Chapter 10: Chapter 10
Before he could even progress what was happening, why it was happening. What the hell he'd never even heard of dungeons breaking after a clear what was he supposed to do?! Jaune had already been hauled over Jain's shoulder like the most blonde bag of potatoes ever, and they took off running faster than he'd ever thought possible, impressive, especially when taking into account that the swordsman was carrying another person.
Jaune could do nothing but watch the cracks in the walls rapidly expand. The ghostly green flames as they flickered and died, buried in rubble. The dungeon walls that were speeding by impossibly fast simply breaking apart behind them.
Suddenly they were at the entrance, which he noticed due to the fact he saw the natural sunlight. Huh, they really hadn't taken long to clear it if it was still daytime.
The next moment he felt himself being flung into the air like a ragdoll, vaguely seeing Jain out of the corner of his eye jumping out after him before the entire cave collapsed.
The budding mage tried to tuck in all his limbs and imitate a ball, but he didn't quite manage, his body not able to keep up with his thought process. So he just sprawled onto the sands limbs stretched in all directions.
Right before he landed, he thought he saw some type of bird out of the corner of his eye. Weird thing to take note of in his situation.
Standing up, spitting sand from his mouth, Jaune turned to see if his partner had managed to land better than him.
Seeing Jain lying on his back breathing heavily, Jaune assumed he did, just that afterwards he hadn't the energy to stay standing.
Hobbling over to his companion he lay down as well, staring into the unbelievably blue sky.
It had all been so fast.
He'd almost died.
That was it. No more dungeons unless they were of the weak variety, this was getting ridiculous.
"Well, at least it didn't end as anticlimactically as we thought it did." Jain let out a chuckle next to him making Jaune turn his head incredulously.
"How can you be so calm?" It was hard to make a shrug unleash its full potential of 'whateverness' while lying down but Jain managed it.
"There is a reason that combat classes tend to have 20% mortality rate before they hit 30 years old," here Jain sighed, "and, after a while, you come to terms with the fact that your life can end at any time."
"That's depressing. "Jaune said causing the swordsman to chuckle, "Ain't that right. You know I used to envy NCP's? I could just work a monotonous job, sometimes being able to curse at those incompetent heroes and adventurers when they failed to protect you. "He trailed off making Jaune ask through his plunging adrenaline level.
"What changed?"
"There are a lot of different forms of adventuring, I discarded being a hero very soon, it was too..." he sounded like it was looking for a word, "hmm, selfless. Dedicating your entire life to protecting others, who at most times wouldn't even be grateful but only condemn you for the ones you couldn't save."
He righted himself up. "After that I went over to adventuring, doing quests and dungeons and so on, but I didn't like that either."
Following his example, Jaune stood up as well. "So what do you like then?"
The swordsman turned to the sun that was slowly descending beneath the dunes, "I like making progress with the sword and, exploring, going places not many have been before."
"Of course, before I can go to the places absolutely nobody has been before, well let's just say I'm going to have to become a lot stronger."
Jaune stared at the sunset with his friend.
"Why did we stand up if we have to make camp now anyway."
"For the dramatic effect of staring at the setting sun while relying on only your legs to keep you upright."
"I have to admit, it does set a pretty nice atmosphere."
"It does doesn't it."
-/-
Jaune munched on some black bread gruel, lamenting over the taste as he tried to sense everything in proximity.
A single black bread can last an adult ten whole days and the way one usually consumed it was different than that of normal bread. Should one attempt to bite it as it is, one's teeth would undoubtedly fall out.
There were a few ways one could eat black bread. If there was ample time, it could be roasted over a fire and cut into half for meat to be sandwiched in between. If there wasn't enough time to roast it, the bread could be hammered into powder and cooked with water to make some gruel. It could also be consumed after simply softening it up with water and chewing it slowly before swallowing the clump.
With water being a precious resource in the desert they'd been eating black bread as it was, their strength Stat carried over to their jaw musculature after all. Even if Jaune had had a few problems at first until he'd discovered the trick of cutting it up into smaller pieces and then softening it up with saliva.
