Chapter 180: Inner Area
Chapter 180: Inner Area
Looking at Neil at the front, Angus could only shake his head. During Uncle Jade’s last medication, he asked Angus to take care of Neil inside the inner area.
Uncle Jade is afraid that the other villages might be plotting something since Neil is famous for being the most talented among his sons.
Despite having a shitty personality, Uncle Jade believes that he will become more mature when he gets more experience like his brothers and sister.
However, Angus didn’t promise him. He only said that if he could help, he would help. If not, he will leave him alone on his own.
One thing that Angus hates is babysitting someone. He never even went easy at Jayna during her training, much less another person with a bad relationship with him.
Sometimes, he even thought that the real reason his brother hated him in the past is this kind of habit and personality. Even if it is from his brother, Nobody likes to be treated in harsh, cold, and brutal ways during training.
However, he did not regret his action and will still do so. He believes only through hard experience could someone survive, be it in this world or his past world. At least, Jayna never complained about the harsh training he gave her all this time.
Entering the portal, Angus and Jayna once again feel space disorientation, but they could still withstand them since they are weaker than the disorientation they got in the past.
They arrive at an endless stone platform with a lot of the same style and shape of stone buildings scattered everywhere.
The sky is covered with thick clouds that make this place have a gloomy atmosphere. No one could see through behind the thick cloud besides hearing the occasional rumbling of thunder.
On the horizon, they could see a big stone pyramid-like building with a portal on the top. According to the information they gather, this should be the exit of this inner area.
After getting used to the disorientation, many people start to scatter in different directions. They didn’t want to waste any more time and begin their treasure hunt. However, just as they spread away, a few loud roaring sounds are heard from everywhere. *Roarr* *Roarr*
Many different types of monsters start to attack the group that just arrived at this inner area. Looking at this, everyone immediately readies their weapon.
Fortunately, most of this monster is only grade one, with grade two being the strongest. Moreover, there are more people here than the incoming monster.
The nearby people start butchering the monster without mercy. During this time, Angus decided to use [Great Mana Echolocation]. After getting the feedback, he could help but marvel at this place.
Despite using [Great Mana Echolocation], he still couldn’t find the border of this place. However, as he gets the feedback from his skill, he realizes that this place seems like a big abandoned city.
“So, which way should we go?” asked Jayna after Angus digested all the information from his skill.
“Hmm… Let’s pick a random direction. I want to try to map out this place first, or do you want to go for a treasure hunt now?” asked Angus back.
“Nahh.. Let’s just go along with your idea. I still have a little bit of trauma from our last treasure hunt. Besides, we could always find something interesting during the mapping out.” said Jayna.
“Great, then I leave the monster for you to handle.” said Angus before picking one direction.
“Alright, I also need something to target for my practice.” replied Jayna while following Angus.
Both of them keep running in one direction for a while. While running, Angus occasionally uses [Great Mana Echolocation] to map out the inner area. Sometimes, he will stop to digest the information and wait for Jayna to kill the monster before continuing.
Angus also takes a path with fewer monsters on the way and avoids being surrounded by a group of monsters. They keep this feat until half day before they stop for rest.
Currently, there are a dozen or more stone buildings in their vicinity. Angus also finally found the border of this area. The inner area is bigger than he thought. It takes more time than he expected for them to reach the border of this area.
He truly marvels at this place and is curious at how they managed to build it. As he suspects, the area’s border is made of the space barrier like in the usual dungeon.
After thinking and digesting the information he got, Angus feels like this place is unique and seems to hide a secret.
“So, where should we go now?” asked Jayna, who just finished killing the incoming monster.
“Jayna, how is your [Fiery Burst] mastery?” asked Angus.
“Good, I could use all day long without being exhausted.” said Jayna.
“Excellent, now ignore the monster and try to keep up with me.” said Angus before going in one direction using [Beast Walk]. *Whoosh*
Looking at this, Jayna begins to follow him with her own movement skill [Fiery Burst]. Unlike Angus’s usual [Beast Walk], he lowered his speed to match with Jayna. Otherwise, she will be left behind.
While running using [Beast Walk], Angus also keeps mapping out the area. Soon, another day passed by since Angus started mapping out the whole area.
The area is more massive than he thought, and it needs more than a day for him to map out the whole area despite keep moving nonstop. Currently, both of them are exhausted from continuing to run at high speed.
Especially Jayna, she couldn’t regenerate mana as fast as Angus despite having almost the same mana capacity. Moreover, she didn’t have enormous stamina like Angus.
As for Angus himself, he was also exhausted both physically and mentally. He keeps spamming [Great Mana Echolocation] to the limit while he keeps running.
Fortunately, in the end, they managed to map out the entire area thoroughly despite the need to increase their speed along the way.
After mapping out the whole area, he realizes that all this stone building is not put randomly. The entire area has a square shape with many buildings on it. These buildings seem to be making a sort of pattern. But because of its huge scale, it is getting harder to see the pattern.
Only people like Angus that managed to map the whole area and memorize them managed to see the pattern. However, he didn’t know the meaning of the pattern even when he managed to reveal it.
While Angus rests his body and racks his brain to solve the pattern, Jayna sits on the ground, trying to recover her mana as much as possible.
A few hours later, “So, did you finally solve the pattern?” asked Jayna after recovering some considerable mana.
“Urgghh… I still don’t get it. There is still something that I miss, but I didn’t quite get it.” replied Angus.
“Hmm… Did you want to go around once more?” asked Jayna.
“Nah, it will probably be the same. It seems we need to search the building like everyone else.” replied Angus after half giving up.
“Well, Don’t worry about it. It’s not like I expected to get something from here. Anyway, how much time left do we have?” asked Jayna.
Angus looked at his wristwatch, “We have.. Time.. Yes, that’s it. Hahaha… Jayna, you are my lucky star.” said Angus while hugging Jayna, who was confused at Angus’s sudden behavior.
Looking at the confused Jayna, “Jayna, this whole place is actually a gigantic clock. The pyramid in the center is the center of the clock while the building is the place to indicate something like hours, minutes, or seconds.” explained Angus.
“Now, what we need is to find the clock arm to read the whole area. However, this area didn’t have a normal kind of arm clock. But, there is something that is always moving from this place.” added Angus.
“Keep moving around in this place, Don’t tell me.. The monster.” said Jayna as she came to her own realization.
“Yes, however, it is not the ordinary monster. The monster must be moved in a set pattern and must be quite a high grade to work as a clock arm.” explained Angus.
“Fortunately, during our mapping, I remember detecting the highest grade monster position.” said Angus as he started drawing something on a piece of paper.
Angus draws a clock with some clock arms based on the few highest-grade monster positions. Matching the map in his head with the clock arms, he finally found that each of the clock arms pointed towards the specific building.
Angus speculates that there is something in the building. After explaining to Jayna about this discovery, both of them once again check the monster’s position since some time has passed since their first read.
Fortunately, they only need to know their location and not fight them since most monsters are in the third grade. Unlike the beast and civilian race, the monster of third grade is equivalent to the fourth-grade combatant.
Knowing which path to take, both of them once again could read the clock arms in a few hours of running. Without wasting more time, they immediately go towards one of the nearest clock arms buildings.