Chapter 360 - Scholar's research (Patreon)

The trip to the Naga hero's tomb was surprisingly uneventful. Shane and her team had cleared out most of the monsters in the area. Their main focus was the spiral path. If there was another horde of creatures like when Hera and the other went there for the first time, no camp would survive the monsters' assault. Another benefit this type of setup had brought was the use of one of the New Dawn Deep Room Connection Towers. They were a mobile internet towers that could be deployed by a single person and could extend the wireless signal range. The New Dawn was still very much in the early stages of its collaboration with the guild, which meant that they would use most if not all opportunities to showcase some of their products and their versatility.

Thanks to that, small excursions that normally wouldn't grab anyone's attention were supplied with some of the best gear available, as long as they were willing to give some feedback to both the guild and New Dawn. Despite all that, Hera understood the underlying message of that offer. New Dawn expected positive feedback and probably would even be happy to hear about a problem or two as long as they could use the situation as a case of success to sell more of those towers. Either way, that wasn't Hera's problem, and she could enjoy internet connection all across the room.

Almost every archaeologists wanted to head to the Naga hero's tomb, but a couple of them were interested in one of the crypts on the upper layer of the valley.  In the end. The group split into two teams. Hera's party would go with Shane, Mylo, and two other excavation members while the rest would stay back. Since they had to keep some people in the camp to guard their gear.

Traveling to the tomb wasn't the most accessible place to get to. Even if the monsters were mainly gone, there was still a lot of ground to cover, and some stragglers kept trying to eat the new smaller prey. Even so, the group only took four hours to arrive at what Shane was calling 'Kings' Row.' That was the area after the narrow path, where the tombs seemed much more opulent and had gigantic rock sculptures. Still, the archaeologists didn't seem that excited about those, almost like they already had seen the tombs. However, they were getting giddier and giddier as they got close to the small sculpture that was in the middle of the path. Arriving there, Shane turned to Hera.

"So, do you have a way to trigger all the runes?"

"Yeah, for the spells that we don't have among ourselves, I got a few one-time use spells, but if you guys can help out, that would be great," Hera replied.

Shane nodded and waved Mylo over, who was currently playing with Tiger while talking to Leo. One by one, the runes were lit in the correct order until reaching the final sigil that only Hera could activate. She cast her Selective Memory spell, and the statue brought its hands down. The temple rose up from the ground once more, revealing that familiar white and green design. Loud gasps came from the archaeologists seeing that for the first time.

"Ok, just a heads up. I hope that Shane talked to you guys before, but I want to be left alone in the yellow Naga room. The people who came with me can join me, but everyone else, please let me work," Hera turned to the people she didn't know.

"Are you sure? We are used to doing this type of thing. Maybe we can help," a man with short hair and a thick pair of prescription goggles asked.

"I appreciate the offer, but this is something I have to do myself. If I see I'm stuck, I'll ask for help, but I want to try it on my own first," Hera explained.

Phrasing like that seemed to resonate with the archaeologists that understood the desire to find something for themselves. They also had a lot of things to discover in the tomb, which helped with the idea of not being able to look into a specific room. Hera was curious about what Shane would do with the Legacy door or if it even would be there. She tried to ask the legacy holder about it, but there was never a moment where she wasn't surrounded by other people who Hera had no idea if they knew that Shane had a legacy.

When entering the tomb, Leo went along with the archaeologists, it was the first time he came to such a place, and the hunter wanted to see everything. Hera, Blue, and Alex went straight to the yellow Naga room. After closing the door behind them, Hera pulled up the tamer's journal and showed the type of handwriting they were searching for. She used one of the pictures that Bonnie took as an example and explained how she expected the messages to be hidden in the scrolls.

Hera guessed that the writing was part of another spell that would be hidden among the scrolls in the room for the one-piece she had. They all started searching, being careful not to tear or damage any of the paper since it was hard to figure out where the hidden message would be.

At first, things seemed to be going well. It took them just one hour to find a set that seemed to match and, even better, that wasn't a spell, but a small message talking about the Court of Heroes. It was almost like the residual ink from a letter or something someone wrote above the scroll. On the particular message that the group managed to connect the pieces, Hera could read: 'Court meeting. 6 months and 11 days. Xystar Coliseum. Blades will be there. Can't be late. Travel takes 1 month, 2 weeks if we go through the canal. Let me know when you are ready to go.'

