‘hehe, I wonder how much those pics and videos would be sold for?’ Erik grinned as he kept taking pictures from different angles, completely forgetting that Felix was with them.
On the other hand, Malak was still sensible enough to care about Felix’s opinion on this discovery.
‘Sir Felix is the Organization interested in the information gathered from these ruins?’ She inquired.
Felix nodded his head, making Erik and the resting sigh in dejection while lowering their bracelets.
They knew that it was impossible to earn profit from that information if the Organization required them.
‘Don’t worry, the Organization isn’t that cheap to take it out of your hands without paying you.’ Felix comforted them.
Though he didn’t really care about the information, it would be quite weird to tell them that the Organization had no use for them.
After all, for giant backgrounds, hidden information like these were everything.
‘Let’s discuss the payment later.’ Felix pointed at the gate and informed, ‘It’s not going to be easy to open it up.’
Malak nodded her head and extended her arm forward. Then, she activated the scanning feature, trying to seek traps, clues, keys, or anything that didn’t match the room.
Alas, she ended up with nothing.
Just to be safe, she glanced at Momo and said, ‘Your turn.’
Momo nodded his head and split his arm from the shoulder. Then, he threw it towards the gate while retreating with the rest.
The arm didn’t touch the gate but it landed in close proximity to it.
The arm soon started to morph and grow in size until a smaller version of Momo had been created. He walked around the area while touching the walls and the floor, clearly wanting to activate traps.
However, he didn’t find anything.
This could be a good or a bad sign since finding traps and activating them removes that sense of unknown danger.
‘Now what?’ Khodri wondered, ‘Do we open the gate? How exactly can we do that? It doesn’t have a keyhole or any hole in that sense.’
Like Khdori mentioned, the gate didn’t seem accessible by keys or pushable by brute strength. Regardless, Pualani still decided to try his luck and push it wide open.
‘Guys, please give me some space.’ He requested while walking back towards the end of the room.
Figuring out that he was planning to smash through the gate, the squad swiftly stood at the sides of the room.
Intrigued, Felix decided to watch since he also didn’t know how exactly did the pirates open up the gate.
His extracted memory of the documentary wasn’t really complete since it lasted for hours even though it had been heavily edited.
Asna had informed him that he was skipping through a lot of details that he thought before were useless.
‘Since this temple belonged to Lady Sphinx’s worshiper, it only meant that the key isn’t going to be based on violence.’
Felix thought while watching Pualani morph into a man bear with two long fangs, thick brown fur, and lastly a unicorn in the center of his forehead.
Naturally, for the transformation to work, he needed to remove his helmet, forcing him to hold his breath lest he suffocates.
Not wanting to waste time, Pualani narrowed his bloodshot eyes at the gate and dashed on his four legs akin to a bulldozer!
Due to the room’s size, he reached the gate almost instantaneously, smashing his head right in the thin gap of the center!
THHHHUUD!!!
The shockwave resulted from such collision shook the room, making the rest hold into the wall lest they fall!
‘Did it work?’ Erik asked in excitement, feeling that such a massive force should possibly do the trick. The rest thought the same as well.
Alas, when they looked at the gate, they found out that Pualani’s forehead was bleeding profusely while the gate hadn’t been even scratched!
‘It can’t be.’ Khodri questioned, ‘Is the gate also created from Strucrase?’
‘Possibly.’ Pualani replied while rubbing his bloodied forehead. He didn’t seem in great pain but just vexed about failing to leave a mark on the gate.
He quickly deactivates his morphing ability and wore his helmet back on since it had a self-cleaning mechanism.
‘Boss any ideas?’ Erik asked.
Felix didn’t respond as he was focusing on the hieroglyphics that were set perfectly in two straight lines at the sides of the gate.
Having absolutely no clue what he was looking at, Felix gave up and requested assistance, ‘Asna, mind translating for me?’
‘Why don’t you ask big sis?’ Asna snorted, ‘She knows the language better than me.’
Felix coughed, not wanting to say that he didn’t want to bother Lady Sphinx during her hour of study.
