Chapter 41 — The Vault

Only after several minutes did Gao Yang release the ward. He nodded to the others and stepped through the door first, with Sir Byron close behind.

Amber hesitated, then gave up on the idea of secretly slicing a piece of metal off the door when no one was looking—purple steel was too hard; her dagger couldn't gouge it.

Inside the door was a vast rectangular hall. In all four directions one could see sealed doors, and the ancient treasures were piled directly in this hall.

The sealed environment and the runes set at various points around the hall ensured that the supplies here oxidized and corroded at the slowest possible rate. To this day, many of them were still in good condition.

Stacks of metal ingots, crystals of every hue, swords and armor, and in the very center several large chests half the height of a man.

Gao Yang stepped forward, wedged the Pioneer's Sword into the gap of a chest, and levered it hard. The chest popped open at once.

One chest held gold and silver coins that still gleamed; the others held neatly stacked pale-violet crystals—military crystals that had been carved and charged.

The coins were not the most valuable things there. The crystals were.

The ancient Gondor Empire had dominated the continent through its advanced magical technology. The mana from the Well of Deep Blue gave the Empire's mages an almost inexhaustible energy to squander; even the clumsiest mage could, under such conditions, brute-force his way to technical results. Thus the Gondor Empire of that day accomplished something that today's Four Kingdoms would find near-unimaginable:

The mass production of "transcendent armament."

Ordinary swords and armor were not enchanted. However sturdy, however sharp, they were merely mundane equipment; only equipment that had been enchanted and imbued with transcendent power could be called "transcendent armament." In Anseth today, enchanted weapons and gear were issued only to officers of every rank—and even then not always. But in Gondor's day, every soldier was equipped as standard with a longsword enchanted with Sharpness and a standard-issue crystal.

Those thumb-sized crystals had spell models of a basic shield and an Explosion spell pre-set within them: self-running, friend-or-foe identifying. Even a rank-and-file grunt with not a scrap of spellcasting ability could use one—struck, it would activate the shield; once the shield was spent it would heat up and flash a warning; then, hurled with force, it would detonate once it had reached a safe distance from the bearer and nearby friendly units. To Gao Yang, this was an almost unbelievably advanced armament.

Had circumstances not forced their hand back then, had there been any way to carry these away, the Pioneers would never have left them behind. At the time the company had taken away every more-valuable supply they could carry on their persons; these crystals were the part they had been forced to abandon.

Gao Yang reached out and picked up a crystal, cradling it in his hand and stroking it gently.

This might be one route by which ordinary people could gain access to magic, but it was a route that led nowhere.

Only with the Well of Deep Blue activated could such things be infused regardless of cost; now that the Well of Deep Blue had been destroyed, every ancient crystal used was one less that remained.

But at least for the present, these crystals would become the cornerstone of the domain's security.