Chapter 37

Taiyang and Ghira push the doors open to see what is inside the grand halls of what was once a great academy for magical learning. When the doors open everyone is astonished by what they see. Inside, they see a grand hall with a giant crystal chandelier with glowing crystals still hanging form the ceiling that glow with bluish hues along with an elegant arcane design. There are also a few wall lamps that are still intact that still glow with their cone-shaped crystals on the very elegant, bronze wall lamps with a few windows letting in a few rays of sunlight from above the doors. The place is huge with redwood stair railings with very unique carvings so intricate that it looked like it was carves through machines rather than hand carved. The tiles on the floor are in a very archaic pattern with swirls upon swirls with a few symbols on the floor with an eye on an upside down star. Upon closer inspection, there isn't any tiles. The floor is decorated with rhinestones. Despite the place being in ruins with a few cobwebs, the stones and crystals are clean and shiny.

Yang whistles, "Damn!"

"YANG!" Taiyang yells at his daughter for swearing.

"Sorry. But still though."

"I have to admit." Kali says while being amazed with the architecture, "This place must've been an amazing academy."

"Must've been greater than Shade, Beacon, Haven, and Atlas combined!" Ruby says as she twirls towards the center of the grand hall.

Winter, being stoic, "It must've been. But sadly..." she looks at some of the desolated, ruined, and cobweb covered areas. "This place should be condemned."

Willow grabs Kali, "Well, Kali and I are gonna checkout the east wing." Willow takes Kali with her and begin their search.

"Well then..." Taiyang pats Ghira's back, "Ghira and I will take the west wing." The two of them went off towards the west wing.

Summer then says, "Then I get to be with Klein to the north wing."

Klein's eyes turned pink and starts to act bashful, "Oh really? Well I'm all your's dear."

Summer giggles as the two head towards the north wing.

Winter tugs Whitley's arm, "HEY!"

"If you'll excuse me, I'll take Whitley with me to catch-up with the twins."

"Do you have a thing for Qrow?"

Winter immediately smacks the back head of his little brother while angrily saying, "Silence, you boob!"

Whitley has a big bump on the head as Winter just drags Whitley to the stairs.

Team RWBY are left all alone with Yang going, "Guess we get the basement."

"If we come across any slime creatures, I'm running away." Weiss says with a bit of disgust. Yet she also shivers at the thought of encountering such a disgusting creature.

"Have you been playing Dungeons and Yet More Dragons behind our backs?" Ruby asks.

"NO!" Weiss says in a defensive manner.

Blake says, "Then how come I found a character sheet that says 'Schnee, Princess of the Northern Snowflake' under your pillow?"

"SHUT UP!"

At the east wing, Kali and Willow travel through the halls of what was once a magical school for mages all around to find some spell tomes. Willow has a torch out while Kali uses her Faunus nightvision in order to see. Both look at opposite directions to keep an eye out for anything worth rummaging through.

Kali points at the door to her left, "I think we should start here."

Both women open the door and it tuns out to be a classroom. It looks similar to the ones at Beacon, but smaller with a few books, inkwells, and quills thrown about. There is a window above the chalkboard but it look like it was smashed into with something heavy smashing the teacher's desk into pieces. The writing on the chalkboard maybe a little faint but still readable with a strange symbol on it.

"What type of class was this?" Willow asks as she enters with Kali.

"I don't know." Kali responds as she picks up a book. Surprisingly, the book is still intact. It is purple with the same symbol on the chalkboard. "But I do believe I found a spell tome."

"What kind?"

Kali looks at it and reads the title, "It says, Spell Tome: Conjure Zombie."

Then their implants started to go off again.

"Oh." Kali says as she looks at her implant. "Looks like we got something new." She looks around and notices the similar books on the ground. "And we got a few new spells as well."

The two started to gather-up all the spell tomes that are still intact.

"Hey, Kali?" Willow says while picking up the books.

"Yeah?"

"Can I tell you something? I need to get it out of my chest."

Kali stops and looks at Willow. "What is it?"

Willow stops and looks a Kali, "I am actually quite jealous of you."

Kali winces, "Really?"

