A dull thud echoed in the sealed stone chamber, breaking the previous silence.
What was that?
Byrne paused, then tried nudging the object with his foot again. The sensation was hard and steady, like an immovable, dead object. He reached out and groped around the area he had kicked but felt nothing.
It seemed the object was very low to the ground, much like how one cannot touch their own knees while standing perfectly straight. Byrne crouched down and slowly felt along the edges, soon tracing its outline. The thing he had bumped into was a square stone pedestal, about a foot high.
The surface of the pedestal was flat, and its four corners had been deliberately polished; it wasn't exactly smooth, but it lacked sharp edges. Although the pedestal wasn't large and wasn't part of the floor, its weight was staggering. Even using all his strength, Byrne couldn't budge it an inch.
Continuing his search, he discovered that the top of the pedestal was covered in fine patterns—a mix of natural stone veins and man-made carvings. Suddenly, his hand stopped as he felt a depression. As he explored it further, a realization dawned on him.
Byrne pulled out the stone piece again and compared it. The groove on the stone pedestal, in both size and shape, was an exact match for the stone.
Was the stone originally meant to be placed here?
Might as well try.
With that thought, Byrne placed the stone into the groove.
Click!
The stone and the groove fit together seamlessly, without the slightest deviation. Instantly, the stone erupted with a brilliant light, even more intense than the glow that had repelled the Night Demon earlier.
Seeing the light, Byrne felt a surge of excitement. After all, last time, the moment the stone emitted its glow to drive back the Night Demon was also when he had returned to reality. However, after waiting for a good while, the result he anticipated did not occur. Aside from his vision being restored by the light, he remained inside the stone chamber.
What's going on? Why didn't I return to reality this time?
Did I get it wrong?
If it's not the light, what is the condition for returning? Is it successfully repelling an attack, or just staying for a set amount of time?
Unable to find an answer, Byrne set the question aside for the moment. By the light of the stone, the stone chamber—previously completely invisible—finally revealed its full form.
The room was much larger than he had expected. The surrounding walls were built from solid blocks of blue-black rock, their surfaces covered in chisel marks of varying depths, clearly man-made. The ceiling wasn't a flat surface but curved upward into a dome, looking like an overturned bowl.
Currently, he was standing in the southwest corner of the chamber, near the staircase he had descended. There were three other pedestals in the room, identical in size and shape to the one in the southwest corner. The only difference was that the grooves on the other three pedestals were all different shapes.
Four pedestals, four grooves...
If the stone corresponds to the southwest pedestal, does that mean the other three grooves have their own corresponding items?
After scanning the perimeter, Byrne turned his gaze toward the center of the chamber. Aided by the light, he saw a magic circle carved into the floor. The circle was composed entirely of dark gold lines, nearly ten meters in diameter. Its edge was surrounded by a ring of interlocking thorn-like runes, the tips of which glowed with a faint, dark red light.
The body of the array consisted of six concentric rings, with the spaces between them filled with intricate star-path patterns and countless tiny runes embedded like stars. Under the reflection of the stone's light, the patterns were slowly flowing, emitting an extremely faint humming sound.
Just then, a line of blood-red text appeared before Byrne's eyes.
[Only by gathering the four Elemental Stones and activating the Array of Light can the Night Demon be killed and the darkness dispelled.]
Heh, the red text showed up pretty fast this time.
Elemental Stones...
Seeing the text, Byrne immediately looked back at the southwest pedestal. At the base of the pedestal, a thread of light was following the stone slabs on the floor, flowing into the central magic circle. It seemed the items corresponding to the four grooves were indeed the "Elemental Stones" mentioned in the red text.
The next task is to find the other three stones.
I should search this chamber more carefully; hopefully, I can find some clues.
On the surface, the room contained nothing but the pedestals and the central magic circle. But Byrne didn't believe it was that simple. Sure enough, after a thorough search, he found a very well-hidden mechanism at the base of the northern wall. Upon activation, accompanied by a tremor, a secret door emerged in the stone wall nearby.
Byrne walked through the secret door and saw that the space inside was small, about the size of an elevator car. Against the inner wall stood a waist-high stone shelf. The shelf had three tiers. On the top tier, besides a few chipped pottery bowls, lay a piece of animal hide.
Seeing the hide, Byrne felt a spark of excitement, thinking it might be a map marking the locations of the other stones. But when he picked it up, there was nothing on it; it was just a plain piece of hide.
On the middle tier, besides more pottery, were some broken metal fragments. These items were too ordinary, so Byrne gave them a quick glance and moved on. The bottom tier was even more disappointing, as it was completely empty.
Refusing to give up, he checked the shelf and the walls inside the secret room again, but still found nothing.
Dammit, how can this be?
If there are no clues, why have a secret door? Is it just for show?
Wait, "for show"...
That casual thought suddenly struck a chord. Byrne immediately walked out of the secret room, returned to the southwest corner, and took the stone out of the groove. As the stone was removed, the light illuminating the chamber vanished. The entire room was plunged back into darkness, and Byrne's vision was dyed completely black.
Byrne gripped the stone and looked back toward the secret door.
I hope my guess is right.
Time passed second by second. Just as Byrne began to think he had guessed wrong and was about to put the stone back, a glimmer appeared in his pitch-black vision. The glimmer was extremely weak, like a flickering candle in the wind, and it came exactly from within that secret door.
Heh, looks like I was right.
The reason Byrne couldn't find any clues earlier was due to cognitive inertia. He was still using his "eyes" to find clues, forgetting that in this dark space governed by rules, normal sight was impossible.
The question then was: under these conditions, how was he supposed to find the Elemental Stones? The stone in his hand had been found by accident; he couldn't count on that kind of luck every time. The clues hidden within that secret door were likely invisible under normal light.
As it turned out, his gamble paid off.