*THUD*
*THUD*
*THUD*
*THUD*
The dull and heavy thumping sounds did not stop even though the path had closed behind them. The creatures kept beating on the door trying to pry it open or break it down.
The noises filled the chamber on the other side of the door, keeping the party from relishing the temporary reprieve they had been granted after so long.
"No…more…" one of the panting barbarians that appeared to be the youngest threw his curved blade onto the floor and fell to his knees, "I can't…go on," he mumbled under his breath but everyone could hear him clearly in the silence.
Hao Xuan thought about saying a word or two to the teen to try and lift his spirits but examining the chamber was of a higher priority right now. He walked past the barbarians that had settled down in the short corridor right next to the door and entered the chamber on the other side.
It was a relatively small circular room with a radius of 15 meters.
There were only two things of note here. The first one was what appeared to be a control panel and a chair in the dead center of the room. There was only one chair in front of it that was just a little bigger than what would be needed for a normal human.
Unexpectedly, the chair was made of wood instead of some high-tech material. The control panel was a single glass screen connected to the floor by a metal bench.
The second thing of note was a collection of carvings and engravings etched onto the wall in front of the panel. They were engraved in a semi-circle with a radius of 5 meters.
Other than these two things the chamber was completely devoid of anything, no even another exit leading out of it. Somewhat dispirited Hao Xuan went up to the wall and examined the engravings closely but could not recognize any of them.
There were 24 basic symbols, each one different from the one before. They repeated over and over again in varying sequences and strings, sometimes in groups of up to seven or eight and sometimes just two.
Two parallel rows together created the semi-circle as a hole.
But while Hao Xuan was busy examining the symbols with excruciating detail, something inside him started to change. The cells of the section of the brain that interprets sensory information, mainly the sensory cortex, were forced awake by the visual feedback provided by the symbols.
With a speed that could be seen with the naked eye, a small mass of cells quickly multiplied and created a new growth on the outer edge of his brain.
This sudden and abrupt change brought with it a soul piercing headache that reached even his mind palace, making the entire construct tremble.
"Argh!"
Hao Xuan swiftly looked away and backed up several steps bumping into something hard. He turned around to see Burak standing behind him staring at the symbols with a deep frown.
Hao Xuan shook his head forcefully several times until the headache somewhat lessened in intensity.
He then looked up at Burak who was eyeing the symbols as if he recognized them, "What…do you…see?"
A deep frown furnished the top half of Burak's wide face.
"They are…familiar…" he muttered with a hint of uncertainty.
"From…where?" Hao Xuan asked holding the side of his head that provided some sort of temporary relief.
Burak shook his head, "Can't remember but…I feel like I've seen them before…"
Hao Xuan let out a silent sigh. He got his hopes up for a moment there, expecting too much from the current situation. The loud banging against the door was still going strong and it did not look like it would stop anytime soon.
And since they were locked in here now with the only way out littered with uncountable monstrous creatures, hope was dwindling by the second.
Hao Xuan moved over to the console chalking the current headache up as the same as the others he got every so often now due to the instability in his physical and spiritual centers.
He pulled out the wooden chair and stood in front of the console that came up to his waist. There was a single glass screen on the panel, pitch-black in color. It was extremely cold to the touch and Hao Xuan even felt like he was touching ice for a second and he wasn't exactly wrong.
This glass-like material was a gigantic shard of extremely condensed sealed yin Qi that could only be harvested from the heart of a dying sun moments before it turns into a white dwarf.
That is the only time when the heart of the sun contracts to such a degree that it squeezes out every iota of purified yin qi still left within the core after billions of years.
The entire process has to happen naturally otherwise the yin Qi does not solidify meaning, the price and cost of an object like this could not be measured by any standard means.
It is a treasure amongst treasures sought after even in the furthest reaches of the universe for its numerous applications one of which, is the ability to hold almost an infinite amount of information.
