Versatile Mage

Edited by Aelryinth

“Are you sure that’s going to work?” Mo Fan asked, feeling very surprised.

“Yes, these doors might be complicated, but they do have certain loopholes. The ancients were impressively intelligent, but that doesn’t necessarily mean us modern people have no brains, right? The most important thing is understanding their sequence and rules,” Shreev answered. He sounded completely like an academic.

“So it’s also reasonable why you are so ugly, Shreev! Most ugly people are pretty smart!” Zhao Manyan exclaimed.

“What do you mean by that? Are you telling me you are a retard?” Shreev grunted back.

“Thanks for describing how handsome I am!” Zhao Manyan agreed shamelessly. His mood had greatly improved after hearing there was another way to enter the right chamber.

“Let’s continue to the next chamber,” Shreev said.

“Is resting a little longer going to kill you?” Mo Fan said.

“Uh, is that strange? Weren’t you the one that was urging us to keep going previously?” Shreev replied, confused.

The group might be unharmed, but the psychological impact that the Scorpion Lord Medusa had delivered was pretty serious. They had to get their hearts back to normal and exercise their limbs, so they could get rid of the residual effects of the Petrify Magic.

——

The group finally gathered the courage to keep going after resting in the passage. The next chamber was most likely related to snakes again…

They had come up with a plan. They would quickly look around the chamber. If they sensed something was not right, they would immediately return to the passage. Even though they would no longer return to the chamber of the Scorpion Lord Medusa by going back along the same passage, they could still follow Shreev’s instructions and avoid the chambers with guardians that were too strong for them to take on, now that he had deduced the sequence of the chambers!

The passage soon came to an end, the chamber eventually showing up. Everyone immediately focused as soon as they stepped into the chamber. Their fear of Scorpion Lord Medusa had yet to fully dissipate. They were only hoping that the creature in the chamber was no scarier than the Scorpion Lord Medusa so their hearts could still endure the shock.

“That’s strange… all the doors in this chamber are open!” Shreev blurted out.

The chamber was huge. Shreev’s voice echoed a few times back and forth. Most importantly, apart from the ancient drawings along the walls, the ground, and the ceiling, there was no sarcophagus, which meant the chamber did not have a guardian!

“There are a lot of traces left by scorpions and snakes…” Heidi pointed out.

“An empty chamber?” Mo Fan was quite surprised.

He scanned the huge chamber intently, but did not find a single creature in it. The whole place was covered in paintings on the walls and on the ground. It had statues of scorpions and pillars of snakes, too. It felt like they had just entered an ancient palace that existed in a myth related to the snakes and scorpions.

The drawings and the statues were lifeless, Mo Fan was sure. There was no sign of life in any corner of the chamber!

“I understand now!” Shreev suddenly yelled.

“I can understand them too.” Mo Fan looked at the drawings around him.

The drawings were not painted onto the walls or the ground, but were engraved, drawn with solid lines, holes, scorpion shells, and snake scales. Mo Fan could not help but wonder how much money and manpower the ancient Pharaohs had spent on this…

“Tell me what you think!” Shreev said promptly.

“The scorpions and the snakes are from the same species, thus the chamber with the scorpion symbol and the chamber with the snake symbol both belong to the Scorpion Lord Medusa. However, this chamber isn’t designed for a mummy, it’s more to record some ancient rituals, myths, and history. I know a legend about the Medusa around here. The first Medusa was actually human. She was most likely the first person to Awaken the Curse Element and the Psychic Element. However, those Elements were once deemed forbidden or evil. In the end, the humans offered her to the primordial ancestor of the scorpions and snakes as a sacrifice, but to their surprise, it did not kill her. Instead, it slowly combined with her and gave birth to the Medusae and the Gorgons. The Medusae have the Curse Magic and Petrify Magic, while the Gorgons have incredible strength and physical attributes…” Mo Fan explained what the drawings along the walls were depicting

Shreev looked at Mo Fan and raised his thumb. He said, “You can actually understand the hieroglyphs of the ancient civilization. It seems like you have spent quite some time on them!”

“We have been investigating the Totem Beasts. These hieroglyphs are similar to the ones left by our ancestors during the era of the Totem Beasts. Your Pharaohs overthrew the ancient beasts and became rulers themselves. When our Totem Beasts went extinct, we also gradually relied more on magic, up until today,” Mo Fan confirmed.

Mo Fan did not mention that he had read records of the Egyptian myths at the Parthenon Temple. The ancient civilizations in Greece and Egypt were closely tied together. Mo Fan just had to join the records he read at the Parthenon Temple and the hieroglyphs on the walls together to decipher their meaning.

