Chapter 54 (2 of 2) The Institute of Nomological Augmentation. (Patreon)

A navy-haired mage peered through his glasses as he held the large map in front of him. He looked from left to right, trying to make sense of where he was.

Roa went to the east side of the facility… didn’t she?

Marellen looked up and then down the corridor in front of him. But… did she keep going east, or change direction along the way?

He scratched his head with a frown. Also, why can’t I see any crossroads on the map?

He looked around again, confused. He twisted the map, trying to see what the problem was. After a moment of hesitation, he turned it upside down.

“…it seemed I was reading it wrong,” he muttered. Marellen tucked the map into the inside pocket of his dark blue coat and took a left turn.

The walls of the research facility they had been exploring were cold blue-grey stone, but the tiled floor was made of a strong magical ceramic. There were occasional places where the walls and tiles had been cracked, as well as massive containment doors that were off their hinges, but the facility was very well preserved. Marellen assumed that was because of the metal veins running through the walls that functioned as a primitive mana circuit, warding the entire facility with protective enchantments.

While Marellen was curious about what was powering the nameless facility, he had bigger fish to fry. An underground lake with high-density mana? Clearly that was a water element natural mana phenomenon. It had a high chance of being the breakthrough he needed to finally complete his basic theorem on elemental harmony.

But that meant he needed to find the lake first. Not a particularly easy task when he didn’t exactly know the way there. Still, he had a compass that could direct him to the plane’s east, so he supposed he’d find his way there eventually.

He continued navigating the slightly damaged hallways, his staff in hand. Marellen occasionally stopped to inspect some unusual runes on walls, determining their meaning, but he carried on moving. His boots left footprints on the dusty floor.

When the corridor he was walking down turned, he was faced with the hallway abruptly cutting off. A deep chasm had formed, splitting the floor and walls from the right to the left. It appeared that some sort of earthquake had formed the rift.

Marellen crossed his arms as he considered what to do.

I feel like a chasm separating the underground lake from the rest of the facility would’ve been something Roa would mentioned. Did I make a mistake earlier? Maybe I was supposed to find the lake by going through one of the doors?

He looked back, thinking, and then knelt to peer down the chasm.

Is... there an end to this chasm? I can’t make out what’s down there. Should I find out?

Marellen looked around.

It’s an underground lake, so… the further underground the better?

Marellen stood back up. He pointed his staff at the chasm and white runes began to form around its end.

“Wind Spirit’s Descension.”

Wind mana enveloped him as a white mana-circle formed at the end of his staff. A replica mana-circle created under his feet, he stepped forward and allowed his spell to slowly lower him down. It took several minutes before he finally saw the ground. When he got to the bottom he alighted off the mana-circle and shattered it.

It was hard to see in the gloom, so Marellen pointed his staff again.

“Star of Brilliance.”

A yellow orb of light, powered by the runes arrayed in the centre of the orb, coalesced, and floated up to hover in front of him. Marellen began to navigate the rectangle-shaped room.

“Metal… cupboards?” He curiously walked up to what looked like a metal cabinet of some kind, only reaching up to his waist in height with a slanted top. A thick layer of dust coated everything in sight, and he ran a hand across the surface of the cabinet to see what was underneath.

He blinked when he discovered that the slanted top was completely smooth and made of a layer of glass placed on a black surface. He leaned closer to look, the light of his elemental spell reflecting off the glass, but he couldn’t make anything out. He scratched his head, confused.

Marellen walked along the length of the room, trying to see how many of these strange cabinets there were, and he discovered that one entire wall of the room was lined with them, occupying one of the two longest sides of the room.

Opposite the cabinets on the other side of the room was a wall plated in strange panels of the same glass-covered black surface, as tall as him.

Do these… panels do something when activated? Actually, why isn’t there any power in this room? The rest of the facility has been powered somewhat.

Marellen walked along the wall of the waist-high cabinets, trying to find a switch. None of the cabinets opened, so they weren’t storage containers, but he still didn’t know what their purpose was so he stuck with calling them cabinets. He shifted the light orb slightly to get a better look and paused as he realised the black wall behind the cabinets was also slanted.

He reached out to touch the wall made of glass as he discovered, and then took a step back. Marellen moved his orb up to the top of the room so he could see the shape of the place.

The room is wider at the base but narrower at the top, and the glass is slanting inward… wait.

He quickly walked forward and tried to shine his orb through the glass wall.

This is… a window. I’m in some kind of observation room. I just can’t see out because there’s no power out there.

Marellen looked around again. Is this a control room of some kind? Like the control mechanisms for the Archives? If this is a control room then maybe I can find a way to activate the mana circuits down here.

