Chapter 564 - The 1st Treasury.
"You alright?" Malak asked while looking at Momo who had his body parts spread in every direction.
"Not dead." Momo replied casually while ordering his body parts to gather up.
By the time they reached him, the rest of the squad had arrived with their abilities and weapons fully active, ready for battle.
Alas, they found only leftovers from Malak"s 2nd active primogenitor"s ability *Sun"s Ablaze.*
It allowed her to create a fireball that could be expanded based on her elemental energy!
So, if she had an infinite amount, it wouldn"t be farfetched to create an actual star!
"Let"s carry on moving." Malak said in a straightforward manner, not wanting to hear any question about her abilities in those crucial moments.
The others glanced at each other weirdly but listened to the order and returned to the same formation.
While they were walking slowly, they noticed wide open entrances on the walls, making them believe that the mummies had emerged from them.
When they spotted light inside, they ended up disappointed by a bunch of bones lying on the ground.
"Someone please scan those bones and beam them in your spatial card." Felix requested.
"Aren"t they just useless bones?" Erik asked with a curious look.
"This ruins could date back from millions of years to a hundred million." Felix clarified calmly, "There is a low chance those bones must have become an F grade natural treasure if they absorbed natural energy throughout this long-duration."
Felix had lowered his time estimate since he didn"t want to scare them by telling them that ruins were here for billions of years from the Era of the Primogenitors!
Yet, they were still beyond excited at the news as they never expected to luck out on such ancient ruins in their first run!
Erik and the rest immediately split up into groups and went into each room, scanning the bones with their bracelets and beaming only ones that were showing enough elemental energy to be recognized as F grade natural treasure.
As for the element, it was naturally sand element since its energy was predominant on this planet.
Sure enough, they managed to find at least 49 bones that could be considered as F grade natural treasures, making them grin widely in elation.
"Each bone is going to net us 6 million SC." Erik said with a silly smile.
"I wonder how much the real treasures are going to net us." Khodri rubbed his hands with an eager expression as he focused on the dark corridor.
"We are about to find out." Malak gestured with her head at Momo and started walking towards the end of the corridor.
The rest followed after them and made sure to not let their excitement ruin their focus.
After spending a minute of slow walking, they finally reached the end of the corridor.
This time, there was only a single golden door greeting them.
It appeared exactly the same as the first gate! It had also two lines written in hieroglyphics and pictures of Lady Sphinx decorating it.
However, everyone noticed that the hieroglyphics weren"t the same but they still couldn"t understand what they mean.
This time, they turned towards Felix, hoping that he might open it up just like he did previously.
"Asna, please transla..."
"Never resting, never still; moving silently from hill to hill; it does not walk, run or trot; all is cool where it is not." Asna interrupted him by translating the line on the right side.
Then, she carried on with the left side, "What is always old and sometimes new; never sad, sometimes blue; never empty, but sometimes full; never pushes, always pulls?"
"I really shouldn"t have skipped those parts." Felix"s eyelids twitched after realizing that probably all treasuries would have riddles to solve to gain access.
He didn"t know if the wors.h.i.+per wanted to hand out his stuff to those who were intelligent enough or he simply liked this form of locking his treasures.
Whatever it was, Felix closed his eyes and began pondering on the solution for them.
"It doesn"t rest and not stand still, yet it keeps moving silently from hill to hill? Though, it doesn"t walk, runs, or trot? So it flies?"
Felix"s first a.s.sumptions were birds, planes, and clouds. But he realized that all of them remain still once in a while. In addition, it wasn"t supposed to be cool around them. Birds, clouds, planes, don"t fit in it.
"What else flies besides those three and fit perfectly to the conditions of the riddle?" Felix started eliminating one thing after the other, from a kite to a paper airplane.
Yet, none of them fit the conditions perfectly. This made him realize that his thought process was flawed.
The riddle never mentioned something flying but just it didn"t travel on the ground.
This opened up multiple hidden options! After thinking thoroughly about them, he settled with the Sun!
