233: Time Lock and Rainbow Bridge
With the rewards right in front of him, of course John was going.
He stood at the edge of the abyss, gazing downward. Amidst the sea of darkness, a fleeting silver shimmer caught his eye.
"A soul fragment?"
He narrowed his eyes, trying to see more clearly.
After confirming that he hadn't seen wrong, a pair of wings sprouted from his back.
Heimdall stood quietly in place as John leaped off the edge.
Shooowshhh~!!
The wind roared past his ears, his body plunging rapidly.
"Just how deep is this place?"
He felt like he had already fallen beyond the depths of the Dragon Sanctuary.
The soul fragment flickered, dancing through the air like a sprite.
John followed the fragment, descending all the way to the bottom.
At this depth, when he looked up, the top was nowhere to be seen.
"Over here."
A man's voice echoed, as the soul fragment quivered.
"Hmm? It has self-awareness?"
John's eyes darkened as he suppressed the urge to use the Soul-Devouring Curse to take the soul fragment. Instead, he took a step forward.
The ground beneath him seemed to be made of a crystalline material. As he walked on it, a cold sensation spread from below, piercing through his feet like he was stepping on frozen steel.
Unable to endure the icy chill, he once again used dragon transformation, turning his feet into dragon claws.
The cold was finally blocked out, and John continued forward.
After some distance, he came across an ice sculpture.
"This is…"
John saw a massive white dragon, long since lifeless, its body frozen solid and covered in icicles.
A suffocating silence filled the air, and John steadied his mind.
Looking past the ice sculpture, he lifted his gaze to the glacier walls—embedded within them were numerous fire dragons, all frozen in death.
They had all retained their postures from when they were alive.
The chill struck him again, and he quickly cast a fire-elemental spell to drive away the creeping frost.
"All the dragons here were frozen to death."
Recalling what Heimdall had said—that no dragon had ever returned from this place—John figured these must be the ones that had come before him.
The soul fragment guided the way as John walked past the massive frozen dragon sculptures.
A golden sphere, covered in frost, appeared before him.
The sphere was hollowed out in the middle, forming a room. Inside, a faint, ghostly blue light flickered, as if it could disappear at any moment.
The soul fragment hovered outside the golden chamber.
John felt strange—this soul fragment gave him a sense of reassurance and trust.
After hesitating for a moment, he chose not to seize it with the Soul-Devouring Curse. Instead, he turned his attention to the chamber.
The room was built for dragons, making it extraordinarily large.
The golden, plant-like doors were locked, preventing entry, and the faint blue glow seeped through the gaps.
A surge of magical energy pulsed across the doors, almost as if they were alive.
Observing this, John pondered, "This feels just like that tree in the unicorn settlement."
In the unicorn habitat, there was a similarly magic-infused tree, used as a place where unicorns shed their horns.
The resemblance between the two was striking—this golden structure didn't seem like something dragons could have created.
John pulled out his wand and examined the intertwined locks on the door. As a test, he muttered, "Alohomora."
The lock shifted slightly, but the door did not open.
"Not high enough level, huh?"
John frowned. He had never really practiced the Unlocking Charm much.
Glancing at his remaining two skill points, he decided to try a different approach. Pointing his wand at the lock, he cast, "Bombarda!"
Boom!
A loud explosion rang out, and a puff of black smoke drifted from the door. As expected, it didn't even leave a scratch.
John sighed. "Looks like I'll have to rely on the Unlocking Charm after all."
He glanced around. Nearby, a massive red dragon stood frozen solid, unmoving—a towering ice sculpture.
It was the dragon that had made it the farthest along the icy path.
Fuuushhh~!
A chilling wave of cold swept in, and frost began forming on John's feet.
Without hesitation, he allocated a skill point to upgrade the Unlocking Charm.
Alohomora advanced from level 5 to level 6.
John pointed his wand again. "Alohomora!"
The lock trembled violently, rattling and clanking against the door.
Then, after a few moments, it stopped moving. The door remained shut.
John's brows knitted together. "Still not enough?"
He stepped closer for a detailed look. The lock was adorned with intricate golden patterns, and within the latch, a golden Möbius strip spun endlessly.
"...Time...?"
John's expression grew serious. What kind of mechanism used time itself as a lock?
Raising his wand, golden sand gathered at his wrist, forming a radiant wheel resembling a clock.
A magical array, composed of circles and intersecting lines, imprinted itself onto the lock as John cast once more: "Alohomora!"
As the unlocking spell activated, the temporal latch shattered.
Under John's gaze, the lock dissolved into golden particles and vanished.
"No wonder so many dragons froze to death outside."
Time was a forbidden force. A lock bound by time itself—aside from John, no one could have possibly opened it.
"If time is the key, then what lies inside?"
Initially, John had come for the mission. But now, his curiosity as a wizard—his thirst to uncover the unknown—far surpassed any reward.
