Gaven directly applied the Bionic Art of Bull’s Strength, Enlarge, Overclocking, and combined with the external enhancements from the Dragon’s Tooth Gloves, bringing his strength to a staggering 25 points. The Gnolls also activated their Enlargement spells.
Together, they managed to move the huge wooden bed with creaking sounds.
"Kunte," Gaven called out to the leading Gnoll.
The Gnoll immediately stopped dragging and agilely jumped inside, picking up a small pointed hammer, and started to tap the ground bit by bit.
The Gnoll nodded towards Gaven and said, "It’s hollow, there’s a secret passage below, not just a hidden door, it’s been sealed with a Stone Shaping Spell, at least one and a half meters thick."
"That’s easy to handle," said Gaven as he took out ten Dragon Tremor Bombs from the Portable Dimensional Hole and handed them to Kunte, "Directional Demolition, blow it open for me."
"No... no... no need, I haven’t started using my spell slots for today, just... just... just give it to me and I’ll handle it," Anna said as she came over, attracted by the commotion. With her round face blushing like a ripe apple, she quickly spoke up, seeing Gaven eager to resort to force.
"Look at me getting ahead of myself, completely forgot about that. Okay, give it a try first and see if you can carve out a door. If it doesn’t work, then we’ll go ahead with the demolition," Gaven couldn’t help smacking his forehead, feeling a bit flustered by the turn of events, as this was all about his path to advancement.
"Okay," Anna said as she turned over the bed and walked over to where the Gnoll Magician stood. She tried hard to concentrate and focus on casting the spell, but her thoughts involuntarily wandered off to Gaven’s recent actions, especially since the room they were in was special. The scenes in the previous oil paintings started to drift out of her mind uninvited.
As her thoughts wandered, the male and female protagonists in the paintings were no longer as they had appeared, but had transformed into herself and Mr. Gaven.
This made her feel as though she was nearly combusting, and after several attempts, she failed to successfully cast the spell.
"What’s the matter? Any problems?" Gaven asked with concern on the side, completely oblivious to the trouble his excitement had caused.
"No... no... nothing," Anna hurriedly began reciting an incantation, but it wasn’t for the Stone Shaping Spell; rather, it was for Healing Minor Injuries.
Having polished this chant to perfection in her efforts to cure her own casting flaws, it was etched into her very bones. The more intense the pressure, the smoother it came out, and then she directly cast it upon herself. A sensation like countless ants crawling spread instantly all over her body, lasting for several seconds before completely subsiding.
Her Healing Divine Art took effect, and although it didn’t have terrible side effects, it wasn’t entirely pleasant either.
However, this discomfort actually helped her greatly, shifting her attention entirely and allowing her to prepare the Stone Shaping Spell.
As she attuned to the huge rocks underground, the stone slab started to come alive, growing upwards and to the sides.
The slab sealing the door was thick enough that Anna had to invoke four Stone Shaping Spells before she could barely manage to carve out a passageway just big enough to crawl through. It was a dark, downward-sloping passageway, the sort one could see to the end of at a glance, empty at the far end with nothing in sight.
At least, that’s what it looked like to the average person.
But through the eyes of Gaven with the Eye of Truth activated, the end of the tunnel was shrouded in Mist. And within that Mist, a small cabin loomed faintly visible. Even with layers of Mist between them, Gaven could still sense the uniqueness of the cabin and the strong magic fluctuations it emitted.
The target he had been searching for was right there.
With just a glance, he was 100% certain.
However, seeing was one thing; getting inside was another.
That cabin was unmistakably on the Ether Plane.
Visible, yet untouchable.
Even for Gaven, a quick fix wasn’t immediately apparent.
Transforming oneself into an Ethereal Body capable of entering the Ether Plane, which is a seventh-level spell, was something no one under his command knew and was also a personal spell that could only be cast on oneself.
The ninth-level Spirit Travel Spell, which could take others into the Ether Plane along with the caster, was beyond Gaven’s ability. Even if he did know such high-caliber Spellcasters, he wouldn’t dare to bring them here to assist with this task. Who knew if they would turn against him once the job was done, claiming the treasures inside for themselves? After all, the Spellbook in question was a legacy from Nesserel, with tempting allure.
The third-level Flash Spell, due to its nature of flickering between the Material Plane and the Ether Plane, did grant one the ability to enter the Ether Plane, but the duration was too brief. The principle of the Flash Spell is to stay on the Ether Plane for a round (six seconds) and then return to the Material Plane for a round, and then jump back to the Ether Plane, and so on.
Once the spell was cast, it would uncontrollably bounce back and forth.
And the cunning part of the planner’s scheme was that the area of the Material Plane that overlapped with where the cabin was on the Ether Plane was a massive rock.
Even if you advanced a certain distance using the Flash Spell during the six seconds on the Ether Plane, once you flashed back to the Material Plane, you’d be facing the giant rock.
While you wouldn’t be embedded in the rock, you would be forcibly expelled, and each time you’d be thrust out around a meter and a half, resulting in 1D6 of damage.
What’s more, your excursion into the Ether Plane would be for nought, for the next entry would place you at the original position, while the cabin was at least twenty meters inside the rock.
The idea of tunneling directly through the rock to get close to the cabin was equally impractical.
The reason the cabin was situated in its current location was surely due to a planar anchor set on the rock above. If the anchor was accidentally destroyed, the cabin might outright vanish into the Ether Plane, leaving no trace, turning the task of locating it again, without specific guidance, into finding a needle in a haystack.