Legendary Architect of Apocalypse-Chapter 166: If it’s you

Elias felt the tremors caused by the explosion, his chair shaking violently along with the mirror. The room displayed in the mirror was filled with dark smoke, which made it impossible to see anything that was happening within.

"She wouldn't be unharmed after that, right?" Astralious asked after seeing the impact of the explosion.

"I am not sure. That's why we need to be absolutely certain before entering that place."

"How can you be certain, when you can't even see anything in that place because of smoke?"

Elias didn't answer Astralious right away. He opened his inventory, and brought out multiple modified landmines.

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He tossed the landmines into the mirror, one after another. Even before the smoke from the previous explosion could be dispersed, the room trembled with the combined strength of multiple explosions.

"Now we enter." He stood up, following the last explosion. He quickly tied a thread to the armrest of the chair, and held the other end of the thread in his hand before flying straight inside the mirror.

He didn't waste a single second even after arriving in the treasure room. He wasn't sure if the girl was really dead, and he was in no mood to find out either.

He flew straight to the Ice Phoenix Core, having calculated the distance from the mirror exit to the core through the objects he had thrown before.

He took off his robe, and wrapped it around the Ice Phoenix Core. The Core started burning the robe, but it still gave him a few seconds.

He used the robe like a sack to carry the core, and rushed back, following the thread that still maintained spatial connection with the boss room.

The entire process took less than two seconds, and he was back in the boss room, the thread alongside him.

His robe held out just long enough. The orb only fell to the ground after burning through the fabric when he had returned to the boss room.

He took a deep breath, a look of satisfaction flashing in his eyes.

"We got it."

"Why didn't you keep it in spatial storage? Wouldn't that have been easier?"

"I don't know this thing well enough. If I had kept it in my storage and it burned through every other object stored there, wouldn't that have been a big loss?"

He sat before the Ice Phoenix Core. As a material, it revealed complete incompatibility with him, just like he had guessed before. Even after using his class, he couldn't merge with the Ice Phoenix Core forcefully.

"You said I should try the normal method to be accepted by it. So what should I do now that I have it?" he asked Astralious, who was the only expert when it came to such things.

On the other hand, he was a complete novice in most things.

"Is there really a need to think so much about it? Just touch that thing. If it accepts you, it will become your strength. If it doesn't, then you will only be hurt a little as long as you don't try to force it."

After hearing the advice, Elias nodded. He reached out his hand towards the small orb that was burning like a bright sun. Instead of feeling the heat, his fingers felt cold when he approached the core.

"Hmm? Isn't it behaving strange?"

When his fingers reached near the core, the blue flames on the orb started retreating. They didn't accept him, but they didn't try to hurt him either.

"Why does it look like these flames are scared of you?"

"You ask me. But who should I ask?" Elias answered, his fingers connected with the ice Phoenix Core which was made with the purest and most condensed form of the phoenix flames.

"Nothing is happening..." He waited for a few seconds, but nothing changed. Where was the pain of rejection that he was supposed to feel, or the acceptance and blessings of these flames?

When he touched the orb, it was like he was only touching a crystal ball that was slightly cold, with the flames staying on the completely opposite side of the orb, away from him.

He moved his fingers closer to the flames without taking them off the orb, but the flames moved in a similar manner, always maintaining the distance.

"Let's see how long you run!" He used his other hand, and grabbed the other side of the small football sized core, but once more, the flames moved, and hid in the space between his two hands on the orb.

Astralious was also perplexed at the scene. The core of the phoenix flames was no different than the soul of the ice phoenix. It was the true consciousness that was taken by the previous Dean. It also had its own intelligence in some ways.

That's why its actions left him surprised.

For quite some time, Elias kept struggling to establish contact with the bright flames on the surface of the core, but he was always failing.

His frustration also kept rising, as he failed one after another.

"At times like this, don't you wish you had more than two hands?" Astralious jokingly said. He wondered how he should advise Elias to give up on it, since the flames didn't want to accept him.

Elias kept holding onto the core and stood up. He walked around the chair and sat on it, facing the mirror since he couldn't see any short term solution. In his hands, the core was no different than a ball.

Elias thought about it for a moment, before glancing at Astralious.

"Why are you looking at me like that? I find it really suspicious," Astralious took a step back, having a bad feeling about this.

"Say, what will happen if you merge with these flames?" he asked.

"These flames can materialize in real life. If I'm not wrong, a Phoenix is also capable of being reborn from its own flames."

"If I merged you with the flames, you might be able to materialize in the real world using these flames. You might even be reborn again, in a body stronger than you had before."

He made a wild suggestion that looked more plausible in his eyes since he could truly touch these flames when they were condensed. If someone used this condensation to create a real body, then it could bring back Astralious.