“It also says that Khufu invented the Undead Element and built Pyramids that were connected to the Underworld to strengthen his kingdom of the undead in order to prevent himself from being overthrown. He helped the Snake Scorpion Primordial Ancestor and Medusa build a lot of their temples,” Shreev elaborated for all of them.

“The drawings also indicate that the undead have formed an alliance with the scorpions and the snakes, allowing them to move freely in the Pyramids… HAHA, isn’t this the same as telling a story from some pictures!?” Zhao Manyan burst out laughing, pointing at one of the drawings.

Mo Fan took a quick glance at the drawing and interpreted it the same way as Zhao Manyan. It was showing how Khufu had formed an alliance with Medusa, the highest ruler of the snakes and scorpions… ahem!

“Why are we wasting our time here? Shouldn’t we just move on to the next chamber and leave this place if there’s no one guarding this chamber?” Sayed demanded impatiently.

“Wait, there are a lot of mysteries that we haven’t solved on these drawings! For example, the place where the Snake Scorpion Primordial Ancestor and Medusa stayed at. Give me some time, I need to learn more about those temples!” Shreev answered hurriedly.

The drawings indicated that Khufu had not built only the Pyramids, but also the evil temples for the Snake Scorpion Primordial Ancestor and Medusa! They were hidden in the deserts in Egypt…

“Humph, what difference is it going to make? It’s not like the evil temples are going to give us the power to kill the detestable Snake Scorpion Primordial Ancestor and Medusa!” Sayed mocked him.

“Sayed, how stupid can you be? If the Snake Scorpion Horde decides to attack us one day, or when only us humans or the demon creatures can live in Egypt, how can we possibly take them out if we don’t even know where their rulers are!?” Meos scolded him.

“Fine, I’m the stupid one!” Sayed did not talk any further.

“What are the evil temples for?” Mu Bai asked, confused about their importance.

“Egypt is known for two special things: the undead, and the snakes and scorpions! The snakes and scorpions are the demon creatures. They can move freely without the deathlight, which means the threat they pose to the cities is no less than the undead. However, the nests of these demon creatures aren’t deserts or caves, it’s the evil temples!

“We’ve already explained the origin of these temples. Many people know about their existence, but only a handful of them have been found so far. No one has found the evil temple that the Snake Scorpion Primordial Ancestor and Medusa live in. These evil temples were built by the Pharaohs, so only the Pyramids will have records on where the temples are built. On top of that, the evil temple that the Great Pyramid of Giza has records on is most likely the one that Medusa lives in…” Mo Fan explained to him.

“I see. So if we found the evil temples and destroyed them all, the snakes and scorpions would no longer bother us?” Mu Bai said.

“More or less, but I’m afraid it’s unlikely that the army is strong enough to raze the evil temples to the ground. We can find out where the temples are first. It’s not too late to deal with them later, once we have grown strong enough. Shreev is doing his country a huge favor!” Mo Fan said.

While Shreev was recording the drawings, Mo Fan took a closer look around since he was bored. The chamber was surprisingly huge, with lots of drawings all over the place. They contained a huge amount of information. It was rather confusing to look at them without knowing the background to the stories.

Mo Fan ignored the drawings that he had no clue about. He focused on the drawings that he could understand.

“Mo Fan, there’s a drawing here. The snakes are eating humans… I think they are eating little girls…” Heidi said timidly, pulling Mo Fan’s sleeve while pointing at a drawing.

The drawing alone was just an abstraction, but it was totally different when they recalled Apas mentioning how the little girls were eaten alive by the higher-level Gorgons and Medusae.

Mo Fan glanced at the drawing and let out a sigh.

“What does the second half mean?” Heidi asked.

“Perhaps it’s saying how the Medusae can keep their youthful looks by eating the little girls?” Mo Fan guessed.

Mo Fan remembered how the young Medusa began to look like Apas after swallowing her alive. It was likely that the young Medusa would have claimed Apas’ looks after it fully digested her. It was quite terrifying now that he thought about it.

“What about the part after it?” Heidi asked.

“Well… I don’t really understand it, I’m not a professional,” Mo Fan said.

Shreev had finished recording the information he needed while the two were conversing. He came over with the smile of a reputable person whose discovery was going to benefit the whole of mankind. His smile had almost a sacred brilliance to it!

“You can smile after we make it out of this place alive,” Mo Fan poured some cold water on him.

“Oh, you’re right.” Shreev’s brilliance dimmed significantly. It was true that the information he collected was only useful if he could make it out alive…