Lith used Invigoration on a painting to study its pseudo core and discovered that it had very simple controls.
’Honestly, I hope the paintings are no dimensional doors. If you’re, right we might get swarmed at any minute. Also, we have no idea how many times these things can be used.
"If we go in too deep and then we find their pseudo core spent on our way back, we’d have no way out of Huryole.’ Solus thought while keeping her mana sense active.
Lith shuddered realizing how foolish was his wish. Luckily, the dimensional magic inside of the paintings wasn’t intended as a mean of transportation. By imprinting the paintings with his mana, Lith could solely explore the rooms they depicted, zooming in and out at will.
’This is some kind of cameras’ control room.’ He thought. After fiddling with the controls for a while, Lith discovered that the zoom out function allowed him to see where each room was in Huryole and the directions it led to.
’That’s how those guys managed to get out so quickly.’ Solus pointed him at a painting depicting another corridor filled with surveillance canvas.
Some of the images had been arranged so to form a path leading outside.
’The good news is that we can follow their lead and move faster, the bad news is that whoever stumbles into that corridor will find a way out and mess with our plan.’ Lith was zooming out all the surveillance images in the room to see if any of them led to the Forgemastering or the Alchemical lab.
Unfortunately for him, most of the depicted areas were disconnected between them, so they provided him with no clues where to go and hit the jackpot.
’My advice is to follow the path of the undead. It will allow us to both move quickly and get rid of all those who might block our way back. Two birds with one stone.’ Solus suggested.
Lith nodded and studied briefly all the paintings before moving out. He stayed in each room only long enough to give Solus the time to scan everything with mana sense for valuable relics.
No matter how many times he visited it, Huryole was always creepy. The place reminded Lith of the White Griffon academy to the point that he could almost see the students sitting in the classrooms, practicing magic in the labs, and bullying the weak in the bathrooms.
Yet everything was empty and silent until it wasn’t anymore. For some reason, all doors would stay closed until someone opened them and each room was soundproof. Enemies would come at any time from any direction without notice.
Lith left the bathroom and entered the Gardens of Madness. He had already been there in the past, but this time he knew where to go next. The garden area was one of the biggest he had ever met, with so many doors that even Solus needed a map to not lose her way.
They spanned for several hundreds of meters, covering an area as big as a small village. It was also one of the most dangerous places in the lost academy. A green area meant plants which in turn meant food, and food was a priceless luxury inside Huryole.
Those who reached the Gardens would never leave until killed and would react to any intruder with extreme prejudice. Yet the place hadn’t been named after the violence it caused so much as after what happened once one of the landlords had their belly full for a while.
Finally freed from their hunger, humans, magical beasts, and undead alike would be torn apart between their need for company and the fear of losing what they had. Lith had witnessed several times them crying like babies while hugging, having sex, or even eating each other alive.
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