Chapter 163: Chapter 162 – The Heart

Dream shivered excitedly as he felt the power of the tremors. He knew that whatever was shaking his soul, it was definitely the Source. 

'Although the source isn't in this room, it's close. Hehehe, only the source could release so much power.'

[It's hard for me to tell exactly where it is, but I know that's it's definitely within 60 meters of the exit to this room.]

When she said that, Dream turned around to the only set of doors to the room. After taking a deep breath, he crouched down and moved over to the door, nervously cracking it open.

When it was cracked, he looked through. But when he did, he was baffled.

"...A wall?"

Dream tilted his head as he pulled the door all the way open. On the other side was nothing but dirt and stone. 

"It doesn't lead to anything."

[Maybe the ground caved in and sealed off this room. We just need to dig some more.]

Saying that, a hole was quickly made in the dirt ahead of him. Dream just shrugged and slowly walked through.

As he tunneled, the tremors beating through the area only got stronger. But that also meant that the source was getting closer, and Dream's nervousness rose with every step.

By this point, Dream couldn't have been more stealthy. Nothing farther than a few inches from his body would even know he existed. Aegis was already fully activated and solidified around him, and Dream's skills were in full effect. He was being as cautious as possible. 

Eventually, Dream crossed the 30 meter mark. When he did, he suddenly reached a metal wall and stopped digging.

Silently, he put his hand on the wall.

[Scanning... This wall is lit up with enchantments, all of which are for security. Their design doesn't match with the ancient ones like those around the wall and none of them are broken.]

'I think we found what we're looking for then. Can we overwrite them?'

[We can, but it will take a bit of time. Although these enchantments aren't complex, they're powerful, driven by solid mana cores.]

'How long?'

[Mmm, 20 minutes.]

'Okay.'

Nodding, Dream sat down with his hand on the wall. After he did, strings of mana extended out from his hand and streamed into wall.

These strings targeted certain points of the enchantment with the utmost precision. Like matter, mana could also take on large or small sizes. Although Dream had yet to discover the smallest building block of mana, it didn't prevent him from utilizing it on microscopic scales.

And in situations like this, Dream's knack for microscopic precision came in handy. None of the enchantments on this world were bound to materials on a micro-scale. The only example of such was his own armor, Aegis. This meant that he could easily work around enchantments and effectively 'hack' them without disturbing them.

So for the next 20 minutes, Sophia slowly seeped mana into the wall. And when she had successfully identified all the crucial points in the enchantment, she bombarded them all at once. Not only did this not trip the alarm, but even if it did, the mana signal wouldn't be able to go anywhere as she cut off any exit points.

In a situation such as this, Sophia didn't take any risks. She tackled the objective with the utmost caution, efficiency, and ruthlessness. And when she was done, she was given full access to all the enchantments in the wall.

[We're good. Let's see... It's a big room. Filled to the brim with waves of liquid mana. There's a door leading out of the room and up a pathway that leads to the surface. Selene was right. There's security enchantments galore.]

'If there are so many enchantments, how does anybody get in?'

[Access medallions. If you scan a medallion with a specific signature at the entrance, you can enter. I see 24 signatures that are allowed access, 18 of which are broken and scrambled. Only 6 medallions can effectively gain access.]

'Huh. Well it's not like we need that, right?'

[Of course not. I now have full control of everything. As for the room, aside from the pulsing waves of liquid mana, there's nothing else inside. Take a look.]

Sophia routed the data to Dream's mind, which quickly processed everything.

What Dream could see was a simulated room. This room was 30 meters tall and 50 meters wide. He himself was outside the west wall while the entry doors were on the south wall. The room's walls were nearly a meter thick and made entirely of mithril. Combine that with the enchantments and one could tell that whatever was inside was incredibly important.

And sure enough, in the middle of the room was an altar. This altar had dozens of circuits connected to it and they all snaked down the bottom and out into the walls. After they twisted and turned through the walls, they shot straight up to the surface, going to who knows where.

Finally, powering these circuits was an object on top of the altar. The object was held inside a bowl, sitting there totally untouched.

Inside the bowl, was a heart.

'The hell? I knew those tremors sounded like a heartbeat, but it's actually a heart?'

*BA-DUMP*

After he asked, the heart pulsed as if to answer him. Being this close, Dream had to do expend quite a bit of effort to keep his soul from shaking.

'Jeez. It's powerful...'

