I quickly checked the next room we had found ourselves in. After I confirmed that there weren’t any imminent threats, I turned my attention back to my friends as they discussed what this mansion might hold for us.
“If your speculation is correct, then at the very least, we don’t have to worry about not having any rewards in the mansion,” said Sallia. “And if the entire adventure is still in functioning order, it means that we don’t need to worry about any crazy anomalies showing up. Any monsters we fight should have abundant rewards, and be built to give us a fair chance to win.” She sounded excited, and I could even see her bouncing from foot to foot. She sounded excited.
“That’s assuming this adventure is still in working order, though,” I said. I didn’t want Sallia to get too excited, only for it to turn out to be a big disappointment. If we got complacent, that would also be dangerous. “We already saw that the front desk of this place has been looted, so other transmigrators must have come here before. It would be weird if things were still in perfect condition.”
Sallia slumped slightly at my words. “True,” she said. “We didn’t even find any pamphlets or other manuals introducing us to this mansion, and we don’t have much information. I guess we’re still going in basically blind.”
“At least we can get some Abilities out of it,” said Kexley. He grinned, and the smile tugged at his old, weathered face. “I wouldn’t mind earning some Achievement finding monsters and then immediately spending it if we find any good abilities. Valeksi and I just bought some new stats before we met you, so we have some glut ready.”
I nodded thoughtfully.
The real question was what skills this place was supposed to give us. So far, we had found an overly convoluted and complex puzzle. Felix had gotten an ability related to it. If this place was solely dedicated to item production and complicated, finicky magic, it might be hard for most of our group to benefit from it - though Felix would probably get a lot out of this place, at least.
I sighed, and then shrugged. I had seen monsters with my soul sight, so we could probably get some kind of combat-related ability here. If not, investing in Felix was still important. We needed time to grow, and Felix could use more abilities to maximize our pile of consumable items before the final battle.
I scanned the new room we had found ourselves in again. This one was a fair bit larger than the previous one - a few thousand people could have easily fit inside of it. Most of the room was occupied by the center - which contained a massive, chessboard-esque set of tiles. Right in the center of the chessboard, there was another shimmering wall of light, indicating that it was our next destination. Off to the sides of the room, there were a variety of random foods and drinks, most of which had expired centuries ago. I looked at the giant portal in the center of the room. It seemed too simple.
“Anyone have any good ideas what’s waiting for us here?” I asked.
“I think the floor is odd,” said Anise. “I detect quite a bit of essence underneath each tile. There must be either a trap or some kind of special mechanism. Each tile seems separate, though - so I think we’re supposed to handle each tile as an independent challenge?”
“There’s definitely something odd about them. I think that every single tile activates some kind of magical effect when we step on it, but I had no idea what that effect is,” said Felix.
I scratched my head. What kind of ability was this room meant to help us acquire? The last room was built around complex magical structures, so perhaps this one was built around traps? Trap detection? I wasn’t sure if that was very useful for us - our essence detection made it all too easy to see where traps ‘could’ be. I could also just try to enlarge a portal and teleport us right to the exit of this room - but that would also mean skipping any rewards that existed in this room. If this room really was meant to help us acquire Abilities, that would be a huge waste.
“Let me try something,” said Valeksi. He created a few wooden birds, and then sent them to land on the first tile.
The first tile lit up like a lightbulb, and then a jet of fire erupted from just beneath the tile. The flames were incredibly hot - and yet, they were also abnormally slow. Unlike normal fire, they almost seemed to drift slowly upwards, instead of leaping and roaring with the same intensity that a normal flame had. Valeksi also noticed the abnormality, so he only moved half of the wooden birds to dodge, while the other half of the wooden birds remained behind.
The wooden birds on the tile were quickly turned into charcoal - but the ones that tried to dodge seemed to easily avoid the flames.
“Interesting. I imagine that the traps have to be real, in order for us to get rewards from this room - but they’re meant to be easy to survive if we mess up?” said Felix. He glanced at the flames. “Well, ‘easy’ might be an overstatement - but this is meant to give us a way to survive making mistakes.”
