Odyssey of the Blind God

Two hours passed in which Nial replenished his mana to attack the hallway's wall over and over again.

It was an arduous task but it helped Nial control his dark energy with much more precision and comprehend more unique characteristics of the dark energy that he was unaware of before.

This prevented Nial's mood from souring. Instead, his determination increased the stronger his compressed dark energy attacks became.

Meanwhile, Bell and Mathias attempted to deepen Nial's hand's imprint on the wall as well.

They exerted their utmost efforts to target the strongest possible attacks on a small area of the wall's surface.

However, this was much harder than expected, which was why not even Bella in her peak form was able to deepen the hand imprint Nial had created.

"Nial's dark energy in the compressed form is able to achieve something even I can't… Just what is this dark energy?"

To say that Bella was astonished about the difference between her strongest form of attack and Nial's was an understatement.

She was utterly shocked because the [Outburst] ability increased the mana output of her [Celestia transformation] exponentially.

With both the [Outburst] ability and her Innate ability, there shouldn't be many existences with the same powerful mana as hers.

But even then, Nial's dark energy, which was created from ordinary mana, was capable of exceeding the destructive force of her strongest attack.

Understanding that Nial's dark energy was way out of her league, for now, Bella was not even surprised when Nial finally broke through the door.

"Finally…"

Sighing in relief while breathing heavily, Nial's hand reached towards the doorknob through the hole in the wall before he twisted his hand to open the locked door from the inside.

A moment later, the door opened with a click, revealing a seemingly ordinary place to Nial and the others.

"That…was way too easy somehow."

Mathias's words caused Bella and even Nial to frown deeply.

'Easy?!'

'How the hell was that easy? Nobody but Nial is capable of breaking through the walls of the ancient ruin's palace!'

Even if a Prym rank Original were to try destroying the walls of the ancient ruin's palace, Bella was not sure if he or she would be able to achieve it.

That was also why her respect for Nial kept increasing as a thought appeared in her mind.

"By the way, Nial…what would you have done if the door was locked from both the inside and outside?"

Bella gazed intently at Nial, who stopped walking into the room the moment he heard her voice.

"Well….I guess I would have created more holes in the wall until I would be able to squeeze through?"

Nial hadn't thought about the possibility Bella had just presented.

Thus, he could only shrug his shoulders and respond with the first solution that occurred to him.

But this answer was exactly what caused Bella to feel a little bit conflicted.

'You don't want to waste your time while we're in the ancient ruin's palace…but you are telling me that you would have spent more than a whole day to break down the wall…just to enter this room?'

Bella felt that the room in front of them was not as ordinary as she deemed it. For Nial to be prepared to 'waste' an entire day to enter the room that was right in front of them, it had to be special.

After all, they had only less than two weeks left before they would have to return to the Teradan military camp and start their military training.

Too many incidents had prevented the basic training of the Teradan military camp from starting, including the appearance of the Ancient ruins dungeon portal and the dungeon breaks it had caused.

That was why the Teradan military camp's usual schedule had been moved backward quite a bit.

The second mission of being allowed to do whatever they wanted for three whole weeks was something the military and government had done to send their own people in the ancient ruins while simultaneously trying to figure out what the young and unpolished Originals would do in these three weeks when they were given a free reign.

Some would waste their time and do nothing important, others would focus on becoming stronger, while the most tactful ones would try collecting treasures by plundering the ancient ruins.

However, the dangers involved were directly proportional to the treasures they would be able to get their hands on. That was also why only the Originals with the highest levels of confidence dared to enter the palace of the ancient ruins dungeon after the first group of reckless Originals died in the traps of the palace!

In the end, Nial seemed to have a reason to easily suggest spending an entire day simply to enter a specific room.

But that was also why Bella was somewhat disappointed when she saw the contents of the room.

"Isn't that just an office?" Her confused voice reached his ears though she had spoken in a low voice.

However, he could only agree to what she said. Yet, instead of feeling disappointed like Bella, Nial smiled faintly.

"Exactly, it is an office…but why the hell is there an office on the palace's highest floor, where only the gigantic rooms for the fallen civilization's guests are supposed to be?

The office might be large but it has the proportions of a human-like race, so it was used by the fallen civilization!"

Nial's excitement caused Bella to rethink her assessment of the room in front of her.

She clearly recalled the other rooms and the gigantic furniture that sparsely decorated these rooms.

The humongous size of the furniture made it clear that the rooms had been used by larger beings. On the other hand, the office was small. It was of the perfect size to be used by humans and similar races of the same size!

"Why…would an office like that be located on the same floor as the guest rooms for foreign races?"

Bella continued to question herself which caused Nial to chuckle just for him to shrug his shoulders. He had no idea either but her doubts made him think.

