Trapped

Jacob eyed the item and found it rather strange. He knew what it was. Naturally, he knew about its properties, as well.

The item that Professor Hugh was caressing is called a Tartarus Rock, the hardest rock in the entire continent. It is so sturdy that even an S-ranked spell could not chip a piece of it. Aside from this, it also had another property.

Just like the Kravic Whale Rock, it could store magic power, and, when activated, it could also fuel magic energy to those around it.

As an alternative to the Eclipse Phenomenon that completely blocked magic, which they had absolutely no leads on for the past seven months, the researchers decided to simulate it by absorbing magic into a container, instead.

With this, they could then create a pseudo nullification of magic.

Now, they had two candidates as the main material.

The first was the Kravic Whale Rock while the second one was the item in front of Jacob, the Tartarus Rock.

Both had magic storage abilities. The problem was that the two needed direct contact in order to function. The phenomenon, on the other hand, did not need such a condition. So how were they supposed to respond to this problem?

In order to go around this, Professor Wilhelm Hugh, after two months of research, proposed that they forego the recreation of the platform and create an alchemical substance, instead. The substance they would be making would be something like powder that could be spread out into the air, making it unnoticeable. Any mage touched by the powder would then have their magic sucked into it without their knowledge.

Since the Tartarus Rock was too hard to pulverize into powder, they used the Kravic Whale Rock instead. They would then address its capacity problem using alchemy.

With this, their research finally had a direction.

Professor Wilhelm Hugh also proposed that the alchemists be split into several smaller teams so that the groups could function as different units and make them progress faster. After each unit discovered some significant information, they would then submit it to the Professor. It would be up to him to compile and process the data along with the others.

The researchers, on the other hand, were ordered to continue their observation and keep on coming up with other alternatives in case the alchemists failed.

Jacob himself was quite optimistic about the alchemical substance with the Kravic Whale Rock as its main material. He also observed the professor working diligently, probably following this train of thought as well.

However, now, after seeing the Tartarus Rock in front of him, he realized that it had only been a facade. Bringing such a rare item that big could only mean that the Professor was already certain about what he was doing.

But Jacob could not think of a way to utilize it. What was Professor Hugh really trying to make?

At that moment, he realized their error.

They had absolutely no clue about the progress of the research.

The reason why the head researcher proposed the alchemists to split into groups and for the researchers to keep on looking for alternatives was to achieve just that—to keep them clueless.

He wanted to limit the researchers' and the alchemists' knowledge about the final output as much as possible. Heck, there probably wasn't even a final output at all.

Every breakthrough that they thought they achieved was actually something the professor cooked up behind the scenes.

Just like how the Professor had several Serans backing him, preventing the other mages from fighting back, he must also have a group of alchemists doing his private research. And because the alchemists were too spread out, they wouldn't know what the others were doing. In turn, the Professor's alchemist team had been able to work freely.

Jacob shook his head.

They had been done in. Worse… the Emperor was backing the crazy professor, Wilhelm Hugh.

But why was the Emperor doing such a thing?

Suddenly, the two inside the cave heard the shuffling of footsteps.

The Professor stopped caressing the rock and immediately stood up. He looked towards the entrance where a few alchemists walked in. "Welcome! Welcome! We may start now."

Jacob found himself not knowing what to do. He had been the Professor's assistant for three years now, but now that the latter finally revealed his true self, he felt lost. He watched as the professor rushed towards the back of the cave where a few books were stacked on top of each other. He then realized that he had seen no such books before.

Professor Hugh came back carrying two books. He opened one and rapidly skimmed through its pages. After reaching a specific cage, his eyes lit up. "Aha! This is the one."

The Professor showed the book to the alchemists.

Jacob felt curious. Seeing that the Professor was not hostile to him, he inched closer towards the group of alchemists he did not recognize and took a glimpse of the page.

He was not an alchemist, but he knew that the page contained an alchemy solution.

The alchemists took the boxes of materials then began to work.

"Boyo! Don't be too tense. Come, come. I need you to do something for me," the Professor suddenly told Jacob. Then, the professor walked towards the Tartarus Rock's box. "Help me carry this, will you?"

Jacob reluctantly nodded and hurried over.

The two of them carried it with great effort all the way to the back of the cave and placed it right next to the stack of mysterious books. The professor tossed the book with the alchemy solution back to the stack and opened the other book he was holding.

Unlike the first book that he had to skim, the one he was currently holding had a bookmark on it. He opened it to the page where the bookmark was placed and showed Jacob its contents.

Immediately, Jacob recognized what was written on it. To be exact, he was familiar with it.

The page was filled with symbols that looked like the engravings on the platform.

He recognized it, but he did not know what they meant.

The professor took out a piece of chalk from the pocket of his shirt and handed it over to Jacob.

