8 Prologue Chapter 8

The illusion of the outside sun was quickly broken as their eyes adjusted to the light and the stale, underground air continued to fill their noses. The only thing that remained was the heat inside the cylindrically shaped interior.

Inside the rather small room, Dusk was surprised to see the entire space was made of the same metal as the doors. The walls, ceiling, and floor were casted together as a container of sorts. There were no nails or panels that indicated it was built in pieces or segments.

The only thing inside the room was a pillar made of the same metal that rose from the floor and met with the mirrored pillar in the ceiling. In the center of the column structure, a golden sphere of light sat, almost blinding them with its intensity.

It was the source of the golden mana tethers that even Dusk was now able to see because of how much mana filled the room.

Magical energy being condensed to such a small space created a pressure buildup strong enough that the ethereal energy was now visible to the naked eye.

Dusk could see countless little circles were arranged in the light, each one shimmered as they walked inside, glowing brighter wherever the two made contact with the floor.

"The [Heart of the Castle] is this whole room, all these walls are coated in magic circles that contain the energy like a heart is always full of blood, and pumps it into the rest of the castle, giving every array the [Golden Array Matrix] the energy it needs to operate. The actual source of power is that little sphere right here."

Arkyn stepped right up to the pillar and set the grimoire down on the floor. He stared at the marvel of magic for a moment, it was a brief moment of hesitation, but he pulled the tiny orb from the pillar. 

'I feel like I just broke a lot of rules for no real reason.' Arkyn thought as he looked down at his palm.

It stopped glowing as soon as it left its perch, revealing to sit easily in his hand without any real sense of weight to it.

"We call this little vital piece of the Heart the [Cinder Spark]. 'Spark' on account of the size and 'Cinder' because of where it draws its power." Arkyn said while holding it up to see the more clearly.

'I don't get it, seems unnecessary to name all these different things.'

"Well I create it, so I had the honor of naming it. I also named you, so if you have some issues with that, I'll happily give you a name change." Arkyn sounded ominous with the offered idea, so Dusk left it alone.

It had been a long time since Arkyn had laid eyes on the creation. The [Cinder Spark] resembled a glass eye with a yellow and gold iris. No matter how it was held, the pitch black spot in the center seemed to be staring head-on at him.

The gold coloring clearly came from its radiating mana, but the striking thing about the pitch black pupil was that it seemed to constantly morph and stretch within.

One moment it looked like an oval cat's eye, the next it was thin and sharp like that of a reptile. Just before it looked like the eye would burst its hold, it reverted back to the original human-like shape.

Arkyn would have liked to stay and explain exactly how it worked to Dusk, but removing the [Cinder Spark] triggered a series of events all around the castle. 

All the half-standing arrays and leaking mana tethers were still siphoning mana from the [Heart of the Castle]. One-by-one, the charged circles on the floor and walls slowly started to blink out of existence as they no longer had something to fuel them. 

In a few minutes, they were going to start feeling the castle's arrays die down as they no longer had a source of power.

'Time is really of the essence now.' Arkyn thought while pushing the [Cinder Spark] into the somewhat molten amulet.

He fitted it in the center and started to draw a series of small lines along the edges of the disk-shaped amulet. Arkyn only needed to hover a finger near the metal to release his mana. He held it there long enough to create a saturated marking of mana, forming a unique shape that he traced once before moving onto the next.

Each marking was an [Imprint Rune] forming against the metal's surface.

'There was no need to engrave these when the [Cinder Spark] will keep the connections between them strong and fully powered.'

Arkyn referenced the book on arrays several times, glancing back at the pages the moment he needed to check. Once he was finished, Arkyn watched the white of his mana become overtaken by the golden radiant of the [Cinder Spark].

"Perfect, just enough room on this piece that it managed to hold the array and not explode."

'For someone who is supposed to be one of the best of the magical blacksmiths, one might expect you to set the standard higher than self-destructive creations.' Dusk forgot to hold his mind when thinking such comments.

Luckily, Arkyn had ignored the remark and put the amulet around his neck. The warmth spread into his chest, and then slowly encased his body.

After a careful contemplation of how he had truly lived beyond a typical human lifespan, Arkyn assumed that only one true array managed to keep him alive all this time.

The [Containment Array]. It was one of the many that kept the boundaries of the [Golden Array Matrix] and its mana around the castle.

Arkyn initially assumed the [Mending Matrix] was the reason he lived so long, but the extensive research he had done in the past on arrays for 'healing' told him otherwise.

The array was designed to undo damage as it occurred, simply keeping a person's mana circuit intact. However, the [Containment Array] had meant anything within its boundaries was locked within, anyone inside would be saturated with the mana that sits inside.

'My lack of aging had to have been a byproduct of being filled with energy from the [Cinder Spark] no doubt.'

Now he believed that he was capable of freely moving without his body eating away at itself.

'Out of all the arrays within the matrix, this is the only one that would logically make sense.' He thought when flipping through the arrays earlier.

Arkyn felt confident on the choice and turned around to leave with the hot amulet, as he was ready to leave in a hurry, but Dusk had not followed. The room was a new experience for him and the sensation he was feeling from it was rather inviting. 

Fractal Snakes were attuned with a far greater sense of magic sensitivity across their scales than human skin. He wanted to feel the strange disturbances created by the metal against his underbelly. 

He started tracing a much warmer path on the floor compared to other sections. Arkyn watched the snake follow a path to one of the largest tethers that used to extend from the [Cinder Spark]. He watched it unravel just like the others, curious at the snake's physical reaction.

Pieces of the golden mana that no longer clung onto the metal were drifting into Dusk's path. When the two intersected, he watched a glimmer of gold start to hold to his obsidian scales. Sections of Dusk were emanating the color without the need of [Mage Sight], making him appear as though he was a piece of the night sky. A galaxy of yellow stars in space.

Dusk traced a warm thread of residual energy until he was abruptly stopped by something tucked behind the pillar.

It was a hammer, meant for forging, not fighting. One end was a flat block that transitioned into a pick shape the other end.

In the center of the hammer head, there was a cylindrical hole cut out the side. Someone had taken a segment of the metal out of the hammer, exposing the strange, gray metal inside the tool.

When Dusk touched it, the strange metal it was made of felt devoid of any warmth, in fact, the hammer was rather cold. Almost as if it was rejecting the heat of the room.

'What . . . is this?' Dusk was feeling almost as if the hammer was rejecting him too. It wasn't sentient, yet the feeling would not leave him alone and Arkyn could feel Dusk's uneasiness with the unknown piece.

"It was a gift from my parents, a forge hammer that I haven't touched since . . . well it's been a while." Despite the sad tone in Arkyn's voice, he picked up the hammer. This time with no hesitation, and shook the layers of settled dust off with a few wide swings.

It felt physically light, but emotional weight felt different in his hand.

It was a rare piece, almost as unique as the [Cinder Spark]. Only it was more simplistic and not as vital to keeping a kingdom operational.

"I think the worst part is I almost forgot about it. A powerful tool molded by my parents, yet I refused to use it out of the ridiculous connotations of grief." Arkyn's grip tightened as he realized the feeling of the handle was too comfortable. It was going to take some effort to leave it alone now.

'Right . . . so what is next?' Dusk asked while keeping an eye on the hammer in his hand.

"Let us see, there are the books, the amulet, and now my hammer. Nothing left to do now except lock up leave. Let's go discover the truth."