Sofya had been sure it was gonna be her death. Even with her surprise at Bob being a powerful secret protector, she hadn’t expected to survive very long, Bob could protect but not heal her injury.

  She would die of blood loss. But what was her surprise when she awoke an hour or two later. Starring at a Prothean Construct, one almost identical to the Levitar that had killed and attacked her and the expedition members.

  He was using one of the strange spheres above the black pillar, seemingly… communicating… with something. Every scientist had believed the Prothean constructs to be soulless machines, even she did, but she was proven wrong again.

  This Levitar wasn’t just talking to himself, something was answering him. She had no idea what they were saying, they did not communicate in Binarics but strange pulsation coming from the bronze plate or the Levitar.

  After the communication ended, she closed her eyes, begging every of the gods to make the prothean construct not realise her faked unconsciousness, hoping she would be lucky enough it wouldn’t notice her.

  Luck was with her as the Levitar brought her body with him during its slow travel through the complex, going down into what looked like a sort of..temple room? A massive strange organ at the back playing a strange pulse-like music.

  Her confusion turned to fear when a construct fell in front of the Levitar. The aura surrounding this one was impossible to mistake, a transcended being. Prothean’s were recognised as geniuses by mechanists because of this.

  No mechanist or machinist had ever managed to find a way to mass produce transcended robotic beings. They could create weapons, armors, gadgets with immense skills, enough that their bombs and war machines were known all over Zenthia.

  But making a transcended being was achieved only by Arch-Machinists like her mom.

  Something few people were truly aware of was that not all Transcendants were equals. But with her being the daughter of an arch-machinist about to become an Ancestor and frequenting the Academy.

  A place where the dean was none other than an actual Authority Transcendent. One chosen because he belonged to no faction and would be able to fairly protect and watch over the continent’s brightest.

  Sofya still remembered the number of times new students were shocked by the dean’s ability to interrupt Ancestors or even Beyonders whenever they’d visit to see their children. The truth was that the dean could spit on them and they’d most likely congratulate him for such a well placed shot!

  That was the difference between an Authority and Ancestors or Beyonders. What truly surprised her was the fact an Ancestor construct had been hiding under Kork all this time, if that construct went berserk it could easily wipe out the entire city and its inhabitants by itself.

  However, the two constructs started to talk. It was binarics, a very very old form of which she could only understand a few words. They seemed to talk about transcendence, gods and Protheans.

  Even when the bigger construct showed the smaller one what seemed to be a story, Sofya’s understanding of what was happening wasn’t any higher. But now there was one thing Sofya was absolutely sure of : some Prothean constructs had sapience or something extremely close to it.

  The way they seemed to speak and act, those weren’t just robots, but beings with customs and history. Sofya could feel her passion for Prothean history and technology rise even higher.

  The two were soon done talking and the Ancestor even left his weapon, some sort of gift? Offering? Was that Levitar the equivalent of a noble or royalty? Either way, Sofya’s eyes soon were unable to leave the fight that happened before her.

  She had seen many Transcendent beings, but never saw them fight. Apart from a few friendly spars between some parents to show the kids how far they still had to go. But this?

  She didn’t care about the risk and sneaked closer to watch the fight happening. She was barely able to keep up with it, the Levitar and the giant Ambusher fighting at such a level even if all students of the Academy charged together, it would take the duo no more than two minutes to exterminate every attacker.

  Would be even faster if not for the fact every student carried life saving treasures like Sofya had been.

  The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

  It was clear the Levitar had the advantage, his speed and tech spells able to turn the Ambusher into a pile of melted green dust after only five minutes.

  She almost got found out when the Levitar rushed out from under his opponent at a speed so great she lost sight of him completely, only to hear a loud metallic smash as the construct landed into a wall and sent an immense beam of energy through the giant prothean construct, ending its robotic life instantly.

  Not willing to take anymore risk, she went back to where she had been put down and once again prayed for the god’s help and hoped the Prothean wouldn’t notice her body wasn’t exactly in the same spot as before.

  Yet it seemed luck shined on her once again and this went unnoticed or ignored by the Prothean. After this she had her eyes closed and saw nothing until she was put back down outside the Prothean complex.

  The Levitar would often come out only to come inside a few seconds later. He did this around twenty times but she couldn’t be sure of how many times precisely. She only felt extremely loud quakes shaking the complex now and then.

  Silently thinking to herself.

  /This is a [Unique] dungeon. Is he doing Intensive Gathering? But a [Unique] dungeon should only be accessible once before being closed by the System!/

  But Sofya was soon frozen in fear, she had heard the soft hum of the Prothean’s anti-gravitational body coming back, but this time, as she closed her eyes, she felt a soft tickling in her body, the nano-bots looking for an injury.

