Amora opened her eyes, gasping for breath, her body drenched in sticky sweat.
"What was that?" she croaked, her voice hoarse and ragged, as she ripped the towel off her eyes.
Mongel was slumped over the experiment table, asleep. The bright lighting device had been moved, and the area was littered with the wreckage of failed magical conduits and shattered test tubes. Amora touched the surface of the experiment table beneath her, finding fine cracks. The metal device that had been used to secure her had deformed into a grotesque shape, as if it had been melted.
The place looked like a battlefield.
"Mongel?" Amora called out, her voice sluggish, as a sharp hunger pain hit her. She had no idea how much time had passed.
In the dim light, Amora climbed down from the experiment table, but her legs gave out the moment her feet touched the ground. She collapsed onto the floor, feeling as though the simple act of standing had drained all her energy. Her hand accidentally pressed onto a stray test tube, which shattered with a sharp crack, embedding shards of glass into her palm.
Amora tried to get up but found herself unable to move. The glass shards dug deeper into her skin. She felt the sticky warmth of blood pooling in her palm, the glass leaving small cuts that stung sharply, but she couldn't focus on that now.
"What are you doing?" The noise of the breaking test tube startled Mongel awake. He took a few seconds to locate her, then lifted her off the floor.
"Getting food," Amora muttered after a pause. "I'm starving."
"I already injected you with nutrient solutions. You won't die from hunger," Mongel replied, his pale face shadowed by dark circles and stubble. He looked like he hadn't slept for days.
Amora suddenly thought of Lian. Mongel had said he was taking her upstairs for a cold checkup, but now it had been days without either of them going back downstairs. Surely that wasn't normal, was it? Then again, Lian's vacation was short. She might have already returned to the imperial capital a few days ago…
"What did you just say?" Mongel's voice was as hoarse as hers. He probably hadn't even drunk water. Amora couldn't help but think his vitality was almost unnaturally strong.
"Get me something to eat." Amora saw Mongel's pale face darken, so she quickly changed her words. "I mean, I'm asking if the experiment was successful."
Mongel stood up, turned on the light, and threw her shoes and coat in front of her. "Theoretically, yes."
"After implanting the thirty-ninth set of conduits, there were no abnormal reactions, but neither did the energy fluctuation we were aiming for appear. So I implanted the fortieth set of conduits," Mongel said, sitting down at the edge of the experiment table. He rested his head on one hand and lightly tapped the table with the other, looking visibly fatigued.
Amora hadn't adjusted to the sudden brightness after spending several days in the dark, but she could hear Mongel's tapping on the table. The sound of his black jade ring echoed in her mind, overlapping with the blood-red jade ring from her dream.
"And then?" Amora raised her hand to shield her eyes, standing barefoot on the floor as she questioned him.
The tapping stopped. Mongel replied indifferently, "And then it ended up like this."
"What do you mean, like this?" Amora asked instinctively, then suddenly remembered the chaos she had seen upon waking—the laboratory looked like it had been ransacked.
"Like what you saw." Mongel rubbed his temples, clearly exhausted from the prolonged mental strain. "I didn't activate the energy isolation system. That was my mistake. In a couple of days, I'll analyze the data from the energy burst. Only after the analysis is complete will I know for certain whether the experiment was successful."
"Oh…" Amora hadn't learned these advanced concepts yet, but she knew Mongel would never rely on observations alone to draw conclusions. He preferred to base his findings on reliable data.
Noticing that Amora was struggling to see anything in the light, Mongel bent down, picked up the coat he had thrown on the floor, and draped it over her shoulders. "Put on your clothes and shoes. The radiation energy hasn't fully dissipated."
"Hey…" Amora tugged at his sleeve suddenly, asking, "Have you worked for a magical corps before?"
Logically, a researcher of Mongel's caliber shouldn't be hiding out in a remote border town, secretly forcing a young girl to participate in strange experiments. If he joined a world-class magical corps, countless people would line up to become his test subjects.
But if Mongel had worked for a magical corps before, it didn't make sense for him to be living here in quiet isolation.