[It's time to start planning its extraction. Since it really is a single object, we should be able to just run in and grab it. But we should only do that when our escape route is clear.]

'Once we grab it, we're going to throw the entire Empire into chaos. Every class 4 will be scouring the land for us. We need to be thoroughly prepared... Bolster the mining teams. Get them drilling as quickly but silently as possible.'

[On it.]

'We're going to extract those huge cores along with the massive wire. Then I want a tunnel from here straight out of the city. That's when we'll extract the entire altar, escape, and collapse the tunnel behind us. We'll leave no trace that we were even here.'

[That'll take about 70 hours.]

'I can wait. A few days for several tons of grade 12 mithril and a super powerful heart? Best trade I'll ever make. Plus, that's not all I'll get out of this.'

Saying that, Dream turned around and went back to the giant room with the globe.

'While we wait, let's take control of all the enchantments. We can hijack everything the altar and this globe is connected to. Although it won't give us much personal use, it's more to have. Who knows when I'll have to come back.'

[Taking control will be easy. Just sit back and watch.]

Dream smiled and nodded. After taking out a chair for himself, he sat next to the giant globe, connecting a mana string to it. He also connected a string to the altar room from afar.

When everything was set, he sat back lazily and closed his eyes, moving up into his mind space to hang out with Sophia.

........

.....

Over the next few days, Dream prepared to extract the heart while also taking care of matters on the outside.

After his avatar was finished with the meetings at the Empire, it left the city, at least on the surface. In actuality, the avatar went over to assist Dream in repairing auxiliary cores all around the wall, giving him full access and control over the wall itself.

As for the alliance, all the Empires quickly began talks and negotiations in regards to military action. At the same time, Dream had all the bracelets delivered to the Empires for distribution. 

When it came to delivering things though, Dream had to do it delicately. He knew that Raoul would recognize his ships, so in order to deliver, he sent the delivery ships over to any kingdom but his. He made sure to avoid Raoul at all costs.

Luckily, the man never came looking for any of the ships. Dream had a select few kingdoms distribute bracelets to the others, easing his workload and keeping the ships out of sight. As for the Elven and Dwarven Empires, he never had to worry about those.

After that, he gave an update to the family. Needless to say, after hearing everything they were shocked. Although the fact that Dream was even able to find everything he did was shocking, the source being a heart was also baffling. They would never have guessed.

One thing Selene found most intriguing though was the walls and their enchantments. She had never heard of an entire tunnel network under the walls, let alone such large scale enchantments. And now that Dream had taken control of everything, she was able to see the scan of the entire thing. 

When it came to the family, Dream didn't bother keeping anything secret. He had fun sharing all the details of everything he found and the only thing he regretted was the fact that he couldn't bring the girls along with him to explore. They were busy with their training though, so everyone was happy.

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Other than diplomatic business and hijacking enchantments, Dream just had to wait for his miners to do their thing. Their job was the most crucial part of this. Luckily, Sophia knew exactly how to move them. 

The miners started from about 8 miles outside the city walls. From there they drilled down and pointed themselves straight towards Dream. Since they were nearly 70 miles away, it took the few days Dream waited to get to him. But when they did, there was a tunnel from the room he was in straight to the outside.

Not only that, but a secondary team also went to extract the two massive globes. The globe in Dream's room was quickly flown out through the tunnel, as was the globe higher up. The only difficult thing was extracting the wire, but even that was quickly taken care of after chopping it into segments.

And so, on the 75th hour, the mining teams cleared out and left with their loot. Behind them, they left a large tunnel that went straight to the surface. All Dream had to do was fly through it and collapse it behind him.

..........

At this moment, Dream finally opened his eyes. The huge room he was in was empty, and the only thing he could hear was the constant heartbeats sending tremors through his very soul.

"Huuhh... Time to begin."

Saying that, Dream stood and put away the chair he was on. He turned to the tunnel that led to the altar room and walked in.

After reaching the metal wall, he put his hand on it. Inside he could clearly sense the altar and the heart in the bowl. 

Taking a deep breath, Dream enacted the first step of his plan. He had thought about this thoroughly.

'Step one.'

[Releasing Aegis.]

After Sophia spoke, Aegis flew off his body and into the floor. A large hole was dug that led to below the floor.

Aegis dug a tunnel under the floor until he was directly below the altar. When he reached the spot, he latched to the metal above him and began cutting out around the altar.

