Alex searched the whole room but he didn't find any hidden mechanism that opened the way to the basement. alex saw there there was a small back garden outside the window, he decided that it was better to check each and every single place thoroughly before moving ahead but there was nothing noticeable in the garden. except for long dead flowers there was nothing there of interest to him.
the only place remaining was the bathroom. the bathroom fit the description perfectly as no one would dare to enter the personal space for the woman without their permission. the bathroom might be a normal place for the men be for the rich women, the bathroom is a sacred place to cool down and a place to enjoy some therapeutic bath alone.
as he expected, there was a luxurious golden bathtub there and the bathroom was almost half the size of the bedroom. alex saw proper pipelines and crystal water taps that rivaled the modern water system in the place. alex sighed as most probably, no human in the apocalypse ridden world would have seen such a luxurious bathroom setup.
He was almost tempted to take a bath there but as he turned on the tap, there was no water coming. he then continued to look for hidden clues but couldn't find anything. at last his eyes landed on the small cupboard on the wall. as he opened the cupboard, he could see some old clothes there. as alex looked through the clothes, he realized that this was the cupboard that housed the undergarments of the princess.
'To think the princess would hide the key in this kind of place.' it was logical as no one would look for anything in this cupboard unless the princess gave them the permission to do so. the clothes looked as good as new, although alex was not that kind of person, he rummaged through the clothes to find a hidden key there. the key shape matched perfectly with a hole in the back panel of the same cupboard. alex used the key and slowly the wall on the opposite side of the cupboard shifted to reveal a small passage going underground.
alex entered the hidden entrance as he descended through the stairs. The walls were narrow and there was only a space for one person to walk through. the atmosphere was lit up by small white crystals giving off dim light that were embedded into the walls. alex felt humidity in the atmosphere as he descended the stair as he entered the open space in the underground basement.
there were shelfs and chests strewn about in the basement here and there but overall, the basement was surprisingly clean. there were pipes going around on the basement walls and same dim white crystals lighting up the inside.
alex saw a door that practically screamed that the legacy was behind it as it was decorated with rose gold designs and had a giant blue crystal embedded into the wall. alex gently placed his hand on the door as he observed the crystal. there was no mention of the next step in the data provided by the system so Alex had to start checking again for the clues. he thought of all those adventures of various hunters that he had read in the library, most of them were either lucky or extremely lucky that they would encounter the answers to their problems before the problem even crept up. some jokingly called it the plot armour but he didn't believe all that nonsense.
He believed that world was much simpler and cruel than most people thought. only the lucky once survived and made it big. the unlucky once were berried deep in the ground or were long digested in the stomach of certain monster.
as he was looking for anything unusual on the door, he saw the most attention grabbing huge blue crystal. the first thing that came to his mind was that he must take that blue crystal with him. it was genuine loot and he could sell the crystal for a lot of credits.
maybe the crystal was rare enough that it would allow him to purchase a full set of armour. he swiftly went to work on the crystal as he put his whole palm on the crystal and as he was about to jam his knife at the edge of the crystal, a blinding blue light suddenly rushed at him. the blinding blue flash was all that he could see before he was forced to close his eyes.
As alex opened his eyes, he was completely in a different space. there was pitch black darkness all around with nothing in sight. soon he felt as if someone was watching him as he turned around, he saw that same woman, elenore in blue ghastly form floating before him.
"Not bad, but you are not worthy of my legacy." she said while calmly floating in the air.
Alex who was trying to make sense of the situation as he looked at the princess. " huh, i know that already, it's not like i am a saint or something. i was sure that i wasn't the chosen one and didn't expect to get anything in the first place. so your loss lady "
" now that you know this, please take the legacy with you and search for a suitable candidate so that my legacy can pass on to the rightful person."
Alex's mouth twitched at he sentence as he folded his hands "I don't have time for this lady, so beat it. let me get out of this place. i am not your servant that i would go and look for the worthy owner of the legacy. i have a mission to complete. "
for the first time in a while elenore felt a surprise that the young boy in front of her dared to deny her request. she thought for a moment as she replied " i can give you something in exchange for finding the right person "
"Now you understand me a little. so out with it, what do i get for helping you?"
"Hmm...Most of the techniques wont work in your world because the laws of my world don't apply here so most of the techniques from my world are pretty much useless here but there is one thing i can give you."
Alex's interest was piqued " it better be good and i will not look for the candidate, i can just promise you that i will keep this on me at all the time."
the ghastly form of the princess nodded as she smiled "that much is enough, for the reward, i have the unique breathing technique that i developed in my days here which helped me get stronger with your world's mana. The technique has no name so you can name it what you want."
as she finished speaking, alex felt the world spinning again as he slowly woke up. his hand was on the blue crystal as he was staring out in the open space. the gate had already opened and he felt that there was some additional information in his head all of a sudden.
It was a technique to gather mana faster from the atmosphere with the help of certain breathing technique. the steps were weird like chanting special words in his mind and simulating different muscles. the technique worked with the anatomy of the princess but the human's anatomy differed slightly from those of the different dimensions so there were some steps that he didn't understand at all.
Alex decided to give it a try as he slowly chanted the word in his mind and used the technique to take a deep breadths. it was easy enough that if he ignored few steps that involved alien organs, he could use it while walking or fighting. the effectiveness of the technique was a whole other matter entirely.
He could feel the mana rich air get sucked in his lungs and melt in his body. as alex felth the mana rich air rejuvenated his body, he concluded that with this technique, he could recover the mana 10% faster.