Supreme Magus

Meanwhile Lith and the others were taking through scans of the tanks, Morok could now understand what could have possibly made two elite soldiers yelp like little kids. The second building had an antechamber similar to the one in the first building, but filled with wonders instead of horrors.

In front of the chairs reserved for the visiting guests, there were several weapons racks, each one filled to the brim with weapons crafted from the finest materials.

"I call dibs on Adamant stuff!" Morok said while darting towards the shiny mass of sharp metals. Professor Gaakhu snapped her fingers, hitting him with the wind blow equivalent of a punch to the stomach.

"We have yet to scan the room for danger, you fool! Also, what makes you think we can use any of those weapons? I doubt the Odi would let them be imprinted by a member of the 'lesser races. It's more likely that you'll trigger some trap."

At those words, Morok snapped out of his greed fit, finally noticing that there was nothing to prevent intruders from seizing one or more of the weapons.

'If back in the day slaves cleaned this place, leaving an arsenal within easy reach would have been beyond idiotic.' He thought. Despite the epiphany, his greed and self-preservation instinct were battling to the death.

Some weapons were made out of metals he had never seen before, while others had intriguing shapes. They seemed to be made by two rectangularly shaped blocks of metal, joined to form a 90° angle with some kind of small lever in-between.

The longer block had a sight on its top and a cylindrical hole bigger than Morok's thumb right in the middle. All of them had a magical aura so strong that it made the hair on his body stand up.

When the array revealing spell was complete, the whole place lit up like a Christmas tree, especially the weapon racks.

"Ingenious." Professor Neshal said admiring once again the Odi's craftiness.

"The mana crystals imbued in the weapons have been arranged to form an array that is probably meant to preserve and protect them from hands that are quicker than the brain of their owner.

"There's no telling what would have happened if you triggered it."

"Yeah, okay. Lesson learned. My bad and all that stuff. Let's get down to the important part. Can you break the array? Is any of those weapons good?" Morok asked.

Professor Gaakhu would have liked to give him a snarky remark, but the Ranger wasn't completely wrong with his observations. Even in all her years as a Forgemaster, she had never perceived such a powerful magical aura.

All more the reason to be extra cautious.

She was unable to identify most of the metals nor the design of what Lith would have instantly recognized as guns. To make matters worse, despite them being spotless, the weapons had a peculiar smell.

Something Gaakhu was certain to know but she couldn't put her finger on.

"I can but I won't." Professor Neshal replied. "I had no time to make sure they are not linked to some kind of alarm. There are too many arrays here, so it's better to add one more formation rather than removing one."

He placed the mana crystals she had taken from the door at the four corners of the room and another one at its center, chanting a powerful spell that enveloped the room in a purple light.

"There. If anything happens, the barrier I placed on top of the Odi's arrays should give us plenty of time to get to safety. I also arranged it so that it will slow down the activation of the other arrays. I'm done underestimating the enemy." Neshal said.

Gaakhu used that time to decipher the holographic display in front of each weapon rack. Unlike Ellkas, she could read even the technical jargon, giving her a much clearer understanding of the Odi research.

She had reached her position despite her relatively young age thanks to her perfect memory that allowed her to learn anything after just a couple of readings.

"Gods, I doubt the Kingdom will give any of these weapons as a reward, and even if it did, I would turn down the offer. Here it says that they tried to compensate the metals' lack of a strong mana by fusing them with living beings.

"The weapons you can see here are all worse than cursed items. Not only were they made by using sacrifices, but also living flesh has been merged with their metal. Now I finally recognize the subtle smell of decay that fills this room." Gaakhu explained.

"That's gross!" Morok blurted out.

"Well, it gets worse." Gaakhu kept reading. "The weapons have been left in the open because they are a failed experiment. Instead of acquiring a mana flow and a life force like the Odi wanted, each one of these cursed objects is a bottomless pit of hunger.

"Even with the stasis array protecting them, here says that they failed to both find a way to prevent the biological part of the weapons from rotting and their owners from being sucked dry of their life force after imprinting them."

"I take my dibs back. Can we enter the next room now? I really hope to find something that the Odi didn't screw up with or that will not kill me on contact. Maybe even both." Morok said.

Neshal and Gaakhu performed a series of spells on the closed door in front of them.

"This is odd." Neshal said. "I have got only good news. The door is open and is not connected to the arrays in the room. Let me double-check." Yet she obtained the same results.

Gaakhu shrugged, turning the handle and stepping inside the next room. In front of them, there was a long metal corridor with many doors along its sides. The walls were made of a transparent glass-like substance, so they only needed to check the corridor for traps before being able to move freely.

Each room was both a Forgemastering lab and a blacksmith workshop. Despite the passing of time, both the corridor and the labs were in pristine condition. The furnaces looked like they were brand new and the Forges were made of pure silver.

"I don't get it." Morok said. "What good are furnaces for a Forgemaster and why silver? From perfectionists like the Odi, I would expect at least Orichalcum, if not Adamant."

"I'm afraid I know the answer." Neshal said. "Those furnaces are big enough to fit a human body. I think they conducted their experiments on fusing flesh and metals here. As for the silver, after seeing their failure rate, would you give an Odi Orichalcum?"

"Definitely not." Morok replied.

The group ignored the labs since they contained just the basic instruments for Forgemastering. There was no trace of blueprints nor ingredients. At the end of the corridor, they found two doors, each one with a different tag.

"This one is the Main Office." Gaakhu explained with a big grin on her face. "It might contain blueprints, but honestly I doubt it. I worked in an academy long enough to know that no project would be left in the hands of bureaucrats.

"This is likely to be where Forgemasters handed over their reports and requests for materials."

"Then why are you so happy?" Neshal asked.

"Because the other one says: 'Armory'."