After flying through the entrance a bright light flashed before Lorne"s eyes. When the light disappeared he found he was alone. It was just as he feared, he was separated from the other students and masters. It wasn"t because he was scared for his safety. He was worried about the well being of the others. If things went bad he at least had the Samsara Pod.Lorne carefully examined the area around him, "Yeah, something"s definitely weird about all of this."
Reaching into one of the storage containers in the suit, Lorne pulled out the Ping Tablet. The Tablet only registered himself. There were a few possibilities for this, most of which weren"t good. Right now he was alone and he needed to find the others as quickly as possible. First, he needed to understand where he was.
Lorne began to examine the ancient looking hall he was in. The walls looked like they were produced by a skilled mason a long time ago. They were time-worn and slightly crumbling. The floor was similarly paved with immortal stones. Immortal stones were a type of stone which were extremely powerful capable of withstanding the energies and destructive might of immortals. That"s what made it so odd to Lorne.
Lorne snorted in contempt. "You think you call fool others but you can"t fool me." Lorne was a renowned archaeologist in his original life. He even ran his own museum. He often needed to inspect artifacts to determine if they were authentic or not. Lorne knew what to look for.
Looking at the "weathered" immortal stones, he knew this was all staged. Immortal stones wouldn"t be weathered or begin to crumble even after four million years of time. Someone had gone through the effort to make the stones look weathered to add the ancient feeling of the hall. This is what gave them away, that wanted to create an appropriate mood but didn"t consider whether they were being authentic.
Next, he began to examine his surroundings with his Ridarn vision. He began looking at the immortal stones beneath him. Sure enough, he began to see secret traps and triggers. In the past, Lorne"s Ridarn vision couldn"t see through something as dense as immortal stones, but he had a long time to refine and improve his Ridarn vision. His new Ridarn vision could not only see through immortal stone; it could even follow the subtle energy flows lying beneath the floor that went through the walls and surrounded the hall.
If Lorne tried to move much further from his spot he would have triggered a trapping formation. This would have then activated an eradication formation. This was pretty sinister. Whoever set this trap wanted to wipe out the two sects which came to investigate.
Unfortunately for them, there were two things working against them. The first was Lorne himself whom they couldn"t possibly know of his background as an archaeologist. The second thing is they probably didn"t understand how much the standards of cultivation and training changed among the two sects.
They prepared traps for the sects of a few hundred years ago. The trapping formation and the eradication formation was certainly something threatening to the sects of the past, but against today"s sect? Even the weakest members could laugh their way out of these formations.
Thinking to this point, Lorne was much more at ease. He began looking for the formations" weak spots and with a few blasts of his Laser vision, the formations disappeared. Lorne was about to head out but then paused to examine the hall.
"You know, immortal stones are fairly costly. Why should I leave them behind? Since someone wants to scheme against me and my friends, they should have to cough up some compensation!" Lorne thought to himself.
With a wave of his hand, he gathered all of the immortal stones in the hall and placed them into one of the storage s.p.a.ces in his suit. He even gathered the remains of the formations. They were incomplete but he could always fix them and make them into even more powerful formations.
Tower and B"riri appeared together in a hall similar to the one Lorne was in.
"It worked!" Tower exclaimed.
"Of course, how could a little secret realm stand against the might of my genius husband"s forging?" B"riri asked.
"I feel a little guilty for not giving rings to Lorne and Paneneko, then we could have all stayed together," said Tower. On B"wiri and Tower"s left ring fingers were two gold rings. Tower forged these before the mission in case they encountered a secret realm that would separate them. He based the concept on some things he learned about Lorne"s Samsara pod.
"Don"t worry too much about it, the four of us were the strongest in the sect. Even the Sect Master couldn"t compare. Each of would be fine on our own but if we were all together it would be overkill," B"riri said as she smiled sweetly at her husband.
"Yeah, I guess so and the two of them seem to want to be alone anyway. Did you notice?" Tower asked his wife.
"Of course, Lorne was right, this is all a trap," B"wiri flatly replied.
"It feels like we"re in a formation what do you think?" asked Tower.
"Of course you"re right, I"ll just deactivate the formation and we can leave," said B"riri. In their time in the sect, B"riri entered as a guest elder but she lacked a supporting occupation. Oddly enough she found she was exceptionally gifted in the areas of soul sensitivity. Lorne could use Ridarn Vision to look through everything, but B"riri could use her spiritual senses to sense the secrets around her.
Her sensitivity made arts like formations, pills, and talisman creation very easy for her. She was a genius in these fields. Although she, like everyone else, was skilled in all of the fields of study according to the Three-Five Paths, she, like Tower, had specialties they were much better at than others. Tower was gifted in forging and B"riri was good at anything requiring spirit sense.
As a result of her abilities, B"riri had become more studious and discovered a love of learning and after talking with Lorne and learning about archaeology and history, she began to look into the history of the arts she learned. She developed into a scholar whose width and breadth of knowledge was profound. She was now what the Amazons call a Warrior Sage. Among the Amazons, this was a highly respected t.i.tle.
Paneneko looked around his environment, "hmmm, a minor little set of formations? This is hardly worth my time." With a wave of his hand, the formations were broken. Paneneko pulled out his Ping Tablet and just like Lorne he found it didn"t detect anyone. With a thought, a few tools appeared and Paneneko dismantled the Ping Tablet, and after inscribing some symbols into it and adding new components, he rea.s.sembled the tablet.
Turning it over in his head, he turned it on and after a few moments dots began to appear on the screen. Some dots were big and others were small. The dots had different colors and a map began to form.
"Oh, so that"s how it is, Lorne was right this whole thing is a trap. Let"s see who"s really in the trap." Paneneko moved forward and with a move of his hand gathered all of the materials in the ancient hall while looking at the Ping Tablet and following it.
After walking for a little while, Paneneko stopped and said in a loud voice. "You can come out now."
Two blood red eyes, the size of a human appeared in front of Paneneko. Slowly rest of the creature emerged as if stepping out of the shadows. It was extremely long with tiny legs. It looked like a snake with tiny arms with claws.
"It"s just a little Wyrm," Paneneko said without much emotion.
"Continue pretending you are not afraid little human. I"ve come to eat you!" said the Wyrm.
"If you"ve come to eat then what are you waiting for?" Paneneko asked.
"It"s just that I"m curious, how did you know this was a trap?" it asked.
"Of course I knew it was a trap, I knew before entering, we all did. Since we know it"s a trap it was easy to deduce a formation was probably where I appeared. I looked for the formation, found it and dismantled it." Paneneko responded once more.
"How did you know it was a trap before you even entered?" The Wyrm was very surprised by this information.
"My brother met a girl he liked. Hahahaha" Paneneko laughed loudly.
"I don"t understand but it doesn"t matter. I"m going to eat you regardless. Little human do you have any final words?" The Wyrm asked Paneneko.
"Little Wyrm, it is I who should be asking you for your last words!" Paneneko responded aggressively.
"You keep calling me a Wyrm, but you"re aren"t correct, I"m not just a Wyrm." The creature said as it seethed.
"Then what are you?" Paneneko ased.
"I"m a Fiendish Wyrm!" The creature laughed maniacally.