Noah slowly woke up, the light from the chandelier attacking his eyes as he opened them.

“ACAS, how are these lights still going?” he moaned as his eyes adjusted

“They are light guided by a central mana battery; my estimation is that this mana battery will last for at least several more millennia.”

“Wow, whoever set this up must have been stupidly powerful”

With that Noah pulled himself to his feet with the aid of the Glavenius

“OK, we need to explore this palace to see what we can find, and then we need to find a way out of here. ACAS, is there a way you can keep a marker on this place on my map?”

“Yes, that is easily within the realm of possibility. I would advise against exploring this palace too much, however. The previous owner may have set numerous traps for those not of his blood”

“Yeah that makes sense, I wouldn’t want grave robbers searching over my resting place either. Hey, it reminds me of the ancient Egyptians back home. They did the same sort of thing with their pyramids. They put curses and all sorts on their tombs. I think one of the “curses” ended up being a bunch of poisoned air that was trapped in the tomb, and when explorers opened it they got hit in the face with it. It apparently didn’t look pretty. That in of itself makes me follow your advice ACAS.”

With that, Noah started to unblock the entrance to the room that he was using as a bedchamber. As he did so he extended his senses past the door to try and find anything that he would have to survive against as he made his way through the palace. Finding nothing he finished unblocking the door and stepped through. Finally getting a good look at the architecture, he was gobsmacked. Jaw hanging low.

“How did this race manage to make so much stupendous stuff?”

“From what I have seen, this Species had a very precise control over the type of mana they wanted to learn. This led to a few of the species that were interested in creating structures for those they served. This palace seems to the unparalleled height of their ability. While you are here, you should appreciate what you see. You may even learn something.”

“Yeah this place is stupendous. I don’t wanna damage any of it”

“That is highly unlikely. Someone twice the level of you would find it difficult to damage the walls of this palace.”

The weeks passed as Noah explored the palace, it acting more like a dungeon than anything. With the reluctance to damage the palace gone, Noah could fight all out, utilising the majority of his skills with ease and with no regard to the surrounding damage.

As he moved through the rooms in the palace, Noah was assaulted by a wide variety of creatures, most of the seemingly above his level. They would have to be to survive in such places without the help of the system.

As he fought these creatures, he continually put his points into strength, endurance and Wisdom

Eventually Noah made his way to the top of the palace, and from there he could see the entire length of the cavern. Looking back towards the place he entered the cave; he saw that the jungle had overtaken the air between the hole in the roof and the invisible heat trap above the city. From where he stood, Noah couldn’t even see the hole that he fell through. It was that choked up with vines.

“I guess that’s how this place stays hidden, the flora on the surface is just too ridiculous to let any evidence of this place survive.”

“That seems to be the case. However, not including the vertical element, you only have 20 miles left to cover to finish your quest.”

“Wow I’ve covered about 60 miles already? The majority must have been in this cavern, its certainly big enough.”

“That would seem so. As a side note, through examining this cave, I have found a discreetly hidden set of stairs behind the palace. It seemingly leads up to the ceiling of this place.”

“Well what are we waiting for, I need me some sunshine!”

With that Noah stormed his way towards the stairs and started the long climb to the surface.

Days later Noah was bored silly.

“Why didn’t you tell me how long it would take to go up these?”

“I thought it may be funny. I was right.” The mechanically harsh voice of ACAS grated.

“you have been simply annoying hard to keep alive so far. I thought I may gain some slight measure of revenge by neglecting to tell you how long the stairs would take.”

Begrudgingly Noah conceded the point. “yeah I can see how I might have been a bit of an ass, sorry about that”

Half a day later and Noah was punching his way through the compacted stone and dirt that built the chambers’ roof. After a good while’s worth of effort, he broke through and instantly light shone into his face and he took a deep breath.

“Ahhh fresh air, I didn’t know I would miss you”

Climbing out of the hole he created Noah lay on the ground and hugged it.

“Grass! Grass! May I never leave you again!”

“Yes, yes, can we get a move on? The civilisation will take at least two more days. At this point I would recommend you set up a camp.”

Noah started to fumble around with the supplies, ACAS suspiciously silent about giving aid on how to set a camp up. Eventually Noah made a rudimentary camp with His camping tent and a small fire. Going through the palace Noah had harvested the meat of some of the Tesopus Worms, and he took this opportunity to barbeque them as he would any other meat.

Taking a chunk out of the skewer of meat he held, he chewed for a while and swallowed contentedly.

“Damn that is great. I didn’t know how much I missed meat”

“Luckily for you Tesopus Worm meat is not considered harmful, though with your constitution I would avoid Catican and Quilaxon meat. Both would poison you easily.”

“Yeah surviving all this to die to a shitty tummy. Ill avoid that thanks.”

With that Noah continued chewing on the Tesopus meat that he had cooked. Once he had finished, he stood up and stretched.

“Ok ACAS, which direction to the village?”

“Create a trail, North, North East and you will eventually find the village we are seeking.”

“Ok, cool. Ill start heading that direction then.”

Saying so, Noah shifted the rucksack onto his shoulders, set them into a determined stance and started walking, brushing leaves out of way in the direction of the village.