章 88: Entering The Third Vault

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The tunnel leading to the third vault was a long one. While falling through the tunnel, Quinn estimated that the depth was at least thirty meters. He could see light at the end of the tunnel, but the passage to that light was dark, making it hard for Quinn to see anything other than the end he was swimming towards.

Thus, the second Quinn entered the tunnel, he lit up his surroundings to observe, not because he wanted to have some light as he was half falling-half swimming to increase his falling speed, but in case there was something of interest and importance on the tunnel's walls. The result he was able to glean at, as he passed the stone walls, was that the tunnel walls were smooth and clean. There were no signs of any markings or etchings that gave any information about what was to come.

Quinn felt relieved and worried while swimming through the tunnel. He was relieved because there was no extra information that needed to be memorized on the fly before exiting the tunnel, and he was worried because he was once again stepping into the unknown with no idea of what would come.

He was sure that whatever came was related to water because it was what he had interpreted from Friar's riddle. So he ramped up the water magic around him and got himself ready as he closed in towards the light at the end.

The thing at the end of the tunnel wasn't what he was expecting. Quinn was expecting there to be water when he exited the tunnel, but the reality was one-eighty degrees different.

The moment his head exited the tunnel, his breathing hitched because there was no water outside the tunnel. He couldn't get any more water inside his body through his mouth. The second he came out of the tunnel, Quinn's pupils narrowed because of the sudden cut from an oxygen source. His respiratory system was magically transformed to work inside water, but that also meant that his natural respiratory system was reshaped and, thus, he couldn't exchange gases from the air.

Quinn gasped for a solid two to three seconds before his mind caught up to what was happening, prompting him to reverse all the transfigurations in his body and went back to his human respiratory system.

The water from his lung cavity was immediately gathered up and vanished so that there wasn't any fluid buildup, and when everything was cleared, Quinn took deep breaths through his mouth to get the airflow going. The erratic gasping subsided, and Quinn went back to breathing through his nose.

Recovering from the sudden surprise, Quinn noticed something unnatural in his current position. His eyes widened when he saw that his arms were resting on the rim of the tunnel.

"... I was swimming down, right?" asked Quinn to himself.

Quinn had swum into the tunnel down from the lake bed and expected to emerge from the other end; like falling 'down' from a ceiling vent. But instead, he climbed 'up' from a manhole in a road.

He stretched his hand to push himself back and looked 'below' to see that he could still see the lake end of the tunnel.

"Okay, this is freaky and really interesting," commented Quinn. He then decided to get out of the tunnel. He placed his hands on the rim of the tunnel and pushed himself up out of the water.

Standing on the edge of the tunnel, Quinn looked down, and even now, he could see the other side of the tunnel that opened up in the Great Lake. Quinn just needed to jump in the tunnel and sink or swim down to come out of the lake bed of the Great Lake.

"How did they do this?" remarked Quinn, looking at the dull stone cave, briefly looking for signs. "This cave is upside down. So cool~."

"Did gravity somehow switch without me knowing? Water does mess up with gravity perception," holding his chin with his hand, Quinn speculated, "Or is the tunnel some kind of portal, and I am in a separate dimension? Hoho, I will need to see what this is all about."

Quinn wasn't planning to research further this topic before completing the vault, because if the tunnel was indeed a portal, then messing with it could end up damaging the portal, and in turn, destroying the only known way to the third vault.

After admiring the magical phenomenon, Quinn roamed his eyes all over the cave.

Starting from the tunnel, Quinn noticed that not a single drop of water from the tunnel made its way into the stone cave itself. The tunnel was filled with water to the brim, but not a single drop had splashed into the cave after Quinn had pulled himself into the stone cave.

"There is some kind of anti-water ward in here," observed Quinn as he looked at the dry cave floor and then looked down at his body.

Not a single drop of water could be seen on Quinn's body. Combing a hand through his hair told him that even his hair was dry as if he had never swum his way into the cave.

"Yup, a version of anti-water ward," confirmed Quinn as he examined the credibility of his speculation by dunking his hand into the tunnel and pulling it back to see that not a single drop of water had made its way into the cave on his hand. "Does it mean I can't sweat in here, or do the hydrophobic properties only extend to the lake water?"

Scanning the other parts of the cave, Quinn looked up and examined the light source that illuminated the entire stone cave. It was a load of crystal sticking out of the roof, scattering soft water blue light all around the stone cave.

"A natural luminescent mineral crystal and a blue one at that. Blue ones are so rare!" slightly gasped Quinn. He had seen luminescent mineral crystals in his travels but had never seen the particular shade of blue like the one he was looking at right now.

