Ignis stepped onto the stone stairs extending downward.
The contact of his paw pads against the rough stone surface made a faint scratching sound, which felt amplified in the absolute silence.
The stone stairs spiraled down, as if leading to some forgotten stomach deep within the earth.
The faint light from above was quickly swallowed by the twisting passage, leaving nothing but an endless darkness so thick it felt tangible.
Only that pale mist remained, overflowing from ahead in wisps like ghost fire, lingering around him.
For a moment, Ignis perceived a flicker of resonance.
After descending about twenty or thirty steps, the movement of the air became more noticeable.
A cold wind blew steadily from below, carrying a denser, stale odor, but it seemed mixed with a faint, rhythmic pulse of energy.
It did not feel like a natural breeze, but more like… a disturbance caused by the periodic operation of some mechanical or magical device?
The thought surfaced uncontrollably in Ignis’s mind.
‘Is it a rune set that is still working?’
If it was still functional, then this place probably was not ancient.
Correspondingly, he grew more alert, staring straight ahead with total concentration, ready to face any situation that might suddenly shatter the peace.
*Click.*
Ignis’s claw kicked a small pebble. The stone tumbled in the darkness, and the sound of the collision echoed through the narrow space, sounding exceptionally loud.
*Hum —*
Ignis jumped, his inner alarms blaring.
Almost as soon as the sound rang out, a rhombus-shaped crystal embedded in a bronze base within a niche in the upper-left stone wall suddenly flickered to life. It was covered in a thick layer of dust.
The light was dim and flickering, like a candle in the wind, barely managing to dispel the darkness within a few paces.
Ignis snapped his head up, staring intently at the crystal.
Fine cracks were visible inside it. The light pulsed unevenly, casting grotesque shadows against the stone bricks.
It was a voice-activated light.
This lamp had likely been here for decades, perhaps never lighting up again since a certain master of the Twilight Tower had left.
And today, another stranger—or rather, a strange dragon—had stepped into this area and relit it.
After this lighting crystal glowed, one Magic Guide Lamp after another in the hallway ahead began to activate like falling dominoes.
By this sickly light, Ignis quickened his pace and walked down the final few steps.
His feet finally touched level ground.
Guided by the lights that seemed ready to fail at any moment, he took in the scene before him: a small stone room, about half the size of the study in the Twilight Tower.
A heavy stone table sat in the center of the room. Its surface was cluttered with various vessels, including several crystal bottles with murky colors and unknown stains, a few engraving knives and small chisels, and several black stone slabs carved with complex patterns.
In addition to these, a brass oil lamp that had long since run out of fuel stood silently in a corner of the stone table.
A large, dusty wooden chest was piled in a nearby corner. On another stone wall, a row of rusted metal shelves was fixed, haphazardly stuffed with scrolls and thick notebooks.
However, the most eye-catching thing was the wall directly facing the stone stairs.
Someone had used a dark red substance to draw a complex magic circle on the wall, about 2 meters in diameter, which had completely dried.
The core lines of the magic circle were somewhat blurred, but he could still feel the unsettling, eerie rhythm hidden within. In several key nodes, grayish-white crystals that had long since lost their luster were embedded.
The stone bricks forming the wall looked as though they had been washed over by some surging power, giving them a slightly distorted texture.
Several metal grilles were embedded where the wall met the ceiling, with a faint current of air flowing from them.
The core of the airflow rune set was likely behind them, maintaining a minimum level of ventilation for the basement.
The grayish-white mist was everywhere in the stone room. As he moved closer, he perceived even more.
It was not just ‘Focus’ and ‘Madness’, but some heavier, more unspeakable qualities that made him feel vaguely uneasy.
Ignis walked to the middle of the stone room and looked around. His gaze was first drawn to a box on the stone table.
The box was hidden behind a glass bottle and appeared to be made of a dark wood. Its sides were carved with floral patterns and inlaid with a red gemstone, making it look out of place among the other items due to its slight opulence.
Ignis hurried to the table and stood on his tiptoes. Using his two front claws, he struggled to pull the wooden box to the edge and carefully hugged it as he brought it down.
