“We’re going with you!” The mage’s face was crimson by that point. “And as soon as you deliver the cage to the fifth level, you’re coming with us. The dean is waiting for you.”
Sadil said nothing. All he could do was note how brazen the battle mages had gotten, apparently having gone too long without being put in their place. Since the students didn’t have access to the fifth level, they stayed in the lift, leaving their three zealous teachers to head in with the lead investigator.
“And now, you’re coming with us!” As soon as the cage had settled into its special niche, the battle mages made themselves heard once again.
“It’s not quite that simple, I’m afraid,” Sadil replied with a sigh. “I’m not actually going anywhere.”
None of the disrespectful teachers had time to object. Instead, three flasks went flying, shattering one after another against the mage’s defenses. Dark blobs emerged to throw themselves at their victims as the potion Tailyn had created left them no chance at survival. Against level seven armor, it turned everything it touched into a vegetable. And none of the battle mages who’d shown up to grab Sadil had armor that was even that high.
As his aides ran off to collect their belongings, Sadil freed Tailyn. The head of security always carried with him what he needed, though he did grab the isolation cage. There was no way he was going to leave something that valuable for the academy.
“You have ten minutes before the alarm sounds. Here’s the updated map for all five academy levels. The provost will be getting back in two days, so you have time to get to the library. In the meantime, open a portal—we’re prepared to join Mean Truk. I just hope I don’t regret this too much...”
Chapter 18
VALIA, CAN YOU ASK Sadil if there are traps in the hallways?
He says you should... Well... If I skip the language, he wants you to cool it and just use the lift or stairs. Put on a disguise, and nobody will notice you. He doesn’t want to talk about the traps on the second to fifth levels, but yes, they’re there.
Got it, I’ll figure it out as I go along. The lift and stairs aren’t for me.
Tailyn had figured out immediately that he could rule them out when Raptor told him the students had run off to get the deans. Right then, the head of the battle mage department was in the lift descending into Sadil’s lair. At the same time, a red dot representing the magic card dean was on its way down the stairs. Both deans were accompanied by their vice-deans, so hiding wasn’t going to be an option, and Tailyn knew he couldn’t do anything without mimicry. Experienced players would ferret him out in seconds.
There was no time to explore, though the many secret cubbies in the walls certainly had the boy’s attention—Sadil had presumably stored something juicy in all of them. Doing his best to calm his pounding heart, Tailyn ran over to the far wall. Raptor had shown him a passageway into a secret part of the academy there. But he did have to put in some work as the door refused to just open, the boy’s enhancement and perception combining to show him a small lever. It triggered a mechanism just as the lift doors opened to release a crowd of mages onto the fifth level. The slab slid shut behind Tailyn.
“Where is he?” The battle magic dean looked around in confusion as he tried to find the head of security. Of course, he presumably wasn’t hiding under the desk, though some deputies checked anyway. Nothing. There were just a few dozen prisoners locked in the cells.
“He’s not on the stairs,” the second dean called. “I’d imagine he’s off in the labyrinth waiting to activate a portal and get out. Do you have Raptor or a scanner?”
“Only for fifteen meters,” the battle mage replied, and Tailyn jumped to get that far away from the wall. “I’ll report back to the provost so he can declare Sadil persona non grata. The academy itself won’t let him stay.”
“Magistrate Varin, I’ll take it from here. Please check and see how the students are,” the magic card dean said, sending his deputy back up. Tailyn was shocked when the second dean did the same. A few moments later, only the two department heads were left on the fifth level.
“Draw straws or go with the old way? You take the right; I take the left?” the battle mage asked.
“Let the god decide who’s worthy of the best loot,” the magic card dean replied. “We’ll use the old way—I’ve always wanted to see what the old bastard had hidden away down here.”
What happened next was completely beneath high-level academy officials. In a word, they ransacked the place. Throwing rank, position, and age to the winds, the two deans began going through drawers and hiding places to get their hands on the security head’s belongings. Apparently, there was quite a bit, too, as happy exclamations broke out with some regularity. And the fact that Sadil could have been hiding on the other side of the wall didn’t bother the deans in the least—they weren’t there to catch him. He could run for all they cared.
Not wanting to test his luck in a passageway that was going to be discovered sooner or later, Tailyn activated the wings attached to his shoes and took off into the air. Sadil hadn’t denied packing traps into the labyrinth, and the boy figured most would be touch-activated. He wanted to avoid that.
Feeling his way, the boy moved along the corridor. Perception was out of the question in the complete dark, so he had to rely completely on his scanner. Raptor built a path to the fourth level that looped around like a fleeing rabbit. Following the green arrows in front of him was going to take a while.
