NOVEL NEXT WORLD Chapter 16
Chapter 16
‘The Dragonslayer’s Tomb?’
As soon as Zeke thought about entering, a message reappeared in his mind.
[Opening the Dragonslayer’s Tomb.]
Vrrrrrng!
Clack!
The gear-like ornament attached to the door began to turn, and with the accompanying sound of a lock disengaging, the door opened.
“Did it open?”
Zeke approached the door and slowly pushed it once more.
Krrrrrrrng!
This door, which had originally required over fifty Imperial mages and Nirvana’s magicians to spend a month calculating just to unlock, was now opened effortlessly by Zeke, blessed by the Elder Dragon.
Zeke stepped inside and couldn’t help but gape at the sight before him.
“This place is massive.”
To his left and right stood rows of colossal statues of knights, and in front of him stretched an enormous stone wall.
Zeke swallowed nervously as he took in the thick stone wall blocking his path. It was hard to believe that such a monumental structure, seemingly beyond human craftsmanship, existed beneath the academy’s library.
Zeke glanced around his surroundings quickly.
“This is easily bigger than ten central training arenas combined.”
Awed by the grand scale of the Dragonslayer’s Tomb, he activated his mini-map.
“There should be a place around here where the relics are stored.”
The mini-map indicated a path leading deeper into the tomb, but he couldn’t find the entrance. Frustrated, Zeke activated Dragon’s Eye and carefully scanned the stone wall for any trace of an opening, but he still found nothing.
Then, an idea struck him, and he looked up toward the top of the stone wall.
‘Wait a minute…’
He reopened the mini-map and inspected the terrain. This time, he adjusted the settings on the map.
In an instant, the flat view of the mini-map shifted to a three-dimensional perspective, revealing the details of the terrain more clearly.
“Found it.”
Using the newly enhanced map, Zeke confirmed that the entrance was located at the top of the stone wall. He looked at the smooth wall, which appeared to be about a hundred meters high, and deliberated.
“How am I supposed to climb that?”
In his previous life, it might have been possible somehow, but in his current state, where he couldn’t properly utilize the power of the Ether Hall, it seemed impossible.
“There’s got to be some way to get up there.”
He spoke with a hint of desperation.
“Find a way to climb up there.”
To his surprise, a message appeared before his eyes.
[Connecting to the control device at the administrator’s request.]
‘Huh? It actually worked.’
Another message followed shortly after.
[Automatic movement devices are unavailable.]
[Activating manual movement devices.]
At the same time, the stone wall began to tremble.
“What, what’s happening?”
Stepping stones began to protrude one by one from the once-smooth stone wall.
These stones continued to extend upward, forming a staircase that led all the way to the top.
Zeke was taken aback by the suddenly materialized stairs.
“What… is this? Magic?”
Without hesitation, he stepped onto the stairs that followed the stone wall and climbed upwards.
“Phew…”
Reaching the top of the stone wall, Zeke found another massive door, similar to the one below.
As he approached, another message appeared.
[Would you like to open the Dragonslayer’s Tomb Repository?]
Seeing the word “repository,” Zeke grinned.
“Of course I’ll open it.”
Vrrrrrng!
Clack!
Just like before, the door opened.
Zeke stepped inside the repository. Rows of dozens of display shelves stood inside, stacked with large and small chests.
Inspecting the chests, Zeke exclaimed in excitement.
“Wow! These are sealed chests. Back in a dungeon, finding just one of these would’ve been a jackpot!”
These sealed chests, commonly referred to as treasure chests by adventurers, often contained rare relics. Occasionally, they even held rune stones, making them a lucrative find.
And here, hundreds of such sealed chests were displayed.
Humming cheerfully, Zeke began opening the chests one by one.
“Let’s see… What’s this? A rune stone? I can give it to Professor Fainon later in exchange for design fees. And this…”
Every item he found inside the chests was a valuable relic. Large chests contained weapons and equipment from the Golden Age or ancient times.
“Phew… There’s no way I can carry all of this right now.”
Zeke decided to prioritize items that could be immediately useful. He picked out practical items such as a rust-proof dagger, cold-weather gear, and a backpack that could reduce weight—rare and highly functional treasures.
He stored the smaller, high-value runes directly into his inventory while neatly packing the more general items into his backpack.