He raised his staff and summoned his dark blue arcane mana.

If none of the materials here block out mana then I should be able to do this.

“Arcane Examination: Location-based Model.”

The arcane spell emitted several rapid pulses of mana, sending out a wave that allowed Marellen to recreate a map of the room inside his head. Ridges and nodes on the surfaces of the room were immediately made clear to him and he nodded. Following his new mental map, he walked over to the back left corner of the room and saw that one of the cupboards set into the wall had a handle for him to grip.

Marellen grabbed it and pulled. The hinges caked with stone dust creaked and Marellen managed to pull open the stiff door. He was faced with a glittering wall of metal wires glowing with colours of all the elements, as well as a large bronze disc sitting in the centre of them all. Runes were engraved around the edge of the bronze disc and another one of the strange glass-covered black plaques sat in the face of the disc.

Marellen nodded to himself when he saw the glow. Good, there’s still power here. This section of the facility must’ve been cut off from the main mana circuit.

Seeing a bronze lever below the disc, Marellen placed his hand on it and pulled it down…

…only to yelp and jump a metre high as a burst of crackling gold mana shot out and zapped his hand. He flinched back and stared at his trembling hand, still shaking after being shocked.

What madman would use lightning mana in a mana circuit? What purpose would that serve? Arcane mana works in mana circuits perfectly! Surely these Mystic Channelers knew enough about magic to know lightning mana is far more dangerous than arcane mana?

He scowled as he rubbed his hand and then sighed as he used his other hand to push up his skewed glasses. Marellen blinked and came closer to the open cupboard when he noticed that the black plaque set in the face of the bronze disc was now covered in glowing red symbols, all the runic engravings of the bronze disc likewise glowing.

Oh? Are these glass-covered surfaces able to be interacted with? Are they an Old Era alternative to the Archive’s projections? Like some sort of man-made Status Screen?

But Marellen didn’t know what the symbols meant, so he opened up his dimensional bag attached to his belt and searched through it. Pulling out a ring large enough to be a bracelet, he placed it over the top of the glass-covered plaque where it stuck in place. Then a screen of arcane mana formed within the ring and the symbols and words of ancient languages rapidly scrolled past.

If All-Aeon Athenaeum says we can use their artifacts while on the plane, then I won’t stop myself.

The scrolling slowed to a stop, and a line of blue text formed on the screen of the ring, translating the message on the plaque.

“…Authorization required to activate the power in the Institute of Nomological Augmentation’s Centre for Interdimensional Navigation,” Marellen read. He raised an eyebrow. It seemed he had discovered the name of the research facility they were in. Efratel had explained that the ‘Mystic Channelers' used the power of mana around them to strengthen themselves, so he could understand why the facility was named as such.

But ‘Interdimensional Navigation’? Did that mean this place had nothing to do with the underground lake?

Marellen suppressed a groan but shook his head. If he could interact with the plaques here, then maybe he could find directions to where he wanted to go.

He slipped a finger under the ring and attempted to tap the glass-covered plaque. The red symbols were replaced with new ones, and his artifact was activated again to translate the language. A new line of text appeared, reading, ‘Master Channeler Authority required. Please present the six keys to begin Authorization’.

Six runes appeared on the outside ring of the bronze disc. Marellen hesitated a moment when he saw what runes they were, then slowly inserted mana of the six essential elements. The symbols changed again and new text was generated by the ring.

‘The six keys have been presented. The Institute gives its regards to you, Master Channeler.’

Marellen facepalmed. It appeared that no matter the era or generational gap, self-absorbed magic wielders would always find a way to create a recognition system that relied on the lesser castes being too untalented to possibly comprehend their technology. He had seen it in the Academy with professors who sealed away their test answers using spells they deemed ‘more advanced’ than any student could understand.

He sighed and tapped on the plaque to see what was next. The text changed again.

‘Please configure the corresponding runes to unseal the desired levels of the Institution’.

Marellen inserted his elemental mana into the disc and nodded to himself.

I see, so I add one or more elements together to reroute power to the correct location. I understand why it needs someone with all six essential elements to do this. I also need to manipulate the other elements to ensure they don’t activate the runes while I’m trying to configure a combination.

He leaned his staff against a cupboard and calculated how many combinations there were.

So that is… 64 subsets. I’ll assume the empty set doesn’t count as I would’ve already obtained that configuration, so I’ll work my way through all the elemental combinations and check the plaque to see what places I’ve unsealed or not… eventually I’m bound to gain power here, right?

—————————————————————————————

“Uh, Larena, are you certain he headed to the underground lake?” a brown-haired adventurer asked. 