But the boy’s best laid plans quickly came to naught as a powerful stream of fire smacked into his chest. It was so strong, in fact, that it melted right through Vargot and hit his body. Thankfully, his immunity worked exactly the way it was supposed to, keeping the boy from dying horribly on the spot, but the experience did show him the futility of flying. The traps were going to go off regardless. Settling down onto the ground, Tailyn edged his way forward, praying to the god to keep him alive.
Electricity, fire, sharp spears, arrows, and a cave-in all tried to stop the boy in his tracks. Having already rebuilt itself, Vargot was put through its paces as it saw off the projectiles. Its wings came in handy, too, to keep Tailyn in place when the floor disappeared beneath him. Finally, he was within sight of the fourth floor, only one thing stopping him: having been working with Sadil’s maps and correcting them as necessary, Raptor suddenly colored a remote area red. There was nothing out there on the security chief’s map. Taking a closer look, the boy grunted—it was right underneath the only way to the provost’s office. But even that wasn’t the oddest part. What looked like a shaft pierced through the fifth level to lead farther down, and Raptor couldn’t see through it.
Valia, ask our newest guest what’s underneath the provost’s lift. I found something strange, almost like a sixth level.
He says that’s impossible—he’s personally been through every one of the hallways himself.
But that’s the thing. There’s something here, and it’s weird... Kind of like our cube. It isn’t letting my scanner penetrate any deeper, and it doesn’t look like any of the corridors lead there. The whole space is separated from the labyrinth by a three-meter wall. Sadil might not have been able to see it with his scanner...
Tailyn, don’t even think about it! That’s not why you’re there!
And spend the rest of my life wishing I’d checked it out? I’m buying a pick and trying to break through. What if it works? I have time.
I’m going to kill you one of these days... Be careful.
The girl’s reservations made sense. None of the corridors on the other levels got that close to the strange area. It was only the fifth level. And it was the fifth level that was packed with traps, practically one on top of the other, turning the corridors into a fiery, electric, and freezing wasteland. Tailyn was even forced to drink a yeti potion to keep him safe from the icicles and brutal chill. Freezing and turning to ice, Vargot quickly ran out of oxygen, but that still didn’t stop Tailyn. The boy just plowed ahead through trap after
trap. Finally, he got to the wall and bought a level two pick for fifteen hundred coins. Rearing back and taking a swing, he watched as sparks and a few shards flew off the wall. It was apparently even enchanted.
“Burn through it!” Tailyn barked as he activated Li-Ho-Dun. Learning about the construction of his own city had turned out to be a useful exercise, one that had taught him about the platinum thread you had to break if you wanted to get rid of the enchantment. And while the pick couldn’t do that, dragon flame was perfectly capable of burning through the stone and melting what was inside it.
Li-Ho-Dun destroyed the external protection circuit.
Your companion reached level 7. 2800 experience until next level.
New ability received:
Animal target (passive ability). Description: your companion attracts the attention of aggressive animals, forcing them to attack it first. This ability is even active in bracelet mode. The damage your companion receives from animals is reduced by 50%.
The dragon lit up, grew a little larger, and wagged its tail happily in anticipation of a word of praise. When he was standing next to Tailyn, the two were finally the same height. The dragon was beginning to turn into a force to be reckoned with, though the boy wasn’t a fan of its newest ability. It didn’t seem all that useful.
The pick once again smashed into the wall, and that time Tailyn smiled when he saw an enormous chunk of stone fall away. Rolling it off in the direction of the remaining traps and activating them in the process, Tailyn went back to the wall. Three meters was going to take a while to get through.
In fact, it took half a day to cut a wide enough hole. The boy worried for a while that the deans would find the entrance to the labyrinth and wonder who was making so much noise in the darkness, though the farther he got, the less thought he gave to anything besides getting even farther. The fifth level was so deep that Raptor only reached the first level. But what Tailyn appreciated the most was that there wasn’t a single red dot within its radius. There weren’t even investigators running around looking for their boss.
One more hit, and another piece of the wall crumbled. Only that time, it didn’t fall back toward the boy; it fell away from him. Musty air hit him, and Tailyn turned on a light to peer into the shaft. It looked awfully reminiscent of an elevator like the one Tailyn had climbed down when he’d been trying to get away from the lixes in the Forest of Desire. Only back then, he’d been in the lift itself, while in that case the lift was somewhere high above him.
But that wasn’t what captured Tailyn’s interest. The news that the lift went past the first level and even down into the lower levels of the academy wasn’t particularly unique—he could have assumed it could do that. It was that the shaft dove deeper, down to a sixth level even the head of security hadn’t known about, that really threw him for a loop. Looking down below, Tailyn grunted when he saw a strange shimmering field at ground level. Neither the light nor Raptor could penetrate it regardless of the fact that the thick lift cables showed there was something on the other side of it.
