His affinity existing here didn’t surprise him. He’d found it nearly everywhere, just in miniscule quantities.
But this tunnel was large. Easily thirty paces in height, and thirty across. Prana Vision’s resolution at that range was awful.
If Ash prana existed here in the densities he’d seen elsewhere, then he shouldn’t have been able to see it.
Which means…
Vir walked up to a tunnel wall and peered into its depths. He wasn’t imagining things. The Ash prana density was easily thrice its usual.
On a whim, he sucked prana into his legs to engage Leap… and nearly failed. The onrush of prana was so significant, it almost overloaded his body.
That didn’t even take a half second to fully charge! If Vir could access this amount of prana everywhere, his Balar Rank would be far, far higher.
From then on, Vir didn’t bother walking. He alternated between Leap and Dance of the Shadow Demon to cover ground far more rapidly than he was used to. Even the prana hungry Dance barely took a second and a half to charge up.
So this is what Talent wielders get to experience…
Soon after this discovery, he came to his first junction. A four-way intersection, with each tunnel as large as the one he’d come from.
And it was there he saw the first traces of something living. Not a monster… but its footprints. Webbed, three-pronged things that ended in claws, based on their indentation in the road. Having tracked animals in the Godshollow all his life, Vir picked up on them immediately.
And from their size—about three times the length of his own boot—this was not a small animal. The path led off into one of the intersecting tunnels, and so Vir crossed that off as a viable option.
That left two passages—he could either go straight or turn left.
He was about to choose one at random when he sensed something. Only noticing it because of how alert he’d been.
The Ash prana was in the air, too. That was a first. He’d only ever seen Ash prana occupy the air in Shardul and Ekanai’s memories.
What’s more, the Ash prana was distinctly stronger coming from the left tunnel. It was as if the prana beckoned him, inviting him to follow it.
Vir had no reason to refuse. He entered the tunnel, letting Prana Vision guide him.
Before long, he came upon another junction, and again followed the trail of prana, which grew stronger and stronger as he progressed.
Vir tried to ignore the little voice in his head that told him this prana trail was taking him deeper underground. Away from the surface. Away from safety.
Just as he began to wonder whether this tunnel was a remnant from the Age of Gods, a silhouette popped up in the distance. A building, tall and rectangular, that lay on its side, broken.
Vir hesitantly approached and laid a hand on its smooth metallic surface.
Metal! Vir thought in alarm. The entire building was flush, with not a single protrusion or door, and every inch was steel.
The sheer expense of such a feat boggled his mind. Metal was precious. Swords of high-quality steel were expensive enough. To construct an entire building out of it? It sounded impossible.
This wasn’t the kind of luxury one ever saw in the Known World.
No…
He corrected himself as the truth dawned on him. Not something from the Age of Realms.
But in the Age of Gods? He imagined such feats were quite possible.
Somehow, by some trick of fate, he’d stumbled into ruins from the Age of Gods over four millennia ago. He might have been the first to do so in thousands of years.
Or perhaps those who came down here never lived to tell the tale…
Vir pressed on down the road. A marked transformation had occurred since he’d encountered the building. Both the road and the walls were far more intact in this section of the tunnel, compared to where he’d first started. Life and Water prana coursed through the intricately carved patterns that bordered the road. The dancing patterns of the prana looked like art to his eyes.
No! Not like art! It is art!
Vir had seen a small handful of paintings, usually brought through Brij by traveling merchants, bound for greener pastures. Sometimes, they’d even tried to explain what made them tick.
It had all sounded like gibberish to Vir at the time, but after Prana Vision, he’d seen how colors could complement each other, and how certain images and painted scenes could please the eyes.
What he saw now made all of that look like a three-year-old’s charcoal scribblings.
The prana patterns intertwined and complemented the etched carvings, forming a tapestry of art that was neither prana nor physical, but both intermingled and woven together.
With each step he took, more and more of the glory of the Gods’ architecture revealed itself, until it felt like the entire tunnel became an art piece, bursting with a rainbow of prana affinities.
In the distance, Vir saw the end of the tunnel. Cautiously, he walked up to its entrance… and then, in a cavern so large that Prana Vision couldn’t discern its ceiling, he saw it.
A sight beyond anything in this realm. A place that should not have existed. That should have been lost to time.
A city of the gods.
Not ruined, or destroyed, but proudly standing tall. As if awaiting the return of its former inhabitants.
Before he’d realized it, Vir had fallen to his knees, staring up at the myriad of tall spires that defied gravity. He’d never seen buildings that soared so high.
Carefully, katar in hand, he put one foot in front of another, and strode upon the hallowed road.
Like the tunnels until now, this space was pitch-black.
At least, it was until Vir stepped onto the road that led to it.
One by one, buildings flickered to life, roused from their slumber of centuries. They emanated an artificial blue-white glow that mesmerized Vir. The road to the city burst with light, illuminating a path.
As if he was being welcomed. As if he was expected.
As each building flared, prana erupted from them. Ash prana. Vir had never experienced such an incredible density of Ash prana. There was so much of it he didn’t even have to worry about preventing prana leakage. In fact, the prana was so oppressive that it pushed itself into his body, making for a slightly uncomfortable sensation.
Before long, the entire cavern glowed with light thrown off by the ancient city, allowing him to see that the group of structures weren’t merely in the cavern, they were situated on a sort of island within the cavern.
A cavern that had no floor. The road he thought he was on was actually a bridge, which spanned across an abyss so deep, Vir felt it stretched to the very core of the earth.
As for the island the city sat upon, well, it floated midair.
“Like a Vimana,” Vir whispered.
The bridge, like the rest of the city, was well lit, with blue-white ground lighting running along the sides of the path, illuminating the way.
As he neared the sacred city, the buildings’ details became visible. Almost nothing was untouched by prana. Every affinity—Shadow and Earth included—ran up and down these buildings, forming intricate, ever-shifting patterns that were beautiful in a way Vir couldn’t find words to describe. And, dominating over all the other affinities was Ash prana. As if given a place of special importance.
The way its builders incorporated prana into their architecture reminded Vir of a seric sword. There was power here. Genuine power. As if that was its primary purpose, but because its builders were such masters, it somehow ended up looking beautiful and elegant anyway.