Magical Academy: Rise of the Supreme Magic Craftsman

Drake's mercenary squad only has seven members. All of them were dark-skinned and their clothes were obviously about to succumb to wear and tear and begging to be replaced. 

Although Wallace had felt that their clothes, robes, and shoes possess a bit of Mana Enhancements, it was already in a poor condition. 

He was somewhat amazed that the squad didn't ask for a huge sum of money to live a better life in exchange for the Celestial Fragment. They were instead looking for a Spatial Bag.

Anyway, if that was the truth, this also implies something...

'It only means that whatever treasure we are about to take within the ruins would worth a lot more than the several hundreds of million credits...' 

"It's good to see you again, Wallace."

"I feel the same way. So, is this your squad?"

"Yes, this is Franco, Marsha, Mordred, Ordessa, Giovanni, and Barrett."

There are two females within the squad and their appearance wasn't any better in terms of weapons and mana enhanced clothes... They seem to be used on their job, looking veterans on their field. Marsha and Ordessa even look a bit stronger than the other five members because the two were carrying an unusually large and sharp Heavy Sword. At the very least, the weapon seems to be well taken care of. 

They all greeted Wallace as they tried to get to know him more. The ruins they were about to visit were not completely safe so they had to ease themselves up. It's best to learn now how to communicate with them so, during emergencies, they could rely on each other.

"The ruins that we found was in a land owned by Marsha. It's actually farmland that she inherited in her small family." Drake said after the introductions.

"A farmland?" Wallace tried to clarify and this time, it was Marsha who answered.

"Yes... I learned how to use mana and became a magician when I was 8 years old through the treasures, documents, and weapons, I accidentally found in the ruins. That was 20 years ago. I thought that I already excavated all the treasures within but I recently found a larger underground facility just beneath the skeleton beside the place where I initially found those manuals and pieces of mana artifacts..." 

Marsha explained how she returned to the farmland recently just to supposedly pay respect to the skeleton underneath believing that those treasures she had taken were the skeleton's belongings. 

Wallace listened as they walk around the village.

Yes, they were in a small village just 30 kilometers away from Tanza City. It was quite near considering that their leader, Drake, went to the far capital just to trade the fragment for a Spatial Bag. But he suddenly recalled that this item was indeed very rare so it was a good decision to try the large Capital City instead. 

The small village probably only has 50-60 people. Wallace noticed that there are few young or adult men in the village. There are around 45 females and the others were old and young males. 

He found it a bit weird but realized that the capable must have been working at the nearest city as a living. After all, there are only a few hectares of cultivated land here. 

He also noticed that one particular house or probably a barn emits a very mysterious Mana Fluctuations. 

The barn was weirdly placed at the center of the farm destroying the nice view. 

"I know that you're tired, I heard that you came from Tanza City, right? That's quite far."

"No, I'm good. We can start at any moment you like." Wallace confidently said. He has much better control over his mana now so his Void Phasing Steps didn't cause too much trouble. 

"Haha! That's good, we're actually quite excited today as well. We've been stuck on that part of the ruins for a while now... You can just imagine our desire piling up." 

Everyone chuckled as a fiery light shown in their eyes. Their adventurous spirit was rising up but Wallace had to take his priorities."

"Uhmmm... As for the--"

Wallace was interrupted as Drake suddenly remembered.

"Oh! Sorry... This is your Celestial Fragment. You can have a look to make sure." 

Drake carelessly threw the small chest containing the precious item.

Wallace caught it and even without opening, he confirmed that it's the genuine mission objective. 

He grinned at this and felt quite happy as he was getting closer and closer to his real objective. He was aware that the mission he was receiving was in accordance to the path he had chosen and the Pathfinder was only guiding him to it.

He didn't store the small chest in his Dimensional Storage Space because it was reserved for whatever things they were about to retrieve. All the previous contents of this space were safely transferred to a secured room within his house at Tanza. 

The group of eight entered the barn that seems to be hastily built just to hide the underground place.

At the center was a crater with about 6 meters in diameter and about 6 feet deep. Below was a white and a little bit shining skeleton of an adult man. Besides this unusual skeleton was a small hole fit for one person to enter.

Wallace sent his Divine Sense to investigate.

"What's with the skeleton?" He asked after a moment of investigation.

"Not really sure."

"Can I buy it?"

"Well, let's talk about that after the main mission..."

"Fair enough..." Wallace nodded after hearing Drake's resolute answer. 

One by one, they entered the underground passage. During this time, Wallace's Divine Sense didn't stop in observing every movement of the squad and scouting the place they were at. It was for his own safety. Anyway, in case things get too dangerous, he can use his Void Phase to either escape or use it for a much more beneficial cause. 

After entering the passage, the place below was quite wide, enough to be an underground railway. 

The tunnel wasn't just supported by a well-engineered pillar but it seems that the ground itself was quite sturdy. 

As they walked in a straight line, Wallace saw many destroyed or disarmed traps along the way. He had also noticed that there were several other paths they passed by. They didn't even glance to either left or right path showing but continuously walked straight and enter the center path whenever three tunnels would appear. Of course, he sent his Divine Sense to the other paths and noticed that some were actually rooms that were emptied. Only empty boxes, empty shelves, and empty weapon racks can be seen. The squad had obviously looted those places already. 

Wallace kept silent as he sensed that some of them became tense after walking for about 6 minutes. 

"From this point on, the path we will be entering would look a lot more different." Drake said and as they entered, Wallace was surprised to see that the final location doesn't look like an abandoned underground facility. 

The place was a circular room. The walls and ceiling were covered by metal plates. There's computers, seats, and other mechanical things like the place were just recently constructed.

Wallace was curious at his mission. There are also hidden traps that were interconnected to self-destruction. 

"We have checked all the useful information from the computers here but we didn't find any clues about the owner of this place."

"Is that so? Mhm... I understand. So, what should I do?"

"We only found records that at the center of this room was an 8 cubic meter space for a treasure.

"Here's the video we retrieved from a hard drive of one computer here." 

The video content was only a black and white animation showing something like a blueprint of the room. Beneath the center was indeed space where the treasures are located.

Unfortunately, once it has been opened up, self-destruction of this underground facility would happen within 120 seconds making the treasures be destroyed and buried underground. Not only that, but some defense structures were also going to activate during that time. 

Wallace also noticed that at the center of the room was a weird empty space like there was a thing taken out from there.

"That is where we got the fragment... Are you ready?"

"Mhm..."

As soon as Wallace answered, everyone focused their Mana at the center of the room as it started to shake a bit. The floor opened up as expected. 

"Wallace, it's up to you now...." 

The 8 cubic meter space below was filled with a variety of things like the Mana Beast cores, precious gems and metals, and many high-powered guns. Yes, not the usual Mana Artifacts.

[ 119... 118... 117... ] The countdown of self-destruction started. 

Since he only had 5 cubic meters in his "Spatial Bag, he was asked to ignore some of the Mana Beast Cores. It's such a shame wasting them like that but there's nothing he can do.

Click!

Bang! 

Bang!

Sounds of mechanical gears can be heard as the treasures were being looted. 

Soon, 12 black humanoid automatons came to stop them from leaving the place.

Ordessa and Marsha immediately took action.