The luminescent mineral crystal could be replicated with alchemy, but because the alchemists were rare, artificial crystals weren't widely available. The people who hired alchemists didn't ask for glowing crystals when they could have an alchemist produce other, more significant things.

"Maybe I could make some of them for the living hall," murmured Quinn, thinking about how the living hall would look like in the light of a luminescent mineral crystal. "Nah, I should make runic lights for the entire manor. At least that way, they could be turned off when not needed."

Strolling away from the tunnel, Quinn wandered towards the part of the cave that had a room-wide, three-step short staircase.

The stone steps on the floor acted as a divider inside the cave. The cave before the steps was like any stone cave you could find in the wild, but the area after the steps was definitely man-made.

Instead of the rough walls and ceiling of the first part of the cave, the second part of the cave had no partition between the walls and ceiling. All the surface part floors were melded together to form a dome.

And at the furthest end of the dome, there was a triangular opening in the dome wall. Similar to the tunnel, it, too, was filled entirely with water. And just like the tunnel, there wasn't a drop of water spilled out of the triangular opening, despite the triangular opening standing vertically to the floor.

Slowly descending the short steps, Quinn came across some movement because of the triangular entrance. The second Quinn stepped down for the last time, the stone sunk at some places to form engraved words in the wall.

Large engraved words formed above the entrance to form the words,

「<-~| POSEIDON'S WRATH |~->」

Words appeared on the left side of the entrance.

「Beware, challenger! Enter the entrance and you shall feel the wrath of god! 'This is not for the soft-hearted and weak! Think before entering because god's fury doesn't have eyes.」

Another set of words appeared on the right side of the wall that said.

「The trials are long and arduous! To understand the Law, you, brave challenger, will need some aid. Wish it upon the water, and you will return to the safety, away from peril!」

Fluidly an orb of water came out of the water inside the triangular entrance and gently floated towards Quinn. It stopped a short distance away from him.

The orb of water emitted faint magic. Quinn noticed that the words were on the right side of the wall. In addition, he could tell that this orb of water was the aid he was told that he'd have in the words engraved on the right side of the wall.

He walked around the water orb, observing it and carefully casting some magic to see what kind of magic was used inside the water. After some deliberation and internal debate, Quinn confirmed that the water orb wasn't harmful to him.

"No harm in giving it some help," shrugged Quinn as he stepped closer to the orb and gracefully lifted his right hand towards the water orb and gently touched the water orb with his index finger.

The water orb shone faint blue before the water rippled and went inside Quinn through his finger.

"Woah! Hey! Woah! Flippin' hell," exclaimed Quinn as he watched the water get sucked into his body, followed by a brief spike of light on his inner forearm.

In a surprise, Quinn withdrew his hand and turned it over to see that his previously unmarked forearm now had a navy blue symbol on it. Quinn could feel that if he channeled magic into the emblem on his skin, it would trigger whatever magic present in the water that went inside Quinn's body.

"Not cool! I hope this isn't permanent," sighed Quinn as he rubbed his marked skin. "This design isn't what I want my first tattoo to be. Hell, I don't even want a tattoo!" exclaimed Quinn while shaking his head.

Quinn closed his eyes while heavily exhaling, but when he opened them, Quinn had changed to a focused expression as he stared at the triangular entrance filled with water.

"Let's do this."

He walked to the triangular opening, held his breath, closed his eyes, and dived into the water without hesitation. Feeling the lukewarm water against his skin, which was much warmer than the cold Great Lake, Quinn primed his magic to change his body through transfiguration. After submerging his entire body, Quinn opened his eyes and noticed that the water was cleaner than the lake water, and, because of that, he could see better in that water.

Quinn was about to transfigure his body to add the underwater respiratory system with transfiguration, when he felt the familiar feeling that he had felt many times in his life, especially during this past summer break.

There was a tug on his entire body and the momentary lack of sensory input. He had felt the similar tug at least twice every day while he went back and forth between the West manor and Kaewpadung Gym.

'I'm being teleported!' thought Quinn, and just then, he re-emerged into a completely different place. He didn't appear in the water anymore, but somewhere he was least expecting to be.

A wide-eyed Quinn stared down from a height of five meters down a humongous raging whirlpool. Watching the gigantic sinkhole sucking and spitting out water, something that was formed because of opposing forces meeting each other to create a chaotic maelstrom, a fierce force of nature.

"Oh, shit!" yelled Quinn as he fell.

