Eisen continued digging through the rock walls of a deep part of the mine, where nobody else currently was quite by coincidence, toward the area that was for some reason utterly devoid of mana with the exception of a single dense spot in the center, and began to think about what the reason for that may be. Up until now, whenever he had his mana-sight active, Eisen could see colors everywhere. They made everything quite blurry, and he was basically just able to see rough shapes in everything, but he managed to get used to it pretty quickly.
It was just that now, there was that blank space with no color whatsoever. It was the regular black and white tone that Eisen usually saw without the mana-sight, which was quite unusual in his opinion. So, of course, he was curious about what was there, especially since it was just perfectly spherical, making it even weirder to him.
Suddenly, at only a meter or two away from the mysterious 'blank space,' he hit a wall. A literal wall, made of stone bricks. "What the..?" Eisen muttered to himself without being able to help himself, turning around to look at Kiron, who was just as astonished as the old man was.
Eisen started to examine the wall, as he placed his hand on the brick wall and used transmutation to remove one of them so that he could look inside the space on the other side of the barrier. But all he could see was a dimly glowing crystal that was floating in the center of the room, but nothing else inside.
Confused, Eisen wanted to remove as many bricks as he could, but it seemed like everything was somewhat unstable, so he had to stop with a pretty small hole.
"Hmm, I won't fit in like this… Kiron, you probably won't either… Just a second, I'll be right back." Eisen muttered as he shrunk down to half his regular size and swiftly squeezed through the small hole that he made before he returned to his proper size.
To illuminate the room, Eisen swiftly enveloped his arm in his element, and tuned it entirely towards the fire side, so that he could now at least see something. Slowly, Eisen then moved toward the crystal, the source of the seemingly incredibly dense mana that he saw before.
And when he got close enough to it to be adequately lit up by the light it gave off, Eisen received a notification.
[Warning! You are in the immediate vicinity of a Dungeon Core in the energy collection phase. You will lose 1% of your total mana per second]
After reading through the notification, Eisen took a few steps back in surprise, confirming that the mana-drain swiftly stopped, although his mana still didn't regenerate.
"A Dungeon Core?" Eisen quietly muttered to himself, before he noticed another light directly behind him.
"Oh? A Traveler, it seems? How glad I am to see someone after all this time… Hm? Eisen, is that you?" asked a quiet, broken voice, the source of which Eisen quite quickly noticed to be a ghost. The Ghost of an elderly man, to be exact. Surprised that this specter knew about him, Eisen slowly nodded his head and looked back at it.
"Yes, that's me… Erm, how do you know me?" Eisen asked, before the ghost's bright smile disappeared from his face. "Oh no, how terrible… so you forgot about me, huh, old friend? Although I shouldn't complain, you warned me that this might happen someday, after all." The Ghost chuckled softly, with his hands behind his back before he formed a serious expression.
"But no matter, even if you do not know who I am, then I shall introduce myself to you once more. My name is… My name… is…" Slowly, the ghost trailed off, staring into the blank space in front of him, and Eisen stepped up closer to see if he was alright.
"Hello? Are you okay?" Eisen asked before the ghost snapped out of it and nodded his head. "Ah yes, I'm fine. I seem to have forgotten my name as well, however. But I still do know who I am. I am the creator of the Dungeons of this world." The Ghost said with a smile, and Eisen looked back at him, confused.
"What do you mean? I thought dungeons were created by the gods, weren't they?" He asked, and the ghost nodded his head. "Yes, that is still true. The reason why I was born was quite simple, to serve as the avatar of the god of Labyrinths. I heard his voice and did his deeds for him, as gods are not allowed to change the world on their own directly. Old friend, will you listen to why I am here?" The Ghost asked, and Eisen slowly nodded his head, prompting the ghost to begin his speech.
"With the abilities, I have gained by serving my god; I created the very first 'Dungeon Core' to create the very first dungeon, which nowadays is known to be one of the few Rank 10 dungeons in this world. I spent all my life creating dungeons at numerous places in this world. But when I realized that my life would soon end and that my Lifetime Quest had not yet been completed, so I became desperate… Even if I may not be able to see this through to the end, I wished for others to continue to do so in my stead. That is the reason why I spread dozens upon dozens of Dungeon Cores throughout this world, each protected by a small part of my soul. It will be a long time until all of them are found and activated, I am quite sure, but once that is the case, I hope to be able to rest in peace finally." The Ghost explained before slowly stepping forward toward the Dungeon Core in the center of the room.