'Good. Step two-'

[We got company!]

'...Of all the fucking times.'

Dream frowned as he had data sent to him. 

As of this moment, a tiger was walking over to the entrance to the passageway that led into this very room. The entrance was near the surface and there were many twists and turns to get to this altar room, but the very fact that someone was coming was bad.

This wasn't the first time someone had come to this room. Over the three days that Dream waited, there had been 4 individuals who had come to the room. They were a lion, a wolf, an eagle, and a lizard. All of them had the access medallion, and after coming to the room, they would practice magic or meditate near the heart. 

These people didn't come with any set schedule, and Dream didn't want to lock them out as that would cause problems. So he just nervously watched as they did their thing, waiting until he was ready. 

Now, however, he was going to extract the heart. And with the tiger coming, he had two choices.

..........

......

"Hrmm, why is it always me who has to refresh the damned core..."

A low growl was released as a tiger hovered through a building. As he flew, he passed by several other animals, all who were class 3. As he did, all the animals who saw him would bow respectfully before going on their way, calling out greetings to the tiger.

"Greetings, Ancient!"

"Good day, Ancient!"

"Mm."

With a nod, the tiger dismissed everyone and continued flying. This tiger was one of the few Ancients of the United Empire and known as one of the strongest combatants in the world. He also ran the most dominating kingdom in the Empire, lording over his entire species.

After flying for a bit, the tiger eventually reached a secret set of doors. These doors were part of the wall, and nobody under the class 4 level would be able to sense them. Even class 4's would have to intentionally search the wall to find a hint of an enchantment. 

But this tiger knew exactly where the doors were. It wasn't his first time coming here after all. So after going up to the wall, he took out an object. It was a metal crown beautifully designed with precious metals and stones. Just by being outside it radiated a strong, ancient aura.

After taking out the crown, the tiger held it up to the wall. A beam shot out of the crown towards the wall, causing it to glow and rumble.

The wall opened, and the tiger strutted in. The wall quickly closed behind him, going back to its inconspicuous look.

When the tiger entered, the walls and ceiling lit up with glowing lines of mana circuits. The circuits traveled along a passageway that descended steeply.

Not bothering to take it a step at a time, the tiger hovered and flew down the passage. As he went further in, he encountered twists and turns along with a few more heavily defended doors. The tiger went through the passage reflexively, obviously having done this many times before.

"*Sigh* Those enchanters need to get better at their craft. That core runs out of energy too fast and it takes constant stabilizing. The enchanters of back then were many times more skilled than the ones today. They weren't taking out the heart all the time like we are. It's going to take 4 days now to refresh the core? Trash."

The tiger growled irritably as he glided through.

When he came upon a door, he would quickly hold up the crown which would open the door. He did this once, bypassing the first of three doors along the passage. However, when he came upon the second door and held up the crown, nothing happened.

"Hmm? Not working?"

Tilting his head, the tiger activated the crown a second time. Light flashed from it to the door, but like last time, it caused no reaction.

"...Has the crown gone bad? Or the door?"

The tiger activated the crown a couple more times, but every time, the door did nothing. 

"Hmm... That's not good. Let's grab another crown and see if it works. If not, looks like we'll have to fix the door."

Turning around, the tiger began to make his way back up the passage, not suspecting anything. However, at that moment, the heart beats that were always pulsing through the area went quiet.

The tiger stopped as the heartbeat never came. After waiting a minute, the mana density in the area began to drop drastically. The tiger's eyes went wide.

"Something happened."

Darting at high speeds, the tiger went down the passage to the second door.Knowing that the crown wasn't working, he didn't bother activating it.

"Grrr, I'll just have to break it down then."

The tiger backed up and prepared to strike, but right when he did, the door suddenly lit up as the enchantments were activated.

*BOOM*

The tiger struck, creating a indent in the door. However, since the enchantments were activated, the door lashed out at the tiger, sending it flying away into a wall.

*Thud*

"Wha... Security? But I'm not an intruder! Damnit!"

Roaring with fury, the tiger flared up and attacked the door again. This time he was ready for the backlash and didn't let it hurt him. 

Despite that though, it still took several attacks to finally break a hole in the door. With that, the tiger broke through, flying down the passage and heading at top speeds towards the altar room. The entire way, the tiger was sweating nervously as he couldn't feel even a speck of the heart's aura as he always did. 

"Something's going on. The heart disappeared! I need to contact the other Ancients!"