Fire Mage

Chapter 700: Infiltration

After leaving the Prince's study room, Charles turned towards the left, looked at the long corridor, and soon saw two guards standing at the end.

Giving them a swift look, Charles turned around and walked in the opposite direction.

After walking for a while, he walked across a few rooms, came to an open garden within the palace, and finally reached the Crown Prince's resting chamber on the other side.

Unlike other places, only a few people could come here, like the headmaid, Cyrus, and other royal family members.

So, Charles didn't see anyone nearby and directly entered the room, unlocking it.

After that, he used the shapeshifting skill and transformed into the fourth prince.

After a brief interval, a young man of approximately 20 years emerged from the chambers of the Crown Prince. Casually, he surveyed the garden surroundings with a composed demeanor. Standing at a height of about 180 cm, he possessed a slender physique, fair complexion, an oval face, striking blue eyes, and neatly groomed short black hair.

Although he looked healthy, his left hand was bent slightly and bulging, indicating that it hadn't healed from the injury yet.

But to not show any sign of injury, he wore a formal dress.

At that moment, Prince Ricardo, aka Charles, adorned in a regal velvet ensemble, wore a deep burgundy velvet frock coat with intricate gold embroidery along the lapels and cuffs. The coat featured tails that gracefully swept the floor. Beneath the coat, he donned a crisp white waistcoat with delicate floral patterns, and his trousers matched the deep richness of the coat. Completing the ensemble were polished leather boots and a cravat made from the finest silk, adding a touch of refinement to the overall attire.

The only thing that looked old-fashioned was the sword on his waist and the pendant and amulet around his neck.

Thankfully, it was common for people like Royalty to hold artifacts always, and they didn't stand out much.

After adjusting his dress, Charles entered the opposite corridor and walked toward the Royal Treasury.

Like before, Charles quietly walked past multiple rooms, even went past the Crown Prince's study, and soon arrived closer to the two silver-armored guards with golden spears in their hands.

"Your Highness!!" As soon as they saw him walking closer, they instantly knelt on the floor and greeted him with a bow.

"I want to enter the Royal Treasury," Charles said while showing a grave look.

Guards glanced at each other and looked at his injured left hand while standing up.

"Elder Finley said you will arrive only in the evening, Your Highness." One of the guards said with a hesitant look.

"Hmm? Is there a problem? Well, I thought of coming here after some time. But I don't want to delay any longer." Charles said while touching his left hand.

"There is no problem, Your Highness. You can enter the Royal Treasury. Meanwhile, I'll go and inform the Elder." The other guard said apologetically and hurriedly moved forward.

On the other hand, the other guard took out a large metal box from his space ring and presented it to him.

"Please put your weapon and other equipment inside this box before entering the Royal Treasury, Your Highness."

Charles quietly nodded his head and talked to Grace telepathically.

'Stay in the box for a while. I'll be back.' Saying so, he opened the box and put his sword, spatial ring, pendant, Ringet, and all other artifacts into it.

After closing the metal box, Charles walked towards the gigantic metal door inscribed in countless rune characters and array symbols and activated the [Mystic Algorithm] skill.

A second later, he saw a complicated magic structure engraved on the door, filled with fifty-two array circles inside.

'Although I do not know much about Rune Arrays, I can tell that even my skill will take more than an hour to analyze it completely.' Unfortunately, he doesn't even have any time.

As Charles's eyes started decoding them, he calmly walked closer to the door, raised his hand, and placed it on it.

Simultaneously, he stealthily took a blood vial from his space ring, opened it using an invisible string, and even made the bottle appear invisible.

The next instant, one of the fifty-two arrays suddenly activated, sent a needle-like energy towards his thumb finger and made a slight wound.

As blood droplets came out of his finger, a strange force appeared out of nowhere and tried to pull the blood droplet towards the door.

But Charles easily released his wisdom power and stopped the blood from moving. At the same time, he moved the invisible vial towards the blood droplet, tilted it a bit, and allowed a drop of real Prince Ricardo to fall.

Instead of dropping on the floor, the blood droplet hovered in the air for a moment, moved closer to the metallic door, and soon got sucked into the particular magic array circle.

The next instant, all the nearby arrays activated one by one and made a creaking noise.