"Please, take this Core with you and establish a Dungeon. Depending on where you place the core, it's strength and type will be established on its own, but you will still have ownership over it." With a wave of his hand, the light from the Dungeon Core disappeared, and it dropped down into the Ghost's hands as he began to carry it over toward Eisen, who carefully listened and watched all this happen silently.
Soon enough, the Ghost held the Dungeon core forward, motioning at Eisen to take it. Slowly, the old man extended his hand and took the crystal from the ghost in front of him.
[Congratulations! You have found a Hidden Dungeon Core]
[To create a Dungeon, find a safe place and activate it by pouring your mana inside]
"Now it is my time to leave, old friend. I can only exist for a short time on this plane, and that time is now over." The Ghost said as his form slowly began to fade, and Eisen looked at him with a bitter smile, clutching the Dungeon Core tightly.
"Sorry for not remembering you… but thank you for remembering me." Eisen said with a smile before the Ghost entirely disappeared. After a few moments, Eisen stepped back over to the hole in the wall that he opened up to hand the Dungeon Core to Kiron before Eisen took another last look at the room, finding just a few things.
One of them was a small booklet with the title 'Dungeon Mastering 101', which the old man swiftly put into his pocket. The only other thing of note was something quite unusual, or at least it looked like it was terrific a good while ago. It was a set of blueprints for a single creation!
And there was a pretty peculiar signature at the bottom right of each of the sheets of paper that he recognized quite quickly. It was his own craftsman's signature, although a little bit more detailed it looked almost exactly like the coin around his neck.
[Congratulations! You have found one of the legacies of the Originals!]
[Legacy – Core Guardian]
[The Legacies of the Originals are peculiar things that come in many different forms, and can belong to basically every category of life one may think of. Some Legacies are exceptional items that will give you even greater power, while others are simply a means to receive those items]
Surprised, Eisen looked through the information from the notification and then back at the blueprints, before almost instantly another notification appeared in front of him.
[The Administrator requested a private chat. Due to the Caller's Authority, it is not possible to reject]
[Private Chat is starting now]
Even more surprised than before, the old man stared at the notification, before his dark surrounding was soon replaced by a pure white space, with a certain young man who was sitting on an ornate wooden chair in front of Eisen, looking like he was a bit annoyed.
"Hey there, Benjamin." Samuel chuckled as he rubbed his forehead before Eisen stepped up closer to him a bit confused. "Erm, hey there… what's going on?" He asked before the young man swiftly answered as he pointed at the blueprints in Eisen's hands.
"That's going on. I didn't expect you to find one of those already, and I especially didn't expect you to find one directly next to a Dungeon Core. You see, the whole story with 'Dungeon Master Arc' is planned after the 'Dragon War Arc,' so seeing you find one of them before that Arc even started is a bit of a surprise." He muttered out before he then glanced at the blueprints again. "And the Legacies as well… The thing is, the Legacies are meant for regular players. And high-grade legacies can overthrow the balance of the game world a lot, so giving them to you guys who are basically already able to overthrow the balance of the game without any of the special benefits we already give you is a little… well…"
"Unfair?" Eisen guessed, and Samuel slowly nodded his head. "That's a word for it, I guess. So, the 'Originals' can only have a single legacy, and it needs to be pre-approved to make sure it's not overpowered. The Moderator team is busy with something else right now, and we don't want Ari or her Angels to deal with it, so I had to come. But usually, that's not the case. Anyway, which Legacy did you find?" Samuel asked and stood up to take a look at what Eisen was holding. There were quite a lot of different blueprint legacies, so he wasn't exactly sure which one it was.
"Hmm, the Core Guardian? Yeah, that's not too big a deal. It's probably something you'd have made at some point or another by yourself anyway. Go ahead and keep that then, but you won't be able to keep any other legacy. Are you fine with that?" Samuel asked, before Eisen looked at the blueprints before slowly nodding.
"I guess so, but could you tell me what it even is?" He asked curiously, and Samuel nodded his head while looking at the watch on his hand. "Yes, but I'll have to make it quick. It's just a Golem-like helper that you can connect to Town or Dungeon Cores to make stuff easier to deal with, the blueprints are a bit worn and dog-eared, but if you can find a scribe somewhere, he should be able to return them to what they were like before. Anyway, relay that to the other originals, yeah? I've got to go! See you!" Samuel explained as he took another look at his clock and then swiftly disappeared before Eisen found himself back in the dark space he was in before.
With a loud sigh, Eisen rolled the blueprints up, shrunk down, and then made his way back through the hole in the wall before returning to his Titan Size, as he thought about one thing.
Why the hell did Samuel have to place him and the other Originals on such a high pedestal all the time?