Chapter 165: The Old Man Returns

After greeting his friends, the group spoke about various topics while waiting for the rest of their group to arrive or the doors to open, whichever happened first. The topic of Rowan becoming Arthur's sports teacher was somehow brought up.

"Wait, so you're Arthur's teacher now?" Maria remarked, "What are the chances of that?"

"A lot smaller than finding out you're a long-lost cousin, I'd say." Arthur retorted, "There's probably somewhere around sixty-something high schools within a reasonable driving distance or something like that. Out of those schools, how many suddenly lost their sports teacher?"

"Why did you say it like that? What happened to the last sports teacher?" Maria asked, completely ignoring the random number that was pulled out of thin air.

"Oh, nothing... Nothing at all," Arthur remarked with a cheeky grin. "I'm sure he's as happy as he's ever been, serving lottery tickets and reheated sausage rolls to disgruntled customers."

The door to the facility opened shortly after, and Arthur gleefully walked into the building while Maria had several questions left unanswered.

Acai, Alvira and Liam all arrived at the facility sometime during the morning briefing, and not long after the group was led into the capsule room, where they were swiftly sent back into the game world.

Opening his eyes, Merlin found himself where he left off, just outside of the ruins. He took around at his surroundings and quickly noticed that the sun was rather low in the sky and that it'd be nighttime in only a matter of minutes.

'I should stick around, just in case.' He thought to himself while sitting down beside the door frame.

Merlin waited for the moon to rise, and he was fortunate this time around, as the text on the door frame began glowing ever so faintly, and after waiting for a little while longer he could see the moon rising over the horizon.

"You're back I see." An old man's voice suddenly emerged from behind Merlin, causing his eyes to widen.

'I didn't sense him this time either,' Merlin thought to himself, 'What a stealthy old man.'

"Have you made any progress?" The old man asked as he walked towards the door frame.

"No, I haven't figured it out yet," Merlin responded in a sad tone. "Actually, I wanted to ask you a few questions before you disappeared last time."

"Oho, questions for me? Let's hear them." The old man responded.

"My biggest bottleneck with figuring things out is currently this language," Merlin said, pointing to the unknown script above the door frame. "Frankly, I wouldn't be sure where to even start while figuring out such an ancient language, I'm not even sure what the language is called."

"Oho, I do suppose that would put a damper on things," The old man briefly chuckled. "I'm not familiar with the language myself I'm afraid. Although I can tell you what little I do know."

"Please do," Merlin requested.

"Well, one of my associates believes that this language is ancient Arcadian," The old man spoke up, "He believes he's seen this script used in ancient temples throughout Arcadia, namely the ancient shrine of Artemis in Lycoa."

"Unfortunately, if such a thing is true, the language has been lost to time, without a doubt..." The old man's expression darkened. "These words may never be read or spoken aloud by mankind ever again. Perhaps only the gods themselves will remember such a language..."

"Well, you may not need to read the script to figure it out," The old man's expression lightened as his eyes rest on Merlin's sheathed weapon. He rest his hand against the smooth stone that made up the door frame. "I have a feeling you'll be able to think of a solution. You're a bright young man."

Merlin stood up and approached the door frame, the script above the door was glowing stronger than it originally had, but it was still faint enough to go unnoticed by those walking past.

But as Merlin moved closer to the ruin, he noticed that the blade strapped to his side had begun vibrating.

Startled by this sudden change, Merlin pulled Ghostsaw's blade out of its sheath to inspect it, but he quickly found that the closer the blade was to the door frame, the stronger it vibrated.

"What on earth..." Merlin muttered to himself, believing this to be a very strange interaction.

He continued moving the blade ever so closer to the door frame. The vibrations ramped up in strength as it got closer to the centre, but then it suddenly came to a stop, and Merlin couldn't move it any closer, it was as if the blade was being pressed against an impenetrable barrier.

For a blade that could phase through almost anything, for it to be unable to enter the empty space within the door frame, it was an odd sight. No matter how much force Merlin applied to the blade, it wouldn't traverse through the door frame.

Thinking perhaps something was wrong with the ruin this time around, he reached out with his free hand and reached through the frame where the blade couldn't. He quickly found that his hand could move through the space without any resistance, but the blade was still being prevented.

