Seed of Titan

"Anything, Flo?" Christo asked while wiping a bead of sweat from his forehead.

"Nothing," Flo replied after examining a shrub. "It looks like most of the plants here barely evolved their defensive or reproduction capacities. None seems of much value."

"Alright, just keep looking around then."

The members of Mango Seekers were currently traversing the forest, heading toward the mission site. They had arrived in the nearest city by train this morning, and it was currently around noon.

The group didn't bring much luggage since they're supposed to complete their venture in one or two days. Drai was kind enough to make space in his dimensional storage to help lessen his teammates' burden, greatly reducing the number of rocks he usually carried around in the process.

Jian was at the front, cutting off the countless vegetations that were blocking the group's path. The site was a distance away from the main path, so they basically had to open up a new path.

Christo followed closely behind Jian, directing their way while giving out a few commands. Meanwhile, the girls walked behind Christo, with Flo occasionally roaming to the sides, examining the various plants they passed by.

And Drai was at the back, acting as a rear guard. So far, he had been enjoying the journey, reminiscing about his training days before the Revelation Day.

"Can't you just blast these plants with your rays, Auri?" Jian asked as he annoyedly slashed off a thick tree branch that was dangling ahead.

"Sure, if you give me some mana potions," Auri said, shrugging.

"Damn you mages… Can't do a thing without being overly concerned of your mana," Jian remarked while his arm kept swinging back and forth.

"Duh, we're mages."

The group spent another hour like this, walking idly with the occasional bickering and short rest. They once passed by a huge tree housing a bunch of squirrels, and Jian excitedly suggested to catch and roast them, perhaps out of boredom. But he quickly retracted his words upon seeing Auri's and Natalia's disgusted expressions.

'Yeah... Can't have fun with these princesses around,' Jian inwardly complained.

After another thirty minutes of walking, Christo said, "We're close." And not long after that, the group arrived at the clearing.

"Finally!" Jian exclaimed while massaging his sore arm. Although he occasionally complained, Jian never actually stopped nor slowed down in clearing the way for the party except for when they were resting.

"Let's rest for a bit before entering. It's been a while since our last one," Christo said. The others agreed and began putting down their luggage before resting on the ground.

"Christo, would you mind asking Halo to add one more member to our party? Preferably someone who uses a long bladed weapon," said Jian as he leaned on a tree.

"It's been hard on you, Jian," said Christo apologetically.

Christo did feel quite bad for Jian who had been doing most of the work on the way here, but letting someone else open up their path would just be inefficient and a waste of energy. Drai was strong, but he couldn't wield a blade properly. And although forcefully pulling out the branches was also an option due to Drai's strength, Christo didn't want to risk accidentally felling a tree on the group.

"Let me help you, Jian," Flo said as she crouched beside Jian and began to smear his right arm with a yellowish green mixture from a bottle.

"Ah…" Jian moaned as the coolness seeped into his fatigued arm.

A green glow covered Flo's hands as she gently stroked Jian's arm. Soon, she was finished with her treatment.

"Just leave the mixture on for now. You can wash it off with water later," Flo said as she put back the bottle into her satchel and headed toward a particular cluster of flowers. It seemed like she was still trying to identify valuable plants for them to bring back.

"Thanks, Flo," Jian said. Although not totally recovered, his arm was feeling a lot better now after the treatment. Meanwhile, Drai who was watching nearby couldn't help but drool upon witnessing this scene.

"Don't ask her for free," Natalia said to Drai after seeing his expression.

"Huh?" said Drai blankly while wiping his drool.

"We're currently on a venture, so Flo's just doing her part. But your training recovery isn't part of her responsibility, so don't ask her to heal you for free. You should try repaying her with money or materials, help her forage, or some other stuff she may want."

"Oh, makes sense. Okay, I'll ask her about it later after the venture," Drai said. Muscle soreness was usually the main aftereffect of his training, so Drai was really eager to ask for Flo's help.

The group rested for ten minutes before Christo finally signaled them to pack up. They soon arrived at the stone building in the middle of the clearing.

The building was a cuboid shape with a wooden shed roof covering the top. It was clear that the building had been abandoned for quite some time with all the moss and small plants covering the walls.

Christo led the party into the building. After entering, the group saw that there was but a single wide space. The area was pretty damp due to the overgrown moss and lack of ventilation, and the only light source was the entrance, so the inside was rather dark.

"Ugh! This place smells so bad!" Auri said as she quickly covered up her nose with her hand. The others felt similarly repulsed as well, covering their noses and frowning.

