Dungeon Raider System

Walter looked as if he swallowed a handful of bugs, his face became pale and his strength seemingly abandoned him. For a few seconds he looked like any regular old man as he struggled to get to a chair.

The chair moved with a sharp noise prompting two bodyguards to enter the room in an instant and, after they confirmed there wasn't any immediate threat, they waited for Walter to dismiss them, but the old man was too taken aback to do it.

"You don't expect me to believe you at face value, do you?" Walter muttered in disbelief.

"Then why don't you put it to the test." Uriel extended his arm out of the sheets. "Does anyone have a knife?" Uriel asked, a little curious about what would happen.

Confounded, the two bodyguards just stared at each other and then at Walter who nodded at them. Uriel grabbed the knife provided by one of the bodyguards and slid it across the palm of his hand in the most dramatic way possible.

He could feel how tough his new skin was, but the high quality knife was able to play its part without issues and a small streak of blood was drawn on his hand. Uriel showed it to Walter and wiped it on the white sheets, uncaring of the mess it would make, and then he showed his hand again to everyone.

"There's no wound! Not even a heavenly rank could heal that fast!" Walter exclaimed in admiration, forgetting for a brief moment about his crushed dreams of being young again. Uriel's stunt was all the evidence Walter needed to believe him since pulling something like that in front of witnesses and without any preparation would have been impossible for someone like Uriel.

"So, now that we cleared that up let's move on to the next thing. I take it you're not really interested in the cultural findings I made during the investigation and it was just a ruse to get me to cooperate in searching for the fountain of youth."

"No, I mean, yes. I like archaeology as much as the next guy, but my goal was always to find the fountain of youth."

"I get it now, but since we're being honest. The fact that I didn't find it, doesn't necessarily mean there's nothing to find. Perhaps we could have better luck next time." Uriel proposed with the intention of appearing as cooperative as he could.

Besides, if he was invited on another expedition to Chichén Itzá, he might be able to learn what happened to the ancient civilization that lived there before the Maya.

"I don't have the funds for something like that, not after all we lost, but you can write a report later and I'll make sure you're compensated properly. There's just one more thing I want to know. What happened to Nika?" Walter asked more curious than worried.

"I don't have a clue." Uriel lied through his teeth. He didn't to make Nika any favors, but if he outed her right now she could do the same to him and that was a risk he wasn't willing to take. "We got separated after being betrayed by Flanagan."

"I think I owe you an apologize Mister Sage, I'm sorry for all I put you through. I also want to thank you, from what everyone told me you saved many lives that day and you made great advances in the investigation, all by yourself." Walter bowed his head slightly towards Uriel, something the bodyguards accompanying him tried to prevent pointlessly.

Walter knew it wasn't Uriel's fault the expedition failed, in fact, it was his own people the ones responsible for all the deaths and monetary loss.

"About the money..." Being thanked by Walter Works himself was flattering, but Uriel had no use for kind words, especially now that he learned that Walter had no interest on archaeology whatsoever.

"How greedy!" Walter chuckled. "I'll have your payment transferred to you, but be warned, Miss Stella already informed me that you took an orichalcum dagger for yourself. Even if you lost it, you still claimed it so its estimated price will be deducted from your payment." Walter explained and then exited the room along with his bodyguards.

Even though Uriel would receive less money, he didn't feel it was unfair. If anything, the price for acquiring the orcichalcum dagger was a bargain. Not only the dagger saved his life, it also showed him visions of the past and allowed him to speak to Water warlock himself.

Anything related to the ancestral civilization was a treasure much larger than Uriel could have ever hope to acquire as it could hold the key to unravel the mysteries beyond the 'arrival' of cryptids, though Uriel was more interested in the cultural implications and the possibility of an alien race being the ones responsible for building the pyramids.

After all, Water warlock, Dearest one and Father of many nations all looked like humans, but they were also very different.

Someone like Uriel, though, wouldn't just spit theories without any hard evidence to back them up. Even when he theorized about the language, which seemed pretty wild at the time, he did so with as much evidence as he could gather.

Now that he was all by himself again, the time where Uriel could finally devote himself to checking the new artifact he acquired. Just the thought of a new exhibition room inside his museum tickled his soul in excitement. He closed his eyes and finally entered his museum to find out what changes occurred after becoming an ascended.

The place looked the same as always, there were the pedestals with his artifacts, the spacious room and nothing seemed out of place, but upon closer examination he noticed that the carvings had changed. In addition to the information displayed below every single artifact appeared the words: 'Discovered by an unremarkable archaeologist.'

It was a slight modification and yet, it changed the very way Uriel perceived himself.

Up until that point he had seen himself as nothing more than a child playing an archaeologist, but now even the system acknowledged him as an archaeologist, albeit an unremarkable one.

"Uriel?" Nika asked, calling for his attention.