Hera had to hold herself back from jumping with joy when she finished translating the entire thing. This sounded like a huge lead, and It came in two parts. Both the Xystar Coliseum and the canal could give her some hint not just about the tamer but about the entire court. Not to mention that the canal, whatever it was, should be a huge time saver for the guild as well. If it was something that made a 1-month journey turn into 2 weeks, it was just as good as the kobold road, if not better.

However, there were two issues with that prospect. First, Hera had no clue where the canal or the Xystar Coliseum was located. Second, she never got a definitive answer if old civilizations respected the 3 rooms a day rule. That information wasn't given by the system, she only had it because of the extensive testing made by the guild. If the people from ancient times considered that getting stuck was just bad luck, that journey could be going across hundreds if not thousands of rooms.

While Alex and Blue continued searching and matching those random scribbles to something that made sense. Hera left the room to look for Shane. The explorer was currently in the central room, making a catalog of the mementos left behind to the Naga hero and his party.

"Shane, do you know anything about a canal or a place called Xystar Coliseum?" Hera asked just as she arrived in the main room.

"Hi, glad to see you are still around. I can't say those names ring any bells. I mean, canal can mean a lot of different things, so I know a few places that might match, but they are nowhere near here. Xystar Coliseum, on the other hand… The name sounds familiar. Maybe I saw something like that while searching for this place. I need to double-check my notes, and if you don't mind, we can ask everyone here if they know where those places are."

"Sure. I mean, it's just a place, and it's not like they will know what I'm looking for," Hera replied.

They asked around, but it seemed like no one knew about any canal or any place called Xystar. There were several coliseums in the MAZE, including a couple of rooms that either were just in the coliseum or just a large area with a massive coliseum in the middle. Shane pulled her notes and tried to find the place she thought about, but the closest thing she managed to find was called Shy-krar, and the room itself didn't have any coliseums. It was a shame, but for now, Hera would need to search more before finding another clue.

The explorer went back to the yellow Naga room and started helping the others again. However, not even 20 minutes passed before Blue began to complain about being bored. Alex, on the other hand, seemed to be doing fine. It was a bit unexpected, but the assassin loved puzzles, and this was like a very intricate one. In the end, Blue went outside to train with Leo, Tiger, and Mylo. Hera thanked her for the help and let her go. After all, she knew that the controller wasn't exactly in her element here. For the next two days, they spent most of the time in the temple trying to decode all the messages left behind by the tamer. Hera had translated two spells, one that allowed one to heal monsters and another that gave an element to the monsters. The second one wasn't simply a temporary buff but a permanent effect that could change the monster on a more fundamental level. What stumped her was a third one that seemed to let you talk with some monsters, and that wasn't simply speaking and having them obey you, but having an actual conversation with the creatures. Unfortunately, that spell was missing several pieces. She only found some of the information about what the spell did and about a quarter of the circle used to cast it.

Hera never tried to use a spell circle like those that were showing in both the yellow Naga scrolls and the ones made by the tamer, but she figured that since she was a conceptual mage, as long as she understood what the circles were doing, she might be able to use the spells. Even if the combat ones would be out of the picture, those made more for preparation or, like the Bestow Element made by the tamer, were a one-off thing.

It was a shame that the third spell wasn't complete, and there were no more scrolls to search in the room. There weren't a lot of tomes, to begin with. In total, there were just around 30 volumes, and only 10 of them had ink vestiges. The biggest problem was making the connections and finding a couple of the scrolls hidden away in secret compartments among the racks in the room.

Hera couldn't help but find that this place was weird. It was too much space for just 30 spells. The other rooms of the tomb had their reason for being that size. The arena needed to be large enough to allow people to train, the forge couldn't be too small, or whoever was inside would end up frying, and the star map needed space to correctly represent what one would see in the sky. The only place that felt off or incomplete was the yellow Naga room. She guessed that either there was something they were missing, or someone had come here before them and took away whatever was inside the room, leaving only the racks behind to trick those who came later into thinking that this was everything.

Still, there wasn't much she could do now, and together with Alex, they left the room, giving the archaeologists the green light to go there and study the room. As part of the deal that allowed her to have private time in with the tomes, Hera would stay around for a couple more days to open the tomb for whoever wanted to be inside. Even if it seemed like the structure wouldn't go back underground while someone was inside, no one was willing to sleep there to confirm.

When they were heading back to the camp near the graveyard, Hera explained the spell she found to Leo and asked him, "So, can I try to give Tiger an element?"

##### Author's Note ####

It's been a while since I scheduled a chapter so close to the time of posting. But I needed the weekend off. 

#####################