Fire Mage (Web Novel)

Chapter 421: A Pendant

Charles then conjured a ball of rebirth flame, sent all the rebirth flame essences towards the destroyed areas, and replaced the destroyed natural essences with his own.

At that moment, a dense elemental clash appeared in the basement, causing the soul barrier to be visible to his naked eyes.

Simultaneously, a metallic door appeared on the other side of the greenish transparent barrier.

It was the entrance to the Ancestral Hall!

Although the Light Knights and Bishop Blake had sensed the elemental fluctuation from the mansion's guest house, none of them took any action.

Alas, some mercenary knights and the residents of Darkwell town moved towards Potters Street in a hurry.

In the meantime, Charles continued to replace the natural essences with his rebirth ones, and at the same time, he looked at the Insight and Sword essences. Unlike the natural essences, they appeared very few and were just a connection bridge of this soul barrier.

So, he knew that there wouldn't be resistance from those essence points.

He shook his head, replaced all the natural essences, and shifted his attention to the Insight and Sword essences. Then, he erased the minute level of soul imprint in those essences and fused them with his rebirth flame essences.

A second later, a reddish layer appeared in front of his eyes and soon turned transparent.

'Success.' A smile appeared on his face. Then, he raised his hand and used his thoughts to control the soul barrier.

A moment later, the reddish layer once again turned visible in the basement and split open before creating a way for a person to walk in.

At that moment, the metallic door also opened on its own and revealed a staircase.

From the outside, it appeared to be leading to an underground area!

Upon seeing this, Charles deliberated for a second, walked into the opened soul barrier, and soon arrived in front of the door. Then, he took a step forward and went downstairs.

In the meantime, the reddish layer once again closed from behind and turned transparent.

If someone entered the basement now, they would find nothing but an empty area.

On the other hand, Charles continued to step down on the stone stairs and soon saw a gloomy passage filled with rocks and limestones.

At that moment, his [Dark Vision] skill activated on its own and revealed everything around his surroundings.

'There are traces of human footprints… No, these footprints appear more like child's one.' He frowned.

He glanced at the surrounding rocky walls and soon realized that he was walking into a tunnel-like place!

As he walked further into the tunnel, Charles noticed more footprints appeared on the path. But this time, he saw different kinds of sizes.

Some footprints didn't even have any resemblance with the humans' ones.

'Underground races?' He subconsciously thought of the demon monsters and turned solemn.

After walking for another 10 minutes, he finally arrived at the edge of the tunnel and then stopped. If he were an ordinary knight, he would've turned around and returned to the basement in disappointment.

Thankfully, he wasn't. Although the stone wall appeared normal, he sensed the presence of Nature Energy and raised his eyebrows in suspicion.

He then used his [Arcane Eyes] skill and analyzed the wall.

Within a few seconds, he found a secret door on the right side corner and went towards it. Then, he raised his hand, made a small cut on his finger, and put a drop of his blood on it.

A second later, the secret door opened with a clicking noise.

Meanwhile, Charles activated [Multi-Vision] skill, checked any dangers on the other side, and then walked in.

Soon, he entered an underground chamber-like area and noticed that broken bookshelves, chairs, and tables were the only thing that appeared in the whole surroundings. He even saw claw marks on the scattered books and got startled.

'Some creatures came here before and caused this mess? But where did they go?' He released his wisdom power and searched for any anomalies in the hall. But he found no foreign presence in the hall at all.

'Wait! What are those?' He instantly noticed a greenish-gem-embedded pendant that was placed on the farther table and widened his eyes.

He felt some dense nature-elemental energy was coming from that greenish pendent. What was more surprising was that Charles noticed a familiar power appeared around the pendant.

'Spatial energy? But this one seems to be in an unstable state.' He hurriedly moved towards the table and soon arrived in front of it. Then, he picked up the greenish pendant and probed it with his wisdom power.

A weak soul appeared within the pendant!

It was an intellectual artifact!

But what made him raise his eyebrows was that this soul appeared very weak and harmless. It was just like a curious kid. When he tried to probe further, it didn't show any resistance at all.

Instead, it touched his wisdom power and tried to eat a part of his wisdom power. Unfortunately, another foreign power came out from the soul's outer area, released some dark chains, and shackled its movement!

'Hmm? An enslavement imprint?'

At that moment, Charles noticed a brand new soul imprint appeared all over this weak soul and seemed to be controlling the artifact's every movement.

'Someone already owns this artifact?' But as he further probed the soul imprint, he couldn't help but snicker inwardly.

'A Rank-2 being's soul imprint?'

If it were before he went through the soul mutation, he would've found it impossible to erase it. But after his soul mutation, his control over his wisdom power had reached an unimaginable level.

He condensed his wisdom power into minute spikes and stabbed the soul imprint from different sides. The next instant, a shrill cry came from the pendant, followed by an illusionary appearance of a greenish humanoid face.

It had red eyes, pointy green ears, a sharp nose, an ugly look with sharp teethes, and looked evil!

With a simple look, anyone could tell that this creature was none other than Goblin!

At that moment, Charles also felt a strong resistance from the other side and chuckled inwardly.

"You are resisting against a Demigod-level soul, goblin." He spoke coldly.

A second later, he released more condensed wisdom spikes and broke the soul imprint in an instant!

In the meantime, the illusionary goblin creature's face let out a fierce cry and soon disappeared with a poof.

On the other hand, Charles erased the broken imprint and shifted his attention towards the weak soul.

He knew that his soul imprint might control this weak soul at the early stage, but not for too long.

'The intellectual artifacts are not easy to control. Although they might co-operate with humans at first, when they get enough knowledge about the outside world, they will retaliate.' A frown appeared on his face.

A second later, he closed his eyes, entered the Astral Realm, and looked at the weak soul. Then, he extracted a small part of his soul, conjured a ball of Rebirth Flame, and fused them.

A dense reddish cloud appeared in front of his eyes.

After that, he weaved the soul cloud into a soul imprint and attached it to the weak soul.

A moment later, hundreds of rebirth essence streaks enveloped every part of this weak soul and soon turned into a soul armor-like spell.

As long as this rebirth soul armor was there, not even a God could take control over this artifact. In truth, it was an easy thing for a God-like existence to break a mortal's soul imprint in the artifact. But that couldn't be said true for a Demi-God level existence's soul imprint.

'Even a Mid-God would find it difficult to break my soul imprint. But what I put in this weak soul is not my soul imprint but my soul shard itself. So, unless a High-God or a taboo existence intervenes, no one can take this artifact from me.' A smile appeared on his face.

But Charles didn't stop there, though. Instead, he focused on the weak soul and then cast [Curse of the Overlord] spell on it.

A moment later, another streak of black fire came out of his Inner World, entered the weak soul's dark space, and attached to it.

'From now on, this intellectual artifact would be my eternal slave… Nah, it will be my loyal pet.' A smile appeared on his face.

Then, he closed his eyes again, left the Astral Plane, and soon opened his eyes in the underground chamber.

After that, he linked his mind with the weak soul and was about to check the intellectual artifact's abilities but suddenly stopped.

At that moment, a brand new world appeared in his mind!

No, it was a mini-world!

"A pocket dimension?" Charles's eyes widened.

It was a separate dimension filled with full of dense woods, mountains, and rivers. He also saw many types of flora and fauna in the pocket dimension and became stunned inside.

'It seems I'm not that unlucky.' He muttered inwardly and soon realized that this weak soul was the pocket dimension's Will!

"Let's see what is hidden in this pocket dimension…" Saying so, he linked his mind with the new soul and disappeared from there.