Jacob finally saw a ray of light coming from a tiny hole, and with shimmering eyes, he quickly approached it. The earthquake was already gone, and the catacomb maze with it, probably.
As he approached the tiny light hole, Jacob's senses were on an all-time high. He tried to look on the other side, and his eyes widened when he saw the other side of the hole.
Although he could only see a small portion of the other side, Jacob was astonished because there was an old dusty stone bookshelf under a dim light. Other than that, he couldn't see clearly, but he didn't hear any movement.
'A bookshelf? What is this place?' Jacob didn't make a move posthaste as he decided to observe for a while.
The space on the other side was blocked by a wall, and if he broke it, this would cause a huge commotion, so he wanted to make sure no one was there to ambush him when he did break the wall.
Jacob didn't see or hear anything even after a while, so he decided to move. His short sword appeared in his hand, and he impaled it into the hole. He wanted to make it bigger to see more clearly.
The wall was made of soft stone, the blade easily pierced through it, and Jacob could finally see what was on the other side.
It was a five cubic meter stone room. Besides the small stone bookshelf, there was a stone bed, a magic torch like the underground catacomb, and a stone door to the left, nothing else.
Since no one was there, Jacob didn't wait any longer and punched with full force and blasted open a hole large enough for himself to leave the secret passage.
However, Jacob wasn't in a hurry to check the stone door as he moved toward the bookshelf first.
A thick layer of dust was collected over the bookshelf. There were five books placed in it.
Jacob tried picking up a book, but the moment he did, it turned into dust.
'Just how long have these books been here to decay into dust?' Jacob frowned as he tried to touch the other book, but it also crumbled under his touch.
However, the third book didn't crumble, making Jacob's eye shine with anticipation since this will make this book unique from the decaying ones.
He picked up the old book, and after clearing up the dust, it had a gray tatter cover and was two-centimeter-thick, and the writing on it was still readable.
But Jacob frowned when he saw the writing was the same kind of runes in the underground catacombs, it was rune language.
'I have to buy rune language after I leave this place.' Jacob thought as he stowed away the book and decided to decipher it after leaving the dark runes.
He then tried the last two books, the fourth one also turned to dust, but the last book survived, which made him happy since there could be some unimaginable knowledge stored in these books.
Especially the book with the rune language, which according to Livia, was the language used in Magic.
When Jacob cleared the dust, he discovered the second intact book was actually a folded parchment made with some beast skin.
When Jacob opened it, his eyes widened because there was a complex design with symbols drawn.
'Ritual Array Formation! Although the symbols used in this design are from Rune Language, it looked too much like the Ritual Array Formation within Immortika.' Jacob made an educative guess with ecstasy and stowed away the parchment.
He never thought he would discover something like and Ritual Array Formation in this place or it was a reward for clearing the first condition.
Whatever the case was, Jacob was glad that he came here and more resolute than ever to clear the entire trial.
After making sure there was nothing else hidden in that stone room, he finally moved toward the stone door, and after using some force, it finally moved while making eerie sounds.
What appeared made Jacob baffled because the door opened behind a 2-meter-tall half-broken statue on an altar. As Jacob vigilantly left the room, he discovered a broken hall with weeds and debris.
He then has a clear look at the broken statue. From its design and skeleton feet, he instantly saw the resemblance between this statue and the Priest Skeleton Statue underground.
'Is this a temple of Priest Skeleton?' Jacob guessed as he frowned grimly.
Because if he hadn't appeared underground, he would never have been able to find that this was the place he was looking for with just those debris and his half-broken statue.
Nevertheless, he wasn't too worried since It's only been a day in dark ruins, and he had already cleared one of the three conditions, which hadn't been clear for almost 400 years!
Afterward, Jacob closed the secret room since it was a perfect-hidden place if he ever needed it, hid it with dust, and then blasted the remaining statue in front of it, blocking the room completely and making it look like it was like this from the start.
Jacob then left the doorless temple while covering his tracks.
When he appeared outside, he was baffled because in front of him were all sorts of ruined buildings, the sky was completely dark without any stars or moon, and the broken stone streets were lit with Magic torches.
'So, Dark Ruins are a City?' Jacob wondered as he looked behind the small temple, which was the only intact place within these buildings.
Holding his swords, he took the street toward the south, the place was filled with darkness, and he couldn't see clearly far ahead, and the only light was the dim light of those torches.
However, Jacob had only crossed three streets when he heard hundreds of footsteps approaching. Startled, he quickly hid in a broken stone house and tried to hide his presence as much as possible.
Soon, those footsteps got closer, and they clearly didn't notice him as they continued to move toward wherever they were going.
Jacob peeped through the broken wall, and his heart jumped when he saw hundreds of skeleton soldiers marching forward.
'I almost forget about the undead.' Jacob grimaced as he waited for those skeletons to pass through.
It didn't take long before leaving, and silence descended on the area again.
However, Jacob didn't move carelessly anymore as he started to think about the last two conditions and where they might be.
'The first condition was, 'Destroy the Dignity of King.'
'The second condition was, 'Give the Maiden Hope.'
'The third condition was, 'Salvage the Priest with Blood Flower by staining his tears with blood.'
'Since the last hurdle is precise, I should look for the easiest one that made any sense. Destroy the Dignity of King is the easiest to make sense of. A King's dignity is either his Kingdom or Position, so I should look for a castle or palace where's a King live.
'As for the Give the Maiden Hope, I have no idea what it means, just the third condition.'
Jacob sighed ruefully. Although he knew the conditions to clear the trial, these conditions were as good as riddles. He wondered just how difficult trials would be in the higher plains since the rare plains trial was this difficult.
However, his thought process was broken when he heard footsteps again!
Furthermore, this time, there were even more than before.
'Just how many Dark Beings are in this place?' Jacob's heart churned as he silently spied on the approaching beings.
This time, there were no skeletons but rotten skin zombies with ghastly features as green toxic saliva trickling from their lipless mouths. Their movements weren't sluggish as they walked even faster than the skeletons.
The Toxic Zombies type Dark Beings were dreaded even more than the Skeletons type Dark Being because of their venomous properties. All the high-level zombies were virtually cureless since the Rare Plains didn't have the resources to make the cure for their toxic.
Furthermore, high-level zombies can turn anyone into low-level zombies, making them their thralls who follow them mindlessly.
They were one of the biggest trump cards of Dark Beings.
However, Jacob's eyes blazed with killing intent because there was one more fact about zombies 80% of them possess magic cores!
If he could ambush one zombie at a time, he might collect some well-needed magic cores. His entire purpose for leaving the freedom plains was to collect the magic core, which hadn't changed even with the location.
Even if he could buy high-level magic cores, he still had to collect the low-level ones, and he didn't mind saving his ZC for something else if he could collect those cores on his own.
Lastly, only the Extraordinary Skeletons have magic cores, and they were not easy to hunt for Jacob right now, but these Zombies were different, and as long as he didn't alert the entire horde, he could hunt them easily!