"It's probably because of the humidity, moss, and animal droppings," Christo surmised. He then took out a bandana and tied it around his face, covering his nose and mouth. "We'll get used to it soon, just bear with it for now."

The members then started investigating the room. There wasn't actually much to see in the building compared to what they had expected. There were two wooden shelves at the left and right wall. There were also numerous debris on the floor, of which many looked like broken pieces of pottery.

At certain parts of the wall were small holes at a person's height. Christo was inspecting these holes along with the stone floor right below them.

"These holes were likely used to put light holders. There are traces of soot near the holes, and there's a lack of moss on the floor right under them, possibly due to wax or oil that might've dripped from the light source," Christo conjectured.

Meanwhile, Natalia had been examining the wooden shelves.

"There's nothing on these shelves. Looking at the moss on their surface, it seems like they've been emptied for years," Natalia commented.

"Hey! I found some marbles!" Jian suddenly exclaimed. He was crouching at a corner, holding up a bunch of tiny round black things. There were still plenty of them scattered on the floor near his feet.

Christo approached Jian and took a closer look at the marbles he was holding.

"Pretty sure that's just poop," Christo said after a quick look.

"What the f**k?!" Jian cursed as he dropped the "marbles".

Drai came over to look and said, "Yeah, they look quite similar to the wild goat droppings I've seen around the hill back home. Some people collect them and use it as fish feed."

"These droppings must've hardened quite a bit already. That's probably why Jian mistook them as marbles," Christo remarked as he walked away.

Jian sniffed his hand that he used to hold the marbles earlier and immediately looked relieved.

"It's fine guys, they don't smell! Here, sniff it, Auri," Jian said, offering the nearby Auri his hand, making her run away.

After they were done inspecting everything, Christo proceeded to take pictures and a few videos of the objects in the room. He also occasionally wrote down some notes on his comm.

"This was much more boring than I thought," Jian said while standing near the wall across the entrance, scraping some moss from the wall due to boredom.

"Halo did tell us not to have high expectations," Auri commented.

"And I did lower my expectations, but not as far as staring at moss for hours and touching old poop, you know? And now we're just idling away, waiting for Christo to finish the mission. I'd rather run around the forest and catch some critters. Maybe I'll stumble into some kind of treasure or inheritance."

As Jian was prattling, his sword scraped off a protruding part of the wall. With a small thud, a stone piece dropped onto the floor.

"You're even trying to mess up the site now to make things more exciting, huh?" Auri snarkily remarked.

"I was just scrapping off some moss! Why the hell is this thing coming off the wall?!" Jian annoyedly grumbled as he crouched and picked up the fallen piece.

"The shape looks like a big screw…" Jian said as he examined the stone. However, he stopped looking at it when he saw Christo walking toward him.

"Uh… I was just messing with the moss, Christo," Jian hurriedly excused himself in case Christo was displeased.

However, Christo didn't comment on the incident and merely said, "Let me take a look."

After being handed the stone piece, Christo scraped off all the dirt and moss from it before inspecting it.

Like Jian said, the stone piece looked like a big screw with a wide top. Instead of the usual spiral grooves on screws, the grooves on this one were disorganized, seemingly forming an arbitrary pattern. And on the surface of the wide circular top part was a carving of three squiggly lines.

After examining the piece, Christo took out something that looked like a compass from his satchel. He then put the compass on his left palm and tapped it with a finger. The compass arrow then spun rapidly for a few seconds before stopping, pointing to the wall near them.

Seeing this, Christo contemplated briefly before saying, "Auri, can you scrape off all the moss from this wall with your ray?"

"Huh? Why would you even want me to do that?" Auri asked perplexedly.

"There seems to be something hidden beneath the layer of moss," Christo replied.

"Really? Well, I can try. Wait, let me test it on the exterior wall first."

After a nod from Christo, Auri immediately went outside. It took her more than a minute before she finally returned.

"Should I do it now?" Auri asked, to which Christo nodded. All the other members were already gathered near Christo, curious to see what's the deal with this wall.

"Okay then. You guys better stand behind me because the moss will be flying everywhere," Auri instructed.

After the group had moved, Auri's hand glowed with mana before letting out a thin 3 feet wide horizontal blue ray that swept the wall from top to bottom, starting from the right side.

The group stared in amazement as the wall was gradually being cleaned. They hadn't thought that Auri's spells could be used this way.

"Wow, Auri! You could make a cleaning channel on YouPipe for some easy money. I've heard that pressure washing videos are quite popular nowadays. No need to waste four years in the academy," Jian teased.

"Sure. I've figured out the title for my first video: 'Pressure Washing My Idiot Friend Jian's Dirty Ass'. I'm sure it'll get millions of views," Auri replied amidst her casting.

