That fact was only became more apparent two minutes ter.

  They had progressed down the corridor. Rykard and Lyvia had caught up with Tess, who made a point of ignoring Rykard for some time. Just a thing that moody people, women in particur in the king’s vast experience, did.

  He let her pout. Either when he felt the time was right or when she had calmed down, a conversation would be struck up again.

  The yout of the temple had its own idea of forcing them to talk.

  The trio turned a sharp corner and was faced with one of the walls angling inwards. It was just a slight deviation of the overall right angles that dominated the structure. It did not take more to cause one wall to meet the other over the course of a few dozen metres, leaving them with a dead end.

  “Do not say it,” Tess demanded.

  “I will remind you that, as a confirmed sirer of several children, I am entitled to my dad jokes,” Rykard told the newest addition to his harem.

  “...I apologize, but I do not get it,” Lyvia weighed in.

  “Do - not - say - it,” Tess hissed, pinching the bridge of her nose.

  “Do you not see it? We are at a dead end.” Rykard gestured back the way they came, where the Death Lifters were still flexing, framed by the open gateway. “There’s no alternative paths. Our passage deeper into the treasure vault is barred. This crossing of walls is preventing us from going further. What does that make it?”

  “An obstacle,” Lyvia answered pinly.

  “More specifically?”

  “An architectural obstacle.”

  “Right… of what origin?” Rykard kept coaxing it out of her.

  “An angle…” Lyvia’s usually so alert gaze suddenly turned deadpan. “A guardian angle…”

  Tess put her palm on her face. “Why did you say it.”

  Rykard snickered and rolled his shoulders. “Alright, I had my fun. Let’s see.” He inspected the direct surroundings. An inscription on the wall spelled out a request to calcute the angle of the wall. Difficult only because Rykard cked the tools to do so in this three-dimensional pce. Alternatively, he could brute force his way through by means of Alteration magic or raw physical strength. If the angled wall could be moved, he could move it. It was that simple.

  The tapping of Tess’ heel was frequent enough to create an echoing rhythm in the hallway. That was enough of a reason to skip any long-winded solutions and just do this the way of the mage king.

  “Follow,” Rykard ordered. The joviality in his tone had been sapped and repced with pure authority. Tess’ annoyance was wiped away in a moment of uncertainty, then she took three quick steps to catch up to him. Lyvia was obedient from the first sylble and practically attached to his heel.

  Mana poured out of the form of the king and into the fabric of reality. A wave of dismissal was all it took for the crooked angle of the lefthand wall to suddenly right itself. The narrowing corridor in front of them split open like an unsprung trap and they walked on through.

  The mana dense architecture pushed up against the reality bending magic, but Rykard’s will was stronger than some lingering divinity. There was not even a quiver in realspace, no signs of struggle, for there was no struggle. Even if Tess and Lyvia were not schooled in magic, they instinctively realised that what was happening was impressive enough to dismiss the remainders of their brooding.

  “I believe I am allowed the occasional dad joke?” Rykard asked and snapped his fingers.

  The corridor behind them smmed back shut with the kind of distorted sound only magic could produce. It wasn’t just the two walls meeting again, not just stone bashing against stone, it was air being repced that should not have been there in the first pce. It was the Bck Realm bleeding into the Material Realm for a split second. It was distortion and gravity and mana and physical ws all coming together in a gust of supernatural wind and sound.

  Tess’ and Lyvia’s hair fluttered. Neither of them turned. They both showed a small, dry smirk. “I suppose it is occasionally acceptable,” the goth answered. “Just keep it to a minimum.”

  “Maybe we would like them more if we were mothers too, Sir,” Lyvia suggested.

  “All in due time,” Rykard stated and put his arms around them. Why travel with such wonderful company when he didn’t even have their hands on their asses?

  It was only another short walk from there that the environment shifted once again. Everything became even more ornate. It reached the point that pieces of polished marble were rarer than the gold-framed pictures of various gods that existed between them. Some of them moved, betraying that the gods within them paid attention to the walking group.

  Rykard stopped for the moment when his eyes were caught by the stare of a pair of golden eyes within a pale face.

  “Is something the matter?” Tess asked.

  “Just someone wondering if I’ll pay respect,” Rykard answered and nudged them on. “I am still considering!” he said loudly, as if the god in question would not hear it if he didn’t. The duo with him shot him inquisitive gazes. “It wouldn’t be fun if I just told you.”

  Their steps continued on, ultimately bringing them to the furthest reach of this segment of the temple complex. Like the top of the building, where they had entered, there was a vast array of concentric circles and patterns between those concentric circles that decorated the floor. Above them was the ocean, equal parts abyssal blue and radiant gold from the light the temple radiated. At the centre of the chamber was an undecorated circle - an elevator that would lead to the likely final part of the segment.

  The elevator took them down to what could only be described as a massive pile of advanced research materials of the natural variety. Mana gems, alloys of the conductive variety, rare earths, gemstones, even bottles that were filled with pressurized gases, all of it had been put into a massive pile.

  “Helenn is about to have a tech-gasm,” Tess reckoned.

  “Can you store that?” Lyvia investigated.

  Rykard shook his head. “No need.” He headed towards a stone pedestal at the centre of it all. It was a nexus point of powerful spatial magic. Grasping the gemstone on top of it, the king let his mana signature flow into the spell, activating it.

  The spell was keyed to the Contestants. The gods were whimsical, but they weren’t stupid and had prepared for the inevitability of one of them ying cim to this treasure trove. As soon as his mana signature had been taken, the hoard of materials began to glow. In a fsh of spatial magic, all of it was gone - transported to the Estate.

  “It is a shame we won’t see that tech-gasm,” Rykard said and lifted his hand from the simple piece of quartz the gemstone had turned into. “But this is more convenient than hauling it all around.”

  “Is there a convenient way back?” Tess asked.

  “Incidentally, yes.” Rykard guided them to another gemstone, half-hidden in the corner. It was embedded in the floor and could have been missed by someone in a hurry. A little bit of pressure and suddenly there was a fsh of divine light around them. Just like that, they were back by the first bck gate that had brought them into this segment of the temple. The garden was just a few steps removed.

  Yawning, Rykard stepped into the pleasant greenery. After all the gold and marble, the honest verdancy of trees and grass was a sight for sore eyes. They had spent the entire day in that segment of the temple, it felt like.

  “Let’s take a break and continue on tomorrow,” he told his party.