Chapter: 877

*Click~ Vrr~*

Jay grabbed the bag and pulled out the odd pendant with a flat-fabric rope. For good measure, he waved it in front of the door a few times, and each time the door opened and closed, confirming his theory.

“So they have automatic doors and you need a special key to activate them. Interesting...� Jay nodded, adding mental notes down for if he ever constructed his own fortress.

It impressed Jay with how the castle on the surface was merely the tip of the iceberg, a merely small representation of what it truly was.

Using siege weapons it would be a simple task to destroy and break down a normal castle, and once an army had cleared out the uppermost rooms of the castle, it would be considered conquered.

However, an underground castle could not be destroyed by siege weapons, and there would be no telling how deep it would go. Sure, an army could clear it out, but will they have found every room and every secret passage?

A false basement could be added, and an occupying force would never be sure if it had cleared the castle. There could be multiple escape routes through the earth, or a labyrinth of identical passages; some enemies may simply get lost and die of starvation. Some passages could be used for a counter attack years later.

With these things in mind, Jay had gained much more from this dungeon than simple armor pieces, and he could reproduce and copy even those.

(Red, here.)

Jay held out the pendant key, giving it to Red as he had the skeleton lead the way.

[115 Exp]

Blue and Sweeper slew a knight, serving as a reminder for Jay to hurry. However, he received another notification a second after.

[Your skeleton is no more.]

“Oh good. Looks like Handy un-summoned itself. It will be nice having an extra skeleton around.� He nodded, quickly summoning Handy back and giving it some bones to make itself a sword.

Meanwhile, Jay and his other skeletons quickly went through the upper rooms of the hall, ignoring whatever was inside and instead looking for any signs of cracks or breaches in the walls that the plant may have grown into, or passages leading to other areas.

What the rooms all had in common was that they were different kinds of laboratories; some for chemicals, some for biology and others for materials. Many of the rooms contained oddities which surprised Jay, and he desired to investigate each and everyone one of them, but time was pressing, and so far there were no signs of the plant.

“Looks like we’re going downstairs.� Jay thought.

[115 Exp]

Another knight slain.

Reaching the bottom of the stairs, they went through a passage; lined with multiple large, thick metal doors all dented and broken. By the looks of it, something escaped using sheer force.

“Hopefully, whatever broke out of here has been dead for a while.� Jay thought, but slowed his steps to reduce noise.

The lights through the passage were no longer a pure white like above, but a dark red color, barely bright enough to see properly.

The passage soon opened up into a large circular room with a deep pit in the middle; a balcony went around the edges of the pit, which still had some glass windows overlooking the pit below.

“Hmm... this must be like an observation deck?� Jay wondered.

Looking into the pit, Jay finally saw what he was looking for - or at least, what he thought he was looking for.