Eternal Thief

Ace looked at the suspicious throne with scrutiny as his fortune sense was furiously tingling the more he saw the ancient throne. He was sure that this was his target.

So, without wasting more time, Ace first tried to move the throne by simply pick-pocketing it, but as he suspected, it didn't budge an inch. Then, he finally focused on the faint luminescence gap that he had spotted before.

No matter how he looked at it, this gap seemed suspicious to him. When he used his thief's vision, he didn't find anything. He was also expecting it since his skill could only see through grade-8 runes.

In the end, Ace decides to use the only thing that has been working until now; he uses the Dismantle Qi and engulfs the throne.

The moment the Dismantle Qi touched the throne, Ace suddenly felt an invisible power ripple emitted from it, and the floor under his feet suddenly trembled slightly.

Thereafter, the light coming from the gap below the throne suddenly pulses, and under Ace's astounding eyes, the throne begins to shift backward like a slid door. Just like before, his heavenly Qi seemed to be the key to unlocking whatever secret was hidden under this throne.

When the throne shifted, a passage of spiral stairway revealed itself going into the unknown depth of the floor, and Ace didn't waste any time and quickly entered it. He was still afraid that this commotion might draw the enemies.

Now that this passage was opened, Ace suddenly felt his heart raced because something seemed to be drawing him in down below.

The spiral stairway was narrow, unlike the previous one, and as he descended, Ace found that every step he took seemed to exhaust his heavenly Qi more and more as if that stairway was absorbing his heavenly Qi before letting him take another step further.

When he reached the end, Ace was expecting another grand hall or some kind of exotic scenery just as he had seen up until now, but to his surprise, he found himself in a chamber glowing with an ethereal light emanating from the crystalline tiles beneath his feet.

Each tile pulsed with a faint rune symbol, their intricate patterns shifting like a living language. Along the walls, trigram stars carved into the very stone shimmered with an inner light. Some glowed brightly, forming a constellation unknown to Ace, while others lay dormant, veiled in shadow.

Other than that, there was nothing in this place that made Ace frown. But he could tell that whatever was drawing him here was within this place. However, he couldn't pinpoint it.

He was about to use the Dismantle Qi when, at this moment, Moira's voice rang, "Sir Ace, I think this floor is another type of hidden mechanism like the Astral Stele driven from the astral space. You see those runic symbols and their shifting patterns; they are making astral constellations of Heaven and Earth!

"In the memoirs I've received, there is a peculiar lock called the Star Lock. This lock uses the astral constellation as its key and the space and time laws as its foundation. It is very complex but also very secure.

"You see, this Star Lock has no key because the lock itself is the key; only by arranging the astral constellations in a Key Pattern can you open the lock. Furthermore, the items stowed within the Star Lock are completely connected to the lock itself.

"Just in case someone tries to destroy it, the items within will either be destroyed or teleported into somewhere else. I'm telling you this because I think if you try to dismantle it, whatever is locked inside might be gone for good if this is the Star Lock, and I'm 80% sure that it is."

Ace was startled when he heard about this absurd Star Lock, he was also surprised that Moira knows about it. This made him quite curious about what kind of knowledge she got from the Astral Stele.

Still, he didn't have the luxury of shifting his attention elsewhere. He grimly asked, "Didn't this mean that without this key pattern, I can't do anything?"

Suddenly his eyes shimmered as he thought of something, "What if I could erase the lock mechanism without dismantling it?"

"I don't understand?" Moira asked in confusion.

"What I mean is that I have mastered the Lock Eraser King technique, which can erase any lock. In truth, the Lock Eraser King technique erases the mechanism that required a Key to open. Simply put, this technique erases the component in a lock that requires a key to open it and makes it a keyless lock.

"So, if a lock needs a key before to unlock it after using this technique, that lock will no longer require any key to unlock it. This is the true core of Lock Eraser King. But I seldom used it since this change is not undoable. But I don't care about it here.

"What do you think? Would be making this Star Lock a keyless lock work?" Ace asked Moira since it was very important. After all, if he made a blunder, he wouldn't have a place to cry.

"A keyless lock? If the Star Lock's foundation remains but the method to open it changes, I think this could work! Splendid insight, sir Ace. You've always had a solution to problems that no one can think of!" Moira spoke in admiration.

Ace smiled wryly, "You make me sound amazing, but my profession forced me to be versatile in these kinds of situations, and sometimes I don't even know what to do without relying on you guys. Anyway, what is the grade of this lock?"

"Please don't say that; you're amazing!" Moira retorted in an encouraging tone before she replied with a hint of embarrassment, "I don't know the grade of Star Lock, but all I know is that the grade depends on the space and consultations the Star Lock is built upon. Since it's a star lock from the Mortal Sky Heaven, itsgrade should be within its limit."

Ace's eyes shimmered with uncertainty, "If that's the case, then there's no problem in trying. Let's see if the Lock Eraser King, which has a limit to the grade-9 rank, would work on this star lock after all the amplification effects from my titles and treasures or not. After all, I've spent quite some time raising this technique to its peak state!"