Chapter 365 The fall of Zenith

Chapter 365 The fall of Zenith

.

.

.

—

"... I still have some things left to ask you..."

'Time to cross another thing from my to-do list.'

Dale opened his inventory, taking out an item from within.

It was a strange metal box of considerable size with dozens of gears tightly packed inside.

Blueish light emanated from its core, hidden underneath layers of cogs and micromachinery.

It was hot to the touch, as if still active, but it remained motionless, giving the impression the cube was still in working condition, albeit broken beyond function.

The metal was somewhat dirty and slightly rusty at the edges, but with a good scrub, the shiny metal underneath would be revealed, it was in top-notch condition, considering where it was recovered from.

[The Revolving Cog]

"Hm?... Oh... What an interesting item you have there." Qrubin said with some visible and audible surprise as he looked at the item

With a nod, Dale opened his mouth, ready to explain what he had in his hands:

"This is..."Thi/s chapter is updated by nov(e)(l)biin.co/m

"Wait, don't tell me, let me figure it out first." Qrubin requested as he snatched the box from Dale's hands via magic, interrupting him rudely as he focused on the item

/Shush.../

The box slowly floated in the air, rising to his eye level, standing just a few palms from the surface of the Crystal Qrubin was sealed in.

/Shunn.../

/Creak... Crunk.../

A few magic circles manifested in each facet of the cube, and soon enough, the gears and cogs within the box sprung to life, causing Dale to feel a strange prickling sensation on his skin.

'... Hopefully, I'm not being bombarded with radiation...'

/Mumbling.../

Throughout this entire process, Qrubin kept mumbling something in a low tone, incoherent words even Dale with his enhanced hearing could not understand.

/Flashed!/

The seconds turned into minutes, and eventually, the entire cube shone with light as all of its cogs and gears aligned, opening a straight path to its core, shining a soothing yet strong blue light directly at Qrubin.

"Hooo... This was harder than I thought." He said with a chuckle as he looked at the cube

"I've gotten rusty."

"Huh... Have you ever seen one of these before?" Dale asked as he noticed Qrubin's tone and familiarity with the technology

"No, this is my first time."

"What... So how come you've gotten rusty, exactly?"

"Ha... I used to be better at solving puzzles like this one... But that doesn't matter now."

Before long, David tried to tug at Dale, trying to incite him to say something to wake up the Mage from his daydreaming...

"Ahem!... As for where I got this from... It's an old relic from Pil-

Iros."

"Hm?... Ah yes, Pil-Iros... Wait, isn't that the Capital of Paxus?..."

"Wait! Are you telling me this is the engine that powered Pil-Iros clocktower? The original one?" Qrubin asked with great surprise as he changed his focus from the engine to Dale again

Dale touched the back of his head, thinking as to how he should reply to the question.

Technically speaking, this was taken from the tutorial zone by Ermin, to get it, he had to go through a series of puzzles as he climbed to the top of the tower before extracting it using the correct method.

Failing to do would cause the clocktower to collapse due to its broken and unstable state, although it would still fall regardless if one succeeded in their task or not, destroying whatever relics it held.

It was a limited event... One of the reasons why there were no talks of such items being discussed in the online forums.

Dale was sure that there were likely no more than 5 such items circulating, but which of them was the original? Were any of them even fake?

If a replica is 100% similar to the original in both appearance and function, can you even call it a copy?

To answer that question, he first needed to understand the Tutorial, just what was that space?

A real place locked in time? A copy of the real world? Just what was it?

As such, he couldn't just say it was the real thing as he was still on the fence regarding these items from the tutorial...

Afraid that one day they would just break his trust.

"I don't know." He said as he shook his head, raising his hand to grab the gearbox after Qurbin reassembled it

"This was passed onto me by a friend, one that I trust, so I can only take his words for it..."

'Sorry Ermin! Take the brunt of it for me!'

"Hm... It seems pretty good to me... But how spectacular, never had I imagined my eyes would fall onto such a relic, you're quite resourceful, I would've indicated you to one of the Generals if you were there 100 years ago." He said with a raspy chuckle

"And why is that?" Dale asked as he looked at the box, trying to understand it or even interact with it like Qrubin did

"Don't you know Dale? Zenith went through a collapse a thousand years ago, their cities, kingdoms, and empires all fell like the leaves of a tree in a storm, leaving behind only empty husks for the future generations."

"The many races that inhabited the lands scattered, vanishing completely, leaving behind a silent, dead continent."

"?!"

"The records of such times are few and far between, I think we only had 2 in our Vault, I don't quite remember now..."

"That..."

'A thousand years ago?! Could it be... Is that the period between both games?!'

The pieces of the puzzle appeared, one at a time...

...

.

.

.

Notes