In the luxurious underground room of the Kalaris villa, the five overlapping contracts dissolved into smoke. All five participants felt a faint weight pressing on their souls.
"The contract's signed. So, where's the treasure?" Adele eagerly scanned the room. "Wait, don't tell me—it's hidden inside these chairs, and we need to peel away the wood to find it?"
Her suggestion wasn't entirely unreasonable. The room was mostly furnished with ordinary furniture, leaving little space for secrets to hide.
"The treasure isn't here," Felix said flatly.
"Then why are we here?" Adele asked, still confused.
The others exchanged knowing glances. Lois sighed, pinching Adele's cheek in exasperation. "You really need to pay more attention in class! We're mages, not ordinary people. If we're hiding something, why would we stash it in the physical world?"
"If not the real world, then… oh! The Void Realm!" Adele's eyes lit up. "No wonder we need familiars to access the treasure!"
Compared to the unpredictable chaos of the real world, the Void Realm was the ideal vault: eternal, disaster-free, and uninhabited.
The Void Realm was more than just a training ground for mages—it was the cornerstone of their entire system. Despite decades of study, no one could claim to fully understand its mysteries. Every year, new techniques were discovered that pushed its potential further.
Mages, like children collecting shells on a beach, remained awed by the vast, unknown ocean before them.
Storing items in the Void Realm wasn't a new concept, but it hadn't been commercialized due to its complexity. It remained a miracle exclusive to high-ranking mages.
The principle was simple: by stabilizing the Void Realm's coordinates via the Gate of Truth, one could repeatedly access the same location, creating a personal vault.
But stabilizing the Gate of Truth, which appeared randomly within a familiar, was a monumental challenge.
This process relied on a little-known field of study: familiar relations.
Familiars, being sentient, had emotions. While lower-ranking mages couldn't perceive these feelings, bringing multiple familiars together could spark noticeable reactions. If a mage could observe and manipulate these reactions to maintain a familiar's emotional state, they could stabilize the Gate of Truth within it.
Felix summoned his Ripple Sword familiar, a stoic swordsman figure. "When you see a reaction, bring the Killing Intent Sword closer. Ready?"
Sonia nodded, calling forth her Killing Intent Sword, a fiery-haired, dual-wielding swordsman wrapped in a crimson aura.
Felix took a deep breath and summoned his Affinity familiar, a radiant, innocent girl with a single wing.
The Ripple Sword stood cold and expressionless as Affinity danced around it. When Affinity grabbed its hand and shook it, there was still no response. But when Affinity leaned in and kissed the Ripple Sword, a faint blush broke through its icy demeanor.
"Now!"
Sonia quickly brought the Killing Intent Sword closer.
Affinity hid behind the Ripple Sword, while the latter stood its ground, radiating a black wave of energy.
Familiar Bond: The Battle of Pure Love—activated!
Felix's gaze sharpened as he directed his consciousness into the Ripple Sword, searching for the Gate of Truth.
It expanded.
A tiny gray dot emerged from the familiar's body, swelling rapidly into a translucent gray bubble.
Within the bubble, thunder and lightning crackled ominously, prompting everyone to back away cautiously.
Though the Gate of Truth could expand, it was useless to physical mages—only souls could enter the Void Realm.
No physical object could pass into the Void Realm.
But the opposite wasn't true.
Objects from the Void Realm could enter the real world through the Gate of Truth. Some Void creatures even escaped into reality, wreaking havoc.
The same principle underpinned the creation of familiars, which mages summoned by combining Void truths with their knowledge.
This was why Sonia and her friends retreated to the staircase, ready to flee at the first sign of danger.
Any Void coordinate valuable enough to serve as a vault was bound to be dangerous. A serene island might attract not only other mages but also predatory Void creatures.
Felix's decision to expand the Gate of Truth instead of entering himself underscored the peril of this location. Everyone knew the risks: some mages had opened their gates only to be obliterated by stray blasts from battles happening on the other side.
Being killed by one's own Gate of Truth was a famously foolish way for a mage to die.
The gray bubble grew larger, its lightning strikes intensifying. Felix grunted in pain, his face pale from the mana drain. Half-formed Silver Wings unfurled from his back.
Sonia narrowed her eyes at the nearly complete wings.
The bubble continued to expand until a bolt of lightning struck a nearby chair, instantly reducing it to charcoal.
"Whoa!"
"What do we do now?"
"Should we wait for better weather?" Adele quipped, earning incredulous stares from the others—weather wasn't exactly a Void Realm concept.
Just as Felix seemed on the verge of collapse, a black box tumbled out of the bubble. He immediately ceased his mana flow, and the bubble popped with a faint crackle, releasing a soft breeze.
"This is it?" Adele darted forward, examining the box. "It looks… wait, did it just disappear? No, there it is again! Am I imagining things?"
The box appeared to be made of obsidian, unremarkable at first glance. But when Adele blinked, it vanished—only to reappear moments later.
"Forgotten Wood." Lois's voice was barely audible, as though afraid of scaring the box away. "If you don't focus, it becomes invisible, slipping from your memory. It's a rare Void Realm material."
She explained its unique properties. The box could hide in a mage's soul, making it portable between the Void Realm and reality. Items stored inside were undetectable, their presence completely erased.
Her explanation drew murmurs of awe from the others, but Lois's gaze lingered on Felix, her mind racing.
She recognized the significance of Forgotten Wood—a material only found in the third layer of the Void Realm, the Distant Sky Abyss. Only a Three-Winged Saint could access such depths.
The box alone might be more valuable than its contents. A priceless artifact capable of crossing dimensions, it could spark wars among mages.
Initially, Lois hadn't expected much from Felix's "mother's treasure." But the appearance of this box changed everything.
Felix's mother must have been extraordinary, wielding power far beyond Felix's current level.
Or perhaps, to someone like her, a Forgotten Wood box was as trivial as a trinket.
Lois swallowed hard, realizing she had been drawn into a conflict far above her station. This was no longer about a simple treasure—it was about the legacy of the Voslotta family.
Backing out now wasn't an option. The secrecy contract had already bound her.
"It's open."
Felix lifted the lid of the Forgotten Wood box. A burst of golden light illuminated the room.