He remembered the two gold coins he had pilfered from the guard. He reached into his pocket and felt them. How would he get them into the system?
He tried willing them onto the system. He felt his hands get lighter before his interface appeared at the corner of his eyes; he didn't even look at it.
He turned to his back to see the alpha leap. This was the moment of truth; If the system took the two coins as repayment for the debt, he was screwed.
If it didn't; "purchase Knight strength boost."
He felt strength instantly fill him. The alpha suddenly seemed as slow as a snail.
His blade shot out, catching the alpha at the throat and instantly beheading it. The alpha's body tumbled to the ground, bleeding copiously.
Lucien's aura deflated as his strength boost ended. The two gold coins had bought him a precious two second surge in strength.
Before he could even celebrate his survival, the blood from the wolf was suddenly sucked in. Before Lucien could even process the change in circumstances , the ground suddenly caved in.
They fell.
Dust, moss, and stone swallowed them into darkness. He reached out and held Selene, putting her body above his. Lucien hit the ground hard, the wind knocked from his lungs. For a moment he couldn't move. Then Selene's groan reached him, and he forced himself upright.
He felt Selene move beside him. A second later, Light appeared as Selene lit a torch they had prepared,
The light bounced off the walls of a hallway. Stale air and dust rushed to escape through a wall in the ceiling, where Lucien and Selene had fallen through.
As they looked around Selene stifled a scream and even Lucien had to stifle his urge to inhale in shock. Skeletons covered the hallway, clad in broken armor and rusted weapons. It looked to be the scene of an ancient battlefield and from the traces of how the skeletons had fallen, Lucien could picture it all in his mind.
A fierce battle had raged here with one side defending the hallway and the other side defending with their lives. The battle seemed extremely tragic.
Lucien cautiously walked to one of the skeletons, Selene seeing this hurriedly followed along. The ancient and creepy atmosphere visibly spooked her.
Lucien reached out and touched it. The skeleton crumbled into dust, its rusted equipment clanged and scattered on the floor, the sound echoing out jarringly throughout the silent hall.
It seemed to cause a chain effect as the surrounding skeletons also crumbled noisily. Lucien and Selene held their breath, they didn't know what abominations such an atmosphere might contain. They breathed a sigh of relief when nothing appeared after a while.
Lucien observed both ends of the hall and noted one sided was blocked, he chose to follow the other one. That was where the attackers were aiming anyways.
He started out, cautiously walking along the hall, Selene following alongside him. As he walked he noticed something among the pile of dust and rusted iron. He bent down to check it out and his heart surged in delight.
Gold coins. Solid Gold coins. The symbol on the coin was strange, not the one officiated by the empire, but it was definitely gold. He was sure of that.
He tried to feed it to the system.
[Wealth: 1 Gold coin]
His motivation to explore the ruins surged tremendously and he almost broke into a run. He managed to calm himself down with effort but his gaze at the ruins had turned fervent, like a pervert who had seen a half clothed beauty.
He felt a gaze settle on hi. He followed it curiously to see Selene giving him an extremely odd look. He cleared his throat embarrassedly and faced forward, his cheeks burning.
"Hmm. Uh, We shouldn't waste anything. Every resource is precious." Her weird gaze didn't stop.
He decided to ignore her and set out once more, but he still made sure to check every place they passed carefully. He had to ignore Selene's gaze and keep a straight face when Selene looked at him oddly for flipping every piece of rusted armor they passed.
Lucien's gaze grew more serious as time passed, his jovial mood for finding coins decreasing. This was because he discovered that the armor grew less and less rusted as they went on.
When they had begun the armor they found was completely rusted and unrecognizable. However as they progressed through the hallway they started finding some complete parts such as arms or partial chest plates.
They also started to find some remnant skeletons that didn't turn entirely to dust. There was occasionally a leg bone here
Since there was no difference in environment, it could only mean that the quality of the soldiers who died increased as they went further into the hall. For their bones to remain for this long, even as armor rusted, they had to be at least as strong as a warden.
The way Lucien viewed the hall changed, multiple wardens had died here. He knew that the power ranks were divided into apprentice, knight, elite knight, Grand knight, Warden, Champion, Saint, Ascendant and Warbringer
As far as he knew, the strongest person in the entire kingdom was a Saint. There were absolutely no Ascendants in the kingdom. Champions and wardens were all bigshots who could shake the kingdom with a stomp.
To find out that multiple wardens had died here was a big shock to Lucien. Given the amount of skeletons he had seen, he doubted there were even that many wardens in the kingdom.
As he was reeling from that revelation he finally chanced upon his first complete armor. He stopped in shock. Engraved on the chest plate was a familiar symbol.
Selene was the first to exclaim, "Lucien, that's your family's symbol."
He nodded gravely, "Yes, but it shouldn't be here." He explained his reasoning. "Our house is not that ancient."
He bent down to trace the sigil. It truly resembled the Aureville sigil, a bloody sword piercing the sun. It was the most feared sigil in the kingdom. The skeleton in the armor didn't crumble as he touched it.
He had a theory in his mind. The owner of this armor had been a champion