As he surveyed the repository, Zeke smirked to himself.
“I’ll smuggle these out little by little while I’m at the academy.”
He estimated that selling these items through the black market routes he knew could easily earn him over a hundred thousand gold by the time he graduated.
After sorting through the load, Zeke cheerfully resumed opening the sealed chests.
Then, he opened a chest in one corner and let out a triumphant shout.
“Yes! Found it!”
The very reason he had entered this place—the highly compressed mana crystal—was finally in his hands.
Encased in a sturdy cylindrical glass container, the blue crystal emitted a brilliant, dazzling light.
Zeke opened all the nearby chests.
He managed to find four more highly compressed mana crystals.
“These rare items… four of them. I’d better take them all.”
When he tried to store all the crystals in his inventory, he realized he didn’t have enough slots.
After deliberating on what to remove, he concluded that nothing was expendable. He decided to use 10 of his remaining Karma Points to expand his inventory slots.
[Your inventory has been expanded to 65 slots.]
The original 25 slots increased by 40, as each point added 4 slots.
Zeke placed the highly compressed mana crystals into his inventory and added the items he hadn’t been able to take earlier.
“It fills up so quickly.”
Unlike lightweight backpacks or spatial boxes, the inventory wasn’t affected by the weight or volume of items. Even more impressively, as Zeke had discovered, food stored in the inventory remained perfectly preserved. This made it invaluable for dungeon expeditions or exploration of remote areas.
‘I’ll expand the inventory as much as possible whenever I accumulate enough Karma Points.’
With all the highly compressed mana crystals secured, Zeke slung his backpack over his shoulder and began to rise, ready to leave.
But as he moved to exit, he felt a strange sensation emanating from the far wall of the repository.
“What’s this?”
The back of his neck tingled with a cold, prickling feeling.
Following his instincts, Zeke walked toward the wall.
It was an ordinary-looking wall with nothing unusual about it.
Slowly, he extended his hand toward it.
[Would you like to move to the Dragonslayer’s Resting Place?]
‘The Dragonslayer’s Resting Place?’
Zeke chose to move.
Vrrrrng!
The wall began to vibrate.
Zeke watched, startled, as ripples appeared on the wall.
“A portal?”
Large-scale portals capable of long-distance transportation were operated in various parts of the continent, usually under the jurisdiction of the mage towers.
However, small-scale portal technology had been lost before the Golden Age, making its presence here almost incomprehensible.
‘The last time I saw something like this was in the Forbidden Forest of the Forgotten.’
Though puzzled, Zeke cautiously approached the portal and stepped through.
Vrrrrng!
The distinct vibration of the portal rippled through Zeke’s body.
He felt a slight dizziness as he passed through and then opened his eyes to an entirely different scene.
“What… is all this?”
It was a tomb.
The vast underground chamber had walls lined with coffins modeled after warriors, stacked in multiple tiers.
There were more than twenty levels upward and over a hundred compartments stretching horizontally.
Zeke was stunned by the immense scale of the tomb.
“I have no idea what this is. There wasn’t anything like this mentioned in the old newsletters I read.”
Zeke approached a nearby coffin and opened its lid.
Thud!
Inside the coffin, instead of a body, there was armor, a sword, and a shield.
Ding!
[?? You have discovered equipment exclusive to Dragonslayers.]
‘Equipment exclusive to Dragonslayers?’
After thoroughly examining the coffin, Zeke noticed the name of the coffin’s owner engraved in ancient script.
He looked around at the rows of coffins stacked layer upon layer.
“Could all these coffins belong to Dragonslayers?”
In the Draker Household, the term Dragonslayer referred specifically to their ancestor Terakan, who had defeated the Evil Dragon Bahamut.
To honor the legacy of Terakan, the knight of knights, the Draker family trained in the Dragonslaying Art passed down by him and rose to become the greatest knightly house on the continent.
If all these coffins truly belonged to Dragonslayers, it might mean that Terakan’s triumph over the Evil Dragon Bahamut was not a solitary feat.
Zeke inspected the armor inside the coffin. Its design and structure were markedly different from the armor typically unearthed in ruins.
As he flipped the armor over to examine it further, he noticed a groove carved into its back.
“What’s this?”
Touching the groove on the armor, a thought crossed his mind.
