Despite her initial s, Li cozied quickly into not g about the night shifts. In the end, if you could have a full eight hours of sleep, it was better than not having that luxury. Aira didn't mind, as she wouldn't sleep anyway, even if her panion decided to stay awake.

  That night was the first time they spent under a solid roof after leaving Mountain View. And that put Aira into a brooding mood.

  By the end of the first day, they had gotten so deep ihe a structure that no light came from the outside. Even if the night was starry and one of the moons was shining, that wouldn't ge a thing. Aira and Li had to stantly use the torchlights they found during their search or keep the fire burning in the room they chose for their temporary camp to fight back the darkness.

  The building's mysteries uled Aira. She felt like all that unknowable number of floors above her pressed her down with their weight. In her past life, she had a few quests with tower trials. She had to clear level after level, filled with monsters, before reag the final boss oop floor. But even these challenges weren't as oppressive as the a structure surrounding her now.

  And that's without any magic!

  Aira made sure that Li was sound asleep ahe room for the corridor. She didn't pn to veoo far, not to lose sight of their room, but she needed space to stretch her legs and allow her thoughts to flow.

  She was used to being alone during her missions. Aira had friends and temporary panions whes demahat. But mostly, she was a lohat's why she didn't expect her exclusion from human society to hit her so hard. It wasn't only about the magic, her skills, aats anymore. She had to build a retionship with this quirky green-haired woman. Otherwise, her ces of survival in this world were slim.

  Aira walked along the dark corridor, trying to figure out how to navigate without light. When she sent pulses of energy around her, she felt some rea from the carcass of the old infrastructure, but she wasn't yet profit enough to use it in any meaningful way.

  The facility remained a mystery. For some reason, Aira felt there should be at least somethihat would reply to her powers. It was like she o put the st piece to finish the puzzle, but she couldn't figure out what it was.

  After a few more futile attempts, she decided to take a different approach, using her colle of gadgets. Aira recalled the feeling she had during the night of their flight from Mountain View. It was like she followed some special pathways that ducted the energies.

  Her own world's experience made her treat all gadgets as artifacts that were solid magical objects imbued with special powers. Initially, she hesitated about using them for anything besides fog her powers and passing the ambient energy through them. That was the attitude she maintaihroughout her life. Using artifacts was frowned upon by her tutors. Skills, especially her Mana Manipution, and her faithful warhammer, should be enough to defeat any foe and turn any fli her favor.

  But sifting through all the piles of broken pieces of ae this facility, Aira realized that her attitude was wrong. She had to find a different approad ge her stan so many ways. She had to evolve and adapt.

  Aira found a cozy er with a view to the entrao the room where she left Li and started her meditation as usual. Step by step switg between her senses, limiting them in the beginning and then bining the inputs. The darkness of the building enveloped her. Groans and screeches of the old structure filled her hearing.

  During the st phase, she lit up her tablet, and all of a sudden, she saw it. There were multiple pathways within that device. It was all about pathways. All of them allowed energy to be transmitted. Even more, some of the energy was emitted outside of the device, reag her and allowio use the device as a fog element for her powers.

  Could she perceive this whole building as a grand device? A gadget? Were there any circuits there, hidden within its structure, she could trace?

  Aira extended her senses as much as she could, and the whole building lit up in her mind's eye. Hidden pathways ected different rooms. Most of them were cut off in the turies of vandalism and pilge. Still, there was something massive there, hidden deeper within the roto which this facility was carved. There was a se that may have remained intact. And they had to find the entrance.

  ***

  The following day, they tiheir exploration of the facility. Stale air that reflected turies of decay was now affected by the smell of fire they kept throughout the night. Aira and Li brought life to this fotten pce, and their footsteps echoed eerily through the empty halls. But despite the bleak surroundings, Aira felt a sense of renewed purpose. She expined her night's findings to Li during breakfast, and they were eager to locate that hidden spot.

  Their search wasn't as straightforward as they hoped. Aira could feel where the pathways went, but there were so many of them that it was hard to distinguish between one bund another. Even worse, multiple times, they found dead ends with power duits vanishing in solid walls without any ce for them to follow through.