"That is because you have a good husband. Your husband is fair, noble, good, and treats his family well. As for me, I ended-up marrying an asshole who only wanted my family name to run my father's company to the ground. He said so on Weiss' 10th birthday! Who does that? Then I started drinking, my son became a bigger asshole than my husband, and you get the idea. Right?"

Kali is surprised to hear something like that. A man that tricked his way to a major Dust company and treats is family horribly. And she thought that Jacques Schnee was a major asshole to Faunus and rivals only.

"I mean..." Willow looks a little sad. "He wasn't all bad at first, but..."

Kali approach and places her left hand on Willow's shoulder. "It'll be alright." She smiles. "That man is gone and isn't here. If whatever alien civilization is responsible for bringing us here, they never transported him here with us. You now have a second chance to bond with your growing children."

Willow takes a deep sigh, "You're right. But I'm also a bit worried. What if he does come here?" Then a light bulb went off on top of Willow's head. "Actually, I have and idea. I'll just take a shotgun, blast his face-off with it, and say 'Consider it a divorce.' How's that?"

Kali is a bit disturbed at that but just smiles and nods.

Over to where Taiyang and Ghira are at, they seem to have entered into a eight floor library with a few chandeliers fallen on top of some of the bookshelves that caused them to be knocked over or demolished with some of the second story windows smashed through with some of the flooring. Taiyang squats at a pile of books to see if any of them are good, but keeps on getting either burned books or ruined as he just tosses them behind him. Ghira goes through the shelves but has no luck as well as he puts the books back.

"Man." Taiyang says as he keeps on checking the books. "Who or whatever is responsible for this damage didn't leave much behind in terms of knowledge."

"Indeed." Ghira agrees. "Yet is it a shame to have so much knowledge get destroyed. Things we could've learned about this world."

"Heh!" Taiyang is amuse, "You can say that again. Although our kids seem to have learned a lot from the time here."

"Once again, indeed."

After a few minutes of rummaging in silence, Ghira stops and looks at Taiyang.

He asks, "How are things between you, Raven, and Summer?"

Taiyang drops the books he was going through as if Ghira just stepped on a landmine.

"I mean Summer died sometime after your second daughter became a toddler and... What did happened to Raven?"

Taiyang answered in an emotionless tone, "She left to become the leader of a bandit tribe."

Ghira was taken by surprise by that, "Wait what?!"

"Before that, she just dropped Yang on me, left, then later I got married to Summer, had Ruby, then died somewhere. C-can we change the subject!" Taiyang is getting a little touchy about the subject while also being defensive. But he says in a more calmly tone, "Let's just say that I have terrible luck with women."

"Sorry." Ghira apologizes for such a very sensitive subject. "I do apologize and-"

"It's alright. Let's just find a few good- Oh." Taiyang pulls up two books. "I found two books. One is...An Accounting of the Scrolls. And the other one...The Book of the Dragonborn?"

"What type of books are those?"

"Don't know, but at least we found something."

Then both of their implants started to go off. Which means they got something new.

Over at the north wing, Klein and Summer entered up a tower that leads to the Arch-Mage's quarters with a glass dome at the top that brings in beams of sunlight to a little garden at the center with an eldergleam sapling, ginseng, gleamblossom, glowing mushroom, bergamont, deathbell, dragon's tongue, snowberries, canis root, a sacred lotus growing in a small pond, and imp stool. There is an enchanter's table on one side of the room with shelves of different soul gems on both sides and a shelf above and an alchemy table on the other with shelves of different alchemical ingredients and for some reason has some fire arrows on it. There is a bed facing the direction of the garden where an arch-mage can get a nice view of the garden every morning while also having a few bookcases with books that are intact with a few other bobbles on it like a drum, a troll's skull, and a shrine of Julianos.

"I wonder if Prof. Ozpin's quarters are like this?" Summer says as she looks around. "Nice, decorative, and have a strange wizarding feel to it."

"I heard Ozpin's quarters is a bit more clockwork than mythical."

"Probably." Summer shrugs. "I'll get the books from the bookshelves and you get those arrows."

"Right." Klein nodded. He went up to grab the fire arrows and his implant started going off which means that everyone has learned something new at the same time Kali picked something up. "Oh. It seems to we get to have new."

"That's good to hear." Summer says with a smile. Summer quickly grab all the books as she can along with the knick knacks that were on the shelves as well.

