Chapter 869 - A guide's gift (Patreon)

The group continued to walk, but suddenly Paige stopped. She wasn’t even at the end of a path in the labyrinth, but against one of the grass walls, there was a specific area that allowed people to pass by and reach a new area. According to the mage, the way to locate that was by following the mana. If they let mana out, just mana without any spell, it would float around like a mist. When it touched the grass, it would move, following the solid form of the vegetation. But in this particular 3 meter wide space, the mana would simply pass through the labyrinth walls as if nothing was there.

In a way, it made sense that a place like this would have that kind of trick. After all, they all knew about an illusion that covered the entire room. But still, Hera couldn’t help but think how wild it was that someone would ever find this particular path. The effort required to not just locate, but to discover a consistent way of revealing the hidden passage, was tremendous.

“Oh, actually no. We’ve met someone who found out about this place by coming to the doorway on the other side. Inside the tunnel we are going in, there are a bunch of those fake walls and that’s where this person figured out the mana thing,” Paige explained, removing some of the mystic of the situation.

Beyond that fake grass was another path that turned back in the direction they came from. After a few dozen meters, was a large sand garden with large rocks spread everywhere. The sand was in a spiral pattern, and as the human mage walked over it, her footprints were slowly being hidden as the patterns returned effortlessly.

Paige moved toward one of the rocks to the left. Not the biggest one, nor the smallest one. If someone didn’t know exactly where they were going, their destination would be almost impossible to find. Once more she let out some mana steam from her hand and found a small square that was just large enough for a hand hidden in the rock. She reached inside and pressed something that caused the entire boulder to shift back, revealing an underground tunnel.

“Take a deep breath, everyone. It will be a couple of hours before we get some fresh air,” Fernando was the first to walk inside. Syrinx and Borin followed him, and so did Skyler and Flint.

Both teams still had some reservations about trusting the humans. Not because they had proven to be untrustworthy, but because of the general paranoia caused by the war. Hera shook her head, wondering if things would ever get back to normal. Even after this conflict was over.

The rest followed soon after. In just a couple of moments, they reached a sharp U turn on the tunnel. And, as the humans mentioned, the gurney was too big to pass through. Even if they tried to make it stand upright, the ceiling here was too low. Any spell they used to increase the space they had failed as the room itself refused the change. Livy couldn’t be here, Lurize was also too big, and even Nimbus, who was just a few centimeters taller than Hera, struggled to move properly. In the end, they decided to take Marco out of the gurney. Leo picked up the malnourished and scarred form of his uncle and took him to the next part of the path.

But once they crossed that narrow curve, things became easier. The tunnels had various different passages, and places where they could stop and rest for a while. The two who needed that the most were Neria and Sophia. They spent the entire 4 hour trek constantly using mana to perform what would be the equivalent to a surgery while moving. And Flint needed a bit of time to create a proper mobile bed to carry Marco. Their location was perfect for it. Hidden, easily defensible, and with natural choke points everywhere. Even better was the fact that several of the wall in the tunnels were illusory. You could touch and feel them, but if a part of your body touched the right spot, the entire spell would stop working for a few moments. This is why the doorway was hidden. No one had found the correct chamber where it was located in the middle of all these illusions.

When they stopped to rest, Hera took a chance to look for the place Asterion told her about since she was close by. It didn’t take long for the Ophidianite to reach the marked spot, but finding the illusion was another thing entirely. Luckily, her mana sensitivity showed her the exact location where the magic would break and she found the right rock she had to push against.

Carvings filled the walls of the chamber she discovered. It took her a moment to realize they were blueprints for a massive labyrinth. But it wasn’t a map for the current room, or at least she didn’t think so. Each segment was small and had old Greek letters around them. Some said ‘sand’ while others mentioned ‘stone’ and ‘marble.’ In the middle was even a temple, one that was clearly supposed to have been made in ancient Greece. Some of the paths on this blueprint made words. While other symbols seemed to represent monsters, traps and other dangers in the labyrinth. The Empress could even see the makings of a spell circle in the structure itself. Maybe something to replicate the effect of this room? Or just to stop people from going above the walls completely.

Hera saw a phrase in the corner of the chamber. It took her a moment, but thanks to her researcher skill and her knowledge of ancient languages, she was able to translate it.

‘Daedalus Great Labyrinth.’

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You have found a location with a strong connection to your relic.

Ariadne can absorb the lingering desire in this chamber to receive an upgrade.

[Accept] [Refuse]
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Hera blinked, reading the notification, she didn’t expect something like this. Sure Asterion talked about Daedalus and how her relic was loosely connected to him. But it wasn’t a certain thing. And according to what she knew, there was nothing that made her and the ancient inventor similar. Aside from maybe both being explorers. That being said, she would never refuse an opportunity like that. After pressing yes, she saw all the carvings glow ever so slightly and the light quickly moved to her waist, where her relic hanged from her belt. Once that was over, she pulled up Adriane to see what changed. Visually, everything was mostly the same.

