After Luigi disappeared.
While everyone was still pondering what exactly this poet, who had suddenly appeared and then suddenly left, had actually done.
Dox moved faster than anyone, snatching the mask off the ground at lightning speed.
In his view, the poet had spoken to him, had him solve the problem, so whatever was left behind should be his... Of course, Kaier had contributed a bit too; well, once they got back to Sandworm Market, giving him some help would count as making up for it.
Dox happily flipped the mask over in his hands, but very soon, his expression darkened.
"What is this piece of junk?!"
Grumbling, Dox walked back, hesitated a moment, then handed the broken mask to Angel.
He really couldn’t tell what this mask was. There was no trace of anything Extraordinary about it; the only noteworthy thing was that he didn’t recognize the material.
And among everyone present, the one with the sharpest eye for materials was, without a doubt, Angel.
Angel didn’t understand what Dox meant at first, but once he took the mask and examined it carefully, he more or less got it.
Angel: "This mask is carved from Old Stone."
Old Stone? When Angel said this name, everyone present, including the Black Earl, showed puzzled expressions, because none of them had ever heard of such a material.
Dox: "You mean, Olden Stone?"
Olden Stone was a type of stone whose largest yield came from the Seventh Foundation Prefecture of the Stone Mulberry Dynasty—also where the Punk Theme Park was located. Olden Stone was generally used to enhance the hand-feel of Alchemy Weapons. Grind it into powder, wipe an Alchemy Weapon with water-repellent hide-paper coated in it, and it could make your Alchemy Weapon feel much more natural and responsive in battle; aside from that, you could use the same method to maintain other Extraordinary Items.
For ordinary Wizards, Olden Stone’s function was dispensable. But for Bloodline Wizards who pursued fighting with weapons and breaking their limits, Olden Stone was still fairly useful.
The reason Dox asked whether Old Stone was Olden Stone was precisely a matter of cultural tendency and expression.
On the Flourish Continent, aside from the discoverer or inventor, the other factor that determined the right to name something was cultural dominance. For example, all names related to steel gears and steam machines were dictated by Yirong Country; Yirong had that sort of cultural advantage. Or, take the Wunong Duchy: because it produced nearly fifty percent of all cultivated flowers on the Flourish Continent, Wunong held a naming advantage for flora.
Countries at a cultural disadvantage, aside from accepting such names, had another choice: coin new terms.
To put it bluntly, it was a kind of spirit-victory method of self-comfort.
This led to certain items having different names in different regions.
This sort of situation was actually rare in the Wizards’ Realm, because most Extraordinary Items were rare, and their naming followed set rules. However, there were exceptions—things that weren’t all that rare, but still barely counted as Extraordinary Items. Such things would be subject to geographical cultural divergences and end up with different expressions.
In Dox’s eyes, Olden Stone was a very common commodity. From a translation standpoint, you could indeed translate it as Old Stone. Hence his question.
But Dox had forgotten to consider that Angel hailed from outside the Flourish Continent and had not been "tainted" by the Flourish Continent’s whole set of cultural divergences; what he used were standard terms.
If even the standard term ended up being vague, that could only be chalked up to ignorance, not cultural difference.
Angel shook his head at Dox. "They’re not the same."
He paused, then sighed slightly. "Honestly, this is my first time seeing Old Stone in person. I’d always thought Old Stone was just a legend; I didn’t expect it to actually exist."
Angel had read about Old Stone in books hidden in Margaret’s secret compartment in Nightmare Abyss City.
But in reality, Angel had never seen any mention of Old Stone in any other book. Because of that, he had once suspected that Old Stone was nothing more than a legend.
Yet when he actually held Old Stone in his hand, the "server" in his Mind Space spun up at once. Through a detailed analysis, his sealed memories were unlocked and the information regarding Old Stone resurfaced.
"So what is Old Stone, is it very valuable?" Dox’s eyes lit up. Since even Angel was seeing it for the first time, didn’t that mean Old Stone was very valuable?
The others also turned their gaze toward Angel. Could this "mundane item" that looked utterly ordinary to them really have some big background?
Angel pondered for a moment. "You can say it has value... depending on how it’s used."
"What do you mean ’you can say’? Is there some kind of precondition?" Dox pressed.
Angel: "It’s not a precondition, it’s just that..."
Angel had only spoken halfway when he suddenly trailed off.
Dox didn’t continue to press him, because everyone present had stopped paying attention to Old Stone and were all looking toward the left side of the corridor.
A hunched figure slowly emerged out of thin air.
"Presumptuous usurper who dreams of ascending a high seat, the whispers of the Stars tell me you are already prepared to fall into the Abyss of Magic?" A voice as ancient as time itself echoed in everyone’s ears.
As the voice faded, an old crone appeared before them, leaning on a cane, wearing a three-pointed star-and-moon hat and a star-and-moon robe, her skin sagging like wrinkled chicken hide.
This old woman shared one particular trait with the poet from earlier: she wore a mask. However, her mask covered her left eye, perfectly complementing the poet’s mask.
After the old woman came to a stop, she raised her head and looked toward... the Black Earl with slightly clouded eyes.
She showed no surprise at the fact that the Black Earl was merely a nose. She simply gazed at him quietly.
And just like the poet, she didn’t spare anyone else a glance, as if they didn’t exist.
Based on the earlier conversation with the poet Luigi, this old woman should be the one who was going to... test the Black Earl?
"Fall into the Abyss of Magic? What do you mean?" the Black Earl asked blandly.
The old woman lightly tapped her cane, and a special sun-and-moon Pattern appeared on the ground, upon which scattered starlight began to spread.
While everyone was still confused by her actions, those motes of starlight rapidly assembled, forming a circular Star Disk in front of the Black Earl.
The Star Disk was a grid of intersecting lines, with light points at each junction that flickered in and out of existence.
When they saw this Star Disk, everyone froze for a moment. They were anything but unfamiliar with it.
Rather than calling it a Star Disk, it might be more accurate to call it... a chessboard.