He slowly opened the lid.
There were no traps inside. A thick booklet lay there quietly, its cover made of a highly flexible leather.
The booklet was relatively well-preserved.
Ignis gently flipped open the cover. On the title page was a line of elegant cursive:
“The Recorder, Alicia V. Adrian, in this small space, glimpsed a corner of the world.”
Adrian?
He knew this surname; it belonged to the Imperial family.
‘Does this notebook come from a princess who once lived here?’
Judging by the magical mechanisms in the basement that had not completely stopped, the era this princess was active in should not be too far from the present. Perhaps she was Villanelle’s grandmother or something similar.
He continued to flip the pages.
The booklet seemed to be half-diary and half-research log, containing both experimental analysis and other reflections.
Lately, his speed in learning the Tyrael Common Tongue had been very fast, and he could already read many books without obstacles.
“New Calendar Year XXX, Frostfall Month, 7th day.
Today, ‘Protective Isolation’ went into effect, and I officially moved into the Twilight Tower. It is a fitting name—my academic career, and perhaps my life, likely only has this bit of fading twilight left. My Imperial Father and the others, they fear the ‘voices’ I hear…”
“…They call me a ‘Stain’ because I heard the ‘Whisper’. It is not madness; it is another frequency of ‘reality’… Inside the Imperial Palace, there is something ‘breathing’. It is in pain, hungry, and feeds on our fear…”
Ignis shuddered. Memories associated with that eerie dream surged back.
Pain, whispers, feeding on fear… It was similar, very similar.
He hurriedly continued to read.
As his attention focused, a phantom hand holding a pen seemed to faintly appear before his eyes. Although it looked blurry and illusory, the arm was visibly pale and slender.
Ignis knew he was slowly approaching the memory echoes left behind by Alicia through this notebook.
“Same month, 16th day.
Experiment 003: The ‘Listening Rune’ drawn with my own blood as the primary material did indeed perceive a weak resonance, confirming that the ‘Whisper’ has similarities to the ‘Abyss Echo’ recorded in relevant literature…”
“Imperial magic is a shackle. Holy Light is bleach. They try to erase all the ‘shadows’ of the world, not knowing that shadows are also a part of the light… Uncle Roderick discussed this with me when he was young, saying ‘Order should have the grace to embrace chaos,’ but now, he has changed too…”
Who was Roderick?
Ignis searched his mind carefully, trying to find valuable information from the memory fragments that had been forced into his head.
Soon, a phantom slowly emerged from the mist. The silhouette appeared to be a tall male, but the face remained indistinct.
Just as he tried to get closer, a sudden pang of pain shot through his brain, forcing him to abandon the attempt.
“Same month, 24th day.
Major discovery! There is a natural stone room beneath the abandoned storage room on the first floor. It seems I can attempt to renovate it…”
Ignis looked up and scanned his surroundings before continuing to read.
Vaguely, he was being drawn into the world belonging to Alicia described in the diary.
“Winter Month, 3rd day.
Preliminary cleaning is complete. I have modified the old ventilation ducts and set up a basic airflow rune set. I am grateful for the Practical Runology I secretly learned at the court mage tower as a child. I have noticed that the perception of the ‘Whisper’ seems to be higher here. Interesting.”
“Same month, 7th day.
I have drawn the first version of the Resonance Magic Circle. My thought: since I am a passive receiver, why not actively tune in? I will use my blood as a medium and a few pieces of obsidian I ‘borrowed’ from the warehouse to establish a small guiding field.
The first operation was a success.”
Ignis stared at the word ‘success’. Although Alicia did not say it explicitly, that sense of joy was already leapng off the page.
“Experiment 008: With the help of the Resonance Magic Circle, I distinguished an ‘echo’ lasting approximately 3 seconds: an adult male was pleading. The target is unknown, and the content is blurred. The emotions included regret and fear, and then it stopped.
A historic moment, at least for me.”
Ignis smiled knowingly.
However, the subsequent records caused him to slowly furrow his brow.