Chapter 10: The Last Floor

"A twelve-dimensional space lock," Silvester whispered softly, a strange cold feeling running down his back. "A lock built around a space stitch..."

In his past life on Earth, space locks were only thesis subjects discussed in academic papers. But in this world, what the dwarves thought was "impossible to pick" was simply a high-level lock waiting for the right craftsman.

The dwarves had not failed because their work was bad. They had failed because they did not have the power to control space directly. They were forced to build a lock that was beyond the capabilities of their own tools.

"They built a lock that needed a modern locksmith," Silvester said quietly.

Silvester read the last page and slowly closed the record book.

Before he could even dream of reaching Floor 15, Silvester needed to get his gear ready for the hardest floor ahead.

He turned away from the reading table and walked into the post’s main forge room.

He spent hours refining his homemade tools using the dark iron and diamonds.

By late afternoon, Silvester stood in the middle of the reading room. He was fully equipped and ready to go down.

He opened the book and carefully read the last part.

The title at the top was written in old dwarf writing:

SHAPE MAP OF THE GREAT KING’S LOCK — FLOOR 15

It was the fully detailed building plan of the giant lock. It showed every gear layer, every magic point, every space stitch, and every measurement made by High Forge-Master Albatriar before the dwarves ran away.

To a normal mage, the drawing would look like a crazy person’s drawing of impossible shapes and designs, but to Silvester Lerwick, it was the ultimate test.

"A twelve-dimensional space lock," Silvester whispered. "I am coming for you."

He ripped out the last page, carefully rolled the drawing, and put it into the space compartment of his waist bag.

Silvester turned around and walked out of the reading room. He stood before the giant, eight-foot metal tube at the front of Guard Post 12.

He reached out and touched the middle turning lock plate.

Open.

CLACK-CLACK-CLACK.

The giant gears inside the circular door released once more. The heavy metal circle turned to the left with a long hiss of air.

Silvester stepped through the doorway, out of the safe home and back into the dark depths of the dungeon.

The heavy metal gate behind him shut, locking tight with a deep, heavy sound.

Silvester did not look back. He turned his face toward the darkness when the air suddenly sucked him in like a vacuum cleaner, sending him straight down toward the last vault of Floor 15.

The metal tube shot him off the ground instantly. He had been inside the tube for hours, and his dizziness had finally ended.

He stood up and looked at the gate in front of him.

It was a majestic, twenty-foot-high gate made of smooth white star-iron and set deep into the solid mountain stone.

Unlike the rough iron doors of the upper floors, this gate had no brass handles and no keyholes on its surface.

Instead, hovering in front of the gate were three glowing white lock cylinders floating motionlessly in mid-air.

Each floating cylinder was surrounded by sixteen thin, hovering pins made of solid spatial mana threads.

The pins did not exist in three-dimensional space alone. They existed across three overlapping dimensional planes at the same time. If you pushed a pin in the first plane, its shadow shifted in the second plane, and its weight changed in the third plane. It was like a chain reaction.

To open the gate, he had to align all sixteen pins across all three-dimensional planes simultaneously, which was very hard.

"Fascinating," Silvester whispered like an old man, his dark eyes brightening with genuine professional interest. He took a step closer and inspected the floating white cylinders. "This is fucking high-level smithing."

This was not a lock built by ordinary trapsmiths. This was the work of a master craftsman who understood the fundamental laws of space and metal.

Silvester took a deep breath.

He flexed both wrists.

SNICK.

SNICK.

His Adamantine-Mithril tension wrench deployed into his left hand, and his finest curved diamond pick deployed into his right.

He stepped up to the floating white cylinders.

"Alright," Silvester said softly. "Let’s see how well you built this."

Silvester activated Locksmith’s Eye at full power.

In his mind’s eye, the three-dimensional room faded away. He saw the interwoven web of sixteen spatial pins extending across three distinct dimensional planes. He mapped the connections using the golden mana threads and connected them to their designated pins.

Silvester didn’t pick one pin at a time. He couldn’t.

Open.

Aperture Shift!

He opened two separate spatial holes at the same time. One with his left hand and one with his right.

Through the first hole, his tension wrench applied steady rotational force to the primary dimensional plane.

Through the second hole, his diamond pick entered the secondary and tertiary planes at once, touching two connected pins simultaneously.

Click.

A pair of pins was set.

Click-click.

Two pairs of pins settled perfectly onto their respective shear lines.

A ripple passed through the air. The white light around the cylinders grew brighter and clearer.

Silvester’s small hands were steady. His fingers moved with absolute precision, feeling the resistance of spatial force through his customized mithril hilts.

Click.

A pair of pins was set.

Click.

Two pairs of pins snapped into place.

A sudden flare of energy surged back through the keyway, trying to throw his pick off balance.

Silvester didn’t flinch. He adjusted his tension wrench, absorbing the energy seamlessly.

Click. Click. Click.

Two more pins were set in rapid succession.

Now only the final three pins remained. This included the master pin holding the entire gate shut.

Silvester shifted his pick to the central dimensional plane.

Click.

Click.

"Steady..." Silvester whispered to himself.

He applied a light lift with his pick while easing his tension wrench by a fraction of a degree.

CLACK-CHUNK-WHIRR!

The master pin snapped into place along the shear line.

All sixteen glowing pins locked flush across all three-dimensional planes at once.

The three floating white cylinders dissolved into bright specks of white light that drifted through the air.

The massive white gate opened slowly without a single sound or vibration.

The path to Floor 15 was open.

Beyond the gate lay a pristine hall built out of flawless white marble and polished brass. There were no spatial distortions here, no traps, no rust, and no floating monsters.

"Where the hell is that space break and the unknown entity?" he said to himself.

In the center of the far wall, shining down from a shaft in the ceiling, was the ultimate goal.

The Great Dwarfs Lock.

It was a huge, multi-layered vault door made of solid star-iron, mithril, and gold, guarding the legendary Smith’s Vault.

Silvester retracted his picks back into his gauntlets.

SNICK. SNICK.

He wiped his hands on his canvas coat and looked down the quiet marble hall.

The journey through some floors filled with monsters, rust, water, lava, and spatial traps was finally over. But he had skipped some floors, and the ultimate test stood right in front of him.

Silvester took a step across the threshold onto the polished marble floor.

A small, confident smile appeared on his eight-year-old face.

"Well," Silvester said softly to the empty room. "It certainly looks expensive. I could buy the whole Lerwick with this."

In his past life on Earth, he had seen and opened some of the world’s greatest bank vaults. The massive steel doors of the Federal Reserve, the deep underground vaults in Zurich, and heavy antique safe doors built during the Industrial Revolution. But those were built for bankers and corrupt politicians.

This door was built by a master smith. It was designed not just to keep people out but to showcase every single technique known to ancient craftsmanship.

"What the hell is inside this thing that the ancient dwarfs feared the most?"

Silvester sat down right on the clean marble floor, crossing his small legs and resting his chin in his hand.

"Okay! Time for a proper inspection," he murmured.

He closed his eyes halfway.

Locksmith’s Eye.

In his mind, the giant brass-and-iron door dissolved into a clear, glowing golden three-dimensional blueprint. Every internal gear, spring, lever, and tiny seam became visible down to the millimeter.

Silvester mapped out all seven layers of the vault.

The first layer was the outer steel shield. A heavy front plate of thick star-iron, hiding a twenty-pin mechanical tumbler array.

The second layer was the hydraulic counterweight system. Six pressurized brass pistons filled with heavy mineral oil held the primary locking bolts forward under three thousand pounds of continuous pressure.