The Cube

Adui looked at the puzzle before his eyes with astonishment, he couldnt believe that he was so lucky. He realized that maybe Kaisel didnt realize what this was, and that is why he didnt take it with him. He must have felt that this was a worthless puzzle.

Still, there might be a chance that Kaisel might come after him, because of this cube.

He does not have a lot of information about inheritances. He knows that they come in a lot of shapes and forms, some of them only comprise treasures and resources, while some solely comprise knowledge, and with magic, every type of inheritance is stored in intricate and complicated ways. Which makes this thing being an inheritance highly likely.

"So?" Ben asked. "What is this cube? I saw a much larger one with you when we were coming home, so I figured that this one must be important as well. So I picked it up."

He chuckled lightly. "You did a good job by picking it up"

"So what is it?"

"I dont know. But let's find out shall we, I was about to solve the damn thing when those bastards came knocking on my door."

"Can you solve it?"

"Of course, I can, the method of solving the thing is engraved in my brain, surely I can solve the thing. But it would take a lot of time." Ben shrugged. "Whatever keeps you busy."

It was a grueling task, the cube was heavy and he couldnt move it with just one hand which had only three fingers. Ben wanted to help, but he declined his good faith, he wanted to solve the cube by himself, and he would achieve the task with his willpower.

Adui remembers, that night Kaisel was playing with the cube he was being tortured. That is why the whole puzzle was jumbled, which is why it took him a lot of time to reach the stage where he left off. Eventually, after 8 hours of grueling labor, trials, and errors, it was finally done. The cube was just a few moves away from being solved.

He didnt know what to expect when he would finally solve the cube, but in the little corner of his heart, he wanted this cube to be the inheritance, he wanted revenge on the Ulaspas family, and for that needed power. If that cube turns out to be an inheritance, then his dream of getting revenge will not be a pipe dream anymore.

With determination in his eyes, he inputted the last few moves on the cube.

CLICK

A crisp clicking sound echoed throughout the room, he started to feel gears turning inside the cube, while he held the cube in his hand with fascination, trying to see changes that were taking place on the outside, and when the cube finally stopped stirring, the centerpiece of the face containing Rose got elevated up.

He inspected the risen centerpiece with amazement, trying to figure out what it did and what was it supposed to do now. He tried turning the piece, which did nothing, it was fixed in a place, he tried pulling it, but that also did nothing, and it is then he started pushing it down again, it triggered something.

Suddenly the gears of the cube started churning and moving with haste, and then the cube started levitating in the air, and all the pieces of the cube started opening up. The volume of the cube started increasing and then, he jumped out of the bed, out of the expansion space of the cube. He just crawled away from his bed, he didnt dare to turn around, but when he finally showed courage and turned around, he saw the cube had increased in size significantly and before he knew it, the cube transformed into what looked like a huge trunk.

BALAAM

The trunk landed on the bed, breaking it in half and creating a very loud noise as well, he on the other hand remained on the floor, flabbergasted because of what had happened. Soon the door was flung open and the old man came inside with a knife in his hand.

When the old man saw him, lying on the floor and the silver color trunk on his bed, a lot of questions started popping into his head…

The old man helped him up on a chair, and also gave him some water, after they had calmed done, he started speaking. "So do you mind telling me, what is that thing and what happened here?"

"That cube, I solved it. And then it just transformed into the trunk."

"That wee little cube transformed into this trunk?"

"I am also not sure, how that happened. But I think someone had planted some spatial magic tricks on the cube, that is why it was able to expand by this much." Ben then moved closer to the trunk and started feeling the texture and architecture of the trunk.

"What do you reckon is inside the trunk?"

"I dont know. Why dont we find out?"

Upon inspecting the trunk, it seemed to be a normal metal trunk, he could not feel any presence of mana from it, and there was no lock on it as well, it had just a normal handle from which they could open it. Before opening it, he looked around the trunk, to see whether it had a warning or words engraved on it, he wanted to make sure that this was not some trap.