Klein grabs the alchemical ingredients from monster pieces to plants along with checking a few barrels filled with salt pile, red apples, and green apples. Summer checks a safe and found a few jewels, and some Nordic jewelry with a mage's backpack which caused everyone's implants to go off again.

Then Summer checks the chest at the front of the bed and pulls out a staff of repulsion. "Hey." she says to Klein as she turns to face him along with pulling out the staff. "Do you think Maria would like to have this?"

"Well.." Klein's eyes turn yellow, "Mythical staves are a lot better than a walking stick. So yes, I expect that Ms. Calavera would like to have one."

"Good to hear." Summer puts the staff in her inventory. "Oh and by the way, can you tell me stories about Weiss?"

Qrow and Raven continue to explore the attic of the university and noticed the new crafting recipes they received in their implants. Yet continue to check some of the stored wardrobes, cupboards, chests, and some of the barrels. Although they mostly found barrels full of salt piles, moon sugar, ectoplasm, troll fat, vampire dust, glow dust, fire salts, frost salts, and void salts. They even found some fine clothes, fine shoes, and some random junk in many of the storage containers.

Qrow says as he checks another barrel, "I wonder if Beacon had something like this."

"I highly doubt they have an attic." Raven says as she pulls out another lantern from a chest. "Although they may have some other storage areas where they store things that are...sentimental."

"Speaking of." Qrow stops what he is doing and looks at his sister. "Are you gonna tell Yang about the Branwen Tribe?"

"I already did." Raven says as she pulls out some glass and straw.

Qrow just dropped everything while dumbstruck by what Raven just said. "I'm sorry but I think that my alcohol withdrawn syndrome was kicking in. Did you say that you already told Yang?"

Raven stopped what she was doing to look at her brother. "I did."

"When the hell was that?"

"That incident at the center of Vale when Roman Torchwick used Mountain Glenn's underground rails to lure Grimm. And I rescued her before she got killed."

"Shit." Qrow is a bit lost on what Raven just said.

Raven interrupts Qrow's train of thought, "But there is a major problem."

"Salem?"

"Indeed. I don't exactly trust her. She maybe human now, but what will happen when she becomes the Queen of the Grimm again?"

"Or maybe she got split into two."

"If that is true, where is her darker half? If human Salem is here than where is the Grimm Salem?"

"Either she has some of her subordinates with her that help her stay alive or...dead. I don't know about you but I highly doubt we can survive in a place like this on our own. I mean zombies, radiation, mutant creatures, prehistoric creatures, mythical creatures, and who knows what the fuck else is out there. I know I wouldn't last five minutes without my Harbinger...or any clothes to keep me warm."

Raven stands up, "But you still have your semblance."

Qrow leans against a cupboard, "Yeah. For all the good it would do for me. I can barely control the damn thing then and I'm still trying to control it now." The cupboard then falls backwards that almost cause him to fall onto it. He points at it with his two fingers, "See what I mean."

Winter and Whitley just look for anything useful in silence as they rummage through some of the dorms. Whitley checked out one of the wardrobes while Winter checks on one of the chests.

But Winter interrupts the awkward silence, "So. How are things with you?"

Whitley checks the other wardrobe, "Well I started making friends with a Faunus name Velvet. She is kinda nice."

"That's good." Winter pulls out two common soul gems and adds them to her inventory. "At least you are treating Faunus as equals."

"I guess so. Although I really like Blake. Quiet. Doesn't talk much."

"I guess that's...progress."

"Not too sure about Neon though. Although Sun is a bit of a nuisance."

"That's understandable."

"For once we are in agreement." Then Whitley found something. He found two jade sapphire rings that have enchantments on them. Both of them have the same enchantments that increases the wearer's luck by 95 points. "Hmm." he went as he thinks about it. He decides to keep one for himself and show-off the second to his sister. "Hey, sis." Winter turns to see the new ring. "Do you think Mr. Branwen would like to have this? This ring fortifies one's luck. If he wears this, his semblance won't be much of a problem in the long run."

"Hard to say. Magic is unpredictable. Chaotic. And highly destructive when used wrong. But best to humor him."

"Alright." Whitley then puts the other ring in his inventory along with the other.