The five-meter fall went very quickly. Between the shock of being teleported and the stunning surprise at seeing that monstrous water vortex, Quinn didn't have time or the initiative to make any magic work.

Splashing heavily, Quinn entered the turbulent water and was immediately swept into the stormy waves. The strong waves blasted against Quinn's entire body as he quickly was pulled deeper into the brutal maelstrom.

For a full ten seconds, that became the longest ten seconds of Quinn's life, as his entire body was being pulled apart from all directions by the might from the revolving water waves.

It took him ten seconds, an amount of time that was a critical time inside these conditions to get his mind back on track to difficulty pulling his body into a fetal position.

Every ounce of water magic he knew was used to barely being able to pull himself together and attain a position with minimal surface area for the whirlpool water to work on. He had gone from using water magic to swimming in calm water, to using it to decrease his injury chances.

With his eyes closed, Quinn concentrated his magic to transfigure himself a gill system. He already had water inside his body because of the suddenness of his fall, which caused Quinn to swallow a lot of water that went straight to his lungs.

Transfiguring with water continuously slamming into his body was difficult, and he even failed once before he was able to get the aquatic respiratory system working.

But the situation gave him another twist when water entered his body through the gill flaps, and the second Quinn felt it, he pulled the plug. The turbulent water could critically damage his insides if he didn't leave now.

He channeled magic into the insignia on his arm, and it glowed for a split second before Quinn disappeared from the whirlpool.

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The water inside the triangle entrance rippled for a second before Quinn came out with a calm water sphere surrounding him. The water sphere floated a distance from the entrance before gently setting Quinn on the ground before vanishing like it was never there.

For a few seconds, Quinn laid on the floor, showing no movements except for the furrowed before his chest throbbed, and he coughed out some water inside his body that was promptly vanished by the cave ward the second it came outside Quinn's body.

Quinn rolled over and his elbow to lift his chest up and used his other hand to pound his chest while coughing. He had just vanished the backlog of water that was not expelled from the previous cough.

He collapsed back on the floor, rolled over to his back, and took deep breaths through his mouth as his chest heaved up and down.

There was no cursing externally or internally as Quinn regained his mental facilities and showed it by lifting his right arm to observe it.

'The mark is gone,' noticed Quinn, entering full analysis mode.

'One-time usage,' thought Quinn and then raised his head to see in the entrance's direction and saw another water orb floating there as if waiting for Quinn to touch it and take its place in his arm.

'A portkey type of magic? At least something similar with additional magic,' theorized Quinn, thinking back to his experience. 'I went from turbulent water to the calm water at the entrance. I was definitely teleported and then brought out here.'

He sat up and stared past the water orb at the triangular entrance. Quinn couldn't see anything inside, but the words [Poseidon's Wrath] were staring him in the eye, telling him that the entrance was the gate to the chaotic waters.

Quinn got up and started pacing back and forth under the dome-shaped part of the cave.

"A big-ass maelstrom. That wasn't natural. Not at all," dismissed Quinn with a shake of his head. "Natural water whirlpools aren't that powerful. That was definitely maintained deliberately to perform with that level of rotational force."

"I barely have any information. Was it a real place on Earth, or was it an expanded dimension? I couldn't see the 'sky' or else I would have known."

Quinn clicked his tongue because of the extremity of the conditions and the short time he had spent inside.

"If it was an expanded dimension -." Quinn's guess between a place on Earth or a magically created dimension was the latter. "- then how big was the place. Is there a limit to the depth? Would I have reached depth if I had stayed in there?"

There were a lot of questions related to the properties of the magical maelstrom in his mind. But the biggest question in his mind was,

"What do I have to accomplish in there? What's the goal? The end line?"

Quinn sighed as he stretched his body and felt the dull ache erupting in his limbs and joints.

"Argh, I took some beating in there," groaned Quinn. His chest, back, and limbs hurt from being pulled apart inside the whirlpool. "I need to fix that before tomorrow."

The injuries weren't serious, and he could fix them in a jiffy, but he wasn't looking forward to getting this beat up every day.

"Just need to get better at water magic to make myself comfortable there. Oh gosh, look at me~. My first thought is to get comfortable instead of avoiding that. How far I have come," smiled Quinn, completely oblivious that he was on the M-path.

"Baby steps~" sighed Quinn and looked at the words etched in the stone walls.

Even though the first attempt was a total failure, Quinn had a smile on his face because it was a start.

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Quinn West - MC - Whirlpool~ Whirlpool~~ - (Does any get this reference. It is a TV jingle.)

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