After leaving the main hall, Jagu made his way to another room on the same floor before descending a set of dirty stairs.
Since the valley Rodes only ever used the main hall of the building, the lower floors were dirty and dark, with only a little light coming through the cracks in the ceiling and walls.
Throughout his journey down, Jagu had a look of displeasure, he really didn't like the building.
But eventually he arrived at the bottom of the stairs which was nearly pitch black. This didn't matter to him due to his superior eyesight which revealed to him a large open room.
It possessed many strange devices and equipment that he couldn't identify at all. He had found the lab.
Meanwhile just two floors above him, Rose had made her way to the building's library. It wasn't very large to begin with, being smaller in size than the main hall but it did possess quite a decent amount of shelves stacked with books.
Unlike the lower floors, the room wasn't as dark to begin with and thanks to her scouters providing extra light, she could see very well. The only disappointment came from the library being the size it was.
To her, that meant the gains were less. Regardless of this, she immediately began to skim through the shelves so as to decide where to start.
At around the same time, Aron was also thinking of where to begin. The upper floors possessed many rooms and each room was definitely worth checking but there was no guarantee he would find anything useful.
So, to avoid wasting time, he began looking at the rusted plaques hanging off each respective door. Evanora mimicked his actions but with some reluctance because she had a peculiar rivalry with doors.
With first few doors Aron came across had miscellaneous names that didn't pique his curiosity. It was only when he went further and began finding doors labeled with names, did he get intrigued.
He was about to start his search there but then he thought of checking each of the names first, just to be sure.
In total they were seven doors with names, however he came to a stop at the fourth door as it possessed a name he was already familiar with. Johan Janssen.
"There we go." A small smile appeared on Aron's face and he proceeded through the door with Evanora who kept glaring at the door cautiously until fully inside.
The room itself was nothing more than a simple bedroom possessing very little furniture. It had a double bed in the corner and a lone desk near the only window present in the room. And beside that very desk was a small shelve possessing few books, with some being scattered messily around the floor along with other objects.
Aron only focused on the desk and ignored everything else. His immediate thought was to begin looking for a journal or book personally written by Johan Janssen.
It was easier to make sense of Janssen's words or reports and make a connection since Aron already had some knowledge on him. Thankfully, luck was on his side and he found not one, but two three sperate journals belonging to that man as well as multiple books detailing what work he was doing in Limbo.
Aron felt he could finally understand just what happened and more importantly, learn more about mana demons and travel between Limbo and origin worlds.
Till now, Aron could not understand why Argos never kept knowledge on this within his library. Despite gaining plenty of knowledge through the legacy ring that he now held, doubt began to grow in Aron's mind regarding Argos's intentions.
The first piece of doubt came from the knowledge that he couldn't use because it was in languages he couldn't comprehend. Aron didn't think much on this at first and even assumed that knowledge on traversing Limbo was among that incomprehensible knowledge.
But the more he began to learn about the world through his own eyes, the more things seemed suspicious.
Knowledge that helped him in regards to building strength or power through many ways was open to him, but knowledge regarding the greater Limbo, such as worlds Argos has visited wasn't there either. Extremely advanced runes, the mechanism behind how legacy rings worked and so much more.
By the time discovered Johan Janssens work and the fact that he and his team were capable of traversing Limbo, he reached a conclusion that Argos wasn't honest with him.
The main question now was, why?
Whatever the answer was, Aron had a feeling it wasn't good. But with so little information on the matter, he couldn't do anything until learning more about the world through his own eyes. Thus, his habit of only using the legacy ring if he was completely stuck on a matter or theory.
"The best thing I can do now is compare his work to that of other brilliant minds and look for inconsistencies in what I was taught. That damned Argos, even in death I cannot fathom what he was planning."
As Arias muttered this while skimming through the books, Evanora began to inspect the various objects present in the room, both on the ground and on the walls.
Similar to Aron, Rose too found success in the library as she stumbled upon what she felt was the biggest boon of the library, a map.
A map detailing the entire region of Limbo they were currently in. Due to its old age, it was possible that some major changes occurred.
As she quickly skimmed through it, some of those changes became clear. For one, the map detailed many points that were marked as mines, storage point and even cities. But in the current period, the state of these places had changed.
Rose was unsure if they were still even intact. In her opinion, they were lucky the current settlement they were in wasn't in complete ruin.
Outside of the map's locations, Rose was also interested in the layout. From what the map showed, the region of Limbo they were in possessed only two colossal continents.
One to the far east of the map, where they currently were and another to far west, with a large open ocean between them that also possessed islands numbering in the thousands scattered all around its waters.
"Hold on, this can't be right…"
As she Rose was checking the detailing of the map, she discovered an odd feature. It was so strange that she needed to carefully examine the map once again before being utterly sure.
"This world… it's flat and possesses an end. But how?" Rose's understanding of the world was questioned by the map, leading her to furrow her brows and return to the shelves, seeking a reasonable explanation for this.
Limbo certainly was odd and possessed many things people would simply acknowledge as magic or the oddness of Limbo itself. Rose wasn't one of those people, she sought to find at least some information on why something was the way it was.
Aron too was on similar path of finding answers. After skimming through the books and journals, he had settled on where to start since neither the journals or books were numbered in any order.
He flipped through one of the journals disregarding irrelevant information before settling on a log that caught his interest.
Log 234, which read;
[ It's all coming together, it's all finally paying off!
Me and the others had been incredibly ecstatic because of the remnants we unearthed, belonging to a civilization that we predict once dominated this region.
The others have made similar discoveries in their respective sites, this could bring humanity into a new age of advanced.]
Log 235;
[ My happiness has proven to be short lived and another problem has arisen.
Martha is growing too weak and I fear it may affect her pregnancy. Ever since we unearthed that site, numerous people have begun to fall ill. I was amazed to find that the atmosphere of this region is becoming more potent in terms of mana density. The average human cannot live here anymore.
I've sent word to the others and they too are experiencing a similar situation. We may have no choice but to call off this expedition and evacuate back to Pesia, at least until a solution is found.]
Log 236;
[ Martha's health has deteriorated far quicker than I predicted. When I awoke today, I found her collapsed near the laboratories where we kept some of artifacts we recovered for study. I was angry because we discussed she wouldn't work while in this condition.
She apologized, but her reason for doing it in the first place left me bewildered. She said "The voices called to her."
I think the atmosphere is affecting her more because of the pregnancy, it's making her delirious. I must hasten then evacuation process. My wife and unborn child are far more important than some old civilization.]
Log 237;
[ I feel both joy and great sadness this day. I had thought time was enough, but I was mistaken. Martha's condition only got worse and her body was failing her, as if that already weren't enough, she was in labor.
I only had two choices, save her, or the child. I opted to save her but she promised to end her own life if I didn't save the child instead…
I begged her not to, appealing to her through logic. By attempting to save both I could end up losing both her and the child. But she urged me that it would be okay.
Saying the voices told her so, that they had a deal. Her delusions were beyond comprehension, but time was short and I couldn't risk her killing herself… I had no choice but to try and save them both.
pαпdα-ňᴏνê|·сóМ
Unfortunately, despite my best efforts. Only the child survived. In her last moments, Martha smiled and said the voices didn't lie to her. I was too emotional to even care, my tears running endlessly. She embraced our child only once and used the last of her strength to give her a name…
…Evanora.]
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