novelODS Chapter 13, The First Treasure
Chapter 13, The First Treasure
Benjamin leaned over for a look. "I still don't know what kind of enchantment it is. I'll have to go back and take a closer look. Or you could try using it to chop down a couple of skeletons. It should be a bit better than this piece of iron you have now."
Chen Mo rolled his eyes at the old man who was spouting nonsense.
Chen Mo sheathed the short sword and tucked it into his waistband. It was indeed much lighter and more comfortable to hold than his current one.
At the very bottom of the box was a thin notebook.
The cover was made of leather and was so worn that its original color was no longer visible. Chen Mo opened the first page and was greeted by densely packed handwritten characters—the handwriting was messy but neat, and the ink had faded somewhat.
Froki's Enchantment Notebook
—A record of my learning journey in enchanting magic
Chen Mo couldn't help but chuckle.
As expected of Skyline. Everyone here has the good habit of keeping a diary.
From the leader of a bandit's cave to the believer before the Daedric Temple, from the students of the College of Winterhold to a hunter's hut in the middle of nowhere—wherever there are people, there are diaries.
Sometimes he even felt that the cultural literacy rate in Skyrim was a bit too high.
He flipped through it casually.
The first few pages record the basics of enchanting—the types and qualities of soulstones, how to use an enchanting table, and recipes for common enchanting effects.
The middle pages begin to record some specific enchanting attempts, such as "Today I tried to enchant an iron sword with fire damage, but failed because the soul stone shattered" and "The second attempt was successful, but the effect was very weak, probably because my soul stone was not of good enough quality."
The handwriting on the later pages became messy, as if it had been written in a hurry.
"I've heard that there's an ancient array of runes in the Wolf Skull Cave, possibly left behind by the Nord ancestors. If I can figure out its principles, it might allow me to break through my enchanting bottleneck."
"We've found the cave. There are indeed runes inside, more complex than I imagined. These aren't Nordic—they're something older and darker. But I can already decipher some. Give me a little more time, and I'll be able to—"
The notes stop here. The last page has only half a line of text, with the ink trailing a long, crooked tail at the end of the last character, as if something had interrupted the writing process.
Chen Mo closed his notebook and remained silent for a moment.
This Froki was probably the previous visitor to the cave.
An ordinary enchanter, having heard the legend of the Wolf Skull Cave, came here in search of ancient runic knowledge.
Then he encountered those necromancers—or something born from a ritual—and never left.
Chen Mo touched his chin.
There's no such character in the game; perhaps it's some hidden storyline in this world.
He tucked the notebook into his pocket. Maybe he'd need it later.
"Let's go," he said softly.
The two turned toward the spiral staircase leading upwards.
The stairs were longer than Chen Mo had imagined.
Each level was very high, requiring one to lift their knees to reach them. The spiral shape completely disoriented them; after spinning twice, Chen Mo could no longer tell which way was which. Only the increasingly bright light overhead reminded them—they were almost there.
Benjamin walked behind, his spellbook already turned to the page on combat. His footsteps were even lighter than Chen Mo's, almost inaudible.
Light poured down from above.
It wasn't the orange-red of a torch—it was a dark blue, cold, and oppressive light.
It was exactly the same blue light he saw outside the cave, but countless times more intense. The light falling on his skin gave Chen Mo an inexplicable sense of unease, as if something was spying on him from behind the light.
They stopped before the last flight of stairs.
Chen Mo pressed himself against the wall, slowly, inch by inch, peeking out.
The top of the tower is a spacious platform.
The platform has a stone protruding wall at its edge, beyond which lies a hollow, vertically descending abyss—the bottom is invisible, and only the faint, low murmur of water or wind can be heard from below.
On the other side of the rift valley—
Another tower stands there.
That tower was taller and thicker than the one they were in.
The tower's surface is covered with dense runes—those runes appear and disappear in the eerie blue light, as if they were alive, moving and breathing on the stone wall.
At the top of the tower is a wide platform, on which—
Chen Mo's breathing stopped.
A group of people in black robes stood on the platform.
Eight.
He quickly counted them—eight necromancers dressed in dark robes, forming a circle, facing the center.
Each of them stretched out their hands forward, palms facing the center, with wisps of pale blue light flowing from their fingertips.
The filaments of light drifted from their fingertips, intertwining and entwining in the air before converging on a giant sphere of light at the center of the circle.
The sphere of light was at least two meters in diameter, hovering about a meter above the ground, and slowly rotating.
Its surface flows like mercury, and blue-white light shines through from the inside, illuminating the entire top of the tower as if it were daytime.
With each rotation of the sphere of light, it draws something unseen from the surrounding air—something that converges from all directions of the cave, flowing along the runic patterns on the stone walls like streams into a great river, and ultimately all of it flows into the sphere of light.
Something is being conceived inside the sphere of light.
Chen Mo couldn't see what it was—the light was too bright, making his eyes sting.
But he could feel it. It was the same feeling he had when he looked at that faint star in the star chart—something was taking shape, growing, waiting for the moment it would hatch.
The atmosphere of the ceremony was so intense it was almost suffocating.
Benjamin silently stood beside him, pressed against the stone wall, looking at the tower opposite.
The old man's gaze swept over the necromancers, then fell on the enormous sphere of light, and finally returned to the flowing runes on the tower. His expression grew increasingly grim.
"Talos's beard..." he muttered, his voice barely audible, "This scale, this rune array—this is definitely not something a few apprentices could have put together."
Chen Mo's gaze swept between the two towers.
There was a huge, bottomless chasm between them, impossible to jump across—unless he could fly.
Then he saw what connected the two towers.
There is a suspension bridge between the tower they are in and the tower opposite.
Made of wood, it was so narrow that only one person could pass at a time. The bridge was covered in slippery moss and looked like it hadn't been used in a long time.
At this end of the suspension bridge—the end they were on—the bridge deck was retracted, pressed against the tower wall like a folding door. Several thick iron chains connected from the bridge deck to a winch overhead, the winch wrapped with thick, rusty chains.
There was a crank handle next to the winch. But a large iron padlock was hanging on the crank handle.
The switch for the suspension bridge is located on the opposite tower.
Chen Mo had explored this map countless times, so he was naturally familiar with this superb terrain.
It's obvious that we can't get through it.
The hidden door on the high platform that Chen Mo and Benjamin just discovered was originally intended for players to lower a drawbridge from the tower where these necromancers are now located after clearing the cave, making it easier for players to quickly exit the cave.
The only connection between their tower and the opposite tower was this suspension bridge, and the control system for the suspension bridge was located on the opposite tower.
For the cave's owner, this was a perfect one-way defense.
The necromancers were certainly aware of the existence of this hidden tower, but they clearly did not believe that anyone could threaten them from here—because the drawbridge switch was on their side, and people on this side could not cross.
But Chen Mo doesn't need to go there.
He slowly and silently took the short bow off his back.
Benjamin glanced at him and understood what he meant.
"At this distance," the old man whispered, "can you hit it?"
Chen Mo did not answer immediately.
He estimated the distance – from their tower platform to the opposite tower platform, the distance wasn't too far.
In the game, this distance is nothing for an archer. But this is reality—
He took a deep breath, feeling the "enlightenment" brought to his body by the archery system.
His gaze swept over the necromancer on the opposite platform, calculating wind speed, distance, and the trajectory of the arrow.
He can do it.