Then the two hear footsteps coming from the hallway. The two get their weapons ready as they prepare for who or whatever is walking down the halls. They see two familiar figures entering. It is Raven and Qrow.

"Hey, kiddos." Qrow says with a less than enthusiastic attitude. "Found anything good?"

Whitley pulls out the Green Ring of Luck out of his inventory and tosses it at Qrow, "Something for you."

Qrow grabs it and read what it is in his inventory. "Huh." he says before putting it on. "Thanks, kid. I could use some magical good luck."

"Anytime."

Winter stands up, "Found anything?"

Raven approaches, "Just some different varieties of salts and dust use for potion making in the attic. And a bunch of random junk."

Whitley says, "Hope Weiss and her team found something."

Team RWBY is going down into the basement of the academy with their flashlights shining down the spiral staircase made of marble. They also pass by a few statues holding glowing crystal lanterns that aren't as bright as the flashlights but still shine.

Ruby looks at one of the lanterns. "Any ideas what these crystals are?" Ruby asks while curious about them.

Yang stands next to Ruby and look. "They almost look like Dust crystals."

"Let me see." Weiss uses her glyph to open the lantern up and takes a the crystal. When she touches it, she can feel the heat from the crystal. It is warm and feels good in the dark, cold underground. Weiss then takes a closer examination of it before entering it into her inventory. When that happened, their implants went off yet again.

"Seems like we are learning something new almost every hour." Yang states.

"So what is it?" Ruby asks Weiss.

"It says that it is a fire crystal. We can use them to make fire arrows, noisemaker arrows, and explosive arrows."

"That's awesome!" Yang gets excited. "I wonder if I can use them to make new rounds for my Ember Celica."

"Hard to say." Weiss says before turning around, "What do you think Blake?" Blake isn't there with them. "Blake?!"

"DOWN HERE!" Blake shouts from the bottom of the staircase, "I FOUND SOMETHING!"

The three of them head down stairs to meet up with Blake. Blake is kneeling down in front of the door while examining something she found on the ground.

"What did you find?" Weiss asks.

Blake stands up to show something in her hand. "I found a piece of something."

All three of them look at it and see half of a handheld video game device with the other half looked like it got sliced off.

"That's an XoDS." Ruby point it out. "I've seen Yuki playing on something like that during the storm."

"Looks like we weren't the first ones here." Blake says as she puts the device away. "Someone else must've been here before us."

"Like who?" Yang asks.

"Don't know." Blake turns to face the door. "But we should get some answers inside assuming whoever was here made it inside." Then she looks at Yang, "Yang. Would you please?"

Yang cracks her knuckles and smiles right before bashing the door open. As the dust settles, the team of huntresses went inside to a room that is being shined with the same fire crystals as the lanterns. But there is a lot more, even on the gigantic massive bookshelves they see from the balcony.

"Holy shit." Yang says with amazement.

There is a massive room from the balcony where they are standing on that is 20 feet down, 40 feet from one end to another in a symmetrical square shape room. Not to mention the six dozen shelves that almost reach the ceiling.

"Holy shit." Weiss says in amazement as well.

There are even chandeliers covered in fire crystals that further add light to this strange room.

"Holy crap." Ruby says in amazement.

"You can all say that again." says Blake equally stun. "But we're gonna need a lot of help getting all of these spell tomes out of here."

"I'll use my semblance to get the others and get some help." Ruby uses her semblance to quickly get the others for help.

Yang looks down from the balcony to see the floor. "This place is super big."

Weiss walks up to Yang's left, "If you're gonna make a pun, don't."

Yang looks at Weiss, "Oh come on, Weiss-cream."

Weiss gets upset, "Don't call me that! And I said no puns!"

Blake looks around from the balcony to look for something on Yang's right.

Weiss notices, "What are you looking for, Blake?"

"Looking for any corpses since we found that portable video game."

"Oh yeah." Weiss just remembered the half destroyed XoDS. She looked down at the floor from the balcony to see if there is a skeleton of some sort along with Blake and Yang.

However, something else caught their eyes.

"What is that?" Blake asks.

There is a strange black creature that stands on two feet, tall, has square and rectangular body parts, and strange pixelated purple sparkle effects emitting from its body.

Yang immediately recognizes the creature from the book she got from Dead Canyon and shouts, "Cover your eyes!" Yang covers her eyes with her left hand and looks away.