  Still, they were moving further away from the entrance, deeper and deeper into the facility. It felt like Aira and Li were going in the right dire. And their perseverance was rewarded by lunchtime. Following a bundle of promising duits, Aira found a hidden hatch that opeo a corridor lined with cables—all the es from throughout the a building led here.

  Li followed Aira's lead, her curiosity piqued. "You sense something, don't you?" she asked softly, and Aira nodded in response.

  They walked through a series of long corridors, each more worn tha, until they reached a se of the facility that remained more intact. The walls here were reinforced with heavy metal ptes, and the floors were smoother and less littered with debris. Aira's seingled as they approached a massive door at the end of the long passageway.

  The entry point was enormous, several times Aira's height, and adorned with plex meisms and heavy locks. It looked like it had been desigo tain something very important or dangerous securely. The intricate work of gears, levers, and valves suggested a level of engineering far beyond anything they had entered so far.

  "Roots and rivers! Would you look at that?" Li breathed, her eyes wide with awe. "What ihorny thicket were they trying to keep locked up behind this monster?"

  Aira shook her head, her excitement tempered by the realization of the challenge before them. "Lots of things," she wrote. "I think it is what we were looking for."

  "Not even the Elders would've dreamed up something like this," Li replied. "Moon and moss, Aira, it's a fortress on its own!"

  They examihe door closely, trying to uand how it operated. The meisms were intricate, a blend of advaeology and engineering. Aira traced her fingers along the metal surface, trying to find any faint energy signatures within. It was a daunting task, but she knew she had to do her best and sharpen her seo the maximum.

  Li attempted to move one of the valves, grunting with effort. But it barely budged. "This isn't going to be easy," she said, wiping sweat from her brow.

  Aira joined her, and they tried to make the meism react to their force. Despite their birength, it felt like trying to move a mountain. The door was clearly desigo be operated by something far more powerful than an ordinary human—or a mage with most of her skills and powers severely limited and transformed.

  "Well, root me sideways!" Li excimed, stepping bad catg her breath. "This thing's heavier than a mountain boulder. You'd need a giant's strength to get it moving. Looks like we're skirting the shadowline here—need a new pn."

  It was obvious that brute force wouldn't be enough. They o find a way to unlock the meisms exerg trol over the intricate circuitry Aira had been sensing within. She gestured for Li to step bad focused her powers on the door, probing it with pulses of her Energy Manipution skill. It was like trying to untangle a web of invisible threads. Eae ected to a different part of the log system.

  Aira trated, drawing the power from any sources she could access. The trees and other living objects were too far away, so she had to gather energy from thousands of small sources surrounding her slowly. She directed the gathered energy fuiding it through the door's meisms. The gears and levers began to vibrate, slowly at first, then with increasing iy. Aira could feel the resistance as she tinued her manipution, but she pushed through.

  Not being able to influehe process in any way, Li watched in silent awe as the massive door respohe valves started tears grinding as they moved. It was slow, painstaking work, but Aira persisted, her determination unwavering. She could feel the strain, the effort it took to trol the energy, but she refused to give up.

  Miurned into what felt like hours. Aira sehat her reserves were insuffit for this titanic task, and she let herself exploit the measure of st resort, something she hoped o use when she first learned about her rad the capabilities of her updated skill. She sed the surrounding area, finding all sorts of rodents and small creatures that inhabited the facility, and tapped into their energy reserves.

  Finally, she was able to turide—intense energy overwhelmed with the force of a hurrie. Not being able to trol it, Aira poured everything she could grasp into the a meism. With the st bits of her will trying not to affect Li by this maelstrom of force.

  With a resounding g, the st lock disehe massive door shuddered and swung open, slowly revealing the darkness beyond.

  "By the old roots, you did it," Li whispered, her voice filled with amazement. She turo Aira, her eyes shining. "Boulder-solid work, Aira. hought I'd see this door open, not in a thousand winters!"

  Aira smiled, exhausted but triumphant. And then she fell down, pletely draihe st thing that reached her hearing was Li's muttering: "Oh, you half-baked pine sap... drained yourself dry! Alright, catch a leaf a up—I'll keep watch like a hawk ireeline."