Thankfully that wasn't necessary anymore, the place where the journal dictated the pyramid resided in was close to an oasis, so they had enough water to spare their teeth.
This didn't make his frustration over the fact he couldn't find their goal any better. At this point, he had been the only one who had profited from this trip, gaining two levels from the occasional
Grimm horde and the dungeon they had been in.
Jain had at best gotten some experience in teaching others the way of the sword. Jaune stood up and started pacing angrily. Sending arcane bolts in all directions under the pretence that he was training, not simply venting.
"Are you still mad about not finding anything?" Jain said from where he was sitting and butchering some cacti so they would finally have some variety in their food.
Jaune looked at him incredulously, "No, I'm mad because the only damn place you can find mosquitos in this damn desert is apparently the oasis we spent yesterday at."
Jain sighed, "Come on Jaune, don't lash out at me. I'm pretty disappointed as well, but you don't see me raging my ass off."
Jaune saw a small tower of sand and walked over to it while talking, "I know, I know, but I thought I could repay you for saving my life by helping you find the pyramid, but it's just." not finding any words to express his frustration he kicked the small dune.
Only to yelp in pain as his unarmoured feet, having left the greaves off as they didn't help with sensing, hit something hard.
"Motherfucker!" Hopping on one foot, he could basically feel as his other one became swollen, from the impact, "Which son of a bitch thought it was a good idea to hide a rock under some sand, come out and I will make your death painless!"
He looked over to Jain, who would usually be the one laughing at his misfortune, but the swordsman was just staring transfixed at the sand dune he'd kicked.
Suddenly not even bothering on standing up he scrambled there on all fours kicking up sand behind him. Throwing himself on the ground next to it he started shovelling the sand away with his bare hands to reveal a weathered stone underneath.
And another one.
And another one.
Suddenly he threw himself on his back and started laughing hysterically. Ignoring his throbbing leg he walked over to the madly laughing swordsman, maybe he had ingested the cacti raw and was now hallucinating.
He nudged him with his foot."Hey, are you okay?" Jain didn't stop laughing for a while but started noticeably losing out on air.
Once he had fully stopped he looked at Jaune and seemed to crack chuckling a bit every time he tried speaking."Well, just, the way you actually found the pyramid. After all, your talk about sensing, the way you found it is quite humorous."
Jaune looked over to the stone on the ground, it was quite square and there were two others underneath it and now that he knew it existed he sensed that it went on and on becoming bigger and bigger until it went out of his range.
Then it hit him.
He hadn't tried sensing underground this entire time.
Jaune stared into the sky.
"Are you fucking kidding me."
Then he promptly turned to the slightly hysteric swordsman. "So, what now." Jaune considered his job finished, he'd found the thing, even if *cough*, using slightly unorthodox means. Now it was Jain's turn to lead the expedition and to bring out all the treasures.
Jain furrowed his brow, "What do you mean what now." The words making Jaune shrug.
"Well, I found the thing, I don't know the plan for after that. We should secure the premises, prepare torches, and make sure we have enough water and food." Here he looked at Jain, suddenly a bit distraught, "You do have a plan, don't you?" The swordsman looked to the right and started whistling a tune. "Please tell me you actually thought of what we were going to do if we ever found the pyramid."
The whistling grew louder.
-/-
Several hours passed, the time Jain had said he needed to formulate a plan. Jaune had used this time to train arcane bolt, he was close to the next level, he could feel it in his bones. They sat down together to discuss what they were going to do.
"Ok Jaune, first things first, can your sensing reach into the pyramid, "The mage nodded, "Good then basically you will be making a map of what you can feel. Meanwhile I will be scouting everything in a square mile, so that after we enter no surprises find us. Also I will prepare some food. Cacti and the like, you have anything to add?" Jaune nodded.
"Torches." causing Jain to grimace.
"No can do, no wood,. Bad planning on my part, but to be fair I didn't actually expect us to find the pyramid, don't be mad at me for doubting your skill," he giggled. Jaune grimaced, yeah, skill. "Can your arcane bolt provide light? I've never really looked at it that closely."