Squeezing through the hole, Tailyn dove inside and wrapped his arms around the rope. One foot gingerly touched the shimmering field and met no resistance. Wrapped in Vargot, the whole leg slipped through as if it weren’t even there, and that was when Tailyn decided there was no danger, slid down the rope, and was just about knocked unconscious when his level three amulet dug into his neck. The lift security system refused to let the non-named item through. Finding that his inventory didn’t work either, Tailyn had to reach up and throw away the useless accessory. The problem apparently had something to do with how Tailyn was touching the strange field. The amulet just laid on top of the shimmering field as though it were completely solid, leaving the intrigued boy to keep climbing lower.
What could the provost have been hiding from the world?
The dragon wasn’t a problem—its named armor let it head right through the field. Raptor switched back on, too. Checking around to see what the sixth level was like, Tailyn had a hard time suppressing a gasp. There was nothing to see. The shaft ended just a few meters below him, the door leading to a tiny room with the stationary portal that had so excited the boy. After practically breaking down the door, Tailyn found himself staring at a blue film. The portal was active.
Tailyn was tempted to have Valia ask the security chief if he knew where the portal led, but he decided against it. If Sadil didn’t know about the sixth level in the first place, he definitely didn’t know about that way of getting into the academy. Not only that, but Valia would find out what Tailyn was about to do and make him swear not to do anything stupid.
And the boy didn’t want to make a promise he couldn’t keep. With the last portal card to Mean Truk in hand, he knew Valia could get him out, so he deactivated his companion, took a breath to calm his nerves, and stepped forward.
But instead of losing his sense of space for a moment, Tailyn hit the wall right behind the portal. The shimmering film had let him walk through it as if it weren’t even there, only the divine message letting him know he still was looking at a portal.
You can’t use this portal. Access denied.
A look of shock spread over Tailyn’s face—he hadn’t been aware there was even such a thing as access to portals. But the thought gave him a good idea. The fact that there was a system checking access meant it could be hacked. As soon as device control activated, Raptor told the boy he was free to make his move.
Stationary portal-III detected. Access limited.
Would you like to hack the defenses?
If you are unsuccessful, the owner will be informed of your attempt.
It didn’t take a genius to figure out who the owner was. For a second, Tailyn froze, though the burning in his chest didn’t let him turn around. The worst the provost could do was kill him. And since he still had Valia with her concentrated noa, that wasn’t a problem.
Your Hacking level: 171.
Stationary portal-III’s protection level: 150.
Modifying the device’s owner list.
Tailyn grunted. His assumption that the provost wouldn’t use anything too serious to protect his secret portal turned out to be correct, though 150 was still nothing to sneeze at. Of course, while it wasn’t a big deal for him, nobody else would have been able to take it on. One thing was clear for sure: the provost’s office was off limits. Over the previous three thousand years, the head of the academy had presumably found something that could guarantee security against unwanted guests. But there... Deciding to really play it up, Tailyn found the access list and deleted the provost. Sure, he was still the owner, but he wouldn’t be able to go through the portal until he regained full control for himself. It was nothing much, but a pleasant nothing much.
With a smile on his face, Tailyn took a step forward, and the space around him swirled. The portal had accepted the changes. A few moments later, the world turned into a small space lit by just a few lamps. But they were enough for the boy to freeze in place with his heart pounding. His breathing quickened.
Right in the center of the room, there was a pool full of dragon’s tears, and the strangest creature Tailyn had ever seen was hanging above it from the boom of a crane. It was humanlike from a distance, with a head, a body, two legs, and two arms. But that was the end of the commonalities.
Valrus Bur (reptiloid). Ancient.
There was no class or age. Just a name and a race. In fact, it looked something like an overgrown lizard with the same ugly, scaled face. The disproportional back legs looked much more powerful from the front ones, so strong, in fact, they could probably knock down trees.
The pool full of red acid gurgled once again to bathe the reptiloid in the liquid. A machine hummed to pull Tailyn’s attention away from the poor guy, and the mana acquisition process happened automatically—metal claws pulled away the full flask and replaced it with an empty one. Not a single drop was lost. After that, another claw placed the flask on a shelf in the shadows. Tailyn whistl
ed when his perception lit up the provost’s reserves, a veritable treasure trove.
Mana regeneration elixir +100% (822).
There were no tears of Alron to be seen. Either the provost had collected them all or nobody had yet died, though the boy headed over in that direction regardless. But as soon as he took his first step, a mechanical voice exploded in his head. The System was once again showing up for a meeting.
“Balancing the game is a challenging job, and it doesn’t always work the first time.”
Tailyn froze, afraid to move. Musings weren’t something the god made a habit of, and that meant nothing good was coming. But there was a pause the boy himself finally filled.
“I didn’t break any rules.”
“Modifying your access to your named items turned out to be useless when you found a way around it, becoming one of the most powerful players in the world. And you didn’t really do anything to make that happen. It’s wreaking havoc, and we have to correct it again. This has to change.”
Isr Kale's Journal (The Alchemist Book #4): LitRPG Series Page 27