Novel Full Chapter 486 - Taming the Keys
Chapter 486: Chapter 486 – Taming the Keys
While everyone processed the implications of the revelation, the small fungus continued forward, the sound of its small feet echoing on the crystalline floor.
“That means the slight changes we’ve seen in the underground…” Julius began.
“I’m not sure what they did in my absence, but yes… Their side may be affecting ours from their main vein,” Dragarion nodded.
Ren’s small fungus was still walking through the chamber, completely ignoring everyone present.
Dragarion observed the small being with growing curiosity, his eyes following the trajectory toward where it was headed.
“If what you told me about a beast that speaks is true and it lost its way of communicating… I think it will go straight to the golden crystal,” he murmured, pointing toward the lower section of the mural where the diamond blue crystal gave way to a golden window that pulsed softly.
The section was small and circular, perfectly smooth like a mirror, different from the rest of the crystalline structure surrounding them. It emitted a warm glow that contrasted with the blue coldness of the rest of the chamber.
This golden section seemed almost alive, pulsing with a rhythm that suggested more than mere magical resonance.
“Isn’t it dangerous to bring an unknown beast here? I know it seems harmless but Ren isn’t normal, he always…” Julius analyzed.
“I don’t fear giving it access… because it transformed energy into something that feels ’cleaner’. During that ’purification’ I think I could sense its intentions,” the king continued, not taking his eyes off the fungus.
“Maybe you didn’t feel it like that because you don’t have a point of reference, but…” His expression darkened with a memory. “They were completely opposite to what I experienced when I touched Yino’s purple crystal years ago. Where that one filled me with a viscous sensation that took weeks to clean from my system, this creature’s energy felt… clean. Light. Undoubtedly opposite in every sense.”
Zhao moved closer, his mind connecting pieces. “Do you think his beast is the key to stopping the corruption?” he asked.
“It’s possible,” Dragarion admitted. “That’s why I want to risk seeing what it wants to do. For decades I’ve searched for a way to cut the corrupt crystal connection between the veins, to stop the constant expansion of abyssal corruption.”
Perhaps this small creature that everyone considered the weakest in the world was exactly what he had been looking for.
He pointed to the “golden window”… He paused, considering his words carefully.
“By touching the golden crystal you can hear strange voices that speak directly to your mind. They’re not words, they’re more like images, pure concepts. But it overloads you quickly, and not everyone can withstand that kind of direct communication.”
If the fungus wanted to recover its communication, then…
But the small fungus passed by the golden crystal without even looking at it.
Instead, it headed directly toward the enormous door that Dragarion had mentioned earlier, the one that required the three rings to open. Its steps stopped in front of the massive structure, and it stayed there, jumping in circles, expectant.
Dragarion remained thoughtful for a moment, a grimace crossing his face before he laughed casually to hide the awkward moment.
“Well, that wasn’t what I expected,” he admitted, approaching the small fungus.
He placed Ren carefully on the ground, keeping him stable but allowing him to be closer to his beast.
He crouched in front of the creature, studying its body language with the attention he normally reserved for enormous dragons…
“Is what’s on the other side of that door what our genius boy needs to be well?” he asked, referring to Ren with a smile.
The fungus nodded vigorously, though it seemed distracted and worried, as if it didn’t understand the magnitude of what it was asking for.
The creature’s behavior was both endearing and concerning. Its earnest determination suggested it knew exactly what it needed.
“We don’t have all the keys,” Dragarion explained patiently. “There are three rings, and I only have two.”
He raised his hand, showing the five rings he wore, two of which glowed with distinctive power that marked them as the necessary keys.
The small fungus seemed to realize something at that moment.
Its eyes opened so wide it became comical, as if a revelation had struck its small mind.
For a moment it seemed to completely forget about Ren, a giant smile drawing across its face before quickly hiding it and beginning to make funny gestures to the king.
Dragarion continued underestimating the creature. After all, its mana footprint was tiny compared to his, barely a whisper compared to the roar of power he naturally emanated.
“Do you want me to ’lend’ you the rings?” the king interpreted, amused by the fungus’s gestures.
When the creature nodded enthusiastically, Dragarion removed one of the rings without much ceremony.
“Very well, let’s see what you have in mind.”
The fungus made more gestures, clearly asking him to put the ring in its mouth but quickly changing its mind and pointing to one of the door’s grooves. Dragarion looked at Ren, who was still clutching his chest with his eyes and teeth tightly closed, and obeyed, inserting the ring into the first slot.
“But it doesn’t work if you don’t put in all three,” he explained as he did it, “and you also need the genetic key.”
His eyes turned toward Luna, who had been observing the small fungus with intense attention.
Dragarion had had a specific reason for letting Luna come.