The trio left behind by Marellen’s sudden escapade were sprinting down the corridors, looking for their rogue navy-haired party member. Roa was panting as she ran behind the two warriors, her speed-enhancing spell barely enough to allow her to keep up.

Larena growled as she jumped over a wide crack in the floor and continued running. “Of course I’m certain Garthe. I heard him muttering under his breath about water when we left our artifacts with him! Did that blighted mage not think about the rest of his party members at all?!”

“I must apologise. I shouldn’t have been so free with the information about the lake,” Roa said through heavy breathing.

Larena gave Roa a weary look. “No, don’t blame yourself, Roa. This isn’t your fault.” She scowled. “This is Marellen’s fault, and Marellen’s fault only. If he doesn’t show some regret for his actions after this then I’m going to tie him to a post and keep him there for the rest of this trip.”

They kept running for a while until Roa suddenly stopped. Larena looked back. “Roa? What’s wrong?”

“We have arrived at the entrance to the lake,” she announced. She pointed her fire-gem-topped staff at a pair of large iron doors. One of them had fallen off its hinges and collapsed on the ground, leaving the room open.

Larena and Garthe glanced at each other and then nodded. They followed the snow elf into the room which opened up into a large white hall. Roa took them past rooms with broken walls of what once were protective transparent barriers.

“…I hope this wasn’t a containment place for monsters because I’d hate to know where they’ve all gone if it was,” Garthe muttered.

“The artifacts I discovered in this section of the facility suggest it was a zone for testing their magical arts and not containment,” Roa replied, walking briskly to the very end of the hall. She swung the two doors at the end of the hall open. “If Marellen has indeed gone where you believe he has, then we should find him very soon.”

They quickly walked down the hallway, the sounds of their boots hitting the floor tiles echoing down. The roof above them was arched like a tunnel, and a single door with a grate over its window was at the end. The mana lamp above the door glowed blue.

Roa pointed to the door. “He should be beyond this door. The room containing the underground lake is large, but not overly so. We should be capable of finding him using detection spells or similar.”

The siblings nodded and Garthe stepped forward to grab the handle. He pulled it back and let the two women through.

They stepped out into the dimly lit hall, where the promised lake was sitting in the centre. The floor of the hall was rough, natural rock, but overhead they could see mana lamps and pillars holding up the roof. Larena tried to peer through the gloom to see what was on the other side of the lake.

“I don’t see Marellen,” she told them.

Roa lifted her staff. “Let me create some light.” A red runic circle arranged itself above the end of her staff and a twisting orange flame appeared. They began to walk around the lake.

“Hey Marellen!” Garthe called out, cupping his hands around his mouth. “Marellen! Marellen?”

His calls echoed out across the hall but nobody replied. Larena frowned and concentrated on her senses, but she couldn’t detect the navy-haired mage’s presence or mana. She turned to Roa.

“Is this the only path to the underground lake? Maybe he accidentally took a turn somewhere else,” Larena asked, looking worried.

Roa frowned slightly and took out her compass. The arrow was pointing in the general direction of the east, but now and then the arrow spun wildly as if it was being disrupted by something.

“It seems the plane shard’s mana storms are disrupting the natural mana fields,” Roa murmured, watching the arrow rapidly turn. “We did not face this issue earlier. It appears the plane shard has begun to experience a new symptom of its eventual death.”

Larena scowled and paced on the spot. After a moment of thinking, she looked at Roa. “Roa, would you be able to cast a large-scale detection spell? The mana cost may be high, but locating Marellen is the priority right now.”

The elf nodded. A wave of her staff sent out pulses of fire and ice mana. A few minutes later, she lowered her staff and shook her head. “Marellen is not here.”

Larena whirled around and stormed back to the door of the hall. “Let’s go. We need to quickly find Marellen and get back to our campsite before we lose track of where we-”

Their eyes widened as the floor trembled, sending ripples across the surface of the formerly smooth lake. Stone dust fell from the ceiling and the mana lamps above flashed rapidly.

“Cover your heads!” Larena shouted.

They all ducked and placed their hands over their heads, curling up into balls. Small stones and stone dust continued to fall as the rumbling increased in intensity. Then suddenly, it all stopped.

They waited in silence for a few more minutes before Garthe slowly stood up. “Is it over?”

Larena and Roa slowly stood up as well. “…let’s hope it is,” Larena finally replied.

They quickly worked over to the door they entered from. Larena grabbed the door handle and pushed… but nothing happened. She leaned heavily against the door to force it open, but it didn’t budge.

