Episode 16
“The Tomb of the Dragon Slayer?”
As soon as Zeke considered entering, the message appeared again.
[Opening the Tomb of the Dragon Slayer.]
Whirrrrr!
Clank!
The gears, which had seemed like mere decorations on the door, began to turn, unlocking with a resounding noise.
“Is it open?”
Zeke approached the door and gave it a gentle push.
Rumble!
Originally, it had taken fifty mages from the Empire’s Tower and Nirvana a month of calculations to open this door. But with the blessing of the ancient dragon, Zeke managed to open it effortlessly and step inside.
What he saw left him speechless.
“This place is enormous.”
On either side stood towering statues of knights, and before him stretched a massive stone wall.
Zeke swallowed hard at the sight of the imposing barrier. It was hard to believe that such a colossal structure, seemingly beyond human capability, lay beneath the academy’s library.
He quickly scanned his surroundings.
“This place is bigger than ten central training grounds combined.”
Awed by the grandeur of the Dragon Slayer’s Tomb, he activated his mini-map.
“There must be a place here where the relics are stored.”
The mini-map suggested a path leading further inside, but he couldn’t find the entrance.
Frustrated, Zeke activated his dragon sight, scanning the stone wall for any sign of an opening, but found nothing.
Then, a thought struck him, and he looked up at the top of the wall.
“Wait a minute…”
He adjusted the settings on his mini-map.
The flat map transformed, displaying the terrain in three dimensions.
“Found it.”
The entrance was at the top of the wall, a hundred meters high and smooth as glass.
“How am I supposed to get up there?”
In his past life, he might have managed it somehow, but now, without full access to his powers, it seemed impossible.
“There must be a way up.”
He muttered in resignation.
“Find a way to get up there.”
To his surprise, a message appeared before his eyes.
[Connecting to the control system at the administrator’s request.]
“What? It actually worked.”
Another message followed.
[Automatic transport is unavailable.]
[Activating manual transport system.]
The stone wall began to tremble.
“What the…?”
Steps began to protrude from the once-smooth wall, forming a staircase leading to the top.
Zeke was taken aback by the sudden appearance of the stairs.
“Is this magic?”
He cautiously climbed the newly formed steps.
“Phew…”
At the top, another large door awaited him, just like before.
As he approached, a message appeared.
[Would you like to open the Dragon Slayer’s Tomb Repository?]
The word “repository” made Zeke grin.
“Of course, open it.”
Whirrrrr!
Clank!
The door opened just as before.
Inside, the repository was filled with dozens of display cases, each stacked with boxes of various sizes.
Zeke examined the boxes.
“Wow! These are sealed chests. Finding just one in a dungeon would be a huge score.”
Among adventurers, these sealed chests were known as treasure troves. They often contained rare relics and sometimes even rune stones, making them highly lucrative finds.
And here were hundreds of them.
Humming a tune, Zeke began opening the boxes one by one.
“Let’s see… Is this a rune stone? I can give this to Professor Fainan as a design fee. And this…”
Each item inside was a valuable relic.
Larger boxes contained weapons and equipment from the Golden Age or even ancient times.
“Whew, I can’t carry all of this at once.”
Zeke prioritized items he could use immediately, like rust-proof daggers, cold-weather gear, and backpacks that reduced weight.
He stored the small, high-value runes in his inventory, while the general items went into his backpack.
Surveying the repository, Zeke grinned.
“I’ll smuggle these out bit by bit while I’m at the academy.”
Selling them through the black market channels he knew, he estimated he could earn at least a hundred thousand gold by graduation.
Having sorted his loot, Zeke resumed opening the sealed chests, humming all the while.
Then, from a box in a corner, he let out a triumphant shout.
“Yes! Found it.”
He had located the high-compression mana stones, the very reason he had come here.
The blue mana stones, encased in sturdy glass cylinders, glowed with a radiant light.
Zeke opened more boxes and found four more high-compression mana stones.
“Four of these precious things. I’ll take them all.”
He tried to store the mana stones in his inventory, but ran out of space.
After some deliberation, he decided to use 10 of his remaining karma points to expand his inventory slots.
[Inventory expanded to a total of 65 slots.]
The original 25 slots increased by 40, with each point adding four slots.
Zeke stored the high-compression mana stones and the items he hadn’t been able to take earlier.
“Filling up fast.”
Unlike lightweight backpacks or spatial boxes, the inventory wasn’t affected by weight or volume. It even preserved food in its original state, making it invaluable for dungeon or wilderness exploration.
“I should expand my inventory as much as possible as I accumulate karma points.”
With the mana stones secured, Zeke slung his backpack over his shoulder and prepared to leave.
But as he was about to exit, he felt something strange from the far wall of the repository.
“What is that?”
A tingling sensation crept up his neck.
Compelled by the feeling, Zeke approached the wall.
It appeared to be just an ordinary wall.
He slowly reached out his hand.
[Would you like to move to the Dragon Slayer’s Sanctuary?]
“Dragon Slayer’s Sanctuary?”
Zeke chose to move.
Vrrrrm!
The wall vibrated.
Zeke was startled by the shimmering portal that appeared.
“A portal?”
Large-scale portals capable of long-distance travel were operated by the mage towers across the continent. However, small-scale portal technology had been lost since the Golden Age, making its presence here inexplicable.
“I haven’t seen one since the Forgotten Forest.”
Curious, Zeke cautiously approached the portal and stepped inside.