“Highly compressed mana crystals…”
Zeke retrieved the chest containing the mana crystals from his inventory. Comparing the crystal with the groove in the armor, he found the sizes matched perfectly.
Slowly, he inserted the mana crystal into the groove on the armor.
Click!
As expected, the mana crystal fit perfectly into place.
At that moment, a message appeared before his eyes.
[You have installed a mana battery in the Dragonslayer-exclusive equipment.]
[The equipment is too old to function.]
“Inserting a mana crystal into armor?”
This was information Zeke had never encountered, even in the future. In the timeline he knew, the precise use of highly compressed mana crystals had remained a mystery.
Various theories had been proposed, but if these standardized mana crystals were intended to power Dragonslayer-exclusive equipment, then the mages’ many hypotheses and speculations were entirely incorrect.
“Why would anyone use such rare, highly compressed mana crystals just to power armor?”
While he had figured out how it worked, the logic behind such an application was incomprehensible by current standards.
‘There must be some reason for this. But my knowledge of magic isn’t enough to understand it.’
Perhaps Professor Fainon, a researcher, could discern the purpose by examining the armor.
For now, Zeke removed the mana crystal from the armor and returned it to his inventory.
He walked past the massive tomb, heading deeper inside.
Unlike the ordinary graves, a giant monument stood in the inner area.
Zeke approached the monument slowly.
‘What does this say?’
There was writing on it, but it was inscribed in ancient script, not the common language of the continent, making it unreadable for him.
At that moment—
Ding!
[The management system is automatically connecting to the control device.]
[Deactivating the central security system of the Dragon’s Resting Place.]
[Unlocking the legacy registered by Administrator Terakan Draker.]
“What?”
Rumble!
Suddenly, the monument slid backward, and something began to rise from the ground.
Zeke stepped back cautiously, his guard up.
Thud!
A transparent glass cylinder emerged from the floor. Inside the cylinder, a crimson orb, roughly the size of a fist, floated, radiating a resplendent glow.
Zeke slowly approached the glass cylinder.
“What is this? Terakan Draker’s legacy…?”
As his gaze fell upon the crimson orb, a message appeared before him.
[You have discovered the ‘Cursed Heart of the Light Dragon Bahamut.’]
Zeke was stunned by the message.
“B-Bahamut’s heart?”
The reason Terakan Draker earned the title of Dragonslayer was simple: he had defeated the Evil Dragon Bahamut, who had ravaged the continent while leading hordes of monsters.
‘Is this truly Bahamut’s heart?’
Dragons generate their mana from their hearts.
Because of this, a dragon’s heart contained far more potent mana than even highly compressed mana crystals could ever offer.
Magicians were known to pay astronomical sums, even for a mere fragment of a dragon’s heart, as such a find was considered invaluable.
“Even fragments cause such a frenzy, yet here lies a perfectly preserved dragon’s heart…”
And this wasn’t just any dragon’s heart—it was the heart of Bahamut, known as the strongest and most dreadful dragon in the continent’s history.
Zeke couldn’t comprehend why Terakan Draker, the ancestor of his family, had hidden such a priceless treasure beneath the academy’s library.
While questions swirled in his mind, Zeke reached out toward the radiant Bahamut’s heart.
Ding!
[The Cursed Heart of the Light Dragon Bahamut is reacting to the user.]
[A powerful curse engraved on the heart is attempting to suppress the user’s reason.]
Zeke was momentarily entranced by the radiant glow of the heart.
[Skill ‘Unyielding Mental Defense’ has been activated.]
[Resisting the Curse of the Light Dragon.]
In an instant, Zeke snapped back to his senses.
“What… what is this?”
He immediately understood why Terakan Draker had sealed this heart away here.
Even in that brief moment, Zeke had been gripped by the Light Dragon’s temptation, overwhelmed by an impulse to destroy everything.
Had it not been for the skill ‘Unyielding Mental Defense,’ which protected him from all status abnormalities, he might have succumbed to madness in an instant.
“Phew, that thing is incredibly dangerous.”
Ding!
Another message appeared before him.
[You have resisted the Light Dragon’s Curse.]
[You have fulfilled the conditions for inheriting the legacy.]
[You have acquired ownership of the legacy.]
[Would you like to absorb the Cursed Heart of the Light Dragon Bahamut?]