Blake and Weiss look at Yang with Weiss asking, "Wait, why?"

Before they know it, the creature teleported next to Blake and Weiss that frighten them as it looks down at the two. The two stare at the creature's purple eyes and the creature stares back at them. Then the creature reveals its jagged teeth and screams at Weiss and Blake and attacks them. The creature smacks Blake yet she uses her semblance to dodge it as Weiss stabbed the creature in the crotch. The creature poof out of existence and two ender pearls were dropped to the ground. Yang opens and uncovers her eyes when she sees the two pearls and grabs them.

"I told you guys to cover your eyes!"

"How are we supposed to know?!" Weiss argues.

"It was an enderman. It attacks people who stare at it for a while. It was in that book Blake and I found back at Dead Canyon."

"Actually," Blake says with her right index finger pointing up, "I never got the chance to read it. You gave it to Jaune, remember?"

"Oh." Yang realizes her mistake and regrets it. "Oops. I should get that book back from Jaune."

"We'll catch up with him and his team at a blacksmith somewhere." Blake says. She then looks down, "In the meantime..."

Everyone look down and noticed a few more endermen just minding their own business among the bookshelves.

"...we need to clear this place out once the others get here."

"Hang on." Weiss says as she pulls out the fire crystal. "I have an idea."

Weiss puts the fire crystal into the slot where her Dust vials should be. She almost touches the blade of her Myrtenaster with orange lights and some sort of flame effect going off as some form of ember appear from the tip of her sword. She then unleash a few tiny sparks out at the endermen that hit as many as she can see before setting them off a blaze. Thankfully, none of them set fire to the shelves or the books before disappearing and dropping some sweet ender pearls.

She lowers her weapon, "I can't believe that actually worked." Weiss is surprised that the crystal she used worked.

"What worked?" says a voice behind the three girls.

They turned around and see Winter who was speaking with the others behind her.

"Holy crap." Taiyang says in astonishment. He looks at the giant room with a shit ton of books from one end to another. "There are a lot of spell tomes."

"Isn't that supposed to be expected." Raven says as she places her right hand on the railing. "This is a magical academy. There has to be this many spell tomes for a lot of students."

Yang jumps off from the balcony and started gathering not just the books, but also the pearls.

"Oh for-" Taiyang says after witnessing that. "Yep. She is definitely my girl." Then he jumps off from the balcony as well.

Everyone started to gather as many spell tomes as they can ranging from alteration, illusion, conjuration, destruction, and restoration. They even found some spell tomes that were in a different color than the regular ones that cause their implants to go off once again. There are even some spells that you wouldn't get from the spell tomes from the regular games. Such as summon Arvak, summon Arniel's shade, fire storm, Arniel's convection, nightingale strife, vision of the tenth eye, summon spectral assassin, and even powers from the All-Maker stones. Some of them even read them to gain these new spells. They all collect as many as they can despite the fact that their inventories are almost full. Team RWBY also try to keep an eye out for a corpse or skeleton on the floor yet no sign of it. Probably left through a secret passage or something to join up with the undead that Winter mentioned before they were sent out. With all that everyone head up to the teleporter, although some are moving a little slower. Although before they left, Willow and Kali went back up to double check that they got everything. They head up to the library to see if there is anything out of the ordinary.

"Why are we checking the library?" Kali asks as they enter in.

"To double check to see if there are any secrets." Willow says as she looked for something on the shelves. "There is gotta be something like a magical door or something that gets activated by pressing a switch."

Kali watch as Willow looks for something, "I think you've been playing Dungeons and Yet Even More Dragons too much."

"I only did it once with my family over at the vault when given the tour." Willow stops after she felt something. "I got it!"

"What?!"

"I feel something." She uses her two fingers to feel whatever it is she is feeling. "It feels like some sort of...V-shape symbol. Like one of those old compass and square." She presses it and made a click sound. "Told ya'."

Willow steps back as the bookshelf gets drag into the wall and lowers to reveal a hidden passage. It revealed a circular room with an outfit on the mannequin at the center of the room. It looks like the default assassin's outfit from Assassin's Creed 3 with all the upgraded gear to it.

"I think I found myself a new outfit."

BICORN: Progression of Project PHOENIX: 69%.