"It can but it's minimal." The brown haired teen shrugged.
"Better than nothing, here the writing supplies." He pushed a piece of parchment and pencil into Jaune's hand then ran off.
A bit too eagerly in Jaune's opinion. Well, searching for the pyramid for who knows how many months was bound to get anyone hyped up.
Kneeling down next to the uncovered top of the pyramid he stretched out his senses, then promptly sighed.
"We're gonna have a problem here. "For the umpteenth time this day, Jaune threw himself backwards into the sands and stared into the clear sky. So boring, there were never any clouds here. He should have expected this honestly, what kind of pyramid, had anything in the top.
The entrance was at ground level and so were the rooms, the structure was too big for his sensing to come even remotely close to a room.
Their only option they had was to, ugh, excavate it. How they were going to do that was a mystery, maybe they could just blast it open with powerful skills? Or, if it was deemed too fragile, they might have to unbury it, one handful of sand after the other.
Having nothing to do, Jaune picked up one of the practice swords they'd brought along and started swinging.
"Why is the paper empty, is the pyramid coated in anti magic stones?" Jain did not sound happy, nor did he look happy. With scratches all over him, tears in his clothes and dishevelled hair his appearance told a story of battle all in itself. At least he wasn't angry, Jaune didn't deal well with anger, the swordsman was just exasperated.
The mage sighed at the news he was about to give on, "So you know, the entrance to a pyramid is usually at the base.." He didn't need to say much.
After the few words, Jain groaned and eerily similar to himself when he found out. Threw himself on the ground to look at the setting sun.
Or maybe he himself was eerily similar to Jain, people you respected and spent time with rubbed off on you after all.
"So what do you think about the structural integrity, can we just blast it open, or do we have to slowly unbury it?" Jaune pointed at himself as if asking if the question was directed at him.
"Well you're the only other person here," Jain looked around suspiciously, "hopefully and you are a mage, so you have more general knowledge than me."
Jaune considered his words carefully,"It's fifty-fifty at this point, we can either do it fast, but risk it collapsing, or slow and take a few weeks."
The constipated look did not suit the swordsman's face, then he spoke as if through gritted teeth, "Jaune, how good are your digging skills?"
"I was afraid you'd say that."
-/-
A swordsman and a mage lay exhausted in the shade of a gigantic structure made up of rough sandstone, held together by old age and the symbolical power it contained.
Gasping for breath and occasionally blowing some hair out of his eyes, he was also going to need to cut it soon, Jaune stared at his hands, covered in scratches and calloused as they were.
"Well, at least no one can call me out on having the hands of a woman anymore." Jain laughed, "Yes, instead they will call you out on the fact that you have the hair of a woman!"
Jaune threaded his fingers through his shaggy hair that almost reached down to his shoulder blades. It was losing its colour as well, slowly bleaching itself from the exposure to the sun, the opposite of his body actually.
His skin was growing darker by the day, leaving the fish dungeon he'd been the usual pasty white of a Valean who spent too much time under the shade of the ever present trees.
The training sessions that he participated in shirtless had turned him browner, oh and the sunburns, couldn't forget the sunburns. But the last month, toiling under the sun in had given him the final push to turn into something that could be compared to a bronze statue. Jaune had liked his white skin...
"The oasis is drying out." The mage commented. Jain nodded before answering.
"Estimated time, I'd say we have-" The words put the swordsman into deep thought as he calculated before he finally answered. "Two weeks."
Jaune stood up and started dressing in his battle gear, "No time to waste then, the way to the next oasis once we start heading back is one week, so we have one and a half weeks maximum to explore the pyramid, if we stretch it." Fastening the frog to his pants, he looked over to the Jain to see that the man was already finished.
At his questioning look, the man shrugged and answered, "Practice."
Gathering up most the campsite, or at where they had spent quite a large portion of their time seemed oddly final and brought a sense of melancholy with it, the weeks they'd spend here had been, fun, if you could believe it. Definitely hard, but, fun nonetheless.
