We searched the whole room from top to bottom but still found no way to access the power source that was powering this basement floor. The other floors did not have power at all, and this one floor alone was enough to take up the two city blocks. I was not sure about the other buildings, but I did not see any stairs leading down to this basement level from another building.
“I think I found something!” Sei yelled out from across the room. Everyone was split up on each side of the room, so it took us all a few minutes just to get to her.
Sei was standing on top of a section of the floor, stamping her foot. She then pointed at the ground and said: “This section sounds different from the others.”
I looked down at where she was talking about and scanned the floor. A few inches away from where she was standing, I could see a thin hairline crack in the floor. “So easily missed…..” I said while pursing my lips. “Alright, let’s try to get it open.”
We searched the entire area and found no means of opening it. As we searched, I started to feel that maybe sending everything into my space was not such a good idea. There was probably some equipment of some kind that had a button that would open this hatch.
“Hmmm…” I transformed my hand just enough to create my claws on my hand the same size as my finger and stabbed at the spot that should be the hatch to the power source, only to have my hand deflected at the last second. “Ouch!” I cried out. My poor fingers! It was no different than stubbing one’s toe!
“Faith, are you okay!?” Sophie cried out as I shook my hand. It really stung!
“Yeah, but it seems there is some kind of barrier on this thing,” I replied. “I guess not everything will be easy. Everyone back up.”
On my command, everyone quickly backed up as I took my dragon form. I raised my claw and smashed down at the small hatch with everything I had!
<strong>*Bang!* </strong>
A loud bang echoed through the room, causing the other girls to cover their ears while I clutched the floor with my claws and ripped up a huge chunk of the floor. What was revealed was a large area under the floor that had a huge machine of some kind with a blue, glowing orb set in the middle. This orb had blue arcs of lightning coming off of it. I could feel that this was indeed a massive ball of mana. “Jackpot!”
I transformed back into my human form and floated down into the room with the power source, and used appraisal.
[Mana Capacitor]
[A power core to generate the same amount of power as a small sun.]
Reading the information, I couldn’t help but be stunned. So much power could easily power an entire solar system. I couldn’t help but shake in excitement, knowing that I was going to be getting my hands on such a thing. For something like this, I would need to take the entire room, cables and all, to be sure nothing was out of place. I did not dare to just take the machine itself in case there was some kind of special setup with the room that kept it all contained. I used detection magic to check how deep the entire place went before placing my hand on the wall, and in an instant, the entire place was nothing more than a large dirt hole in the ground that was so deep that it looked like a black abyss from where I was floating.
I flew back up top and landed in the previous room with a big smile on my face. “We really struck gold this time. Come on, we got more buildings to explore and things to take!”
The girls all looked at me with stunned expressions before bursting out in laughter. “Faith, you sound like a bandit.”
“I can only be a bandit in dungeons, so let me enjoy myself!” I said with a bright smile.
We went building to building, and I scooped up whatever technology I saw. If Azengrade decided to come here, I did not want him to be able to take anything. Or anyone for that matter. When we met up with Iena, I once more ran through every building at top speed and grabbed everything from her side as well. Even the cars in the street were not safe from my plundering.
As for the entrance to the next area, it was quite difficult to find as we had to climb to the top of the tallest building and up a pole at the tip top to find the entrance. This time I tethered everyone together with magic and jumped through the entrance pulling everyone along. Luckily it worked, and no one was separated. This was my biggest fear.
But now, what stood before us was no longer cities of any kind but a barren desert that had three suns shining down on us. The temperature was so high that even I was starting to sweat. “Cooling….”
“Faith, you are a goddess!” Steven cried out as he felt the cool air wash over him.
“And you are Little Weewee,” I replied with a smile, causing Steven’s cheeks to blush and the others to laugh.
“Let me send my detection magic out. I want to see if there is anything out there.” I sent my detection magic in all directions. I penetrated the sand dunes to see if anything was underneath them, and to my surprise, there was a very familiar site under the city. “The same city but…. This one is covered in sand…. And the sky is blue with three suns…..”
It makes me wonder just what happened. This was probably another variation of the previous world, but some disaster happened on this version, or at least I think…