‘Possible Materials: The possibility of the keys being made from Nightmare stone is 78%, from Kata Alloy, 62%, and from Dire Alloy, 51%.’
Angele rubbed his chin. The results were based on the data he had already collected, and the listed materials all had high possibilities of being the right one.
The Nightmare Stone originated from the ancient void world. The energy wave it released would affect the human world and create illusions.
The Kata Alloy was developed by a high-rank Wizard named Katavader from the ancient times. The alloy was ‘alive’, as it would grow over time and its mentality would create illusions in the area around.
The Dire Alloy originated from the Dire World. It was the essence of a special gold ore, and the curse dwelling in the alloy turned the energy into a force field that would create illusions.
It was almost impossible to find such materials in the world now after the Wizards lost their method to contact with the different worlds.
Angele had no idea how many different worlds were there. He doubted if all those worlds had time and space. Some of them might have not even been discovered by the ancient Wizards.
However, most of the Wizards did not know that the mysterious power that was still hidden in this world, the ancient Wizards had spent centuries looking for the rare materials and information. Angele assumed those materials were made into different enchanted items or objects by their descendants and the keys were likely one of those items.
Angele narrowed his eyes.
‘Three possibilities… I need more detailed information to accurately identify those keys. There’s nothing I can do at the moment. I guess I’ll put it on my schedule.’
Angele grabbed the keys and created a silver metal ball from his left hand.
The silver ball slowly rose from his palm. He pushed the keys into the silver ball and sealed them inside.
Angele threw the fist-sized metal ball into the air, nothing happened. The keys did not make any noise. He was satisfied with the result.
He pushed the metal ball onto the back of his hand and ball quickly sank into his skin.
A small bump was left on Angele’s hand, and it was quickly traveling along his arm.
The silver ball stopped after reaching his right shoulder.
Angele pressed on his shoulder and made sure that people could not see the ball when covered by the robe.
‘Alright, time to check the cursed scimitar now.’
He took the scimitar down the belt.
The silver curvy blade was sharp and clean. The battles left no dent on it.
Angele held the scimitar in hand carefully and flicked the blade with his finger.
*Clank*
A clean sound echoed.
‘Zero, scan the scimitar for me.’ Angele ordered.
‘The blade is protected by a force field. The task can’t be completed until the forcefield is damaged,’ Zero reported right away.
‘Huh? The scimitar is protected by a forcefield?’ Angele pursed his lips.
Angele remembered what Melissa mentioned when he was fighting with Kuirman. She said that Kuirman’s incredible power came from the buff of the scimitar.
He started observing the scimitar carefully.
There was nothing special about the blade. However, he saw countless strange runes engraved onto the surface of the handle.
The black strings twisted into small vortex-shaped patterns and the largest one looked like a human’s face from the side.
The man’s face was wide. His expression indicated that he was suffering from great pain. Big holes formed the eyes and mouth of the face; Angele did not find anything that resembled its ears. Angele felt uncomfortable from just looking at those patterns.
The handle was coated in black paint and the strings were similarly covered in paint. Most people would think that those patterns were there for anti skip purposes. In addition to that, the runes could only be found when observed closely.
Angele could sense that the mentality wave around the scimitar came from its handle.
He glanced around. The chilling gust blew over his face, yet the ice on the surface of the deck was cold no longer.
Fog shrouded the area ahead. The thick mist just stayed there, as if the strong wind was not blowing them away.
It was the same fog Angele saw on their way to the island. They must go through the fog before returning to the safe area.
Angele swung the scimitar several times. It was surprisingly light, and the two silver arcs the blade drew in the air were beautiful.
He tried to control the scimitar with his own forcefield, but the handle resisted it.
‘I hope I can do some test on the handle as soon as possible… I need more materials to concoct the potions that will help identify its quality. If I try to break through the forcefield now, I might destroy the buff itself…’ Angele shook his head. He tied the scimitar to the belt. Although he could not trigger the buff at the moment, it was still a high-quality weapon.
The last thing he wanted to check was the signet on his left palm.
Angele turned his left hand around and stared at the signet.