Valeksi tried one of the other tiles, and this time, the birds started glowing green afterwards. Valeksi looked just as confused as I felt, until the birds took off again - and this time, they zoomed into the air at nearly triple the speed they had been moving at before. After about a minute, the effect wore off.
Valeksi frowned thoughtfully, then sent one of his birds onto the same tile again. This time, the tile clicked softly, and started glowing blue. About a second later, a large burst of lightning energy popped out of the tile and nearly incinerated the birds - though just like the fire, it had a strange, delayed quality to it.
“I think I get it. This is supposed to be some kind of luck-based room?” said Valeksi.
I blinked in surprise, before I fell into thought. Actually, if some kind of luck-based ability existed, that would be pretty exciting. Luck, at least in my understanding, was probably some kind of supernatural magic that bent reality to slightly favor the user - and that was definitely useful in acquiring more lives and surviving into the future. Of course, there was a high chance that luck was less powerful than I believed it to be, or perhaps this room was meant to build a completely different ability - but at least for the moment, I didn’t mind getting my hopes up.
“It seems like they randomize each time someone steps on them. So I’ll just try stepping on one, waiting a few seconds, and then moving to the next. You all can follow me,” said Sallia. Then, Sallia hopped onto the first tile. This time, a distant, popping sound echoed throughout the room. A moment later, Sallia instinctively whipped out her sword, and deflected an arrow that had nearly hit her.
We waited a few more seconds, to see if anything new happened - but that singular arrow seemed to be the only threat the first tile in the room had for her this time.
Sallia hesitantly stepped on the next one, and a moment later, she started glowing bright red. She frowned. “I think it healed me? But since I wasn’t injured, nothing happened,” she said.
She hopped onto the next tile, and then immediately hopped backwards. A moment later, a slow-motion fireball erupted from underneath the tile. Once the fire dissipated, she tested the tile again. This time, nothing happened.
She stepped onto the next tile. She retreated again as a thick, acidic fog erupted from underneath the tile, before dissipating after a few seconds.
This time, I noticed something unusual. The last tile Sallia stepped on hadn’t actually given any signs that it was a trap tile instead of a beneficial tile - and yet, she had reacted quite quickly to it.
I started to get a better idea what this room might be supposed to help us with. Rather than luck, perhaps it was meant to give us some kind of sixth sense, or danger sense?
I stepped onto a tile of my own. I glowed bright yellow, and I felt slightly stronger afterwards. It was very subtle, but I had improved my strength by around half a grade.
I tried stepping on a few more tiles. Two of them in a row were beneficial, while one tried to incinerate me. However, even before the fireball had appeared, I had instinctively sensed that something was wrong and retreated - and I had no idea how I had sensed that.
“I think this room is meant to give us some kind of supernatural intuition,” I said. “The more tiles I step on, the better my senses get. Even though I can’t detect anything actually strengthening me, I’m definitely starting to notice a difference after four tiles.”
I stepped onto the fifth tile, and felt a faint sense of anxiety. Something was wrong with it. I backed up. A moment later, a volley of arrows shot out of the ceiling and hit the floor. I smiled.
“Got it, we’ll start testing tiles too. Be ready to heal us if something goes wrong,” said Anise. She hopped onto a tile, and then scurried away as it erupted into a fireball.
We continued to make our way across the giant set of tiles. All of the traps were manageable, while the ‘good’ outcomes seemed to be utterly random beneficial effects that wore off after about a minute. Finally, Sallia reached the portal, where she stopped. I also reached the portal a few minutes later, and within the next ten minutes, the others also arrived. Just as expected, I got a reward afterwards.
Since you have trained Supernatural Insight to Basic Grade for the first time, you may purchase the ability {Supernatural Sense} for 10,000 Achievement.
This Ability has the following effects:
Keywords: None
Ability to ‘intuit’ whether something in your environment is beneficial or dangerous. This ability is amplified by your [Perception] stat.
Glut Penalty: 5
I could definitely see a lot of use for this Ability, so I didn’t hesitate. I bought it.
“Did you all get Basic Grade {Supernatural Sense}?” I asked. They nodded. I grinned.
Felix’s guess could now basically be confirmed. This entire mansion was probably built to help us acquire some useful Abilities.
After that, one after another, we entered the portal to the next room.
Author’s Note:
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