Heavy!'

Nial didn't know what the material the Puppet runic armament or the weapon had been made of but it was extremely heavy and possessed a high mana conductivity.

The high mana conductivity was several times greater than the Tier-1 Dragonflame spear's, which was quite intriguing.

However, the longsword's weight and its length made it impractical for Nial to fight.

'Maybe, I can hire a blacksmith to smelt it for me. If I can use the unknown steel to create runic armaments it would be perfect!'

Nial hadn't been bothered about manufacturing runic armaments, but now his interest was fully garnered.

Not only was it possible to create portable gardens that went against nature's laws by shrinking in size to facilitate transport but the Puppet runic armaments were also extremely interesting.

Nial knew that their strength had not been at its peak due to the long time they had been collecting dust in the palace.

If they had been at their peak and under regular maintenance, even the Dragonflame spear's blade would have been unable to pierce through Puppet's armor.

After all, there were certain runic constellations focused on defense that had not been activated yet.

After everything had been stored, the group of three didn't choose to rest.

They were too excited to stop moving right now, which was why they reached the end of the hallway in no time.

A wide revolving staircase led them downward but none of the three felt like walking down.

With excited expressions, they turned back to the hallway that was not deemed as a safe zone before they looked at each other.

"Let's split up, loot everything and divide our loots once we're back in the camp!" Mathias suggested in an even more excited tone than before.

He had already forgotten that Bella had lectured him less than 20 minutes ago, or that Nial had agreed to Bella's lecture.

Nial noticed this but he simply chose to allow Bella to lecture him once again if he were to keep cutting off other people.

He grinned faintly as Bella sighed resignedly before saying,

"I think we should go together. It's not like we are running short on time so our safety should be prioritized. There might be quite a few traps in each of the rooms.

If three Originals pay attention to detecting all the traps, it's less likely for us to fall in a trap, and die miserably, right?"

Mathias, who had already begun to move halted in his tracks. He turned back to Bella, recalling her earlier lecture which made his bright expressions disappear as air would deflate out of a balloon.

However, Mathias also knew that Bella was correct and that he was being too hasty!

He stepped back and returned to Nial's side before the three went back and forth between the rooms and the hallway.

More than ten hours passed until they had finished plundering all rooms, except one.

There was one room they couldn't enter because it was locked by some sort of runic armament.

But that was currently not important because nobody was sure how to think about their gains.

"We didn't really get all that much, or am I just too greedy?" Bella asked, not sure what it was. She was a little dissatisfied with their gains.

Mathias' expression was similar and only Nial looked somewhat unbothered.

"Well, I didn't expect much from the highest floor. As the two of you should have noticed, almost all floors were guest rooms for their palace's guests.

That is also why there weren't many defensive measures, let alone deadly traps installed."

Nial's explanation hit the bullseye. Mathias and Bella could only nod their heads faintly as they looked at Nial.

What they saw when looking at him was that one corner of his mouth curled upward.

"I didn't sense many runic armaments in the other rooms but I was, at least, able to sense some mana from within. That is not possible in the locked room. It is completely isolated from the outside world!"

It was hard not to see Nial's interest in the locked room. However, the others were not able to understand why exactly Nial was so intrigued in that place.

He had not even been truly stunned at the sight of the portable garden, the plants that had been cultivated in the garden, or the Guardian Knights, after all.

Mathias and Bella looked at each other for a moment before smiling weirdly. Nial was truly the most mysterious person according to both of them.

But that was not bad because Nial felt like a genuine person to them. He never really lied to them, even if it was quite obvious that he was hiding some things.

But who wouldn't hide some things? They were not different in that regard!

Nial was oblivious to the thoughts of his friends, and he was busy using his range of perception to figure out what to do with the locked door.

He wanted to enter the room by all means, which astonished him quite a bit as well.

It was not as if he knew what he would find inside but even then he felt as if it would be quite interesting and helpful in various regards.

Even his Odyssey seed had vibrated once while the same had occurred to his mana core.

Their reaction was the biggest reason for Nial to consider doing something others might deem as stupid.

"If you cannot open a door, you can still tear down the wall next to it!" Nial just mumbled while stretching his hand out.

His flat hand touched the wall next to the door. The wall was cold, felt a little bit rough under his sensitive touch, and traces of mana swirled through the stone.

Nial knit his brows upon sensing this.

'This is definitely sturdier than the steel the Guardian Knights are made of…'

Breathing in some fresh air before exhaling, Nial slowly began circulating mana through his body.

His mana core was overflowing with mana, however, even then, the amount of mana within him was not enough to achieve what he wanted to do.

This was something Nial realized quite early. Yet, even if that were to be the case, he was fine with it.

An entire minute of utter silence passed. His arm was slowly turning dark as some traces of dark energy were subconsciously released from his left arm.

The dark energy engulfed his arm and hand and not long after a slight trace of joy appeared in his eyes.

'It works even better than expected, not bad!'

A crackling noise rang through the immediate surroundings all of a sudden.

Mathias flinched upon hearing this. He began to worry about his friend because the crackling noise originated from Nial's direction.

Meanwhile, Bella's eyes widened when she realized what Nial was trying to achieve.

Nial had converted his entire mana into dark energy before compressing it within his arm.

The burden of holding the compressed dark energy created from his entire mana was too much for his hand, which was why it cracked the moment Nial had circulated it into his hand.

But Nial seemed to be excited rather than in pain because the moment his hand cracked he released the compressed dark energy at once.

Spreading it out from his palm it impacted the stone wall in an instant.

The entire dark energy spread in his palm, seeping into the portion of the wall his flat hand was in touch with.

At first, nothing serious seemed to be happening. However, it was just a few seconds later that his entire hand was engulfed in the compressed dark energy.

Without a warning, the silent surrounding was overwhelmed by the noise of a cracking wall. However, instead of collapsing, the wall was sturdy and didn't move an inch.

Only faint cobweb-like patterns could be seen around the hand that touched the wall.

But that was not everything as Nial's hand was slowly sinking into the seemingly impenetrable wall!

'It works!!' Nial nearly shouted out. However, not long after it felt as if his entire energy was drained.

His legs gave in for a moment and Nial slumped to the ground.

Despite being astonished about what Nial had been doing, Mathias and Bella reacted quickly. They bend down to him to figure out if he was fine, only to see an excited expression on his face.

Even though the wall was extremely sturdy and nearly unaffected by the course of time, his attack had still been strong enough to leave a dark, nearly an inch thick imprint on the wall.

That was how powerful his dark energy was! Unfortunately, the downside was that Nial had just used his entire mana to create this small imprint in the wall right next to the door that seemed to be a runic armament itself.

"Twice…I only need to repeat it two more times before the hole is created!"

**

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