The illusion signet initially looked like a dark beast with two wings, but after the incident in the ruin, a long tail was added to its body. The whole signet looked elegant and mysterious.
Angele rubbed the signet with his right hand. Blue light dots started flashing in front of his eyes.
‘Checking body condition… Checking the illusion signet...’
‘The signet absorbed unknown energy and is evolving. The result will require individual analysis.’
‘Task completed. The strength of the illusion waved doubled. A weak force field was created.’
‘The evolved signet brought a minor, unknown negative effect to your body.’
Zero displayed the rotating hologram of the signet in front of Angele’s eyes. The linked muscles and nerves were displayed under the hologram.
Angele hands, bones, and details of the signet were all displayed in the hologram. He could even see the transmissions of the nerve signals.
The signet rooted itself in the veins and muscles, which seemed quite strange when seen on the translucent blue hologram. Angele could see the weak waves it was releasing.
Zero was still scanning the signet, and Angele ordered it to provide all the important data.
On the side of the hologram, rows of data were flashing.
‘The signet increased your resistance to the illusions.’
‘Do you need the data for the evolved signet?’ Zero asked.
Although all the calculations were done inside Angele’s brain, he could still see everything through the hologram.
However, the chip did the calculations and analyses extremely fast. An average human being would never be able to do that.
With the high attributes, Angele could catch the details of the calculation process. However, he still could not finish all the necessary work in such a short duration, thus letting Zero handle such task for him was a better decision.
‘Yes, I need the data. Start the scan.’ Angele gave the permission to the chip.
The hologram in the front zoomed in quickly.
The roots connecting the signet with the nervous system were displayed in Angele’s vision.
The hologram kept zooming in until it locked onto one of the roots in the center.
The root looked like a tentacle from an octopus. Countless suckers were moving on its surface while spouting out a translucent liquid. It looked like a shower head spraying water onto the root’s surrounding areas.
Some more information was displayed beside the root.
The zooming area changed several times around the roots during the scan process.
After about ten minutes, the chip finally displayed the results.
‘Task completed. The signet has already started evolving, and a different path was chosen. The Bloodline Signet of Socrat’s Great Harpy has been determined. Estimated time required for completion, 12 hours and 45 minutes.’
Angele was surprised. "Socrat’s Great Harpy?"
He had only read about this creature once. In the records, the Socrat’s Great Harpy was a branch of the ancient harpy race. These great harpies ingested a serpent from an unknown world, which resulted into a mutation that turned the bottom half of their bodies into long snake tails. It was said that their tails were much longer than their upper bodies.
After the mutation, these great harpies gained the ability to drag living beings into the world of illusions. Normal creatures would never be able to escape the illusions without help. They would witness their most deeply-rooted fears in their minds coming to life until death came. Only the ones with resistance or strong power would be able to wake up from the nightmare after several hours.
During the ancient wars, these great harpies slaughtered countless humans, as their ability was hard to counter. Every living creature who had heard their whispers would start seeing illusions.
Ancient Wizards realized by then that they had to cleanse the world after many countries were attacked by the great harpies. After several days of genocide, this specific branch of the ancient harpy race became history.
Angele recalled the data and realized how incredible this ability could be. The ancient harpy race had several branches, but he did not expect that the signet to evolve. He wasn’t certain whether it was a good thing or not, and he needed to determine if the signet still had the usage limit.
‘Basically, the evolving of the signet improved its power, I think. I need to collect more ancient blood when I get the chance. It’s time for me to prepare for the next stage, and after reaching Liquid stage, I’ll be able to modify my body…’ Angele thought.
‘Also, Zero, check my bloodline.’ Angele noticed the negative effect the chip mentioned a while ago. He wanted to know what was going on.
‘Bloodline: Human, 87%. Tree Elf, 9%. Socrat’s Great Harpy, 3%. Impurity, 1%. Suggestion, the blood of the great harpies is invasive and shares the ability to create illusions with the tree elf’s blood. They’re trying to merge, you should stop or slow them down as soon as possible.’
Zero gave this conclusion.
‘What if I don’t?’
‘The changes can’t be predicted.’