RMGCFW — Chapter 112 - Magic-Sealing Ore — The Conversation
Magic-Sealing Ore, this was the first time Banxia had ever seen it with his own eyes.
He had only read about it in hero biographies before. It barely circulated on the open market, extraordinarily rare.
The ore was said to nullify magic entirely, and the higher its purity, the greater its suppression on a mage's power.
A finger-sized piece was worth several Central Kingdom gold coins. A fist-sized chunk could buy a mansion outright in the royal capital.
The piece sitting in front of them right now was the size of a basketball. Priceless wasn't an exaggeration.
"No wonder there was that strange oppressive feeling earlier." Banxia finally put it together.
No wonder his mana consumption had spiked dozens of times over whenever he used his spatial secret arts. It was the Magic-Sealing Ore all along.
"With a chunk this large, mana probably can't be used within a ten-meter radius." Frieren dusted herself off, stood back up, and spoke with a calm expression.
"Terrifying. If someone actually forged a weapon out of this stuff, mages would be in for sheer misery."
"That's impossible." Frieren shook her head. "Magic-Sealing Ore is one of the hardest substances currently known to exist in the world. Unlike other materials, it can't be cut, mined, or processed through mana or brute force."
"Is that so..." Banxia looked at it quietly for a moment, then swung his hand with full force. "Sever."
Clink.
A grating screech rang out.
Even after the slash spent every last bit of its force, it had only left a faint white scratch on the surface of the blue crystal.
"Truly incredible." Frieren's expression didn't change. She stared silently at the young man's arm. "That technique wasn't magic, was it? No trace of Battle Aura either... with pure physical force alone... unbelievable."
"You're the first human who's ever seen through what this technique actually is." Banxia looked at her with a smile, then shook his head. "Shame it still doesn't do anything against Magic-Sealing Ore. I was actually thinking about forging a magic-sealing sword."
"Give it up. Carrying Magic-Sealing Ore around will only hold you back."
"Can't be helped. I'll just have to come back to that idea some other time." Banxia sighed, then stuffed the basketball-sized chunk of Magic-Sealing Ore into the spatial void in his abdomen.
"The name makes it sound more absolute than it is. All it really does is suppress mana's activity. As long as you push enough mana through, you can still cast spells at full power. And it has a ceiling, even a piece this big can probably only absorb about five hundred years' worth of mana."
He voiced the observation as he felt his internal mana ebbing.
"The secret arts of the Northern Elven Royalty..." Frieren tilted her head. "Haven't those been lost?"
"Well, naturally — because I am elven royalty."
"..." The elven girl quietly glanced at the young man's ears.
"You're no fun at all, Frieren. Couldn't you at least act a little surprised?"
"By the way, why do you know who I am?"
"The Goddess sent me to find you."
"..."
"Is this the difference between an old crone and a youngster? You're really just going to keep your cool like that?"
"...To actually call me an old crone."
Her expression hadn't shifted even slightly, but Banxia somehow got the distinct sense that she was angry.
"No, no, I was actually referring to Lady Frieren as the youngster."
"...Are you playing me for a fool?" Frieren picked up the staff that had fallen nearby.
"In a certain sense, I wasn't lying." Banxia smiled, and the two of them walked out of the trap room together.
If the cultivation time he had accumulated through the system counted, Frieren wouldn't even qualify as a little girl standing before him.
"Have you really lived for a very long time?" Frieren asked, a trace of puzzlement in her voice.
She hadn't detected any sign of lying in his words, but she dismissed the thought almost immediately.
"Even if you lived all the way to the absolute limit of a pure-blooded human's lifespan, you'd still be just a child in front of me."
"Honestly, I'd love to stay a child forever."
Talking as they went, the two had already covered quite a distance.
Not far ahead, staircases split off going up and down.
Frieren stopped at the stairwell and looked at him. "I still have no idea where you learned my name — and I'll admit, that gives me the creeps — but you did help me a great deal. Is there anything you need from me?"
"From the sound of it, you're not planning to keep exploring?" Banxia asked.
"This dungeon gives me a very bad feeling. A trap on the second floor already had something at the level of Magic-Sealing Ore. Going higher is far too dangerous."
Banxia turned that over for a moment and had to admit the ancient elf had a point.
The impression this labyrinth gave him was that it might be even more dangerous than the Lova Labyrinth.
The monsters here weren't particularly strong, calling them monsters was almost generous. Walking through just now, he'd passed countless remains, mostly magical constructs, same in nature as that skeleton from before.
Defeating them yielded almost nothing. And had he not completely outclassed them in raw power, these constructs would have been an absolute nightmare to deal with for ordinary people, mages especially. Every single one was engraved with high-level magic-resistance runes.
Add in the trap from earlier, and the pattern was unmistakable. This labyrinth had been designed, at every turn, specifically to target mages.
"That kind of deliberate design doesn't really feel like something monsters built just to protect themselves."
It was exactly what Frieren had been worried about.
Less a labyrinth, more a colossal trap, purpose-built to hunt and kill mages.
"Precisely. So I'm leaving." Frieren's secret to a long life was knowing when to cut her losses and never throwing herself away needlessly.
"Fair enough. I won't force you to come with me." Banxia nodded. "I'm going to keep exploring the upper floors. As for payment for earlier, do you happen to know any magic related to lifespan?"
"...Are you joking?"
"Right, looks like that's a no." He'd half-expected it; he wasn't too disappointed. "Then how about magic related to physical health?"
"I do know a few of those." Frieren nodded, unhurried, apparently reading where his mind had gone. "Fair warning though, at best they're folk spells for strengthening the body. Learning them won't extend your lifespan."
"That's fine."
"Then I'll teach you now..." Frieren wasn't particular about the setting.
Just as Banxia settled in to listen, ready to feed a few more spells into the system, the kind that might eventually be cultivated into something lifespan-related,
BOOM!
A violent crash erupted from the floor above. A heartbeat later, the entire labyrinth began to shake.
"What was that?"
They looked at each other. Frieren immediately moved to run.
Whatever had happened, at this rate the whole labyrinth would come down before long. Stay any longer and they'd be buried in the rubble.
"You're too slow."
Before Frieren could make sense of the puzzled look forming on her own face, the young man hoisted her onto his shoulder, became a streak of light, and shot down the stairs.
"...Fast."
...
➤ Next: Surprised Frieren — Steel and Blood