Slowly, the gigantic metallic door opened on its own and revealed a chamber filled with hundreds of weapons, shields, ornaments like rings, pendants, bracelets, etc, and even strange crystals. Each item was sealed in glass cubes separately, and the whole floor was inscribed in countless rune array circles.

"You have one hour to pick up your desired artifact, Your Highness. If you don't come out of the Treasury, Elder Finley will open the door and walk in." As Charles stepped into the chamber, the guard said loudly from behind.

Soon, the Palace Treasury door shut independently, completely isolating Charles from the outside world.

'So, it's a separate dimension, huh?' Charles gazed at the countless rune circles inscribed everywhere and quietly took out the royal seal before looking at the artifacts individually.

Although most were around Extraordinary Rank ones, Charles soon found some artifacts with consciousness hidden within them. Each of them had artifact name and appeared well secured.

'Seventeen are pseudo-intellectual artifacts with barely enough consciousness, and five are real Intellectual artifacts.' But what surprised Charles was that the Churches classified the pseudo-intellectual Artifacts as Series-A Artifacts and the other intellectual artifacts as Series-S. 

'I also see a Pseudo-Intellectual artifact being a Series-S Artifact. Why is that?' It was a strange eye-like orb with mysterious symbols around it.

'Maybe the Churches didn't classify the artifacts based on their strength but the danger they pose?'

'I can feel some of them already know my existence.' If not for the sealed glasses, they might have tried different spells on Charles and tried to control him already. 

But Charles's goal wasn't one of them.

He walked past many artifacts like swords, spears, shields, rings, crowns, etc, and soon arrived at the other end of the treasury.

His gaze soon shifted towards a strange gigantic glass cube next to the wall.

Inside the cube was gigantic ring enough to fit his whole body. It was a golden ring with countless strange dark patterns engraved everywhere, looking like some spider web.

As Charles walked closer, the consciousness hidden within the Ring woke up and released a strange wave of mysterious energy, trying to stop him from getting closer.

'I know this will happen.' Charles chuckled and released his wisdom power to protect himself.

Before long, he arrived before the glass cube, took out the royal seal, and placed it on the glass.

A second later, multiple array circles inscribed all over the glass cube activated and started scanning the royal seal.

A few seconds later, a clicking noise came from the cube, and soon the cube's top layer started to disappear, allowing Charles to take a clear look.

A strange suction force came out of nowhere and tried to pull his consciousness somewhere.

Charles focused his mind and resisted the pulling force, maintaining control over his consciousness. Cube's top layer continued to dissipate, revealing the mysterious golden ring within. The dark patterns on the ring seemed to writhe and pulse with an otherworldly energy.

As Charles observed the ring, he sensed its powerful ancient presence. The consciousness hidden within the artifact appeared powerful and gave him an eerie sense of anxiety. It felt like a dormant intelligence waiting for the right moment to attack.

"Interesting," Charles murmured, his eyes fixed on the enigmatic ring. He carefully extended his hand towards it, and as his fingers touched the surface of the glass, he could feel a subtle vibration in the air.

The moment his hand made contact with the glass, the ancient consciousness within the ring surged, reacting to his presence. The dark patterns on the golden ring began to glow, emitting an ethereal light that illuminated the chamber. A voice echoed in Charles's mind, resonating with a powerful aura.

"Who dares to awaken the Titan's Circlet, Epialos?" The voice seemed to reverberate through Charles's very soul, causing him almost to stumble.

Remaining composed, Charles activated the 'Past Touch' spell.

A heartbeat later, he noticed that the surroundings started to change, and soon he found himself standing before a giant human with a pulsating third eye.

The giant human was around 15 meters tall, wore powerful metallic armor, muscular body, ebony skin, and had strange jaw-like sharp teeth. He also held a gigantic silvery battle axe in his right hand, wore a helm to cover his head, and gauntlets, and looked warily at the dark cloudy sky.

Suddenly, a powerful sun-like light passed through the clouds, descended from the sky, and crashed a few meters before the three-eyed Titan.

As the golden light started to dim, Charles managed to see a silhouette of another gigantic human with the size of around 12 meters tall. But unlike the three-eyed titan, this titan's skin appeared much fairer, it had a strange golden horn on its forehead, and held a long broadsword.

"Astrape! ******* ******* *******!" A powerful, strange voice came from the gigantic human, who appeared to be the descendant of the sun itself.