Chapter 158: The Primeval Civilization 2

Kent remained nearby and watched in silence.

The supposedly empty doorway was left completely alone.

Several dark elves glanced at it in passing, but none of them showed the slightest interest in going inside.

For more than two hours, Kent waited with his nerves stretched taut.

Not a single dark elf entered that room.

The pile of so-called “junk” in the hall was ignored as well.

Only then did Kent finally relax a little.

“There are still plenty of magical beast cores, diamond coins, and other materials in the warehouse above,” he reminded the dark elf guards.

“Make sure you sort through everything properly.”

By now, the underground cells had been completely emptied.

The high-level magical beasts, magical beast cubs, and magical beast eggs had all been taken away.

Of course, Kent knew perfectly well that the truly valuable items upstairs were already gone.

Everything left behind was simply what he had decided wasn’t worth taking.

“Yes, Elder! We’ll go right away!”

The dark elf guards were thrilled when they heard that there were still so many valuables waiting in the surface warehouse.

What impressed them even more was that Kent appeared to have taken absolutely nothing for himself.

Humans, after all, were widely associated with greed and cunning.

Yet this human Honorary Elder had seemingly stood aside while leaving all the spoils to them.

Their opinion of him immediately rose by several levels.

Had they known that Kent had already taken everything he considered truly valuable, they might not have admired him quite so much.

Once the guards had left, Kent drew a slow breath.

Then he walked toward the doorway that continued to emit faint fluctuations of spatial magic.

He stopped directly in front of it and began examining the intricate magical runes covering its surface.

To an ordinary person, those symbols might have looked like nothing more than elaborate decoration.

Perhaps even a piece of ancient art.

But Kent had inherited part of the knowledge contained within Divine Alchemy.

To him, the truth was obvious.

This was not an ordinary door at all.

The entire structure was one enormous and extraordinarily complicated magical formation.

And entering a magical formation without understanding what it actually did was one of the most foolish things anyone could possibly do.

“This rune represents spatial positioning...”

Kent traced the pattern with his eyes.

“And this one is for activation...”

The longer he studied it, the more alarmed he became.

Buried within the formation was a spatial magic trap.

Once triggered, it would forcibly teleport whoever activated it to some unknown location.

Kent’s expression grew increasingly serious.

There was more.

Another section of the formation incorporated an illusion array.

As he followed the runes and gradually reconstructed their function in his mind, a chill ran through him.

If someone simply walked through this doorway without understanding the formation, they might not enter the extradimensional space at all.

Instead, they could be teleported somewhere completely different.

Deep underground.

Into the heart of a volcano.

Or perhaps to some unknown location so distant that no one would ever find them again.

Kent stared at the ancient formation in silence.

One thing was now certain.

Whoever had built this place had not merely wanted to hide what lay beyond the door.

They had wanted to make sure that anyone who tried to enter without permission paid a very serious price.

Kent carefully guided his mental power around the formation’s activation points and slowly pushed the door open.

The door could not be touched by any physical object.

The slightest contact would trigger the magical formation engraved upon it.

So Kent manipulated it entirely with his mental power, moving with extreme caution.

The moment the doorway opened and he saw what lay beyond, his entire body trembled with excitement.

“A dimensional space...”

His voice shook.

“And one this enormous!”

Beyond the door stretched an independent space several square kilometers in size.

Kent could hardly believe what he was seeing.

A dimensional space was something unique to spatial mages.

In principle, it was similar to a spatial storage ring, except that it was formed and controlled directly through spatial magic.

Only spatial mages who had reached at least the sixth rank were capable of creating or using such a personal dimensional space.

Even then, the space possessed by an ordinary sixth-rank spatial mage would usually be no larger than a single cubic meter.

For most spatial mages, such a place was little more than a purse they carried with them at all times.

But the space before Kent was different.

Far different.

It was vast.

More importantly, living plants were growing inside it.

That represented an entirely different level of achievement.

To store living creatures within a dimensional space—to create an environment capable of sustaining life and functioning almost like a natural world—was something far beyond ordinary spatial magic.

According to legend, only gods possessed the power to create such a place.

And the fact that an outsider could now enter this dimensional space meant only one thing.

Its original owner was dead.

As long as the owner still lived, no one else would have been able to use or enter it.

Yet even after its creator died, the dimensional space itself would not necessarily disappear.

There were records of spatial mages, when opening their own personal dimensional spaces for the first time, accidentally connecting with dimensional spaces left behind by ancient spatial mages.

The chances were extremely low.

But it could happen.

A dimensional space capable of supporting living beings, however, was different again.

Such a place usually possessed a fixed entrance.

It was meant to be left behind.

A legacy for future generations.

That entrance was essentially nothing more than a spatial positioning and teleportation device.

