415. The Vault

Sighing, Magnus answered her question, "The land bridge he was talking about is most likely the Bering land bridge. It was a landmass that connected today's Russia with Alaska. Scientists thought it was destroyed because of the rising sea level, who knew it was them.

"And Emma, you have no idea what kind of astronomical powers it took to bring us inside this ice cage. No ordinary, not even Dumbledore can do this as easily as I did, all because of the buff provided by this Merlin's staff. Forget entering here, just reaching the seabed would have killed any normal wizard. It's understandable that they couldn't get out."

"Then... how did Ragnar's ancestor get in here?" She asked further.

That was indeed a question, but one not very hard to answer, "The likely answer is that he did not. He couldn't have reached the seabed and dug a hole in this ice wall. The best-case scenario is that he placed it inside the ice on the top or threw a vault into the Arctic."

"GUYS! I didn't find anything. I have no idea where the vault is," Ragnar came back, tired and panting. When he noticed the faces of the three, he asked, "What did I miss?"

"Nothing, just the monologue of a 50,000-year-old wizard," Magnus replied as if it was nothing and got to work. He went to the basement with the book in his hands, perhaps it was the key since all he found on the last page were some runes. In the basement of the castle, there was just a single strange wall.

Going by his intuition, he drew the entire rune formation as he saw in the book. He was right, *SHHH...* After tens of thousands of years, the secret doors opened. This was the sweet thing about magic, it didn't need oil to be maintained. The vault door slid down into the ground slowly.

"WOAH! This can't be Vanir's vault, that guy looked more like a sophisticated brute to me," Ragnar himself rejected the idea.

"You are right, this is the vault of the wizard that used to live here, Emma, tell him a short story, I will look in here," He entered the vault. As always, there was a lot of gold in the form of crude coins. He had seen so much gold that nothing shocked him anymore unless it was a pile of gold as tall as Mount Everest, or maybe a swimming pool of it.

On one side were a lot of staffs, there were 100 in total, however, they must have been passed on from generation to generation. Since they were so deep under the ice, they had no way of getting more wood to make them."

However, then he saw some things, blocks of stones on which rune writings were made. These were probably the initial ways of these wizards to document their knowledge. Among all the magic, he found one that caught his eye, "How to breed animals with magic?"

The word breed was a trigger word for him at this point. He picked up the stone tablet and stored it to study later. Then he decided to end this expedition and find Ragnar's vault.

"Everyone, we're heading out now." He announced.

Instantly he turned one of the stone tablets into a portkey and placed it on the top floor of the tallest tower. He took the skeleton along as well. While the old book, it was going to be a British Royal possession, an artefact that shall be stored in safety for millennia to come.

The Ice-Palace and the whole area was now Magnus and Ragnar's property, they will treat this place as a secret safe house that should only be used in the most desperate situation. He will be bringing some important supplies and items for comfort later. Since the palace was made with magic, the ice was really dry and didn't even feel cold.

*WOOSH*

...

The group used the Portkey and arrived at the top where they were standing before along with the animals. They were still having their small party, eating all the tasty fresh meat.

The animals didn't even react much to them being around. He just started searching for the vault of Ragnar. "I will just use accio with my staff, hopefully, it will appear with this superior magic,"

"What a nice cheat," Ragnar envied the staff, but even if he had it, it'd mean nothing since his ability to cast spells was shit.

"Shh... don't disturb your papa," Magnus shushed him.

"Hah, papa, you? Pfft..." Ragnar threw a low ball straight to damage his heart.

Frowning, Magnus shouted, "ACCIO, RAGNAR INHERITED TREASURE!"

Nothing happened, the animals nearby just yawned, bored from watching these humans that they had seen for the first time. To them, these two-legged hairless beings were talks of legends, they used to think no such people exist, they were wrong. They were surely going to boast about seeing them now.

Severus tiredly scowled, "I don't think there is any treasure. I'm bored and hungry now, we should head home."

"NO! How can this be, that old man said it was here," Ragnar insisted.

Magnus sighed and waited, continuing his magic. He looked at the Polar Bear looking all cute and fluffy, he pitied them, "Pool guys, Arctic will most probably melt completely in a few decades due to pollution. These guys will go extinct,"

"Then take them to your secret home, there is enough space for these munchkins," Emma suggested.

So Magnus asked the Polar Bear, "You want to come with me to my home? You won't have to work so hard to catch food there."

"I bring my babies?" The polar bear asked, she turned out to be a mama bear.

"Do you have cute little baby bears? Why didn't you tell me before? Where are they? Sure, you can bring them. Everyone else, you guys can also come. Bring your immediate family too." He addressed the crowd of animals.

There was a pause of silence for a short while. They all looked at each other's faces first, and then like a bullet, each one ran away to bring their families.

"They are so cute," Emma muttered.

*BAM*

But then out of nowhere a ground-shaking ear-shattering noise came, as if some kind of metal collided with something. Magnus quickly looked down under his feet, he could notice a dark shadow underneath the thin coat of ice.

"JUMP!" He warned everyone.

They did as asked by instinct, the moment they leapt, a big black box of metal exploded out of the ground and stopped once it was half out. Still, it was as high as a twin storey building and 10X10 metre wide.

"Rag, you bastard, I think this is your treasure, nearly blew my ass off," Magnus sounded annoyed.

Ragnar laughed madly, "Muhahaha... my treasure... and fuck off, Magnus, you say the same after eating Mexican food,"

"No regrets on that, it's tasty stuff." instantly cooled, Magnus commented. Patting himself clean of the snow, he walked to the metal cube. There was no door to it, "Rag, I think it needs your palm again,"

Ragnar did that, magically a door appeared where he pressed his hand. "Here goes nothing," he opened it and jumped inside with high expectations.

He was not let down, "HELL YEAH! SO MANY POTIONS!"

Then Magnus entered and saw there was a large swimming pool full of gold coins. It was as deep as a two-storey building since the vault was only half above the ground initially. "HELL YEAH! GOLD!"

When Emma entered, her eyes fell on a corner, "Woah... IS THAT? RARE WOOD?"

Only Severus was the calmest guy. He entered and walked to the book section, and then his eyes fell on one "THIS! A thousand ways to make an undetectable poison?"

Turns out, everyone found something to like. But Ragnar decided to be a petty bitch, "Hey, hands-off, this is my vault,"

Emma was quick to curse, "Shut up, Rag, we didn't come halfway across the world to freeze our asses for nothing. This isn't your vault anymore. This is OUR VAULT!"

Magnus quickly apparated beside her and hugged her from behind, caressing her head lovingly, "Shhh... Easy, easy there, my tigress, your inner communist was sneaking out again,"

"Pfft..." laughter soon resounded in the giant vault. They were best friends, so of course, they were communists for each other and it was all fine.

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