It didn’t take long before Elena was back in control of her body with the last words of the Princess lingering in the minds of all those present.
Alex took a mont to gather his thoughts, taking apart everything he’d figured out so far, which in all honesty, wasn’t much but was sothing at least.
He let out a sigh as he turned to address Nadia and Arwen. "You two follow Elena to look for the locket she ntioned."
"What if..." Nadia trailed off, sending a glance Elena’s way before deciding against completing her sentence though Alex was quick enough to grasp what she wished to say.
Though Elena was now a sworn mber of Constellations, Princess Berenice was not and it was wise to worry that she may have ulterior motives.
"Don’t worry, just do as I say for now." Alex calmly remarked, doing away with her fears.
"Alright." Nadia nodded in response.
With that, Arwen embraced Alex once more before leaving with Nadia and Elena to seek out the locket the Princess had ntioned.
Taking a deep breath, Alex snapped and was instantly engulfed by black and white light.
***
A flash of black and white occurred in Ana’s library with Alex erging from it.
"Master, you arrived right on ti!" Victoria exclaid with visible excitent while Ana looked less than pleased.
Alex raised a brow. "Found sothing?"
"Indeed we have," Victoria replied.
"Alright, great, so what is it?" Alex inquired as he approached Victoria and Ana, only stopping when he’d gotten to the table they stood behind.
Ana sighed as she answered. "Before I say anything more, you need to understand that there’s good news and bad news."
"I’m listening." Alex raised a brow, noting the worry in Ana’s tone.
Ana slid a large to across to Alex as she explained. "It’s called the Wanderers Key. An S-Grade Relic capable of opening any seals you point it at."
"Quite a nifty trick," Alex remarked as he turned the to to face him before going ahead to peruse the contents written on the open page.
"Of course, just like every other Relic, it has a terrible destructive tendency and each use of its unsealing property causes void rifts to erge, with the rifts being proportional to the type of seal undone."
Alex pursed his lips as he studied the image of the key.
It looked like an ordinary key with nothing that would set it aside from normal keys.
If one were to see it on the road, they’d never know it was a weapon of mass destruction.
Perhaps that was one of the horrifying aspects of the Relics, the fact that most weren’t so special creation but were completely ordinary objects that would look no different to a layman.
"It says here that it whispers," Alex noted while pointing at the line of text.
Ana nodded. "That brings to the bad news. It’s in the Archives of Antiquities."
"The what?"
"The first Catacomb to be built. It was built around the sa ti as the Imperial capital."
"... Is that supposed to an sothing?" Alex couldn’t help but inquire, feeling like he was missing sothing.
Ana facepald as she muttered. "Sotis your ignorance can be annoying."
"Just tell what I need to know."
"The Archives was built with the intent of housing the most dangerous Relics found in Ra’as. Most Relics in that place are S-Grade and they are capable of communication, either physically or ntally, which if not guarded against could cause the wielder to suffer ntal corruption."
"So that’s the bad news?"
"A part of it. Due to the danger the Relics there posed, the Archives were built with slabs of stone lded with Quillion and inscribed with anti-magic runes to suppress them. It’s one of the most expensive structures ever built by the Great Families."
"Wait, so you are saying..."
"The building is just like the Blackgold gate, no supernatural activity can take place in or around it."
Finally, the nature of the situation slowly dawned on Alex.
The fact that the entire building was made with Quillion and marked with anti-magic runes ant that everything they had was useless once they got inside.
"And that’s not the only problem. Because of the whispers of the Relics, normal people can’t keep their sanity inside. Even the guards, who are called Taskmasters, are specially trained from birth to resist the potent ntal corruption."
"So we not only get a debuff but the building also has super soldiers as guards."
"Sorry, what?"
"Nothing, just minor soliloquy. Anything else I need to know about the Archives?"
Ana pursed her lips. "Well, just like the Southern Ruins, it usually has a Family Head watching over it in case of anything. To my knowledge, the Family Head currently watching over the Archives is the Conductor of Ordnance."
"The who?"
"Oswald Muncaster. He is a powerhouse you would not want to face on a bad day."
Alex massaged his temples as he muttered. "So we have a big boss too."
"What are you saying?"
"What?"
"Ugh, you see what I said?... It’s too dangerous. We can’t do it." Ana remarked, clearly peeved about sothing though Alex wasn’t exactly clear on what that was.
Victoria nodded, giving her two cents. "I agree with Lady Ana, there’s no way we’d be able to safely get in to get what we need."
Alex remained silent as he stared at the image of the Wanderers Key, trying his best to rearrange everything he’d learned so far before finally speaking up.
"Before I say anything, the downside of this Relic can be mitigated, correct?"
"Of course Master. Opal would be best suited to deal with such rifts in space." Victoria replied.
"Good. Then that’s fine. We are going for it."
"What!?" Ana turned wide-eyed as she remarked. "Did you not hear everything I just said?... That building is a fortress!... There’s no way we can get in!"
Alex rely flashed a smile, not bothering to say anything in response imdiately.
If he had managed to break into the Iron Mountain, the Kremlin, and even the Vatican Secret Archives as a spy on Earth, what was one Archives of Antiquities?
This could be his only chance to be in his elent and Alex wasn’t about to let it go just because of a little difficulty.
So with confidence in his voice, he calmly intoned. "I beg to differ."
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