Magical corps imposed strict control over their researchers to prevent information leaks. Such individuals were often prohibited from marrying, having children, or leaving their sky fortresses for life. However, the Empire provided these researchers' families with immense honor and generous material rewards, making positions in the magical corps highly coveted among scholars.
Mongel remained silent, crouching down to help her put on her shoes.
"Really?" Amora found it hard to believe. A living scholar who had once served in a magical corps was standing right in front of her. She couldn't shake the dream from her mind—the person operating that grand magical system had worn a ring identical to Mongel's. They were likely part of a magical corps.
"Why are you asking this?" Mongel avoided answering directly, and Amora took his silence as confirmation.
"I just think you look like an honorable person. Surely, you must have chosen to serve the Empire by joining a magical corps, or something like that…" Amora tried her best to flatter him.
"What are you getting at?" Mongel wasn't swayed in the slightest. He could see through her feigned sincerity and stiff expression in an instant.
Left with no choice, Amora told him about her dream. "I dreamed of someone wearing a ring just like yours."
Mongel's breathing seemed to quicken for a moment. He raised his hand, the black jade ring exuding a cold aura. "This one?"
Sensing his excitement, Amora carefully recounted her dream in detail.
"Yes, that person was surrounded by an incredibly massive magical system. I've never seen anything like it. It was connected to at least tens of thousands of magicians, scattered across the world—in deserts, snowfields, forests. No matter how far apart they were, they could all link their consciousness spaces to this system."
"I can't even describe it… It didn't feel real, like something beyond the current level of magical technology."
"I regret to inform you," Mongel said, his tone hovering between indifference and fervor, "that is indeed the most advanced level of magical technology today."
He grabbed her hand and pulled her up abruptly, storming out of the laboratory without warning.
Amora was startled. After lying down for so long, her body was weak, and she couldn't keep up with Mongel's strides. He dragged her along, causing her to stumble and trip repeatedly.
"What are you doing?" she shouted.
"That's the Root System," Mongel replied, his voice caught between cold detachment and fervent obsession, making it hard for Amora to discern his mood. "The latest generation of magical systems, still in the experimental phase."
He led her straight downstairs and stopped at the small gap between the kitchen and the storeroom. Amora was all too familiar with this spot; she had spent a third of the past year here.
There was a note stuck on the wall near the gap. It was written by Lian, saying she had returned to school and to write her a letter if anything came up.
Mongel didn't pay any attention to the note. He dispelled the concealment magic on the wine cellar and pulled out a key to unlock the door.
"Wait!" Amora broke free from his grip just before he could shove her inside. "I didn't do anything wrong!"
He had mentioned locking her up for twenty days earlier, but at least give her a meal first! Being thrown in like this would starve her to death.
"Come here!" Mongel's black jade ring emitted a faint glow. Amora clutched the collar around her neck and collapsed to the ground as a surge of pain, like an electric shock, coursed through her entire body.
Terrified, she scrambled to move away from him.
"I'm protecting you," Mongel said, his eyes glowing faintly in the dark. He extended a hand toward her. "Come, Am."
"You're torturing me," Amora said through gritted teeth, biting her lip so hard it bled, moistening her parched skin.
"Listen, there's no time." Mongel stopped using the black jade to torment her and stepped closer, helping her to her feet. "The experiment succeeded. Your magical system just connected to the Root System not long ago. The things you saw—it's all in development. It's a secret! And now they're coming for us."
His words came fast, almost incoherent, but Amora understood the gist of what he was saying.
The "fluctuation" Mongel had been chasing referred to the resonance of consciousness waves overlapping with the Root System.
In theory, resonance could only occur between two identical magical systems. But since no two things in the world are truly identical, "consciousness wave overlap" had only existed as a theoretical concept. Now, however, Mongel had broken that barrier. After implanting the fortieth set of magical conduits, Amora's system resonated with the Root System, and through her dream, she had seen the full scope of the experimental system.
The problem was that resonance worked both ways. As Amora glimpsed the Root System, the owner of the blood-red jade ring saw her magical system as well.
Amora hadn't yet learned how to use magic to trace real people from fragmented and fleeting images. But there was no doubt the other party possessed such capabilities. With a single image, they could locate Amora in no time.