He knew that Asna would snap at him instantly.
‘I thought you were better, I guess I was mistaken. Elder Sphinx, can you p…’
‘Hold on a second now.’ Asna stopped him mid-sentence with a wide pleased smile and said, ‘I will do you a favor since I am in a good mood.’
Felix smiled faintly and let her focus on reading the hieroglyphics.
A moment later, Asna clarified the line on the left side, ‘An ocean that couldn’t be crossed even if one traveled it for trillions of years.’
Then, she moved to the right side, ‘What is the purest object in the known and unknown universe?’
‘That’s it.’ Asna said as she took a sip out of a coke can.
‘They seem like riddles to me.’ Felix knitted his eyebrows, believing that it was highly like for Lady Sphinx’s worshiper to know of her previous habit of telling riddles.
So, the key to the gate must lay within those two puzzles!
Felix closed his eyes and began pondering on each one of them, ‘An ocean that couldn’t be crossed even if one traveled it for trillions of years…This could mean many things that are related to infinity. Hell, it could be infinity itself.’
Lady Sphinx chortled softly as she read his thoughts. But, she didn’t interject or assist him. She wasn’t that bored.
‘What’s the purest object in the known and unknown universe? Is it material or som…Hold on a second?’
When Felix read the other one and tried to connect them, he found a tiny connection that would have gone missing without his knowledge of someone!
Lady Sphinx!
He knew that the temple belonged to Lady Sphinx’s worshiper, this entailed that the answer must be related to her since his devotion was obviously on a point of madness!
By having such a clear connection, he easily found the solution to both riddles!
Knowledge and Truth!
The first riddle was implying that knowledge could never be learned all of it no matter how much effort someone put!
Meanwhile, the other implied that the Truth was the purest object in the universe! He didn’t know why he referred to it as an object, but it made sense!
‘So, the key is knowledge and truth.’ Felix massaged his temples while inspecting the gate, ‘How exactly am I supposed to use them to open up the gate?’
Felix didn’t know if he should shout them out loud or write them somewhere on the gate.
He was worried that something bad might happen if he chose poorly.
After all, he was going commando without his previous knowledge.
He didn’t mind risking his life by making a decision, but he would be actually risking his squad’s lives while he was lying on a comfy bed currently.
Hence, he spent a minute or two thinking deeply while inspecting every nook and cranny on the gate.
After not spotting anything unusual, Felix thought, ‘I guess I will need to say them together. Since Lady Sphinx is called the Guardian of Knowledge and Truth, I will say them in that exact order.’
‘Asna, please spell for me those two words correctly in hieroglyphics language.’ Felix requested with a serious tone.
Asna knew that it wasn’t time to fool around lest he ends up killing the squad due to a mistake of hers.
So, she spelled those two words slowly and corrected him when he tried to pronounce them.
This carried on for another minute.
The squad had already given up on Felix after seeing him frozen stiffly before the gate.
They were having their own discussion on how to open it.
Unfortunately, their plans all revolved around violence since there wasn’t anything else to be done in their eyes.
It wasn’t like they could read hieroglyphics and see what Felix was seeing.
‘I wonder what the boss is thinking about?’ Erik said telepathically.
‘I think he went offline to contact the Organization?’ Malissa suggested.
‘I be…shshshs, he is back.’ Malak quietened them down after seeing that Felix had moved to the center of the gate with his hands folded and eyes closed.
Then out of nowhere, a weird jarring noise had emerged from his throat, confusing them all alike. Before they could ponder on it, Felix carried on speaking that way.
‘What’s up with hi…’
Creeeeeek!!
Just as Khodri wanted to clear up his confusion, his mouth widened up in shock just like the others who had their eyes affixed on the gate that was slowly opening up!
Ka-thump!
No one cared to see what lays beyond the darkness inside the gate as their eyes had switched to Felix who was sighing in relief.
‘Bos, boss, how did you do it!?’ In awe and disbelief, Erik questioned what was in everyone’s minds.
Felix smiled faintly at them and said, “I had a little help.”
