Chapter 198: A Gift Left Unclaimed for Millennia

’’It’s quite an expensive food to give a child.’’ Arthas said while sitting cross-legged at the top of the mountain.

He was positioned quite high up, yet his eyes could still see the small boy sitting on a rock and wolfing down a sack full of rare raw resources as if they were ordinary fruits and vegetables.

Even as the Shadow of one of the strongest Witches, Arthas had never tasted some of those foods, let alone eaten a whole sack of them to fill his stomach.

Usually, they were used to make potions and pills to enhance their effects. They were never meant to be consumed raw like this. Even to the richest of people, it was a luxury they could never dream.

A little behind him stood Rhadak, his towering stone body standing upright. "He is our guest. We need to be good hosts."

His lone red, gem-like eye shone with a gentle light. He seemed quite satisfied while watching Magna eat with such appetite.

Each of those foods was extremely rare. In the Underworld, there was usually no fertile soil where they could be grown, so finding and collecting them was very difficult.

That sack alone contained everything they had managed to find over the last 70 years.

Fortunately, most mana rich foods that grew in the Underworld had long shelf lives, allowing them to remain edible without rotting or spoiling. That’s why they were keeping them in storage to trade later.

They usually traded those foods with Witches when they visited their village, as the Stonemans had no need for them. Their only food was the worms that lived in the ashen soil.

In return, what they usually received was healing for their injured, helping repair parts of some Stonemans that had broken as they aged or due to accidents.

Sometimes, they also received strengthening pills and potions that made their bodies more durable and resilient.

Either way, those were definitely priceless things for the Stonemans, yet Rhadak had still given Magna their 70 years of wealth simply so he could fill his stomach.

Arthas had nothing to say to that, as it was their property and their decision.

He had other questions on his mind.

While looking at Magna, he wasn’t only watching him eat as if he were about to choke. He was also examining his body.

It had only been a few days since he last saw the boy, yet he looked like he had already gained so much power. His muscles were more defined and compact than before, and even his skin looked healthier and more durable.

Physically alone, he looked at least 3 or 4 times stronger. This made Arthas wonder what kind of training he had been doing to become this much stronger in such a short time.

Even if Master Adam had been his teacher, it was still something impossible, as the man wasn’t some kind of magician who could magically turn anyone from zero to hero in a few days.

Anyway, it wasn’t something that could be explained by training alone. Arthas thought it had to be related to the boy’s Bloodline Traits.

While thinking about this, he also asked the Stoneman Chief, "Why did you suddenly decide to make him try to move the rock?"

This wasn’t actually the first time the Stonemans had asked someone to move the rock.

When they first met Arthas, they had also asked him to try to move it.

That was how the Witch World learned about the rock’s existence.

After all the failed attempts by so many powerful men and women, asking the same thing of a child seemed quite absurd, even ridiculous.

At least, it was how Arthas was feeling, as he was still unaware of many things Magna had achieved so far. Hecate hadn’t told him what she knew or what she thought about Magna yet.

Rhadak kept his lone eye fixed on the mountain below as he spoke. "It wasn’t a sudden decision at all. We have been waiting for him for a long time."

"It’s about your story again?" Arthas had heard the same story so many times already he started to feel bored.

He had once even been the main character of that story, at least according to the Stonemans, until he failed to move the rock.

"We, the inhabitants of the Underworld, have no hope to carry inside us, so we have stories to replace it. What’s wrong with that?" Rhadak said, a low, grating rumble passing for a laugh from his stony chest.

The Stonemans were one of the earliest races created in the Underworld.

They believed that they descended directly from the first inhabitants, who had left the living world and were forced to live in the Underworld in eternal spiritual bodies.

After so long without any physical sensation or emotion, some of them tried to create bodies for themselves that could imitate their previous physical forms.

Some used the dry soil and tried to turn it into flesh.

Some used the scorching air and fire to replace breath and a heartbeat.

Some used the poisonous, rotten water to create blood, while others used the light of the crimson sky to create a will and mind, and so on, until the 7 Desolations and 7 Races were formed.

The Stonemans were one of them, using lifeless stone to create bodies for themselves. The one born from this effort was the Mother, the only one who had managed to craft a body out of stone.

Of course, this was only a story believed by the inhabitants of the Underworld and the Stonemans. They accepted it as their history despite there being no written records or archaeological evidence to support it.

According to their belief and story, after the Matriarch of Fate witnessed their incredible efforts and their eventual, though partial, success, she left them a gift.

But later, for some reason, she took that gift back and sealed it behind an indestructible rock, leaving behind only a few words.

Rhadak murmured those words heavily, words that had been passed down from generation to generation and never forgotten.

"Inexperienced hands are bound to fail, true... but was my presence here a mere accident? I suffer no such illusion."

Arthas had never found any meaning behind those words, nor did he believe they were truly the words of a Matriarch.

But the Stonemen strongly believed in them. They had lived by those words, seeking the truth behind their existence, using them as a guide.

When Arthas first claimed that they had found the Underworld by accident while exploring inside a mountain, the Stonemen didn’t believe it was a mere accident. Instead, they interpreted it as a kind of prophecy.

They thought Arthas might be someone connected to those words, only for him to end up being a disappointment.

Now, after 280 years, another one had come to their realm, to their land. Magna had also claimed that his arrival was an accident.

Rhadak didn’t care what Arthas thought about their belief or their story.

The only thing he hoped for was that Magna would be the one to break the illusion and move the rock, so they could finally learn what had been left for them behind it.