"Could you please draw these for me on the surface of this rock?"

For a moment, Jacob was silent. But just like earlier, he could only reluctantly do the professor's bidding. After all, in a sense, he was still a captive. He only had a bit more freedom than the others.

He took the chalk and the book with him then walked in front of the rock. He knelt down, reached forward, and started drawing. Although the surface of the rock was uneven, he didn't find the task to be too challenging. He always had steady hands and was actually quite proud of them.

In no time, he finished the job. He turned around to see the Professor smiling at him, his hands behind his back.

The professor circled around the rock, assessing Jacob's work. He kept on nodding as he stared at the rock, clearly pleased about the work.

When he finished circling the rock and was finally beside Jacob, he suddenly spoke, "One more thing."

Jacob was surprised but immediately nodded. "Sir!"

"Could you hold this for me?" the Professor asked with a smile.

Jacob did not know what the professor was telling him to "hold" on to and he was quite suspicious. In the end, he still followed and placed the chalk on the table. After that, he obediently reached a hand forward, the one he used to draw.

Thwack!

"AAAAARGGH!"

Jacob howled in pain. He held on to his arm as he looked at his broken and mangled hand. Blood slowly dripped all the way down to his elbow.

"I can't have you drawing this masterpiece somewhere else, could I?" the professor said as he played with the hammer that he used to bash his assistant's hand with. Then he gestured towards the symbols. "This, my boy, is an inscription."

Jacob stared at the professor with rage. He did not care about what he was saying. All he wanted was to tear at his throat open so that he could never wake up again.

"I know what you're thinking. Inscriptions do not exist, blah, blah, blah. Symbols that are randomly written somewhere could not do anything, blah, blah, blah," the Professor mockingly shrugged, "but they do. Oh, oh, oh… they really do."

Jacob was familiar with the term inscriptions. There had always been rumors that normal people could use magic with the help of inscriptions.

But as logical people, they never thought it to be something special. They merely treated it as decorations in order to adorn important objects.

After all, how could a bunch of random letters written in an unknown language be used to cast magic?

The alchemists had finally finished what they were concocting and headed towards the Tartarus Rock. They paid absolutely no attention to Jacob who had a bloody and broken hand. They eyed the inscriptions that were masterfully written then nodded approvingly.

One alchemist dipped a sharp tool in the solution they made then stabbed it into the rock. Slowly, he engraved the symbols with help of the chalk's outline.

Jacob could only stare in shock as the Tartarus Rock, the hardest rock in the continent, got cut like butter. Strangely, the tool they used seemed to be unaffected by the corrosive properties of the solution.

After a few minutes, the alchemist finished engraving every symbol.

"HAHAHAHAHA!"

The professor laughed in ecstasy. He hugged the rock tightly and kissed it multiple times. After a few moments, he sighed with a happy face then said, "Let's go! We need an Earth Seran to enchant this for us."

He lifted the rock with the help of another alchemist and slowly moved towards the mouth of the cave, along with the others. He hummed a tune as he walked.

After a while, the Professor and the alchemists disappeared from Jacob's sight.

Jacob fell on his knees as he felt all his strength leave his body. He massaged his arm as he tied to soothe the throbbing pain. He felt his resentment build up within him. He blamed himself for submitting to the professor even after his betrayal. If only he struggled and was thrown into prison.

Suddenly, he heard somebody from outside the cave scream.

"Sir! A Magical Beast horde is heading towards the mountain!"

Then, the ground started shaking.

Not long after, the Professor and the alchemists rushed back towards the Eclipse Platform's cave. They were panting heavily as they frantically collected the books scattered all around. They shoved into their arms as many books as they could.

The shaking of the ground wasn't really threatening. It posed no danger to the cave. It only achieved to scatter dust everywhere.

However...

Just when they were about to leave, the glowing inscriptions on the surface of the Eclipse Platform unnoticeably brightened.

At the same time, the whole mountain began quaking.

Jacob lost his balance as he kneeled and was thrown to the ground. He looked around in panic, afraid that a part of the cave's ceiling would suddenly fall. Amidst his panic was confusion. The beasts couldn't cause such a strong earthquake even if they jumped all at once. Jacob's gaze slowly hovered on the glowing platform.

A large section of the ground beneath three alchemists suddenly crumbled and the three fell down. Their screams echoed throughout the cave as they plummeted downward. After a few seconds, they heard a muffled thud.

The eight remaining alchemists' faces contorted. Thankfully, the hole that was torn open near the entrance still had some space for them to traverse by the sides.

Without waiting for the Professor, they ran outside the cave. Unfortunately, just before they exited the cave, the entrance crumbled.

THUD! BOOM! KRSHH!

All of the alchemists were buried in the rubble.

The Professor, along with Jacob, was trapped inside the cave.

….