"If you really make that video, I'll definitely watch it. I'll even forward it to my dad," Natalia added laughingly.

"F**k you both…" Jian cursed.

Soon, all the moss and dirt had been cleaned off the wall, revealing the object of interest previously hidden beneath them.

It was a large inscription of a cube showing three of its sides with equal proportions, one side at the top and two others parallel at the bottom.

There was an inscription on each side of the cube. On the top was a scale, on the bottom left were several human figures while on the bottom right was a single demon-like figure who had two horns, a pair of wings, and a tail.

Surrounding the cube were four small inscriptions that slightly protruded from the wall. As the rest were still staring at the cube in amazement, Christo walked forward and reached his hand toward one of the small inscriptions. He then tried to pull the protruding part out but it didn't seem to budge at all.

"Come help me, Drai," Christo gestured.

Drai immediately came forward, followed by the rest who also wanted to take a closer look.

Standing beside Christo, Drai pinched the circular protruding stone and pulled. It didn't take much effort for Drai as the stone quickly loosened and came out, leaving a hole similar to the one left by the previous piece.

Drai handed the piece to Christo, who promptly scrutinized it. The piece was very similar to the one before, but it didn't depict three squiggly lines but a tree instead.

Christo's eyebrows furrowed as he examined the piece from various angles. Eventually, he told Drai to pull out the rest of the small inscriptions surrounding the cube.

With all five small inscriptions on hand, Christo began comparing them to one another. He soon noticed that all five pieces were the same size, but the grooves on each piece were different and so were the images on their top parts.

Other than the three squiggly lines and a tree, there was also a cuboid, a flame, and a mountain.

"It's the five elements!" Jian suddenly exclaimed as realization dawned to him upon seeing the inscriptions.

"The five elements?" Auri asked.

"Yeah, look! The tree is wood, the flame is fire, the mountain is earth, the block is metal, and the lines are water. It's the five natural elements often used in cultivation stories!" Jian explained. "These must be the keys to a treasure of some sort, an inheritance even! Am I finally having my fortunate encounter?!"

"Chill, warrior. We're in the real world now," Auri quickly poured cold water on Jian's fervor.

"I think Jian isn't wrong though," Christo said. "Regardless of what the symbols signify, these stone pieces do seem like parts of a mechanism, but we don't know whether it will lead us to some kind of treasure or something else."

Christo glanced at the five holes surrounding the cube inscription on the wall.

"Looks like they're supposed to be arranged in a particular order…"

Following this, Christo held a piece with one hand and brought it close to each hole.

"Looks like this one goes here," he said as he slid the water inscription into the lower right hole.

After that, he did the same for the other pieces, slotting them in after hovering them before each available hole. Only the last one didn't need to go through this process with only one hole left.

"Okay, it's done," Christo stated, baffling the others.

"What do you mean by 'done'? Didn't you just randomly put them in?" Jian dubiously asked.

"Not 'randomly'—'intuitively'," Christo corrected.

"What's the difference? They both don't make sense," Jian argued.

Christo smiled as he took out the compass he used earlier.

"This is random," he said as he opened the transparent lid on the compass and flicked the arrow inside, making it spin rapidly before it finally stopped, pointing to him. He then repeated this multiple times with the compass arrow pointing to a different direction each time it stopped.

The other members watched closely, wondering what their leader was trying to show.

"But this…" Christo continued as he closed the lid and tapped it with a finger.

"…is intuition."

As if on command, the arrow rapidly spun for a few seconds before stopping, pointing to the cube inscription on the wall. Christo then tapped the compass once more, resulting in an identical result. He then did this three more times and the arrow never failed to stop at the exactly same spot. For the last demonstration, Christo moved a few steps away to change the angle between the cube and the compass before tapping it, but the result remained unchanged; the arrow still pointed to the cube after stopping.

"That's not intuition—that's magic! You're controlling the arrow!" Jian protested.

"I'm not obliged to explain how my power works, but I definitely hadn't controlled the arrow. I only tapped the compass, that's all," Christo said with a shrug as he put away his compass.

"But if your intuition really works, why has nothing happened since you put those things in?" Flo asked.

"Hmm… Try pushing the pieces in, Drai. But don't force it if you feel that they don't fit," Christo instructed.

Drai then walked forward and tried pushing the water inscription in while restraining his strength in fear of breaking the piece if it didn't fit.

To Drai's surprise, the piece slid in smoothly until the top was parallel to the wall. He then did the same for the rest of the pieces.

The group watched in anticipation as last piece was pushed in. And right at the moment when the last inscription had completely slid in, the whole building trembled.