The office was quite messy with pieces of paper spread all over the room. There was only one huge desk in the center of the room but it was littered with books, papers, and parchments.

Using his range of perception, Nial tried to research the papers on the desk.

However, just when he tried to imprint the words on the papers in his mind, he got a bad headache.

Groaning in pain, he took a few deep breaths, only to smile oddly as blood trickled down his nose.

"Nial!? What is wrong?" Mathias appeared next to Nial in an instant.

Yet, the first thing Mathias saw was that Nial began to smile, which was even more frightening than seeing a frown on the face of someone, who was in pain.

"Nothing is wrong, I'm perfectly fine… Just be careful when reading the papers. They have some sort of magic seal or restriction on them. You need to be fully focused while reading them, otherwise, you will receive a backlash."

Nial actually had no idea what exactly were the contents of the paper that gave him a headache but it was certainly not something ordinary.

Thus, he acted with more vigilance when the headache dispersed.

Bella had already begun to read through the papers, while Mathias took a look at one of the books in the shelves behind the desk.

"Ciran taria? What the hell does that even mean…Oh! A technique that increases the mana absorption while using Origin crystals as a medium!"

Mathias would have never expected that they would find a technique like the one he was holding in a place such as the office they were currently in.

As such, he could barely tone down his voice to prevent himself from screaming.

Nial was also interested in the Ciran taria technique, which was why he averted his gaze from the desk and all the papers that were lying on it.

However, instead of reaching for the manual, his friend was holding, Nial grasped a different book.

"Elementus Mylee…A martial art technique that focuses on the symbiosis of Elemental affinities…"

Nial couldn't help but feel quite astonished. He had heard about combat techniques that used the Original's elemental affinity to increase the lethal power and destructive force in a melee.

However, Elementus Mylee was far more complex, and was used to describe a combat technique that was similar to the Darkness Shadow, which Nial had fought in his primary Trial of the Gods!

This was quite intriguing as the technique didn't focus solely on either the use of elemental affinities or close combat.

Rather, both were used equally and at the same time.

Nial focused his mana on the book in his hand to read through it with his Mana sense.

Imprinting the contents of the book in his mind was certainly not easy. The vast amount of information that flooded him caused a severe headache but that was something Nial could ignore as his expressions brightened.

For now, he decided to store the manual away. When he was done, he noticed that Mathias was staring at him.

"Calm down, we can both learn the technique. Though, I don't think that it will be of much use to you because it focuses on fighting in a close range with your opponent."

Mathias had been staring daggers at Nial when he had stored the manual Elementus Mylee in his storage ring.

"I don't like fighting close combat because I'm better at long-range fights but sometimes I won't be able to avoid close combat…"

His words were correct, which was why Nial nodded his head once again.

"As I said, you can read it when we leave the ancient ruins dungeon. I am not going to only save it for myself."

Mathias was way too scared about not being able to gain all the benefits he needed to become stronger. It was weird but somehow also slightly frustrating as it felt like Mathias didn't trust him.

However, Nial dispelled this thought after a moment as his eyes flicked to a simple robe that was hanging from a hook on the wall right next to the shelf he was standing beside.

It didn't radiate a single trace of mana, almost as if it was made of an ordinary piece of cloth. But that was far from the truth which was why Nial couldn't help but feel like he won the lottery the moment he touched the robe.

It began to move on its own, unhinged itself off the hook it had been hanging on, just to levitate in the air.

This made Nial furrow his eyebrows, and even Mathias' curiosity was piqued. He hadn't noticed the robe before but it was certainly beautiful, made of some sort of silver silk that was intertwined with golden and black strands highlighting its grand appearance.

The robe swirled around Nial for several seconds before it engulfed him completely the moment it sensed his mana fluctuations.

Dark energy was subconsciously released from his body causing the robe to twitch once.

However, it was just a moment later that the robe tightly shrouded him as if it never wanted to let go of Nial again.

"What kind of armor…or cape, or whatever is that?!" Mathias was baffled, but Nial had no answer to his question.

At first, he thought that the thing that shrouded him was a robe, however, that was not actually correct.

The 'robe' tightly clung to his body and the clothes he was wearing, just for a cape with a hood to flutter in the non-existent wind of the office.

This astonished both of them, and Nial wanted to take off the runic armament to scan it properly with his Mana sense.

However, it was almost as if the runic armament did not want to let go of him.

Yet even before Nial was able to start frowning and use force to take off the piece of clothing, he heard an alarmed voice next to him.

"Guys…I think you should take a look at this…"

Bella's voice was low, but the severity in her voice clearly showed that they were not about to hear good news.

Rather, it was the complete opposite!

**

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