  Only to find nothing and this time, she felt an [Analyze] skill being used on her. She knew she had been found out. Luck could only run so far.

  She slowly opened her eyes, seemingly believing death would come slower if she did so. Staring at the same Levitar who now wore a rather impressive and strange cloak which seemed to mix technology with magic.

  The air surrounding him now is far more impressive and powerful. An Ancestor! He had to be an Ancestor too! There was no other possibility. He stared silently into her eyes with those silent and strange soulless eyes.

  Impossibly advanced thoughts going through his head no doubt. A harsh robotic voice invaded her mind, speaking in Binaric. She wasn’t paying attention so she ended up missing what he said completely.

  “I..I’m sorry! I..I don’t understand what you’re saying, c..can you repeat? Please don’t h..hurt me!”

  Sofya, might be a Prothean Fangirl, but how could she not be intimidated by an Ancestor. A level she wouldn’t reach for maybe fifty years. And that’s if she was lucky. The construct just stared at her silently before repeating the same binaric screeches, this time she listened.

  /Follow. Us. Ally. Help/

  That was the most Sofya could understand but Binaric was still mostly mysterious and very little was understood about it. Being able to understand four words was already impressive. Sofya was surprised by the proposition.

  A Prothean construct, reputed for slaughtering all beings stepping foot on their ruins, was asking her to follow? She took a deep breath, calming herself down. She knew she couldn’t refuse anyway.

  “Yes…”

  She nodded and got up, still surprised at how effective the construct’s healing spells were. Even more since the Priests and Priestesses of the gods and goddesses loved repeating arcane magic couldn’t heal.

  Only the gods' blessing granted to their priest could. And now she was shown arcane magi-tech could very much do so. She was following behind the Levitar, he was silent. Any construct showing up to attack her was instantly killed, their bodies seemingly fried from the inside by some strange green lightning.

  It turned toward her, summoning a strange crystal like cube in his palm which contained what looked like a Prothean Key, he showed the key to her as it talked once again.

  /Help. Key. Use./

  Sofya saw the key land inside her palm, her mouth dry as she nodded at the construct. She was familiar with those Prothean keys, it seemed like the construct was telling her to help him find the key’s use.

  “I’ll help. J…just don’t hurt me.”

  Because of the construct’s silent stare never leaving her body, she started to think she was being tested.

  Not only did she not want to end up having to go back and explain she didn’t have any use to the deadly prothean construct but she was also just curious on where that key could lead to.

  As for why a Prothean construct didn’t know what this key’s use was, she wasn’t too keen in asking that question to a prothean who could turn her to dust with his weakest attack.

  Sofya looked everywhere, thought about every piece of knowledge of the protheans and their technology.

  She came up with a theory, while the temple seemed an obvious place to hide a secret room, she was now thinking the last possibility was the room she fell unconscious in, she walked toward it, followed by the prothean construct floating behind her.

  She reached the huge console room, approached the prothean console and stared at it for a few seconds. She started to type on the console, the bronze keyboard was floating on a green energy field, symbols appearing on the screen as she typed away.

  Sofya could understand them.

  “Come on Sofya… don’t be scared, relax. It’s just like one of Mr. Berenger ancient language lessons. Just gotta translate a few words.”

  She typed for a few minutes, sometimes stopping, re-reading a sentence to be sure she had everything correct and finally as she pressed a final key, a small slot appeared in the wall, she approached the slot and pushed the key inside.

  The wall turned into a liquid silver pebble and put itself in one of the holes inside the key as Sofya turned toward the towering Levitar, clearly scared that she had now outlived her usefulness.

  “T..Tada..”

  The Prothean simply moved toward the hallway, looked down at her, the green eyes piercing her very soul. His right hand reached toward her.

  “W..wait! Please! I..I can be useful, ple-”

  And softly pat her shoulder. The construct then turned away before floating down into the staircase that had been behind the wall.

  /Job. Good. Danger. Go. Free/

  Hearing this Sofya collapsed on her knees, holding her hand to her chest, trying to calm herself and her heart. She thought that it was about to be the end. She saw the prothean’s shape disappear down into the dark.

  Wondering what danger it was talking about, the prothean fangirl’s inside voice telling her to follow, no matter how dangerous, the secrets behind that door could turn her into the most well known Prothean researcher on Zenthia!

  Even her mom would have to recognise she was a good mechanist! She didn’t want to feel regret at the thought of having missed a Prothean secret great enough that not just one but two Ancestors were in the same complex!

  I hope everyone is enjoying this chapter. If you spot any mistake do not hesitate to tell me in the comments. My main language isn't english so I'm more than eager to increase my level and better myself. Same for the System's current "appearance" do not hesitate if you dislike it and want something more simple and maybe easier to read!

  Have a great day!