Chapter 599: Golden Coin
The puzzle here was much more dangerous than the others he had come across, including the volcano. The reason for that was that the mere act of trying to dodge these scythes in the first place would end your life.
The scythes were incredibly thin and there seemed to be Runes that colored the mechanisms they hung from and the ground that matched their resonances to the movements of the people who tried to pass through them.
The blades, as a result, would accelerate to cut anything it sensed. The only way to deal with this seemed to be to be faster than the mechanisms could swing the blades in the first place.
However, by Sylas' calculations, you would have to have over 5000 Speed to do that, something not even he could touch, let alone everyone here. That kind of Speed was already approaching speed of sound territory, and likely beyond it.
The next thing to do would be to try and dive. If you leapt past every guillotine, then it wouldn't be able to sense you through the Runes in the ground, and that would obviously keep you safe.
Unfortunately, that only worked for the first half of the roadway. And even then, it was incredibly dangerous.
The Runes were made to sense pressure changes, so it could obviously also sense when someone was pressing enough force into the ground to jump a large distance.
However, one would be able to get away so long as you were fast enough.
And then everything changed.
The Runes became more refined at the halfway mark, and their sensitivity increased. The mechanisms that swung the scythes also became more responsive and had less lag to them, accelerating faster and beginning their swing with much sharper instincts.
The family had tried to execute the very same maneuver they had earlier to make it, but it had ended up with them almost losing their lives.
In fact, their son now had a bloody wound that cut across his back, one that seemed to be at least three inches deep. For a normal human, that sort of wound was nothing short of a death sentence. But even as someone over Level 20, their son wasn't going to survive very long like that unless an Elixir or someone with a special Profession or Class intervened.
However, even with their son in such a situation, they could only look on in absolute shock.
That was because the scythes they had taken so much effort to leap past and across, spending hours just to reach this point, seemed like children's toys to Sylas.
They crossed behind him, in front of him, some even came to a complete stop before they cut into him at all.
It was like Sylas was in his own backyard and there was nothing these mechanisms could do to stop him in the slightest. It was the most ridiculous thing they had ever seen.
The middle-aged man slumped to the ground and laughed.
It should have been a laugh of relief, but it was anything but. Instead, it was a self- deprecating laughter.
When he and his family had gotten this token, it took a great deal for him to decide to come here. But ultimately, he crossed the canal into the Africor Continent and chose to come here nonetheless.
Their experience made him realize that without power, there wasn't much they could do in this world. And maybe he had also let some of his own ego become involved as well.
But in the end, his son was lying half dead here, and there was this young man barely much older than the very son in his arms who seemed to treat their life-and-death matter like a joke.
The puzzle they took hours to cross took Sylas 30 seconds. In fact, he would have been faster if he cared to use his true Speed supported by Aether or the Basilisk King, or... if he wasn't thinking about other things.
Like the fact the tone of the puzzles had changed.
They were no longer just visual puzzles that anyone could figure out with enough effort.
They had become Rune Puzzles.
Sylas reached the family and looked back. Alex was still somewhat helplessly standing on the outside. He had tried to follow Sylas, only for a guillotine to almost take his head off.
Turning back to the family, Sylas held out a hand.
The middle-aged man hesitated, but in the end, he sighed and handed the golden coin over.
Sylas looked down at it, scrutinizing it deeply.
The coin was beautiful and almost too bright to look at. On one surface, it had the etching of what looked like a Mayan temple with beams of light coming down from the sun above it. On the other side, there was...
'A pinecone...'
It lay there, beautifully etched in detail that made it look like it was stamped out by the finest machinery. But Sylas had a feeling that that was definitely not the process that created the coin.
Another odd thing was that the pinecone was floating above the etching of what looked like
an ocean or sea.
Sylas' eyes narrowed.
This was one half of the puzzle he completed, no? The pinecone?
It was a symbolic item of the Ancient Egyptians and seemed to come from the Tree of Life.
But this coin in particular, it felt like it came from...
'The City of Gold?'
... The Lost City of Gold Points Toward the Sea. The Mountains of Giza Point Toward the Stars...
[Quest Token Sensed. Would you like to steal their Destiny?]
[Yes][No]
Sylas accepted.
[Quest Upgraded]
-
[Rune Enlightenment (Silver) (Chain Quest) -> Rune Enlightenment (Gold) (Chain Quest)]
[The people of Earth have a deep and storied history. In its past, much of its language encompassed the secrets of this path and embodied the hope of nations.]
[Fallen and forgotten, the ebbs and flows of time have suppressed this stories' heritage. As an
Earthling who has rekindled that flame, you share part of this responsibility.]
[Rise up and claim your Rune Enlightenment]
-
[Silver Requirement]
[>Clear Dungeon: The Mountain of Giza]