The sun never rests or remains still. It was moving silently from hill to hill. In other words, rising from the east and set in the west.
Naturally, it doesn"t walk, run or trot and everything is cool but where it was!
"One down, one to go." Felix smiled with a pleased expression as he recalled the 2nd riddle.
The moment he reread it, he couldn"t help but chuckle to himself. He instantly figured out the answer due to having a connection with the first riddle!
The answer was The Moon!
The moon had been around for quite some time, but there"s a "new" moon every month or so! A Blue moon is a rare event, which explains, "sometimes blue".
The moon is a body of rock, so it"s never empty, but we do see what we call a full moon some nights. And the moon"s gravity "pulls" on the ocean to create low and high tides, but it doesn"t push anyone around!
Felix would have taken quite some time to figure it out if his mind hadn"t been just affixed to the sun and celestial bodies.
"Asna, please spell them." Felix requested while ma.s.saging his throat.
Upon seeing so, the squad"s members" eyes brightened up, knowing that he was about to emit those weird noises again.
After a minute of practice, Felix indeed spelled the Sun and the Moon one by one using the hieroglyphics language.
His voice was still jarring to the ears but the gate didn"t care about how he sounded but whether he got the riddles right or not.
Creeek!
Seeing the gate rumbling as its slides from the left to the right was more than enough of a confirmation!
Ka-thump!
The moment the gate opened up, no one bothered to address Felix"s method of opening it up as their widened eyes were allured to the bright golden lights behind it!
Those lights were coming out of nothing but the millions of Tombscreamsers that were covering walls spreading hundreds of meters further apart and twelve pillars that were connecting the ceiling and the ground!
Nothing was spared!
The entire sight sent gooseb.u.mps through their skin, letting them know that entering this room was going to be an extremely dangerous endeavor!
However, greed had suppressed their instinct of survival after seeing hundreds of shriveling humanoid body parts lying randomly around the place!
There were b.e.a.s.t.i.a.l fingers, tails, bones, hades...etc, all mixed up together, making them doubtful but mostly excited.
In the world of natural treasures, it was common knowledge that shriveled body parts that experienced the pa.s.sage of time for millions of years belonged to extraordinary individuals!
That"s because only strong lifeforms had the tenacity to avoid getting decomposed like the rest!
However, seeing that the Tombscreamers were avoiding touching them at all costs made them realize that something was off about those natural treasures.
"Let"s take a moment to think before we rush inside." Malak took a deep breath to calm herself and said, "First, why are Tombscreamers are here as well? How did they exactly manage to get inside or survive? I doubt they don"t need fresh air."
"I believe there must be an air pocket in this ma.s.sive hall connected outside of the pyramid." Pualani suggested.
"Be quiet, I will find out." Malissa requested while closing her eyes and removing her helmet.
She held her breaths and placed her hand next to her right ear, making her hear nothing but her heartbeat, the others" heartbeats, and the occasional wing fluttering of those dormant Tombscreamers.
The moment she got adjusted to those sounds, she focused on the variable sounds in the premise, taking in all the sound waves she could get.
In a short moment, she picked two almost identical sounds. Both of them resembled the sounds of an ongoing flow.
The only difference was the direction of the flow.
She instantly figured out that it was the wind going from an air pocket and going out from another!
"You are right, it seems like the entire pyramid is ventilated properly." Malissa opened her eyes and said, "We might even find the exit where the wind is going to because it"s definitely not going through the hole that we opened up!"
This was brand new information to Felix as he didn"t see the pirates using any other method of escaping the underground world besides that hole!
"It will be in our best interest that we locate that exit." Felix knitted his eyebrows, "I can"t place all my cards on that hole. I have had a bad feeling for days now that I can"t shake away. And I am starting to believe that something is going to happen in the pyramid that wasn"t doc.u.mented."
Felix"s instincts weren"t wrong in the slightest as the b.l.o.o.d.y Mary Pirates were already halfway through their journey!
15 minutes left before they enter the atmosphere! Felix and the rest had just made out to the 1st treasury!
An ambush at such moments could be fatal to their exploration outcome!