Refining the Heavens 2 (炼天二)

Chapter 54: Raiding the Palace (Part 3)

Jones looked at the seriousness on Kairos' face, and he backed away. There is an absolute trust in his friend's advice, so he started observing the national treasure in front of him with greater intensity.

"What's wrong?" he asked after a while with no results.

"I'm not sure, but it feels like there is a trap lying in wait for us. Father, can you take a look at this?"

"Don't ask me, I'm a ranger, not a trapper" Vouno sighed. He had noticed a long time ago that their team is truly imbalanced. The usual adventurers' group would have at least one person well-versed with traps. Unfortunately, Jim who is supposed to be the expert in this area is even worse than Vouno when it comes to such things.

It couldn't be helped since in the 6 months that they trained in Saint Academy, they had been treated as talentless, futureless, students. There were little chance to truly learn their trade, and 6 months is in fact too short to turn into experts. Without a treasure-hunting talisman that could detect traps, and without an experienced hand, it's hard to tell what dangers lies ahead.

In their caution, they took a while to observe the national treasure using their soul perception to detect the minor details on the object but other than the power it is emitting they couldn't scan anything special.

Jones reach his hands out once again, this time slower than before to test if he would trigger something.

Then, Kairos quickly grabbed his arm and pulled him back, "Wait. Step back a little... Do you see some pattern on it?"

The guys all came to Kairos' position, several steps away from the crystal horn, and observed.

"Move your head this way. Align the horn against the stand and the furniture around" He advised.

When they tried doing what he said, a pattern came into their sight. An ancient runic symbol, drawn by placing the items together in a perfect manner.

Jones instantly recognized the rune, it was something taught to him before, a word of power, and it reads: Concealment.

Understanding what the setup is made things easier for them and they assaulted the rune with their soul power, sending it through the edges of the symbol and destroying it quickly. Once the rune disappeared, other runes that were hidden beneath quickly appeared. The other turned their heads around and observed the other traps in the room, but Kairos continued to stare into the air in a trance.

"The entire stand is a teleportation rune!" Not noticing the strangeness on Kairos, Jones exclaimed. He recognised it from having used to have a teleportation talisman on his person, until his belongings had all been confiscated upon his capture. It is anyone's guess where the rune would teleport them to if someone touched the horn, but certainly not a place they would want to go.

"The ground also has a rune of alarm, our position here is already exposed. They must be waiting for us to activate the traps here before they do anything. For all I know, we might be surrounded already. Also, look at the pedestals, they are rigged as well" Jones continue to explain the new symbols that appeared.

"It's the Runes of weakening on the pedestals, we will be flopping like fish out of the river if we touch anything here, and all these runes in this place will drain the Ki of anyone that touches it to activate" Kairos suddenly answered their curiosity. His knowledge of the runes should be almost non-existent like his friends, except for those few that he gleamed from the stars.

However, when he turned about, everyone realised why he gained such cryptic knowledge once again, "Somehow, I can read the runes now", he said.

"That's 'cus your damn eyes are golden again"