「The quest "A door without a key." has been updated.」

While being somewhat preoccupied with his recent findings and the notice that his quest had been updated, Merlin was slow to notice that the old man had disappeared once more.

"Why does he keep doing that?" Merlin exclaimed in frustration, "I still had more questions, bloody ninja grandpa."

He looked around for a while, trying to locate any trace of the old man, but once again it was as if he had vanished into thin air.

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He turned his attention back to the door frame, he wondered just how much force he could apply to the mysterious wall blocking his dagger's path.

Merlin walked through the frame, and his whole body was allowed through, except of course for the dagger he was holding in one of his hands.

Due to the fact he was now applying a pulling force to the dagger instead of a pushing force, he figured he'd be able to apply more strength to it. He wanted to see how far he could push it before something happened.

"Perhaps the key in this instance is strength?" He muttered to himself, "It might be that I'm just not a high enough level to push through the barrier."

He sent his vines out to latch onto anything they could grab behind him, most of which seemed to just be various structures of the surrounding ruins.

Once he felt like he had a secure grip on his surroundings, he tried his hardest to pull the dagger by himself, but to no avail. It was now time for the vines to do their job. Merlin set all the vines to retract mode, causing his arm to suddenly feel like it was being ripped from its socket.

Ignoring the pain, he noticed that the dagger was still not budging, but after a little while, he started seeing small blue sparks slowly form around the dagger.

"Well, that's something." He muttered in a pained grunt while still trying to apply as much force to the dagger as possible.

The sparks started getting larger, some of which had begun hitting Merlin's arms. Rather than the burning sensation that was expected of electricity, these sparks carried an eerie cold sensation that penetrated deep into Merlin's skin, causing his arms to go numb.

Eventually, Merlin's body couldn't take it, and the blade slipped out of his numb hands, causing the blade to suddenly fly out with a bright blue flash, while Merlin was flung backwards in the opposite direction.

"Ouch, that was a stupid idea." Merlin groaned as he picked himself off the ground, retracting his vines in the process.

He found that he couldn't move his arms, it was almost like they were frozen solid, down to the bone.

"Oh dear, that's not a good sign..." He muttered to himself while staring at his arms.

He wandered around the ruins while looking for his dagger, it seemed to have been flung quite the distance away from the ruins, but the sight of blue sparks around a nearby tree eventually gave the blade's position away. Fortunately much closer than expected.

Approaching the tree, Merlin saw that the dagger had been embedded deep within the tree trunk and a large area around the blade, big enough to encase most of the tree trunk, seemed to have been suddenly flash-frozen.

Due to his hands being currently useless, he sent a vine to pick the weapon up, but upon making contact with the blade, the vine was quickly flash-frozen as well. The sudden temperature drop had caused the vine to shatter, which had counted as enough damage to force the vine to retract.

Being unable to retrieve the dagger manually, he was forced to use a command to retrieve it. He began chanting briefly, which caused the dagger to quickly fade away, being sent back to his inventory where he quickly inspected the item.

┌───────────────────

[Freezing Ghostsaw's Blade (Unique)]

A nasty looking long dagger with a serrated edge. It was previously the trusted partner of Ghostsaw, a famous assassin who operated within Macedonia before he was assassinated. It has an eerie aura, and often feels cold to the touch.

Due to being forcibly shoved into a sealed dimensional rift, it has absorbed some of the pent up energy that was once stored behind the barrier, causing it to be temporarily imbued with that dimension's energy.

It seems as though the blade's original aura has been vastly enhanced, causing it to obtain a field that will instantly freeze anything that gets close. This effect will disappear once all the energy is expended.

• Damage: +16

• Stealth: +15%

• Abilities: ⟪Rending Strike⟫

• Infused souls: "★ Race Soul: Ghost (Level 3)"

• Soul abilities: ⟪Phantom Step⟫, ⟪Phantom Slash⟫

• Freezing Aura

└───────────────────

"Ahh, Arthur you idiot... We didn't learn our lesson when playing with dimensional rifts last time, did we?" Merlin reprimanded himself, "Well, at least nothing bad happened this time around.... I hope."

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