Now it would be over soon. After exploring the pyramid, they would return to Sanshu and plan their course from there, hopefully with new levels of swordsmanship under their belts.
Jaune summoned an arcane bolt as they entered the pyramid, the entrance looking like the gaping maw of some ferocious beast.
The flickering green light of Jaunes magic grew more and more necessary as they descended, leaving the outside world behind them.
It was weak, but strong enough.
"Stop."
Jaune halted and entered a defensive stance, bolt floating over his shoulder like some arcane form of a wisp.
"Can you bring the light closer to the walls? "Jaune did so and recognized why he had been asked, drawings were starting to appear on the walls. Murals of ages long past, showing scenes of battle with only one thing in common.
Every character, be it the holy man with a circlet of light floating above his head, or the black and red spawn of hell. They all had one thing in common. They were all holding swords.
Taking a look at Jain, he saw that the other teen was completely immersed. Not willing to pull him out of his concentration Jaune simply walked with him and shed light onto walls that hadn't been seen by other humans in probably a millenia.
They had to backtrack a few times, Jain wanted to take a look at both walls, the ceiling and to go back every time he thought he had missed something.
Jaune wondered if this was what others felt like when they helped a mage with their research. He would have to remember to not be so hyper-focused that he ignored everything, and everyone, in his radius.
Oh, it wasn't like he wasn't interested in the murals, it just wasn't the fanatical devotion that the swordsman seemed to display.
It wasn't long before they reached their first obstacle: a door. To Jaune's senses it was literally vibrating with magic. He got the idea that he would regret trying to open it by force. Only weird thing about this door, it had no hinges and no door knob, but it was clearly a door, somehow...
On the otherwise plain wooden door, they were 5 characters inscribed in different positions, characters he'd never seen before, and neither did he know of a language that used such.
Jain was muttering to himself, "A puzzle maybe, a riddle?" Jaune suddenly felt a slight shaking in his baggage. Putting it on the ground he rummaged through it only to find the compass with the sword like needle to be slowly pulling itself towards the door, trying to escape the hand grasping it.
Interested in what would happen Jaune let it go, it flew to the door and crashed into it with a bang. Something flashed, like light reflected from a mirror, Jain was ripped from his thoughts by the noise but before he could say anything the door had disintegrated.
The swordsman blinked," Well, that was definitely easier than expected." Jaune looked at him oddly.
"What riddle were you talking about?" Jaune asked causing the swordsman to turn to him in askance, "You didn't see it?" Jaune glared at him and said, "See what."
Jain explained, "There was a riddle on the door, about swords and cats and dogs and an apple." Jaune mused, "Maybe a class specific illusion? I am a mage in the sword god pyramid after all."
Jaune picked up the unharmed compass that was lying on the ground. "Maybe we should take a break." Jain simply shook his head and walked on, ignoring the fact that without Jaune he had no light. The mage sighed and followed.
The next room, it was a room, not a corridor, was home to many statues, statues that were very big as well. Nine in total. The statues were all of the same person, an old man with a flowing beard, even in stone and a just as flowing white robe, his eyebrows were bushy and he looked old, yet powerful.
He was also holding up a sword and demonstrating the basic sword stances. While Jain was more interested in the statues and was already trying to replicate the stances, the mage walked over to the other side of the room, where there was a wall with nine circles, each one filled with unreadable words.
Nine circles, nine statues. Suddenly one lit up a bright blue causing Jaune to recoil backwards in shock and start charging an arcane bolt.
Looking back he saw Jain perfectly imitating the stance of the first statue.
He muttered to himself, "So it was like this." He whistled at Jain causing him to cease his attempts at replicating the second stance and look up.
Without saying anything, he pointed at the wall with the one glowing circle behind him, Jain nodded, he was smart enough to understand what the wall meant without Jaune saying anything.
Suddenly he perked up and asked, "You don't want to give a try to learning the stances?" He seemed almost scandalized about Jaune's anti-enthusiasm. Jaune waved him off, "I would prefer if you showed them to me afterwards, you're a better teacher than some statues, "He looked at the aforementioned items, standing proud and majestic, "no matter how aesthetic they are."
