The fight became a whirlwind of blows and explosions. Every time Noah struck, a sonic boom echoed. But whatever material the creature was made of was incredibly resistant. The plates of its armor barely dented under the fists reinforced by mana. Only thanks to the pieces that were already missing —preexisting cracks, gaps left by previous battles— could Noah's attacks damage it.
As for the automaton's counterattacks, they were brutal and precise. Every time it managed to land a hit, it sent Noah flying across the chamber with a new severe wound. A broken arm. Ribs shattered again. A dislocated shoulder.
But the multicolored flames always appeared and healed him.
This went on for a while. One had an almost unbreakable defense; the other, endless regeneration. Blow for blow, wound for wound, neither managed to tip the scales enough to finish the other.
Finally, Noah separated from the creature with a backward leap, landing several meters away.
He was gasping.
The multicolored flames covering his body were still there, but his own physique was wearing down. He couldn't fight so brutally for too long.
—I have good control of my current power —he murmured, wiping away a trickle of blood still oozing from his split lip, which regenerated the next second—. So I guess it's time to end this.
He brought his hands together.
Chakra flowed through his meridians, mixing with the mana he was still absorbing from the environment. The ground beneath his feet began to tremble.
—Wood Style: Transformed Buddha Summit.
He struck the ground.
Suddenly, hundreds of gigantic wooden hands burst from the stone, from the walls and the ceiling. They emerged from all sides, surrounding the automaton before it could react.
Fists. Palms. Dry, rhythmic blows began to rain down on the automaton.
Thud! Thud! Thud!
The automaton tried to resist, but it couldn't move. The hands trapped it, crushed it, and pummeled it over and over. The armor creaked. The plates began to warp. The spikes broke off.
Thud! Thud! Thud!
The bombardment continued for a full minute.
When the technique finally dissipated, the wooden hands retracted and disappeared beneath the ground as if they had never existed.
The automaton was still standing.
But barely.
Reduced to scrap. The armor was deformed, dented in dozens of places. Whole pieces were missing. Its only arm hung by a thread of twisted metal. The visor had fallen off completely, revealing an empty void where its head should have been.
It took a staggering step.
Then it collapsed with a metallic crash, raising a cloud of dust.
Noah let out the breath he didn't know he'd been holding.
The runes on his skin flickered weakly, then went out. The Overgear state deactivated. Suddenly, the weight of the entire battle fell on him like a slab. His legs trembled, his arms felt heavy as lead, and exhaustion knocked him down.
He fell onto his side and lay on the dusty ground, breathing in short gasps.
—Fuck —he whispered, closing his eyes.
He stayed like that for an hour, doing nothing but catching his breath and letting his body recover from the effort. Mana continued to flow around him, but he no longer absorbed it. He needed to rest.
When he finally got up, he still felt weak, but functional.
He stood up, looked at the pile of scrap that had been the laboratory's guardian, and then turned his attention to the interior of the main chamber.
—Let's see what a legendary sorcerer's laboratory has to offer.
He entered.
And the disaster he found was even worse than he had imagined from the threshold.
Overturned tables. Shattered shelves. Broken jars whose contents had evaporated centuries ago. Magical instruments of unknown design lay in pieces on the floor.
Noah walked through the laboratory with growing disappointment.
He searched every corner. Every shelf. Every broken drawer.
Everything had been looted.
Not a single grimoire, gem, or useful artifact remained. Someone —the same one who had destroyed the doors, probably— had passed through here long ago and taken everything of value.
—Did I come for nothing? —Noah murmured, frowning.
But he didn't give up.
He closed his eyes and brought his hands together in a seal, executing one of the Uzumaki clan's techniques.
—Kagura Spiritual Eye.
When he opened his eyes, his perception expanded.
He no longer saw only the physical world. He could feel energy concentrations and traces of residual magic. And amid all that background noise... he felt a faint vibration.
It came from the far wall.
Noah approached, following the signal to a painting.
It had been hanging on the wall, but someone had torn it. The canvas hung in shreds, barely recognizable. What remained showed a landscape of a snowy mountain under a starry sky.
Noah touched the frame.
Immediately he felt the magical seal that surely concealed some kind of secret compartment within the painting.
The seal was intact.
The previous looter probably hadn't found it or had overlooked it.
—Finally, something —Noah smiled.
He took his time.
Analyzing the seal took him almost an hour. It was complex, designed by a sorcerer of a level far above his own. But it was centuries old, and like any ancient spell, it had degraded and its structure was covered in cracks.
Noah exploited them one by one.
When the seal finally broke, the painting emitted a soft flash and the surface of the torn canvas began to ripple like water.
Noah reached inside.
His fingers passed through the fabric and entered an empty space. He felt around inside until his fingers brushed something solid. He grabbed it and pulled it out.
It was a grimoire with black leather covers, with silver clasps that had not lost their shine. On the cover were golden letters engraved in an ancient calligraphy: "The Art of Necromancy."
Noah opened it and flipped through several pages.
Lists of ingredients for potions of temporary death. Spells to speak with the deceased, to reanimate corpses, to extract secrets from wandering souls. Knowledge and rituals that any white sorcerer would consider dangerous or taboo.
—Just as the title says —he murmured, and stored it in his 4D pocket.
He reached into the painting again.
This time, his fingers found something smaller, with a soft texture. He pulled it out.
A blue pointed sorcerer's hat.
Noah held it before his eyes, examining it. When he put it on his head, he felt an immediate connection to the surrounding mana, clearer than before.
The hat wasn't necessary to cast spells —he could already do so without any channeler thanks to his talent as a Source— but it enhanced them. Spells that required concentration now flowed with less effort. Those that consumed a lot of energy now drained less. Additionally, the hat seemed to have its own magical storage capacity, like a battery that could be charged with surplus mana for use in times of need.
—Useful —Noah commented, and also stored it in his 4D pocket. He would evaluate it more calmly later.