Chapter 5 — Memory Stones
Somewhat of an info drop in this chapter.
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My Father leads me down the now lit up stairs. Looking at the walls and stairs I'm fairly surprised at their condition, both the stairs and the walls are in perfect condition like they were built not even a year ago.
"Dad what is this place?" I ask as we continue down the stairs.
"Your mother told you how our very first ancestor built this place? *I nod* well he also needed a safe place to store his wealth and artefacts" he tells me.
"He also stored all of his research and any knowledge he gathered in here aswell. So over the years the members of our family continued that tradition. Every single person in our family who has ever lived in the last 500 years has at least one piece information stored here" My dad says.
"Come on now we're almost at the bottom"
Not even a minute later I start to see and slightly brighter light at what I assume is the bottom of the stairs.
As we come to the last step my Father puts out his arm stopping me.
"Ready to have your mind blown?" He asks with a full blown grin in his face.
"We'll see about that" I say with a deadpanned face.
As we finally reach the bottom, I take a look around only to see and empty hall. It's quite a long and fairly wide hall you could probably fit about 4 grown men standing shoulder to shoulder in it which is the only impressive thing about it.
"There's nothing here" I say with clear disappointment and a bit of anger in my voice after all my Dad just make me walk down like a Thousand steps just for a prank.
"Oh I guess we took the wrong stairs" my dad says while scratching the back his neck in embarrassment.
"But out of curiosity son. Which of the Family Vaults would you like to see. The Vault of Knowledge which contains more books and scripts then any where in the kingdom. The Vault of wealth which has so much gold you can swim in it. The memory palace the most mysterious of all the Vaults. The common vault which is the vault that any member of our family can access when ever they want from where ever they are. The Magic vault which contains both magical instruments and magical knowledge"
"The Memory Palace?" I question.
"Ah good choice my boy, this way" my dad say with out even answering my questions, He quickly marchs to about a 4 or 5 metres in and stops.
"What are you doing over there, get over here" my dad calls out to me. I briskly walk over to him.
"Alright now put your hand on this part of the wall here"
I do as I'm told and out my hand on the fairly common and basic looking wall. But as soon as my hand is fully on the wall I feel a sharp pain in the tips of all 5 of my fingers.
"Ouch SH*T what was that?" I ask in pain
"That was the vault testing your blood to see if you were a Namikaze. You see only a Namikaze can access these vaults not even your Mother can enter with both the permission of a Namikaze and a member of our family. But she can enter the common Vault when ever she wants as that's what it's for, the non Namikaze members of our family" My Father says to me.
As soon as my father finishes speaking the wall in front of me starts to open. It separates in half with the top part being pulled up and the bottom half being pulled down. Leaving us with an entrance to a room.
The room is rectangular in structure with light brown coloured walls and wooden beams as support to keep the structurally safe I believe, it also has double doors at the far end of the room. This room is quite plain with only having some artwork and decorative pieces dotted around the room.
"Now then let's go" my dad says to me as he walks to the doors at the end of the room.
"Go ahead open the doors"
I place my hands on the doors handles and open both doors at the same time.
When both doors are open. I see a massive circular room with light blue tinted walls and has golden outlines that are used to create different art work it looks like, in simple terms the room was quite beautiful.
I then noticed the there isn't any actual lights or candles, all the light in the room comes from the differently coloured stones held all over the room.
"This is the Room of Memory's. You see these stones all around the room, each one belongs to a Member of the Namikaze family. The stones are called memory stones, you keep said stone under your pillow for 3 nights in a row while you sleep and it records every memory and life experience the sleeper has hand in their entire life. Come I'll show you how to get the memory's out" Dad says as he heads closer to the doors
"The closer the stones is to the doors the newer they are, this one here belongs to your Grandfather or my Father" my dad say as he points to a dim yellow stone.
"You see this holder the stones on, that charges the stone so it can be used constantly, if it didn't have the holder it would take the stone around 100 years to gather enough mana to be used again" He continues.
"Now let's say hello shall we" he says as he touch's the stone with his finger and takes a few steps back to stand beside me.
In a matter of seconds my Dad and I are joined by an old looking man.
"Wait what?" I ask so confused at what's happening.
"Haha I know right" I my dad says.
The old looking man looks at me then my dad then at me again then at my dad, then he smiles like he just understood the concept of the entire universe.
"I see first time huh" the old man says in a gravelly voice.
"Yeah dad this is my son Minato, Minato this is your Grandfather" My dad says to me.
"A fine name for a young lad" the old man or I mean my grandfather? Says.
"What F*CK is going on?" I ask getting more confused and pissed off by the second.
Both My Dad and Grandfather just bust of laughing at my reaction.
"Your Father said the same thing when I brought him in here" my Grandfather says.
"You see son these stones where created so our family never loses its knowledge and its way. You see the man in front of you is a representation of all the memory's, experiences and feelings of my Father. But this is just a mana constructions can't interact with solid objects" My Father explains.
'So he's like a hologram with the appearance and knowledge of my dead grandfather'
"Ah okay I understand" I say
"HA told you he was smart" my dad says to my Grandfather.
"Smarter then you that's for sure" the old man says.
"Wait I thought Grandfather died before I was born?" I ask.
"Oh yes he did" My Dad says while smirking at me.
'Does that mean they can learn new things and add it to the memory's of the stone'
"Hmm so he can learn new things then?"I ask
"Correct again son, every now and then I would come down here and talk to my dad about you and show him an odd picture of you. Plus these stones are to help out the family and give advice it would be really inconvenient if you had to introduce yourself every thing you needed to talk to an elder and get advice"
"Now it's time to get your stone for you" my dad says as he walks to a chest next to the doors.
"Here grab a stone" He says as he opens the chest to reveal about 20 tidily placed stones in the chest. I just grab one at random and pull it out.
(Imagine of non-used memory stone —>
"Now then I've already told you how to record you memory's into the stone, Now I should also tell you that no one else will be able to record over a stone the contains memory's of another but you can record over your own to give them an update on your memory's. Normally one would do that after an important event has happened or at least once a year" My dad says to me.
"Okay I got it dad" I say
"I know you do, let's go say goodbye to my Father"
"Father Minato has got his first stone so where finished here, so put yourself back to sleep" Dad say to his own Father.
"Make sure to visit me sometime the both of you" My grandfather reply's
"" Of course"" both myself and dad say to him as he vanished from in front of us.
Before we leave I take another look around the room only now noticing the vast amount of stones lining the walls but one stone in particular grabs my attention.
The stone itself is releases a dim golden white glow and is held up on a statue with a plac underneath it.
"Dad who's stone is that?" I ask pointing towards the golden stone.
"Oh that belongs the Levi Namikaze the first Namikaze" he says looking at the stone.
"Can I meet him?" I ask hopeful as I've already heard about how overwhelming incredible this dude is it's making me think he wasn't even human.
"Sorry son but not yet" he says while patting on the shoulder.
"Why not?"
"It's a family tradition that you can only meet him after you get your grimoire. Every single Namikaze has followed it and he's met every single Namikaze ever born after him" He says
"Have you ever met him?"
"Yes I have, after I got my grimoire naturally and once or twice after that, he doesn't like to be woken up you see" he says.
"Come on it's almost time for you wind magic training with your mother"
< End Of Chapter>