The stone gate finished sliding open with a final grinding sound.
Marth stepped through the entrance without hesitation. His light orb followed behind him, casting pale, cold light across the floor. The room inside was massive—at least twenty meters wide, with high ceilings made of dark, polished stone that shimmered like glass.
Long-forgotten machines sat in rows along the walls. Most were rusted or broken. Some had mana cores embedded in them—dead now, but still slightly warm. Thick wires and tubes were tangled across the floor like roots.
This wasn't a tomb.
It was a laboratory.
Marth's eyes moved slowly, taking everything in. His expression didn't change.
"This place wasn't built to be found," he muttered. "It was built to be forgotten."
As he walked deeper into the room, a strange pressure touched his body. The air bent slightly around him, like gravity was pulling in two directions at once.
He stopped and raised one hand.
"Stability Field."
A faint ripple of mana spread out from his feet. It formed a soft dome of invisible energy around him, locking his body into one spatial frame. The distortion faded, and the pull stopped.
"This layer isn't fully stable," he noted. "Probably a side effect of bad dimensional anchoring."
He continued moving.
On the far wall, an old control console stood upright. Most of it was smashed, but a few crystal panels still flickered faintly. Next to it was a rusted doorframe with no door. Beyond it, another chamber.
He passed through it cautiously, summoning another light orb for backup.
This second room was smaller—probably a personal lab. Notes and diagrams were scattered on the floor, all sealed under cracked sheets of glass. At the back, three broken stasis pods leaned against the wall. One was shattered completely, the inside burned black.
Marth picked up one of the diagrams and wiped off the dust. It was a full mana-body schematic—one that mapped Esper ability flow directly into the soul core. Extremely advanced.
At the bottom of the page, one line stood out:
Cognitive Shell: Phase Two – Memory Stabilization via Perception Anchors
He blinked once. "They were trying to lock esper abilities into permanent overdrive by altering how reality is perceived… Dangerous."
On a nearby desk, a recording crystal sat cracked in half. He touched it.
"Mana Echo."
The crystal flickered for a second, then produced a faint, broken voice:
"—They said it wouldn't destabilize— but the barrier— folding— too late. Lock the upper gate— destroy the— records—"
Then it went dead.
Marth lowered his hand. His face was still cold.
He turned to leave the room—then stopped.
The hallway outside was gone.
Instead of the smooth corridor he'd entered through, there was now a jagged stone passage twisting to the left. Completely different.
He didn't panic. Just pulled out a stone disk from his coat and placed it on the floor.
"Anchor Point."
A blue glyph flashed under the disk, then sank into the stone.
The ruin shifted based on movement or mana flow. Classic spatial instability.
If he got lost again, he could warp back to this spot with a single cast.
He followed the new path.
After about ten minutes of walking through oddly-shaped corridors—some narrowing to barely shoulder-width—he arrived at another chamber. This one was circular, with a high dome ceiling and strange carvings on the walls.
In the center was a crystal coffin.
Inside it was a body.
Marth approached carefully, light spell floating above him. The body was perfectly preserved—a man, maybe in his late 40s, wearing a half-rotted uniform. There was no decay. No sign of time.
A small badge rested on his chest. Marth wiped it clean.
"CSP Overseer – Division Alpha"
CSP. Cognitive Shell Project.
This man had been important.
Next to the coffin was a half-functioning mana recorder. He activated it.
This time, a flickering illusion appeared in the room. Not a full person—just a shadow.
It moved like a memory repeating itself.
"We underestimated the side effects," the shadow whispered. "Perception is too strong of a variable… The gate isn't safe. If anyone finds this… close it. Destroy the cores. Don't let it wake up again."
Then the image blinked out.
The room fell silent again.
Marth stood still for a long moment.
This wasn't just a ruin.
It was a vault. A vault holding something the old researchers were afraid of.
As he turned to leave, a soft sound echoed from below.
Breathing.
Not his.
Slow. Deep. Heavy.
Marth turned toward a stairwell at the far end of the room, half-covered in rubble.
The breathing came from there.
He didn't run. He didn't draw a weapon.
He just adjusted the light spell and whispered, "Time Lock – Level One."
His aura shifted. Time around him slowed slightly—just enough to react faster if something came out of the dark.
He walked toward the stairwell.
Step by step.
The breathing stopped.
At the top of the broken stairway, Marth looked down into the darkness of the next layer.
He paused for a moment, listening.
Still silence.
Then he stepped forward.