"Who… are they?" Amora asked, feeling Mongel's grip on her shoulder tighten painfully.
Mongel dragged her toward the wine cellar and shoved her inside. Through the door, he lowered his voice and said, "Don't worry about that. Stay hidden. I'll use a wide-area environmental masking spell to conceal the entrance. Unless you actively connect to it, your magical system can perfectly prevent the Root System from locating you."
Amora suddenly thought of something. "What about you?"
"I said don't worry!" Mongel snapped irritably before vanishing from the cellar doorway.
Amora watched as the door to the cellar disappeared, leaving her in a completely sealed space.
She glanced back and began calculating how long the limited air in the small underground wine cellar could sustain her. Near the door, she found a piece of black bread, likely left there days ago. She decided she'd have to cherish it—it might be the only food she had. No, wait—there were still a few jars of honey on the wine rack, and half a barrel of wine on the ground. Those could sustain her as well.
Amora trusted that Mongel was telling the truth. If he wanted her dead, there were far more practical ways to achieve that. Letting her starve here and spoil the wine seemed wasteful. Calming herself, she hugged the piece of black bread and sat on the wine barrel, listening quietly to her own heartbeat.
Meanwhile, in the sky over the border between the Holy Lanskarter Empire and the Pranman Empire, not a single star could be seen.
A sky fortress, large enough to obscure the entire border, drifted slowly eastward from the Holy Lanskarter Empire. It blended seamlessly with the night, emitting no light and moving so silently that even birds remained undisturbed.
In transit, the fortress appeared spherical, with countless turrets concealed beneath its smooth, streamlined surface, and numerous observation crystals hidden within its understated yet elegant designs.
The world's most intricate ancient magical patterns powered its systems, and the finest magicians operated it with unparalleled precision, allowing the structure—far grander than any city—to float effortlessly in the sky.
The observation crystals, ornate as if they were merely decorative, shifted slowly. At last, all the external observation crystals aligned, pointing in the same direction. A faint glow emerged from the central crystal and, through countless reflections within its faceted surfaces, condensed into an extraordinary beam of light.
This beam pierced the pitch-black night like sunlight, striking directly toward the ground.
The beam of light pointed to Camper City, a small border town within the Pranman Empire.
"Targeting, precision: 20 kilometers."
"Targeting, precision: 1 kilometer."
"Targeting, precision: 300 meters."
"Confirmation, precision: 100 meters."
"Recalibrating, precision: 1 meter."
"Targeting complete. Confirmation complete. Calibration successful. Final coordinates verified. Reporting to the Commander-in-Chief: precision is 0.01 meters."
In the control center of the sky fortress, countless magicians worked to calculate increasingly precise coordinates. A massive flow of data projected onto the screens like cascading waterfalls. The beams from the observation crystals grew ever more focused. At first, they enveloped the entire city of Camper, but soon they began to converge, illuminating a specific point: an old manor on the eastern side of a hill.
The beam quivered slightly, continuing to condense, until it landed precisely on a wall at the far end of the manor's third floor.
The man known as the Commander-in-Chief stood tall and gaunt. His hollow cheeks and prominent cheekbones contrasted sharply with his youthful face, framed by silver-gray hair. He stood before the screen, his gaze cold as he observed the ivy-covered and dust-laden mansion. With a simple wave of his hand, the military magicians in the room stood at attention, their postures rigid like spears.
"Flatten all nearby cities, leave Camper untouched. The Adjudicators will deploy with me onto Pranman soil."
Oval-shaped drop pods began to rise from the ground. The commander's blood-red jade ring glowed ominously as he repeated the order in an even, emotionless tone:
"Listen carefully to my command… Kill the Angel of Death. Destroy everything related to him. Once his death and the surrounding area's absolute security are confirmed, initiate large-scale magical reconstruction to retrieve his experimental data."
One by one, magicians in black military uniforms boarded the drop pods. The sky fortress deployed them directly in front of the manor. Meanwhile, a twisted rift opened before the commander. He lightly touched the ring on his hand and stepped forward. In the next moment, he appeared on the third floor of the old manor.