He pushed open the grand doors.
Inside, the golden chamber was vast and eerily empty, as though a single misplaced object would disrupt its perfect balance.
At the center, on a simple table, sat a square box, pulsating with an eerie, unsettling glow.
But what caught John off guard was that—there was someone here.
Strictly speaking, it wasn't a person.
It was an ice sculpture.
John's expression tightened as he cautiously stepped forward.
The figure had the face of a young man—handsome and striking.
His wizard robes were different from modern styles, adorned with what appeared to be a totem. A white feathered mantle draped over his shoulders, giving John an uncanny sense of familiarity.
"Ekrizdis?!"
Seeing the figure, John gasped in surprise.
Then, he realized something was off.
"No… this isn't him."
He stared intently at the frozen face—it was exactly the same as Ekrizdis, the one he had seen inside the Gate of Matter.
But this was not Ekrizdis.
This ice sculpture lacked the eerie, sinister aura that Ekrizdis carried. Instead, it radiated an air of kindness and benevolence.
Such a feeling, coming from a young man, should have been contradictory. And yet, it wasn't.
John examined the ice sculpture closely.
In its hands, it clutched an oak wand.
Both hands firmly gripped the wand, pointing it directly at the box in the center of the room.
It seemed like the figure was resisting—or perhaps sealing—the box.
"Who exactly is this?"
John had an almost uncontrollable urge to smash the ice apart and take a closer look at the person inside.
Luckily, he managed to hold himself back.
Recalling Heimdall's words, he hesitated and muttered in suspicion, "Could this be the wizard Heimdall mentioned?"
No, that didn't make sense. That wizard should have left.
He had taught Heimdall how to predict the future—there was no reason for him to be frozen here.
Too many things didn't add up, and the sheer confusion made John's head throb.
"Sigh~ Forget it for now."
He turned his attention to the square box. Like the door, it was wrapped in plant-like tendrils.
The box was sealed to the table, and John stepped closer.
A deadly wave of cold burst from within—only to be immediately absorbed by the surrounding plants.
"Wait… Is this entire glacier created by the box?"
The thought sent a chill down his spine.
A single box had created an entire glacier?
What kind of magical power was this?
Could magic like this really be contained?
The system task was still incomplete, which meant John hadn't finished the trial.
And the final trial was most likely this box.
John's face darkened. Was this even something a person was supposed to handle?
If this box is truly the culprit behind the entire glacier, how am I supposed to pass the trial?
He raised his right hand, and the silver ring expanded, covering his entire arm. Five magical crystals circled the Philosopher's Stone, channeling magic into it.
With a cautious mindset, John reached out and touched the box.
The moment his fingers made contact—An unexpected change erupted!
A massive surge of magical energy shot out from the box.
The magic flowed through the Finite Gauntlet and into the Philosopher's Stone.
Centered on John, rippling waves of energy spread outward.
Crack-crack-crack~!~!!
The ice shards shattered upon contact, and even the frozen dragon at the entrance began to break apart.
"Oh shit! Not good!"
The magical energy continued spreading, gradually covering the entire glacier.
The faint sounds of ice shattering echoed in his ears.
The passage he had come through was now covered in dense cracks that extended outward in all directions.
The Philosopher's Stone erupted with a dazzling blue light, and cracks appeared on the five magical crystals—clear signs of magical overload.
Last time, John had used the power of thirty-six magical crystals to create a single supercharged crystal, but now, these five had been instantly transformed into supercharged magic crystals.
The sheer amount of magical energy was staggering.
"Let go of me!" He used all his strength to pull his right hand free, but the immense magical surge blasted him backward, slamming him into the wall.
"Ugh!"
John saw the plants tightly wrapped around the box rapidly withering.
A wave of icy blue aurora surged toward him, crystallizing the ground wherever it passed.
All of the protective charms he wore shattered at that moment, breaking down into layered Shield Charms that formed a barrier.
The aurora instantly pierced through the Shield Charms.
This was the strongest attack John had ever faced—stronger even than Voldemort's assault in the Albanian forest.
Without hesitation, John drew his wand and roared, ||Expecto Patronum!||
The radiant albatross formed by his Patronus charged toward the aurora, but the bone-chilling cold was so intense that John felt as if his brain was about to freeze.
The runes on his shoes lit up, and he sprinted to the side.
Not even a second after he moved, the aurora pierced through the albatross and crashed directly into the golden wall.
The wall rapidly crystallized. John exhaled a breath of white mist, feeling the backlash from his destroyed Patronus.
He stumbled to his knees, his expression twisted in pain.
Looking back, he saw the crystallization spreading throughout the entire room.
Boom!
The wall had been breached, and the aurora shot outward.
The refracted light from the crystal formations scattered into a dazzling array of colors—
Just like a rainbow.
"That is—" John's eyes widened in shock. "The Bifrost?!"
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