CHAPTER 160

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Two weeks after my last talk with the Ancient One about the venture into the quantum realm.

My golem, the one I wanted to send to this mission was ready, it took a bit of preparation, mostly because I wanted the Golem to be as strong as possible, and because I wanted to erase any chance of infection.

Which is why, the golem had a bomb within him, in case the virus existed and was able to propagate to non-living things.

The golem in question was a rock golem, with three skills, [Sight], so that I would be able to see what he was seeing, [Dash] so that he would be able to move fast, and [Voice] so that I would be able to talk through him, I mean, if the virus didn't exist and Janet was okay, I wanted to tell her, she was okay, instead of scaring her with a ten feet tall golem.

As of the moment, the Golem was level 100, which I presumed was more than enough for this mission, and for the worst case scenarios.

After all.

The lower the level, the easier to eliminate if said Golem becomes a threat.

Granted, this was just me thinking of every worst case scenario.

For all I knew, the quantum virus was not a thing here, and I just wasted my time planning around it.

"Well, time to see how she's doing," I sighed, turning around to make a portal, to see Clay, my sentient elemental looking at me, tilting his head, "What up Clay," I waved at him.

He waved at me, carving a smile on his face with one of his fingers.

Creepy, but adorable somehow.

"We'll catch on later, I have things to do," I chuckled, opening a portal to the Ancient One's office.

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I walked through the portal, to find the Ancient One on her desk, working on some papers.

For a few moments, as the portal closed, she seemed to be lost in her work, almost as if in a trance, but before I could announce my presence, she spoke.

"Alex, just in time," 

"For what?" I asked.

"Well, I have been researching about portals for quite a while, and I think I have found what we need," The Ancient One replied, snapping her fingers in a fast motion, sending a wave of magic around her office, that put everything back on it's place, erasing any trace of the mess that few moments invaded her work space.

I smiled, "Well, my golem is also ready," at this, I summoned my golem from my inventory, who spawned in a kneeling position.

"Marvelous," The Ancient One smiled, "Now, let's get started,"

"With the portal? Sure, what do you need?" I asked, taking a seat.

"Well, mostly a supply of mana, I alone can't power this portal, mostly because it's experimental, and we don't have the time to tweak the spell so that it utilizes mana in a efficient manner, so for this draft of a spell, we need two sources of mana, and the space stone," The Ancient One smiled, beaming with happiness.

"You are quite happy," I commented.

"Indeed I am, it's been sometime since I had to make something, from scratch, you have any idea how fun is that?" The Ancient One chuckled, "It brigns me back to my young days, when I actually had to tried, it's not often these days I have to become creative, so for that, I thank you,"

I looked at her, and smiled, happy she was enjoying this, if anything this served as a distraction from what could happen when we opened the portal.

"So, do you need the stone now? Or?" I asked.

"In a moment," The Ancient said, with a wave of her hand, "First we need a bigger room," she added, looking around her office, "My office as it is, won't suffice for the runes I need to carve,"

"I have a few empty warehouses," I offered.

The Ancient One looked at me for a brief moment before she shook her head, "If we take into account the risks of this mission, a warehouse close to… well, any amount of people, it's not the best location to do what we are set to do," she mused, index finger pressed upon her lip, "We need an empty space, not only empty inside, but on the outside,"

She had a point, if the virus existed, and we didn't manage to contain it, well… a populated area was not the best place to start.

Granted, if we didn't manage to stop the virus, and it infected us, it didn't matter where we were, the virus would consume the earth regardless.

"I think I have just the place," The Ancient One announced, breaking me out of my train of thought.

"Where," I asked.

"Follow me," The Ancient One replied, opening a portal to God knows where.

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At the other side of the portal, I checked my map to find out the Ancient One had taken me to Egypt, apparently, we were currently within a pyramid, a very empty one.

"So, we are desecrating someone's tomb?" I asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Goodness, no, this tomb is empty for a purpose," The Ancient One chuckled.

"Which is?" 

"Well, this pyramid was made for situations like this," The Ancient One smiled, pointing at the walls, "Believe it or not, some of the best mages in the earth's history, came from Egypt, granted, their mages didn't excel in raw power, or numbers, but they were particularly good in preparing for the worse, this pyramid was one of those cases,"

Moving my gaze to the walls, I noticed something, runes, a lot of them, tons of them.

"This is a sealing tomb, if our magic changes, even if it's just a little, we will be trapped here, forever," The Ancient One smiled, touching the runes in the walls.

"They made a tomb to seal, people?" I replied.

"Well, of course, in case they needed to stop a powerful being," The Ancient One nodded.

"But… wouldn't we be able to use the space stone to… I don't know leave… in case we get trapped?" While the idea behind a sealing tomb was very cool, I doubted that would be able to stop us, if we became zombies.

"No, after all, you can't use the space stone without energy as a whole," The Ancient One winked, "This pyramid was made to seal mana, life and other energies, on the rare occasion something infected the mage from within, be it an evil god, or a demon. After the tomb seals your energy, the tomb wraps you in many layers of magical linen to trap your body effectively immobilizing you, sealing both your spiritual form and your physical form for all of eternity, after that, there is no escape unless the person in question goes back to normal," She smiled.

All the while, I looked around me thinking, damn, Egyptian Mages were terrifying.