Volume 1 Chapter 5 Abnormal Artefact

Jack Lynch was living the same day over and over again; waking up, eating, school, playing with friends, eat, and sleep.

The mysterious tycoon from the capital still didn’t do anything strange. His friends Christopher and Heather were always telling him how alien Mars’s actions were.

The pair of brother and sister were sometimes forcing Jack to follow them in their “Mars hunt”, Jack didn’t understand what was so fun about stalking a man in retirement all day long but his friends were very involved in it.

The poor Mars was not even doing anything special; he would wake up at around eleven O’clock, eat, do a quick tour at the orphanage and go relax on the coast.

Still the group would always make him follow Mars with them and it wasn’t only the kids that were suspicious of the merchant, their parents were actively encouraging them to continue.

He knew however that his friends did not yet commit any crimes; they hadn’t tried to break into Mars's house yet but he knew they were thinking about it.

Jack Lynch a very normal countryside boy had however a secret, the beast tooth, he hadn’t talked about it to anyone, it was his secret weapon in case a bad guy like his “father” came to attack him.

The boy was supposing his father was bad because the two times he asked his mother about him she looked angry, telling him to not ask about his father. So Jack had deduced that his father must have been a criminal or worse a tax collector.

Jack was a smart kid.

During one of his friends’ “Mars hunt”, saw something interesting. It had no link to Mars but it may be even better than knowing the secrets of a merchant in retirement.

It was a grotto on the side of the coast, he knew that kind of thing normally happens naturally, but not this one; he had seen writings on top of the entrance.

His goal for next few weeks would be to be able to access the cavern during the high tide of the night.

Jack was a good swimmer; what he was scared of, was if there was in fact something in the cavity.

It did not take too long for Jack to gather (steal) the materials he needed to descend in the underwater subterrane. At midnight, he had left his house and came to the coast.

The rope was taken from the quay; the fisherman would not care about one rope disappearance. The beast tooth was taken with him just in case.

Jack took a deep breath and jumped in the water, the rope was tied around his abdomen and his back, and it was held by a large rock outside.

Jack quickly swam to the cavern; he knew where it was by heart.

He arrived at an air bubble, finally able to breathe; the boy took a break. After a short while, his eyes got used to the obscurity.

His surroundings were strange, the water was blocked from entering as if a wall was stopping its infiltration yet Jack was able to enter as if there was nothing.

He saw some text, Jack wasn’t all that good at reading yet but he was still able to read. No, he didn’t read it as if looking at the letters would transmit the meaning they carried to his mind.

It read: “Here rests the legacy of the lord, may the mighty take what he deserves”

The youngling untied the rope and proceeded forward. Tightly gripping on the beast tooth, he advanced in the tight corridor of rock.

He arrived in a big space with three alleys to leave, and a sentence was written on the wall.

It read: “Here is the test of wits. What is the only good way to kill a Noga? Experiment on him? Cut his head off? Or pluck his heart out?”

Jack had absolutely no idea of what was a Noga but his instincts were telling him to take the first alley, and so he did.

He walked for what seemed like an eternity, but there was only two choices proceeding or leaving and the young Lynch hadn’t made it here just to leave after the first hurdle.

After walking for another century, he finally arrived in another big room. There was only one exit this time; a pit with unknown length.

The craving in the rock read: “Congratulations for passing the test of wits and the test of patience, now for the test of the pious, kill yourself for the lord.”

After intense reflection, Jack came to the conclusion that this place wouldn’t have made him go through the two previous challenges to kill him here. So he decided to jump in the pit, but before that he had to exculpate himself, so he asked the forgiveness of his mother and of the goddess.

And before his common sense came back, he resolutely jumped down.

The boy reached the ground, the pain he felt when both his legs broke from the impact with the ground was atrocious. Some of his bones had pierced through the flesh of his legs.

Jack had fainted from the pain, he was slowly dying in a pool of his own blood, and his broken ribcage had partially destroyed his vitals. Some of his ribs had come out of his chest.

Jack’s blood pool had reached the treasure of the cave. It completed the contract with Jack by entering in contact with his blood.

Jack slowly awoke, his body was now in a better state; he could now move very slowly. The first thing he saw was the ring made out of bone around his right major. The ring was transmitting to him a strange type of Chus; he knew what Chus was, the ring had given him basic information about magic.

He saw a stairway going up, and as he was climbing the stairs he wondered how much time had passed since he came to the Lord’s Legacy.

Upon arriving at the surface he saw the sun slowly rising. Jack also noticed that the stairway he used to get out of the legacy site wasn’t here before.

The boy started heading towards his house, but taking one look back he couldn’t see the stairs, he quickly went back to where he came from; nothing.

In desperation the child asked the ring: “Do you know where the Lord’s Legacy is?”

And it worked, the ring sent a signal to the site and the stairway showed itself.

With that out of the way, he hurriedly stumbled to his house, he knew his mother would be panicked if she didn’t find him in his bed when she woke up.

He was happy, he now had another way to protect himself and his mother and he would keep the ring as his Ace-in-a-hole.

However there was another person who knew about all of his cards; Mars Michael Augustus.