According to ancient translations, someone with a genetic key had to put their hand in the special groove, a hollow located above the ring slots that seemed to hold a fist.
She had the strongest Starweaver genetic key in a while… They discovered this when putting her as a baby in contact with a ring, but the king had decreed that her key would be used when she was an adult, so everyone had been waiting for her to grow more.
Dragarion had decided this casually and superficially, considering that the last ring would still take several years to be released… But everyone had taken it so seriously that he had decided, relatively involuntarily, to make it seem like part of the mythology…
However, he wasn’t so wrong; the key in Luna hadn’t finished its development yet, so it wouldn’t be useful now… Not without an unexpected agent.
But even then, there was an extra problem…
Those who put their hand in that groove received an energy discharge that only Gold-rank tamers could resist for a moment without suffering severe mana poisoning.
Julius observed the famous door that had been promised to the four families for generations, and finally understood the system that had caused that old political conflict between Goldcrest and Starweavers.
Each of the four main families: Goldcrest, Starweaver, Ashenway and Dravenholm, would have had a ring, and one the genetic key. They were supposed to share among themselves a fourth of the power behind the door, or at least access to the abundant mana they believed they would obtain.
But when Goldcrest saw that the king had given his ring to Sirius, whose family already had a quarter of the key through Luna, they couldn’t help but slowly explode in the rebellion that had marked recent years and still hadn’t ended today.
A system designed for cooperation had become a slow burning bomb of ambition and mistrust.
Dragarion had left the ring with Sirius because he was Selphira’s favorite, because he didn’t want to leave it directly with the old woman to give to her spoiled son, and because he intended for Selphira to take the last ring.
When all were obtained, they would lend them all… And when he finished his mission… only then returned.
He wanted to use them to try to destroy the corrupt crystal before distributing whatever was behind the door.
Besides, in his absence… He knew Kharzan was less sensible than Sirius, he always talked about wanting to attack Yino… so leaving him in charge of more power, of the second ring, even though it was his by a ’fair’ lottery, hadn’t felt like a good idea.
“I’ll give it back to him when I return” Without telling that to Kharzan directly… had been a very “Dragarion” way of handling things.
♢♢♢♢
The fungus insisted he put in the second ring, and Dragarion complied without further objections.
But Luna and Liora, who knew the story, were confused…
“Why isn’t it trying to eat the rings?” Liora whispered.
It was a valid concern, they knew about the third ring from Larissa’s story. And were worried about what could happen…
Worry which evaporated when the small being headed toward Luna, stretching its little arms toward her like a baby asking to be picked up.
Luna completely lost control over how “cute” it looked and hugged it instead of simply carrying it, her ’instincts’ activating at the adorable image.
“Luna,” Liora’s voice calmed her, reminding her of the situation. “Ren is suffering.”
Reality returned to Luna immediately. She extended her hands with the fungus and paid it reluctant but complete attention, waiting for instructions.
The small being gestured for her to close her eyes, and when she obeyed, something extraordinary began to happen.
Mana ’roots,’ delicate as spider webs but bright as light filaments, began to envelop Luna’s hands.
They were mana mycorrhizae, the symbiotic connection structures that some fungi use to communicate with other life forms. But these were different, more complex.
A small crown appeared on Luna’s head, formed by the same luminous roots. The fungus in her hands began to glow with pure white light.
Although they didn’t understand it, the beast had hacked the genetic permission and copied it into a temporary permission… Only possible thanks to its power lately increased in 3 ways:
Having finally obtained the essence of all base elements.
Having acquired the concentrated heart of the golden matrix of the “dragon’s light”.
And the good amount of energy it still conserved from that absorbed from thousands of Kharzan’s army.
The small fungus, now brighter than ever, pointed toward the hole in the door, its intentions clear.
Luna didn’t hesitate, beginning to move her hands toward the groove, but Dragarion’s voice stopped her abruptly.
“You can’t put your hands in there!” His voice carried real urgency. “You’re not Gold Rank. You’ll get severely intoxicated with mana…”
His hand extended to take her by the shoulder, but the small fungus had other plans.
It jumped from Luna’s hands directly toward the hole, inserting itself into the groove that had been waiting for centuries for the correct key.
The rings in the grooves began to glow immediately.
The light intensified until it was almost blinding, and even the empty third slot began to emit the same golden radiance. Power flowed through the door in different channels of light.
For a moment, it seemed the light would keep increasing forever.
Then, the glow gradually faded, and the two rings Dragarion had inserted simply disappeared, ’maybe’ absorbed by the ancient mechanism… Which he interpreted as perhaps ’payment’ for access.
The silence was absolute for a moment.
Then, with a sound that was more felt than heard, the massive door began to open.