After finding nothing significant on its body, he finally proceeded to open the trunk…

He was greeted with a black silk cloth when he opened the trunk, after removing the cloth, he saw that the cloth was enclosed with a number of books. These books were quite huge in size, they all leather bound covers, also the smell of paper in the air told him that books were too old.

Carefully he started taking out the books, and upon taking them, he found out that the books seemed to be in bundles, some of the books were bounded by red color leather, with the others were in blue and green color, seeing the color pallet of those, he figured that they must be in bundles.

He tried opening one of them, only to be disappointed that he couldnt read the words in those books, they were all written in an alien language, he was half expecting these books to be written in Hasy, the language used in this place before Gorgon kingdom was formed, but this language was something else entirely.

"Hey, I think there is a compartment here." Ben pointed out. He peered inside the trunk again and saw that there was indeed a small compartment just behind the lid of the trunk.

The compartment comprised a long narrow chamber, accessible by a sliding window, upon opening it, he found four things tucked inside it. There was a letter, sealed in a white color envelope, there was a blue color jelly-like substance which was enclosed in a small glass box, there was a big vial of black color liquid and then there was a very small key, which opened only Tibba knows what.

Setting the key aside, he opened the envelope, the letter inside was written in the same language as the books, so he couldnt read it, he opened the vial containing the black color liquid, only to be assaulted by a very heavy stench of rotten eggs, so he set it aside at the moment as well.

Then came the turn of the blue jelly-like substance, this item in particular, he was familiar with, or at least it was something that he had read about. This jelly was an alchemic substance called the Knowledge Dango, with the power of runes, mages can turn some of their knowledge to this jelly, and the person who would consume it would be able to absorb that knowledge.

He had never seen Knowledge Dango before in his life, hell, even the book didnt have a good description of the product, so he was not sure whether this was what he thinks it was, and there was no way to know as well, at least from his knowledge there was no way to know. And he could not just eat a random substance from an unknown box, that would be stupidity.

After checking everything out, he couldnt sigh with frustration, it was like he had treasure in his hand, but he was stranded in the middle of an ocean, where that treasure didnt hold much value. these things were valuable, he was sure of it, but he couldnt use them.

He could not read the text, but based on ink and paper he could tell these records were old, also, based on how securely these things were kept, he knew that they were worth something, but he didnt know how to use anyone of them.

Ben was also disappointed, according to him, he was hoping for valuable rocks and gold from the chest, not some ancient books. After helping him clean up the room, the old man went out again, leaving him with the piles of books by his side.

As there was nothing else for him to do now, he took the other cube that he found, this cube was a bigger mystery than the previous one, it was plain from all sides, and it was heavy, but he could not tell what he was supposed to do with it. The way that it looked, it simply looked like a normal chunk of well-polished iron ore to him, nothing more, and nothing else.

He had previously planned to get this cube appraised in the capital, but now as he cannot go out in the open, that plan was also ruined.

I have mana stones with me. I could start cultivating… Wait, no cultivating would not help. I dont have good potential, and even if I cultivate very diligently, I would never be able to reach the point where I could even harm the hair of Kaisel's body.

He was stuck in a place, and didnt know where to go next from here. It is then he looks at the blue color jelly by his side, and he starts thinking about whether he should eat it, he can clearly remember the description of the jelly that he read in the book, and the one in front of him matches the profile perfectly.

Should I eat it… Well, you know what… FUCK IT. I am half dead anyway. I dont have a plan from which I could have my revenge, I am basically out of ideas. As this jelly came out of this box, I figured that it wouldn't be dangerous, it must be some alchemic product.

You know what, let's just eat it. With that he took the box, and slammed it on the nearest wall, after removing some of the glass pieces that got stuck in the jelly, he closed his eyes and at the whole thing, while praying to great Tibba for luck.