No more words needed to be said, Jaune sat down to wait while Jain swiftly moved through the moves, he was no amateur after all. He could comprehend basic things almost instantly, to the point where he was done in what seemed like five minutes.
During this time Jaune had pulled out the compass to see if it would have any reaction to the wall, the results were, disappointing, maybe the compass was only a key to the front door.
The wall crumbled and broke away the same moment Jain finished the last statue. Showing a typical blocking stance, just with a bit more complicated footwork that would allow for higher mobility after a successful block.
By the time Jaune had stood up and dusted himself off Jain had already entered through the new opening, causing it to instantly reform, all the blue circles becoming devoid of light and colour once again.
Jaune face palmed and swore,"God dammit." Then he walked over to the entrance of the room, where the first statue was and tried to imitate it.
Sword held forward, tip raised slightly above the navel, knees bent, feet contorted into a position that would allow one to immediately jump into any direction. The basic stances present here all seemed to have the same philosophy, the philosophy of mobility that is.
Contrasting to the sword style of the Arc family, Arcs were Knights, so they used a shield which caused them to have a certain, lack of mobility. So, of course, Jaune would find it harder to learn it than Jain. This combat style actually suited him more than the defensive one of the Arc family, He wasn't a Knight after all.
The fact he was learning the moves of a slightly differing sword philosophy than the one he'd been learning for many years didn't make the fact that he took at least ten times as much time as Jain to finish the obstacle irk him any less
He was sweating and huffing by the time he finally managed to make all the circles light up, who would have thought only standing there and holding a sword in different positions would be so exhausting.
The moment he entered the hole in the wall he was hit by the destruction of the room they were now in.
They being Jaune, Jain and four wobbly looking skeletons holding up rusted swords, empty eye sockets blazing with an eerie light and looking like they would fall apart any second now.
Jain turned to him, lazily batting aside the attacks of the skeletons and spoke in a thoroughly bored voice, "Good you're here, I saved one for you, I think you're supposed to kill it with the moves you learnt from the statues."
Swiftly killing three of the still attacking skeletons he ran towards the adjacent wall and jumped onto it feet first, sticking his sword inside of the wall, probably between some cracks, he sat down on it. The weapon barely even bending under his weight.
Jaune scoffed, "Show-off." Before he turned towards the remaining skeleton that had just seemed to notice him. Oddly enough it took on a defensive stance, even though most of the time monsters were the first to attack.
Jaune surmised that he was the one who was supposed to initiate. Pulling himself into the already almost forgotten first stance leisurely, the thing wasn't moving after all. Then he suddenly lunged forwards, his calf muscles creaking in protest. The skeleton blocked, sword held horizontally from the ground.
Almost instinctively, Jaune switched over to the second move, a kick to the stomach and a lunge to stab the now floored opponent. The skeleton dodged the stab, sprang up and counterattacked with a diagonal downwards slash causing Jaune to slip into the third move, a block, almost identical to the one the skeleton himself had shown mere moment ago.
After the block, Jaune sprang forward to cut at the skeleton's ribs, the fourth move. As expected the 'match' ended in nine moves from the mage, the nine moves he'd learned in the previous room.
Jain spoke while slowly cutting his hair, it had probably gotten to long and had annoyed him in the fight, if you could call it such, "Pretty neat huh, first the theory then the application before one has a chance to forget it."
Jaune had to nod in agreement, it was an effective teaching method. He already found he had a better foundation than before. Astounding after spending as little as two hours attaining such.
He still had to pout though.
"Yeah, but," he threw his arms up in frustration, "Where are the cool moves that shake mountains and split oceans."
Jain laughed.
CREATORS' THOUGHTS 
Bor902
Bor902 If you like this you may enjoy my other stories as well:
-https://www.webnovel.com/book/the-education-of-harry-evans-a-death-well-lived_26306462405695305
-https://www.webnovel.com/book/malicious-magical-malfoy-(reincarnation)_26534657605412605
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