Ariadne was already basically just a long visor with a flap that she could turn to face her. And the magnets that attached to her court would be shot out from the sides. It still looked very much the same, but the visor now had rounded edges, and there was a soft pattern of textured sound waves all around the relic. The biggest difference was a new skill

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Ariadne - Hera’s relic

This relic can help you find answers as long as you are willing to pay the price. It also helps you to send mana across small distances and control the direction mana moves.

Passive effects:

Magnet attachment
Ariadne will generate a magnet every so often. These magnets can be attached to any mana that originated from Hera herself. Once attached, the magnet will last for a few hours. After that time is over, the magnet will break off and dissolve. If the magnet is returned before the duration is over, it can be repaired by Ariadne at a faster speed than it would require to make a new one. These magnets work as a mana delivery system supported by the mana that is being constantly siphoned from Hera. The farther away the magnet is from Hera, the more mana it will require to maintain the connection.

Maximum number of Magnets stored: 15
Magnet duration: 2 hours.
Magnet repair rate: 10% every 10 minutes.
Only 3 magnets can be repaired at a time. If more require repairs, they will be on hold until a repair slot becomes available.
Magnet creation rate: 1 every 5 hours.
Individual mana siphon cost: 10m/s
Long-distance mana cost: When the magnet is farther than 200 meters away, the siphon cost doubles every 10 meters.

Active effects:

Magnetic pull
Once the magnet is attached to a part of Hera’s mana, it can be activated to pull or push the mana around. This activation requires only a command from Hera or the mana that it’s attached to and can be done as many times as required without reducing the duration of the magnet. However, there is a brief delay between activations of this skill.

Cooldown: 1 second

Ariadne’s Inquiry

By injecting mana into Ariadne while asking a question. The relic can give an answer through the screen. The amount of mana required for each answer will vary; if not enough mana is used, the reply will inform that. If the question is related to a location or something too big for the screen, the information will show in your [Treasure Map] or as a notification. The amount of details acquired by the inquiry depends on the owner’s strength.
On extremely rare occasions, you may get the answer to a question that goes far beyond the amount of mana used to ask the question. When this happens, the cooldown will have a massive increase. Once this cooldown is over, the cooldown time will return to normal.

Cooldown: 1 hour.
Cooldown when a question beyond the cost is answered: 24 hours.

Echolocation

Ariadne, can send imperceptible pulses of mana to map the surroundings. The resulting map will be shown in the [Treasure Map] tab ‘Local Map.’ This pulse can precisely shown the topography and nearby structures. Illusions that are weaker than Hera’s power will also be revealed in this map. However, people, monsters, insects, spells, magical traps, and spell circles will not appear on the map as the low frequency of the pulse does not affect them.
In addition, when the magnets are not inside Ariadne, they can also send their own pulses to expand the range of the map.

Ariadne’s pulse range: 50 meters
Magnet pulse range: 10 meters
Mana cost: 1% of maximum mana.
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Hera smiled and tested the new skill. Since it didn’t have a cooldown, she could use it as much as she wanted. All she had to do was spend the necessary mana. Besides, she naturally recovered more than 1% of her maximum mana every second, which made this an unlimited resource.

She opened her [Treasure Map] and there was a new tab simply called ‘Ariadne,’ she touched it and saw a blank screen. Once the skill was active, however, that changed. The mana pulse gave form to her surroundings and the chamber she was currently inside came into view. Then was the corridor, and the nearby chambers. The 50 meter range wasn’t simply a radius, but how much the mana pulse could travel. If part of it hit a wall and bounced back to an area that was already mapped, the 50 meters that strand of mana could move through would still be reduced. That made a lot of sense. This wasn’t supposed to be something to let her see through walls. Instead, it was a sonar. A way to check her surroundings

‘Twiggy. Can you access my tresses map without me opening it?’ the Empress asked, realizing she could make this even better.

‘Sure can, boss!’

‘Ok. Let’s try one thing. I’ll use this again. Check the map and send that information to me. Not with words, just send it to my head,’ Hera asked.

She walked to a nearby chamber since the one she had just used was still on the map and triggered the skill again. Slowly, Twiggy sent what she was seeing to the Empress. Having information shoved inside her head was an odd feeling, but still, it worked. She could tell exactly where everything was, including some of the hidden handles to open more rooms.

The Ophidianite smiled and thought, ‘I really need to thank Asterion later. This is amazing!’

‘I agree! He is great. And sooo yummy!’ Twiggy replied excitedly.

Hera paused, ‘You think he’s hot?’

‘Don’t you?’

‘I mean… I don’t actually look at the guides with that in mind. I’m pretty sure they don’t even have, like, genitals,’ Hera frowned.

‘So? Neither do I. That doesn’t mean I can’t think he’s hot,’ Twiggy huffed.

‘Fair point. We can talk about that later, but let’s get back to the group. If Leo’s friends get lost I can serve as backup.’

‘Oh, oh. How about you don’t tell them about Ariadne? Just for now. Let them struggle to find the doorknobs and then just point at it like it was suuuper obvious,’ Twiggy chuckled by only imagining the situation.

Hera smiled, ‘That’s not a bad idea.’

Soon, she was back with the group, who were all discussing where to go after this. They needed to reach an alliance controlled room, but to do so while carrying someone in Marco’s condition would require some proper planning.