Vrrrrm!
The portal’s unique vibration coursed through him.
He felt a slight dizziness as he passed through.
When Zeke opened his eyes, he was greeted by an entirely different scene.
“What is all this…?”
He found himself in a tomb.
The vast underground space was lined with sarcophagi modeled after warriors, stacked in tiers along the walls.
There were over twenty levels vertically and more than a hundred compartments horizontally.
Zeke was stunned by the sheer scale of the tomb.
“This wasn’t in any of the reports I’ve seen.”
He approached the nearest sarcophagus and opened the lid.
Thud!
Inside were not remains, but armor, a sword, and a shield.
Ding!
[Discovered ?? Dragon Slayer Exclusive Equipment.]
“Dragon Slayer Exclusive Equipment?”
After thoroughly examining the sarcophagus, Zeke found the owner’s name inscribed in ancient script.
He surveyed the rows of tombs.
“Could all these be Dragon Slayers?”
In the Draker family, a Dragon Slayer referred to the legendary Terakan, who vanquished the evil dragon Bahamut. To honor the knight of knights, the Drakers mastered the dragon-slaying techniques Terakan left behind, becoming the continent’s premier knightly family.
But if all these were Dragon Slayers, then Terakan’s feat of defeating Bahamut might not have been his alone.
Zeke inspected the armor inside the tomb.
Its design and form were unlike any armor typically unearthed.
As he examined it more closely, he noticed a groove on the back.
“What is this?”
Zeke touched the groove, a thought forming in his mind.
“High-compression mana stone…”
He retrieved a box containing the mana stones from his inventory.
He realized that the size of the mana stone matched the groove in the armor perfectly.
Zeke carefully inserted the mana stone into the groove.
Clank!
The mana stone fit seamlessly into place.
A message appeared before Zeke’s eyes.
[Installed mana battery in Dragon Slayer Exclusive Equipment.]
[Equipment is too old to function.]
“Inserting a mana stone into armor?”
This was information he hadn’t encountered even in the future.
In the future he had seen, the exact purpose of high-compression mana stones remained a mystery. Various theories had been proposed, but if these standardized mana stones were used to power Dragon Slayer Exclusive Equipment, then many of the mages’ hypotheses and speculations were wrong.
“Why on earth would someone attach such a precious high-compression mana stone to armor?”
Though he had figured out how to use it, the idea was beyond the realm of current understanding.
“There must be a reason, but my knowledge of magic doesn’t cover this.”
Perhaps Professor Fainan, a researcher, could discern the purpose just by examining the armor.
Zeke decided to remove the high-compression mana stone from the armor and put it back into his inventory.
He continued walking deeper into the massive tomb.
Unlike the usual graves, a colossal stone monument stood inside.
Zeke approached the monument slowly.
“What does it say?”
There were inscriptions, but they were in an ancient language, not the common tongue of the continent, making them unreadable.
Just then, a notification chimed.
[The management system is automatically connecting to the control device.]
[Disabling the central security system of the Dragon’s Resting Place.]
[Unlocking the legacy registered by Administrator Terrakan Draker.]
“What?”
With a rumbling sound, the monument slid back, and something began to rise from the ground.
Zeke stepped back cautiously.
With a thud, a transparent glass cylinder emerged from the floor.
Inside, a crimson orb, about the size of a fist, floated, glowing with an ethereal light.
Zeke approached the glass cylinder slowly.
“What is this? Terrakan Draker’s legacy…?”
As his gaze fell upon the crimson orb, a message appeared.
[You have discovered the ‘Cursed Heart of the Light Dragon Bahamut.’]
Zeke was taken aback by the message.
“The heart of Bahamut?”
Terrakan Draker earned the title of Dragonslayer for a reason.
He had vanquished the evil dragon Bahamut, who had ravaged the continent with his monstrous horde.
“Is this really Bahamut’s heart?”
Dragons generate mana from their hearts.
Thus, a dragon’s heart contained far more potent mana than any high-compression mana stone.
Wizards would pay a fortune for even a fragment of a dragon’s heart.
The heart was that valuable.
“Even a fragment would cause a frenzy, and here it is, perfectly preserved…”
And it was the heart of Bahamut, known as the strongest and most fearsome dragon in the continent’s history.
Why had the founder, Terrakan Draker, hidden such an invaluable treasure beneath the academy library?
Zeke pondered this as he reached out toward the brilliantly glowing heart of Bahamut.
A notification chimed again.
[The Cursed Heart of the Light Dragon Bahamut reacts to the user.]
[A powerful curse embedded in the heart attempts to overwhelm the user’s mind.]
Zeke was momentarily entranced by the heart’s radiant glow.
[Skill ‘Steadfast Mental Defense’ activates.]
[Defending against the dragon’s curse.]
Zeke snapped back to his senses.
“What… what was that?”
He realized why Terrakan Draker had sealed the heart here.
For a brief moment, he had been tempted by the dragon’s allure, overwhelmed by a desire to destroy everything.
Without the ‘Steadfast Mental Defense’ skill, which protected him from all status effects, he might have gone mad in an instant.
“Whew, that thing is incredibly dangerous.”
Another notification appeared.
[You have withstood the Cursed Dragon’s temptation.]
[You have met the conditions for inheriting the legacy.]
[You have acquired ownership of the legacy.]
[Do you wish to absorb the Cursed Heart of the Light Dragon Bahamut?]