The System and Me

Chapter 21: King Red

Chapter 21

Max stood before the ruin door and stared at the inscriptions.

"For better or the worse. I hope I don't die." He said as he placed his hand on the ruin's door.

Just as he did that, the door released a bright light and soon his entire vision was white. He couldn't see anything. After waiting for a while, his vision went back to normal.

He was standing in a palace's throne room. There was a red carpet leading towards the throne in the room. The floor, walls and throne were made out of strange dark grey stones. There were 10 bronze columns on each side of the room, holding up the roof. Max looked up and could see brightly lit lanterns hanging off the ceiling.

Max looked at the throne and could see a red gemstone on top of the throne. There were 5 blank red banners behind the throne.

"Whoever it was that owned the throne seemed to be very rich and loved the colour red." Max thought.

Max walked towards the throne cautiously and stood before the throne. Max wasn't sure why but he felt a strange sense of oppression from the throne.

As he looked at the throne, a rumbling sound was heard. The floor shook vigorously and a yellowish stone slab rose from the ground. There was a red orb embedded on it with various inscriptions that he couldn't read. Max stared at the words trying to decipher it. It looked like the language that he learned in school but different.

"Is it an older version? Maybe it's of a different origin?" Max thought.

As Max continued to stare at the slab with inscriptions, the words glowed and started to shift.

"The words are changing!? How?" Max said as he covered his eyes.

The words glowed brightly and soon the light died down. Max lowered his hands and looked at the slab now. He could understand it perfectly now!

"Did the slab change the language according to the reader?" Max thought in awe. He could finally read the slab now.

[Altar of Equality]

[as you sow you shall reap]

[temporarily seal your ki for this level]

[the more you seal the higher your rewards]

[level starts when you activate the orb]

[orb activates after ki is sealed]

Seeing this, Max understood. It seems the level hasn't started yet. Max placed his hand on the red orb and slowly started to insert ki into the orb. He needed to insert the portion of the ki he wanted to seal. As he was about to insert ki, he had an idea.

"What if I seal 4 of my 6 cores?" Max thought.

As far as Max knows, there wasn't anyone in the whole world who ever had more than a single ki core. What happens if he seals more than the maximum ever recorded?

Max wanted to know and thus decided to seal 4 out of his 6 ki cores. Max felt his connection being severed as the red orb started to glow. Soon, the floor rumbled and the stone slab crumbled to dust. The red orb that was lodged onto the stone slab fell onto the floor and started to vibrate.

Seeing the orb shaking, Max took a step back and observed the orb. Before he could figure out what was happening, the orb shattered and dark red fumes came out of it. Max watched as the fumes started to spread and solidify into 4 strange humanoid shapes.

The humanoid shapes started to solidify and turned into what appears to be soldiers. They wore bronze helmets and armour while carrying weapons. 2 of them were carrying swords while the other 2 were holding spears. As all 4 soldiers materialised, they began charging at Max.