Its physical anchor could take almost any form.

A ring.

A pendant.

A piece of jewelry.

Perhaps even some completely ordinary-looking object.

But one thing was almost always the same.

Spaces like these contained everything their former owners had accumulated over the course of an entire lifetime.

Kent stared into the vast space before him, his eyes shining.

“A god’s purse...”

he murmured.

Then, unable to restrain himself any longer, he stepped through the doorway.

The moment Kent stepped into the dimensional space, he felt the softness of earth beneath his boots.

Only then did a sudden sense of unease strike him.

He spun around.

The doorway was gone.

There was no entrance behind him at all.

Instead, the entire dimensional space appeared to be enclosed by a distant ring of walls.

Kent quickly realized that those “walls” were nothing more than an illusion.

What truly surrounded this world was a spatial barrier—the boundary of the dimensional space itself.

High overhead hung a small sun, casting warm light across the land.

As for how such a thing had been created, Kent had absolutely no idea.

After staring at it for a moment, he simply gave up trying to understand.

There was no point worrying about something so far beyond his current knowledge.

He turned his attention to his surroundings instead.

At first glance, the place looked almost like the private estate of some enormously wealthy noble.

There was a small forest.

A clear lake.

Wide stretches of grassland.

Even a mountain rose in the distance.

Anyone who had entered without knowing the truth might easily have believed they had somehow wandered into an isolated aristocratic domain rather than an artificial dimensional world.

Kent, however, was in no mood to admire the scenery.

Something was wrong.

Everything around him looked far too orderly.

The grasslands, the forest, even the area surrounding the lake seemed as though someone had been maintaining them.

Kent lowered his head and examined the grass beneath his feet.

His expression immediately changed.

The blades had clearly been trimmed.

And judging from the fresh cuts—

not very long ago.

Kent’s heart sank.

Someone—or something—was tending this place.

He raised his head again.

Far in the distance, he could faintly make out a building.

Stone-paved paths stretched toward it from several directions, each road wide enough for a horse-drawn carriage to travel along comfortably.

Kent cautiously placed one foot onto the stone path.

Nothing happened.

No magical formation activated.

No trap appeared.

After testing it several more times, Kent finally decided to follow the road and investigate the distant structure.

He had barely taken a few steps when—

Whoosh!

A small furry creature shot past his feet.

Kent nearly jumped out of his skin.

“Damn it! You scared the—”

Before he could finish, another creature bounded past him.

Kent stared.

It had only one eye.

Its body resembled an enormous bullfrog, and it leapt after the furry creature in great, powerful hops.

Kent’s mouth fell open.

“Is that... a Cyclopean Giant Frog?”

The creature’s appearance was almost identical to the Cyclopean Giant Frog, a psychic-element magical beast that had supposedly gone extinct countless years ago.

During the Primeval Age, the blood of the Cyclopean Giant Frog had been considered one of the finest ingredients available to alchemists for brewing mental-restoration potions.

By the time Kent recovered from his surprise, however, the strange frog had already vanished into the distance.

For a moment, he considered chasing after it.

Then he stopped himself.

There was no need.

The creature was trapped inside this dimensional space anyway.

It wasn’t going anywhere.

Understanding the basic situation here was far more important than chasing a single magical beast.

Kent continued along the stone road.

He had not gone far when he noticed a cultivated field beside the path.

One glance at the plants growing there made his eyes widen.

Then widen again.

“This...”

Kent stared in disbelief.

“Is that Seven-Leaf Blossom?”

His voice rose uncontrollably.

“The primary ingredient for an antidote capable of neutralizing almost any poison?”

The plants possessed seven brilliant crimson leaves arranged around a single green flower blooming at the center.

There was no mistaking them.

Seven-Leaf Blossom.

It was one of the principal ingredients used in high-grade magical antidotes.

Outside this dimensional space, even a single mature specimen could command an astronomical price.

Yet what Kent saw before him was not one plant.

Nor ten.

Nor even a hundred.

An entire field stretched before him.

More than ten mu of land was covered entirely in Seven-Leaf Blossoms.

Kent stood there speechless for several seconds.

Then he kept walking.

Before long, astonishment gave way to numbness.

Blue Star Grass—

an important ingredient for mana-restoration potions.

Red Velvet Fruit—

a valuable ingredient used in healing potions.

And those were merely two examples.

Along the road, Kent encountered dozens of different species of magical plants.

Some occupied fields dozens of mu in size.

Even the rarest varieties covered no less than ten mu.

Everywhere he looked were magical herbs that alchemists on the outside world would fight desperately to obtain.

By this point, Kent was almost incapable of reacting anymore.

Even if he found absolutely nothing else in this dimensional space—

these fields alone had already made the entire journey worthwhile.