Chapter 55

Deep into the night, Erik returned to his refuge after wandering the continent for several hours, trying to avoid leaving any traces that could lead someone to his hideout. After all, he was certain that his clever act had made him many enemies, and he was sure there were even more who wanted to take his emblem to prevent him from winning the tournament.

"And what did you discover about that staff?"

Upon entering the refuge, Ebonique inquired from atop Erik's head as he analyzed the staff on his work table.

"Actually, it's a magical artifact made from relatively common materials, but it's unnecessarily complex for its sole function of displaying a hologram with different star charts."

Erik activated the staff, showing Ebonique the various star charts included, before continuing.

"That piqued my curiosity, so I decided to study it a bit more and found something curious. The staff is only simulating the use of all its runes to show this hologram. In reality, it has more functions, but these are locked and seem to have different types of conditions for activation."

"Hoho, that sounds like you have a plan," Ebonique commented with a mischievous voice, to which Erik responded with an evil smile.

"Of course, I do. Tonight, we go all out, hahahaha!"

Erik laughed heartily and began to work on the staff while the wolves slept by his sides in puppy form, as they refused to sleep anywhere but by his side. Erik used to take them to sleep in their dog houses or on the bed, but they would get up in the middle of the night and come back to sleep beside him while he worked. So, Erik simply gave up and let them do as they wished.

The rest of the night passed with Erik modifying the staff, using different types of materials from his storage rings to deactivate runes and carve new ones. He was extremely careful not to damage the set of runes responsible for the different functionalities, focusing only on those that evaluated the activation conditions.

The process of modifying the staff was quite complex and somewhat exhausting for Erik. The runes responsible for evaluating the activation conditions were positioned in various places on the staff and seemed deliberately obfuscated. Often, they weren't even directly connected to the function they activated. Instead, they appeared to have a system of inheritance, where they interconnected through sets of daughter runes performing different tasks simultaneously, further complicating the modification. Erik anticipated this complexity, so he didn't complain and continued his work in silence, occasionally eating cookies.

...

As the first rays of light began to appear on the horizon and the songs of birds started to fill the air, a nearly maniacal laughter echoed throughout the refuge, waking the wolves, who looked around in confusion.

"You don't have to laugh like that, Ebonique, it wasn't that big of a deal."

Erik commented, rolling his eyes at an excited 30 cm Ebonique, who laughed maniacally while circling around a beautiful floating staff on Erik's work table.

"Hahaha, but you really did it, you completely erased the security those fools imposed on the staff. Their faces right now must be hilarious."

Erik shook his head and commented as he took the floating staff from the table, "I wouldn't be so sure about that."

"Why do you say that?" Ebonique asked, confused as she lay back on Erik's head.

"Because, although it was somewhat challenging to bypass the staff's security to activate all its functions at will, it wasn't overly difficult. Plus, it was made of materials that were quite easy to work with and not too expensive. So, it's likely that in that temple, there must be various types of trials, and this scepter is the key to solving them."

"Doesn't that make your achievement even greater, Erik?" Ebonique asked proudly from atop Erik's head, as if she had been the one to modify the staff.

"Not really, because if it wasn't planned for someone to modify the staff as I did, someone should have intervened when I tried to do so, but that didn't happen. Besides, do you remember what Master Iyanda said?"

"'The only rule is not to use anything above the Illuminated level,' right?"

"Exactly. There was only one rule, allowing even theft and 'murder.' So, I think modifying the staff was a type of trial itself. After all, you still have to go through the trials in the palace. I suppose they determined two levels of difficulty: the hard way, waiting to fulfill each necessary condition to activate the staff's functions, or modifying it and passing through the palace in easy mode like I did, since making the modifications requires some skill."

"That makes sense. But now, let's head to the palace and win this tournament. Get those star charts out; they must be the key to finding it, right?"

"Hehe, exactly. The first trial was to find a specific location using the clues left in the star charts, but we don't have to waste time doing that."

"Your modifications?" Ebonique asked, her voice filled with evident excitement.

"Exactly. It turns out the condition to activate the first ability of the staff was to be in a specific area of the planet." Erik smiled, showing Ebonique the crystal tablet connected to the sentinel probes, where a specific point on the map was marked.

"So, what are we waiting for? Let's go," Ebonique rose from Erik's head, intending to leave the refuge, but Erik's words stopped her.

"Why are you so excited? Who said we had to go there?"

"Didn't you just say that?" Ebonique asked, confused as she looked at Erik, who had a mischievous smile on his face.

"I never said that. I just mentioned that was the condition, but I haven't told you what ability of the scepter that unlocked."

"What was it?"

"Teleportation."

Erik's single word was more than enough for Ebonique to understand everything, which made her burst into hearty laughter.

"Hahaha, so the palaces aren't on the surface, no wonder we couldn't find anything."

"Hehehe, you're right. The teleportation coordinates point deep underground, about 5 kilometers down, to be exact."

"How cunning, but let's not waste any more time and go. I want to see this palace."

"Of course."

After that, Erik exited his refuge and deactivated all the defense and camouflage systems. He then made it shrink back into a small silver sphere and stored it in his storage ring. With everything packed, Erik took one last look at his now empty camp and activated the staff with Ebonique on his head and Kaiser and Tiberius on his shoulders, disappearing from the spot in a flash of light.

...

In the midst of the meeting room, all the Masters watched as Ngozi, with a grave expression, spoke with the director, who was all smiles.

"What are we going to do about that boy Erik, Director? Now that he's hacked the staff, all the other tests are meaningless for him."

"Hahaha, he really did hack the staff as if it was nothing," the Director commented, laughing, which brought an ironic smile to the faces of the others present, except for Eleonora, Sigrún, and Seraphina, whose delicate faces were filled with pride and vanity.

"This is no laughing matter, Director. That boy Erik has just blatantly cheated. We must stop him."

"Erik didn't cheat, Ngozi. As he himself pointed out, the only rule was not to use items above the Illuminated level, which he hasn't done. And really, hacking that staff isn't something just anyone can do; it requires true skill. So, let's just pretend it was actually a test and let him be. Or do you want to be the one to face the embarrassment of publicly retracting your words? Because I certainly don't, hahaha."

The Director chuckled heartily at the entire situation, prompting Ngozi to sigh in defeat before turning to Eleonora with a question.

"How did you teach that little monster, Eleonora? That staff was crafted by a very renowned and talented arcane-level artificer. If it becomes known that Erik managed to hack it in just one night, it could seriously damage his reputation."