"How do you activate this thing?"
The two walked around the pillar as they inspected it with their eyes. As unique as it seemed, the pillar looked very much normal. It didn't exude any light whatsoever to know if it was even still working.
However, they knew that there was a way to actually activate it. They only had to find it.
"Didn't those players mention how they got it working?" Arthur asked as he traced his hand over the runic words carved into the hard stone. He was searching for a trigger or a button that could make it work.
"No, I don't remember seeing anything like that," Isla replied. "They probably didn't want to reveal that to others."
'Stingy bastards.' Arthur rolled his eyes. 'Well, I'm a stingy bastard too so I can't really blame them for hiding it. It's already very generous that they revealed this to the world.'
Since there was an unfathomable number of players playing the game every single day, things were bound to be discovered quickly. The first few days were slow since people were still getting accustomed to the world, but now, there was a new discovery every single second.
Arthur was certain that a good chunk of the forest had already been discovered and people were quickly moving deeper and deeper. It was only a matter of time before the entire First Step Region was completely mapped.
Those who were the first to discover something would naturally wish to show that to the world and gain a lot of respect and recognition.
'They all want to become new celebrities. The top 100 players are already gaining a lot of media attention and that will only get bigger and bigger.'
As Arthur was deep into his own thoughts, he didn't notice a small amount of mana leak through his fingers. However, upon exiting, the energy was instantly absorbed by the pillar and for a moment, the runes on the stone shone with a faint blue light.
"Hm?" The boy caught that as he snapped out of his daze. "Was that…?" He squinted his eyes as he looked at the runes again.
'I swear I saw them just light up.' He thought to himself. 'What did I just do to trigger that? Wait, could it be mana?'
Having a curious thought, he tried to experiment. He put his hand on the pillar and channeled mana to his hand. Almost instantly, the runes lit up again.
"Oh! I think I found it!" He exclaimed.
"What did you find?" Isla walked around to check what he saw. There, she noticed the runes had lit up.
"It's mana. We activate it through mana." He replied. Then, he put his second hand on the rough pillar and channeled even more energy into it. The runes lit up even brighter than before and the energy slowly spread from there to the rest of the runes around it.
Slowly, one by one, they all started lighting up brightly like small stars.
'This is consuming a surprising amount of mana.' Arthur raised his eyebrows as he focused on moving even more energy into the pillar. Luckily, he had a lot more Mana than when he started so he assumed it wouldn't be a problem.
However, Isla noticed that. Then, with a blank expression, she put her hands on the pillar too, and started channeling her mana. Almost instantly, the progress accelerated considerably.
Arthur turned to look at Isla. "You don't have to do this."
"No, I don't want you to spend all your energy on this. You need your abilities for an emergency." She replied. "We can share."
"..." Arthur blinked in surprise as he stared at the girl silently. His eyes flashed with an incomprehensible glint before he turned away slowly. Nobody knew what was going through his head at that moment.
"Thanks." He said.
"... Any time," Isla replied.
The two continued channeling their energy in complete silence, watching in awe as the pillar lit up from its very base up to the very top. The scene looked so magical that it almost took their breath away. The runes twinkled brightly, merging with one another in what could only be described as a festival of light.
Eventually, the light reached the summit and from there, things completely shifted. The mana quickly accumulated at the top in the form of a blue sphere. Its radius continued to expand till it loomed over the duo. It looked like a balloon that was being pumped with air.
Then, at one point, that ball reached its limit and exploded. The explosion wasn't violent, and yet it looked shockingly beautiful.
Like a wave in the sea, the energy spread quickly everywhere at the same time. Ripples of it cut through the air as it went far away into the distance.
"Wow…" Arthur muttered in awe. The sky above them was now a beautiful color he had never seen before. "So beautiful."
[Ding!]
[You have discovered a 'Lesser Beacon'.]
[Ding!]
[Map has been updated.]
Snapping out his amazement, Arthur quickly opened his map. There, he saw the map slowly expand on its own all around him.
What was completely grey was now a highly detailed map that went a surprisingly far distance away from Arthur. However, what was even more interesting was that the map was showing many things on it too.
New marks that Arthur was not familiar with. Ones that looked like beasts that were moving around, and others that looked like chests. Not to mention the marks that looked like herbs and fruits.
"Holy sh-... This is huge!" He yelled excitedly. "Have you received it?"
"Yes… This is…" Isla muttered.
"It's great! This is going to make navigating the forest a lot easier for a good while. It seems to be showing us the locations of monsters and even hidden chests."
This one particular detail was perhaps the best thing they had found so far. If they could know where monsters are lurking, that would spare them the headache of staying on edge the entire time they were.
"This changes a lot of things, I tell you." Arthur giggled. "We can't simply ignore all these marks and continue on. There must be some pretty useful stuff scattered all around us and we would've not even known."
Even when he was saying that, the map was showing many interesting things close to the area where they were standing.
"... You're right. We need to check these marks. At least the more interesting ones." Isla nodded her head. "If we can pinpoint all the ones within our range, we can definitely do it while staying on schedule. That is very possible."
"Well, that will require some work. I will try to find some interesting ones myself. I'm really good at that."
"I would be thankful. For now, we need to go back." She replied. "It's already too late to do anything. We spend the night here and then we will move by dawn."
Isla then started walking away. Meanwhile, Arthur still curiously scrolled through the map.
As he was about to close it, his eyes fell on a particular mark on the map that instantly stood out like a sore thumb. The mark was that of a door, a stone door to be exact.
As small as the drawing was, Arthur recognized it instantly and his eyes widened with excitement.
"A memory gate… That's a memory gate!"
A//N: Don't forget to give the book some golden tickets for good luck! :3