Sarcophagus

Of course Minos wouldn't give up that easily, deciding to put away the tool for now and find out how to use it in the future.

Testing out the other items, Minos came to the same conclusion, realizing that they had all long since run out of fuel.

Tucking them all into his spatial ring, Minos planned on figuring these things out later, focusing his attention back onto the chamber.

Having cleared out the items, the rest of the chamber was empty, the only thing left of interest being the walls that were filled to the brim with writing.

Of course since neither Minos nor Tinka understood this language, it was of little value to them, meaning the only thing left to look at was the sarcophagus.

"Minos, how about we don't open it?" Tinka couldn't help but ask as Minos headed towards it.

"Scared?" Minos asked with a laugh."

"No way! I'm not scared of anything!" Tinka exclaimed with a harrumph.

"That's good, because truth be told, I'm scared. So how about you open it?" Minos suggested.

"Uhh-" Tinka stuttered, clearly not expecting Minos to turn things on her.

Seeing Tinka's blank face, Minos couldn't help but laugh even louder. Noticing Tinka's face began to turn red with anger, Minos forcefully stopped his laughing.

"Just joking. Back up first, I'm worried it may be rigged with something." Minos said.

Hearing Minos's stern voice, Tinka didn't argue, backing up deep into the tunnel and far away from the sarcophagus.

After making sure Tinka was far away, Minos pulled out the shovel from his spatial ring. Standing at a far distance, he used the shovel to prod the sarcophagus open.

After a few attempts, he managed to crack open the sarcophagus, revealing the dark insides.

Waiting for a moment to make sure nothing was wrong, Minos slowly walked up to the sarcophagus, soon standing close enough to look inside.

There were no surprises, and just as expected, the sarcophagus had a corpse similar to the one he had seen in the portrait.

The only surprising thing was how well preserved the corpse was, looking as if it had died only a few days ago, despite that certainly not being the case.

The corpse was fitted with a strange outfit, clearly not a human style, and its head was adorned with a small crown, with one of its large eyes having a lens on top of it.

"Tinka, come look at this!" Minos said with wonder as he continued to inspect the corpse.

Hearing Minos's calling, Tinka came back out from the tunnel, slowly walking towards Minos side, curious as to what he found.

"What is it? Ahhhh!" Tinka screamed as she finally laid eyes on the corpse.

"It's alive!" She screamed as she ran back into the tunnel.

"Relax, it's definitely dead." Minos said, grabbing the scared Tinka by the arm before she could get far.

"Why does it look like that?" Tinka couldn't help but ask as she shook, clearly still very afraid.

"Seems these people had a very advanced way of preserving their dead, hence why the corpse still looks fresh." Minos explained, helping Tinka calm down.

"It's still creepy. I thought adventure's were fun, not scary." She couldn't help but complain, feeling like she had bad luck.

"Scary is fun, don't you think?" Minos said with a laugh.

"No way, scary is scary!" Tinka exclaimed clearly.

"Well wasn't it fun up until this point?" Minos asked with a smile.

"I guess…" Tinka replied.

"Besides, if you want to be a real adventurer, you're going to need to learn to deal with your fear." Minos said.

"Hmm, I guess you're right." Tinka responded, feeling like Minos was on to something.

"Then come here and have a closer look. Once you get used to it, you won't be scared anymore." Minos explained, as he pulled Tinka closer to the sarcophagus.

With Minos's positive encouragement, Tinka eventually found the willpower to ply her hands away from her eyes, directly looking at the corpse.

Fear surged into her heart beyond her control, but she managed to find it off, keeping her eyes locked on the palish-humanoid creature.

But just like Minos said, after looking for a couple seconds, the fear slowly left her heart as she realized there was nothing to actually be afraid of.

"Hey, this thing isn't that scary after all!" Tinka said with pride, feeling renewed confidence.

"See, I told you." Minos laughed from the side.

With Tinka no longer shivering, Minos could finally focus back onto the corpse. Using his shovel again, Minos prodded the corpse, much to Tinka's shock.

Despite Tinka's new courage, she couldn't help but gulp audibly as Minos poked the corpse, scared that it would jump up out of its coffin.

Fortunately for Tinka, the corpse was as dead as could be, and no matter how hard Minos pressed it, it didn't react at all.

After making sure the body was completely dead, Minos redirected his shovel towards the large lens on the creature's eye, feeling quite interested in the object.

With some nimble maneuvering, Minos managed to hook the lens onto his shovel, pulling it off the corpse and towards him.

Reaching out, Minos pulled the lens off from the end of the shovel. As he weighed it in his hand, he further inspected the strange item.

"What is it?" Tinka couldn't help but ask from the side.

"No idea." Minos answered succinctly.

The lens was like a monocle, only covering one eye rather than two. The lens itself was embedded in a large metallic-circular frame, a golden chain hanging off one end.

On the other end of the frame was a hook that went over the nose, securing the monocle firmly onto the face.

Of course since this monocle clearly wasn't made with human's in mind, it didn't at all fit Minos's face, despite his attempts to wear it.

Since it didn't fit, he decided to just hold it to his eye and see what it did. Holding it over his eye, Minos focused his vision, looking at the world through the lens.

Almost immediately, Minos noticed a strange colored fog in the air. The fog was quite thin, but came in multiple colors.

The color he saw most however, was a brownish-earthen color, making up the vast majority of the fog.

The second densest color was a grayish-shade, and despite not being able to feel these energies at all, Minos could feel an instinctive cold in his soul as he looked at it.

Shocked by the strange new world offered by the lens, Minos pulled it off, giving himself a moment to try and understand what exactly he had just seen.

Seeing Minos standing in silence after having looked around the room using the lens, Tinka got curious, questioning him.

"What did you see?"

"I'm not sure, it was a strange fog with a few different colors, though what any of it meant, I have no idea."

"Let me try." Tinka said, snatching the lens from Minos's hands.

Same as Minos, Tinka held the lens up to her eye, reinspecting the room under the new perspective offered by the monocle.

"Woah, what is this stuff?" Tinka wondered, as she swung her hand through the air, as if attempting to grab the fog herself.

Naturally her attempts failed, and no matter how hard Tinka tried to capture the strange energy, she couldn't do it.

As Tinka was playing with the lens, Minos began pondering what the energy was. With his intelligence, he almost immediately reached the most likely answer.

'It's probably Nux, and if that's the case, then maybe the color denotes the type of Nux it is?'

Minos was no longer the amateur he once was, and naturally knew quite a bit about Nux.

Nux is the energy of everything, and as the energy of everything it exists in pretty much every conceivable form.

The most common forms of Nux were the basic elemental forms, such as Water Nux, Earth Nux, Fire Nux, etc.

If his guess was right, then the brownish-fog he had seen early was most likely Earth Nux, which would make perfect sense considering his current location.

The only question he had was what exactly that grayish-fog was. Considering the cold sensation it gave him, coupled with the location, he assumed it was some sort of negative energy Nux.

What exactly it was however, he didn't know, but instinct told him it was probably a form of Nux that was frowned upon.

Having reached an answer, Minos looked back at the corpse, which no longer had anything of interest other than its crown.

Naturally Minos wouldn't leave anything behind, and with another reach of his shovel, he managed to pry the crown off its head, bringing it into his hand.