“The lamp above the door appears to have turned off,” Roa commented, pointing above the doorway. “The trembling from earlier may have disrupted the mana lines.”

“Dammit!” Larena kicked the door, and while her Rank-3 strength left a small dent, it wasn’t enough. “What do we do now?”

They all paused as they began to hear the rushing of water and looked behind them. Garthe slowly raised his hand to point at the lake. “Uh… the water level seems to be lowering…”

They walked forward to the lake's edge to see that the bottom of the lake had split into two halves, slowly pulling apart on mechanical beams. The water poured through into the deep pit below, so dark they could barely see the bottom. Then a circle shape began to glow and suddenly began to ascend from the bottom of the pit. As it approached them, they realised it was a large bronze platform powered by an array of runes engraved around it.

When it became level with the floor of the hall they stepped back. A translucent walkway stretched out from the platform to meet the edge of the lake. They traded glances.

“Do we… just… step on it or what?” Garthe asked.

In response, Roa summoned an orb of ice. She shot it at the platform and it didn’t wobble in the slightest. “It appears capable of supporting our weight.”

They exchanged glances. Larena placed a hand on the hilt of her sword. “I say we go on the platform. If the water leads to somewhere else, then maybe we can find Marellen there. He’s looking for this lake, after all.”

Garthe and Roa nodded, and followed her across the walkway. It disappeared behind them and once they were standing on the bronze platform, it slowly began to descend.

Then the rumbling began again and their eyes widened as the runes on their platform flickered. All light within the hall shut off, and their platform fell into the darkness.

————————————————————————————————

-A few minutes earlier-

“Not this one either? Hm…”

The bronze disc within the metal cupboard thrummed with power, but almost as soon as it activated it was shut off again. Miscellaneous information about all the sectors that were unsealed scrolled past on the artifact screen, including lists of when visitors had last arrived for each place. Marellen kept going through the possible combinations, trying to find the correct zone.

The monster containment sector… it says the power is already on for that place. Let’s… keep it on for now…

He tried the next configuration and his ring translated the symbols on the plaque.

‘Disguised Lake Entranceway for the Centre of Interdimensional Navigation’? Is that where the lake is supposed to be?

Marellen activated the combination, but he only heard rumbling sounds overhead. He shrugged and switched it off again.

Next configuration… Lake Entranceway Platform Activation… that does… nothing for me.

He deactivated that combination again too. He heard something that sounded like a large object falling in water outside the dark window, but as he still couldn’t see anything, he ignored it and kept testing the element combinations.

Half a dozen tests later, he heard the thrum of power within his room and the roof mana lamps switched on. Marellen smiled.

Then the rest of the room lit up and his eyes widened as he saw the many different glowing symbols and lines of data scrolling across what were originally black surfaces, all of it protected by the glass covers. After grabbing the translation artifact he hesitantly walked over to one of the ‘cabinets’ which seemed to be a control unit for various functions. He placed a finger on a slider symbol and swiped up. He watched, fascinated as it followed his finger and he moved it.

Then he flinched back as the loud buzzing of activated mana shook the room and brilliant light shone through the slanted glass window. Light from the mana lamps outside flooded the place and he could finally see what exactly the control room was observing.

Outside of the control room was an enormous cavern with walls covered in pitch-black crystals. And right in the centre of the cavern was a perfectly circular underground lake, the surface of the magical water glinting with black light. Marellen rushed to the door of the control room, eager to investigate the properties of the natural mana phenomena’s strange water-

-when he realised something was floating on the surface of the water. Actually, there were three somethings. Three suspiciously humanoid somethings.

He quickly ran to the window to get a better look. One of the figures raised their head, drawn by the bright light coming from the control room, and narrowed her eyes when she spotted him.

Marellen stiffened and gulped when he realised that Larena, Garthe and Roa were currently trying to swim through the strange water to make it to the lake's edge. He hastily pressed on the interactable glass-covered plaques and translated text with his artifact to find an option that could help them.

“No, not this one, not this one either… where are the controls relating to the lake? Ah, here the ‘Lake of Stagnating Strength’? Is that its name? Wait, I don’t have time for this!”

He saw a bright red button under the symbols that named the lake, hesitated for a moment, and then tapped it. A loud sound of rushing water echoed throughout the chamber and he looked up to see what was happening.

He paled as he saw the massive whirlpool that had formed in the centre of the lake and began to press even more buttons in his panic. “No, no, no! How do I stop this? This isn’t what I wanted!”

Just when his party members were approaching the centre of the whirlpool a loud clang resounded throughout the cavern, and the whirlpool stopped. Three metal gates around the lake opened up and the water began to stream through the channels. Marellen had another issue on hand now: to save some of the mana phenomenon’s water before it was gone for good.

