15 Chapter 15: The Trails of the Ancients

Darkness enveloped the entire area as Geo knew he wasn't in the forest anymore. Instead, it felt like he found himself within a room, a large room made out of something artificial.

Lights far away began to light up as more and more illuminated the darkness until there was nothing but white light within the area. Quickly Geo realized that the artificial material must have been something similar to glass as different colored lights could be seen from the side. Quickly followed by a projection.

Geo recognized the voice of the one speaking to him, as it was the same he had heard during the previous message. A male voice spoke to him, quickly changing its pitch and morphing into a female voice.

"Initiating systems booting up..."

Geo recognized the sounds of a computer system booting up all around him.

"Hi, there I'm Evaluating Virtual Entity or E.V.E. for short. We will now begin your challenge as you'll show me what you're made of!

Starting challenge #01"

The entire room shifted through different colors when suddenly the room turned into a normal environment.

Rocks began to crumble as walls fell onto the ground. Slowly giving shape to an entity he recognized all too well from several games his friends played with him.

"It can't be... the rubble... is it... coming together?!"

The rubble began to gather slowly growing ever larger until a massive structure-like being stood in front of him. The worst came to worst as the being wasn't alone...

All around the area similar beings arose from the ground, others smaller or even bigger than the previous one. Question was... Did he need to fight all of them at once?

Geo knew this would prove to be quite a challenging endeavor, as they made way between the rising golems to hide and strategize.

"This must give me a few moments to prepare.

But what the right way to tackle this? I don't have a plan, do I?"

Geo carefully glanced over his shoulder across the field as he had hidden his presence behind some tree close by. Covering himself with dirt and leaves he hoped to blend in with the environment.

E.V.E. announced the beginning of the challenge as it knew Geo still had to be close by.

"Today E.V.E. will monitor the strength of the one fortunate enough to walk in on this event.

As you may see "challenger", the golem has been summoned to protect the secret resting place of the ancients. Your objective; find the treasure hidden within this will let the defense mechanism within the golem shut down, allowing the "challenger" to roam free and enter the sacred dimension."

Geo didn't know how to react to it all as a window popped up in front of him, asking if he would accept the challenge.

"You got me fired-up with all the talk about treasure and dimensions. Sign me up!!"

Geo said as he pushed [YES] approving of the challenge. Immediately after the golem closest to him turned around, now facing the trees behind him.

The big ones struck at it breaking most trees in two, Geo dodged in time and knew there was no other choice than to take the confrontation head-on.

At least for now...

The first group of golem had launched their fists into the trees as they slowly recovered from their fatigue.

The second group was a lot smaller which Geo could pick off one by one. Being the man Geo as he tried lifting the smallest one from behind as he wanted to try a wrestling move on them... which was more difficult than he had hoped for...

The golem was insanely heavy,

which made it nearly impossible to lift on his own.

"Shit... didn't think it would be this difficult,

seems I have to find another way..."

Geo quickly jumped backward dosing the little ones their onslaught of fists. Jumping from one to another, almost monkeylike. Geo took this momentum to get away from them as he climbed into a tree.

It didn't too the golem long to figure out how to get Geo down as a single fist was enough to plummet the tree. Geo then proceeded to quickly jump towards the next tree, making it impossible for the golem to reach him.

Relieved by this, Geo hoped to catch his breath. But the tenacity of the golem was annoying, to say the least. The small ones began to climb in,

even finding ways to reach out to the top.

"Smarter than you look, aren't we all?"

Geo proceeded to jump down, slamming into a bigger one, ripping out the core of his body.

Making the floating rubble collapse to the ground.

Geo had found their weak spot and now a young man's tenacity to survive was tested against an army of stone! But while it was a difficult challenge, he had found a way to fight back.

Making it clear there was a way to win this.

Not having his powers to back him up was rather inconvenient, still... this struggle didn't seem so impossible after all.

Not sure what the cores that he grabbed from the golem were for he assumed they must have been valuable as he gathered most of the fragments which remained after defeating the smaller ones.

Three bigger ones had some support from the normal sized ones, the groups attacked him all at once leaving to change to counter-attack. Even having to dodge the blind trampling tactics they had come up with.

Having dodged the smaller ones, Geo neglected the bigger ones for a moment, not anticipating a coordinated as he saw happen just now.

Unable to counter this, Geo to a frontal blow straight in the belly. Taking on the full force like a man it only took mere seconds to best him. As Geo slowly collapsed to the ground.

The golem closed in on him wanting to make short work of it all, but Geo refused this to be his final resting place.

"I'll have to admit, you got me good there, Not gonna let that happen another time!"

And as Geo said it another Golem slammed both fists downwards making the ground around them collapse as the entirety of golem and himself crashed through the floor. When Geo later came to, he was the only one alive.

No golems to be found, only rubble and used magi-cores.

"The shards should fetch, quite the price, wouldn't they? Maybe something else will happen while I'm down here. Hahaha!"

Geo laughed at the idea, but soon realized he had stumbled upon a hidden room within the ruins.

Like back when Michael had set off to another area, Geo had now found an altar...

One arguably who was used for travel.

What kind of travel he didn't know, it was just that Geo recognized the patterns along the ground.

Only this time, nothing was there to activate the ancient mechanisms. Mesmerized by the drawings across the room Geo looked around until he accidentally stumbled upon something which represented an altar. An altar Geo didn't recognize.

Unable to make out any of the world grammar or wording, Geo still hoped to find something he recognized. But as he wiped rn blew the ever-spreading dust from the altar he soon found out that it wasn't what it seemed.

That the altar while looking like one was a module, for something else. As Geo wiped away the dust it slowly began to glow, as if something was booting up, lights and sounds began to spread as the room slowly began to light up.

It was far from over as something began to gather around the orb, was this the final challenge E.V.E. Was talking about? Energy began to gather as Geo knew something big was about to happen.

Bracing himself for the worst, but instead of something amazing like a battle to the death Geo seemed to be greeted by yet another gateway.

A gateway leading to his wildest dreams as he now found himself in the land of gold and treasures.

As quickly as he came Geo jumped back to what for him felt like reality, not believing what he saw... As he collected his thoughts E.V.E spoke to him once more.

"Having cleared the challenge granted you access to the treasure vault. Unlocking the secret bonus challenge."

Not long after Geo's pockets began to glow making the fragments fly towards the center, creating the biggest glowing orb he had ever seen!

Unable to believe his eyes Geo had no clue what was going on. The only thing he knew was that another challenge had presented itself allowing Geo to become stronger than ever before!!

Always going out of his way, accepting any and every challenge within his power the gateway slowly closed behind him, with no way back he started at a room full of riches,

with only one goal in mind.

Being able to clear the secret challenge!!

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