He slammed the door of the control room open and dashed down the metal steps leading down faster than he thought he had ever gone before. Sprinting for the channel, he withdrew a vial from his cloak pocket and plunged his hand into the channel, catching the last of the water. He held his treasure up with glee.

“Yes! Haha! Now I can finally finish my theorem and-”

“And what, Marellen?”

He stiffened as he felt a tight grip on his shoulder. He turned around to see a very bedraggled Larena with a dark smile on her lips accompanied by the two equally bedraggled-looking Garthe and Roa.

Marellen began to tremble slightly as Larena spoke again, “Do tell me just what was so important that we needed to survive a whirlpool for you to obtain your precious sample of water?”

…

“-so with this final piece of the puzzle, I can finally verify that the Hexadic Mage Form is correct, and a perfectly equal ratio of the six essential elements will result in a self-sustaining, perpetuating elemental spell. Now I just need to analyse the elemental properties of this natural phenomenon and-”

Larena buried her head in her hands as the mage continued to ramble on about his magic. They were sitting on a couple of boulders in the cavern of the lake, and they had attempted to interrogate Marellen and obtain an apology from him for his reckless behaviour.

Instead, they received a barrage of words that only made sense to the mage who strung them together. Even Roa was looking at him with a mixture of mild confusion and pity.

Eventually, Larena stood up and whacked the mage across the top of his head. “Marellen, just shut up, would you? I didn’t mean for you to explain how important that water was! Nobody cares!”

Marellen blinked, nonplussed. “Then… why did you ask?”

Larena groaned as Garthe chuckled slightly and Roa shook her head. Larena placed her hands on her hips and narrowed her eyes at the mage. “Marellen, you just blindly ran out of the camp without telling a single one of us where you went, all to find a powerful natural phenomenon to study! You didn’t even think to consider how dangerous the phenomena could’ve been?! I’m stunned the vial you placed the water in didn’t melt!”

Marellen grimaced as Larena continued to yell at him. “We. Are. Your. Party. Members! Everything any of us do needs to be discussed as a group, especially when it comes to splitting up! The only reason we split up earlier was because we weren’t going to go far away from the camp!”

She sighed and rubbed her temples. “Look, I can understand that you’re still not used to working in a team. But common sense should still apply! You should’ve at least taken either me or Garthe to help you with our physical abilities if needed!”

“I’m… sorry, Larena, I-”

“You’re damn well right you should be sorry! We spent several hours looking for you reckless mage! And don’t think I didn’t see you messing with something up there! I know you were responsible for the whirlpool! In fact, I reckon you were responsible for our platform collapsing too!”

It was another half hour later that Larena finally stopped berating Marellen. When she had calmed down and the navy-haired mage was sheepishly avoiding eye contact, Larena frowned and looked around.

“But didn’t Efratel say that the research facility we’re exploring only had five levels? Why is there another level down here?”

“The Institute of Nomological Augmentation.”

They turned to stare at Marellen. He gestured to the control room set into the side of the cavern. “That’s what the research facility is called.”

“You managed to locate information about our location?” Roa asked.

The navy-haired mage nodded. “The ‘Mystic Channelers’ had some sort of hierarchy where someone with all essential elements was considered a ‘Master Channeler’. I was able to find out how to divert power to different locations in the institute by configuring elemental mana combinations.”

“So you can control this place,” Garthe mused with a hand on his chin.

Marellen rubbed his neck. “Control is not really the right word. I’m able to access the permissions for the ‘Centre of Dimensional Navigation’ as they called this level. I think there might be levels below this as well.”

Larena tapped her fingers against her arm, thinking. She glanced at Marellen. “What’s so different about this level that you didn’t find anything to control on the upper levels?”

He thought deeply for a moment. “The magitech that I’ve seen so far here seems to be more advanced than the levels above. We might be in a secret zone of the institute. When I was controlling the power distribution, it told me that I had unsealed the ‘Disguised Lake Entranceway, which…” He looked away awkwardly. “…seems to match up with how you described you entered this place… and then I turned the power off for that place…”

Larena narrowed her eyes at him and crossed her arms with a huff, but Roa let out a quiet hum.

“Then I believe we should make this our next zone of exploration,” the snow elf said. “While we haven’t mapped out the entire floor above, it is better that we gain the lead on exploring a place undiscovered by even the Athenaeum’s preliminary expeditionaries. If the magitech is advanced further than on the levels above as you said, Marellen, then perhaps there may be greater rewards down here.”

“Oooh, treasure,” Garthe said with a grin, rubbing his hands together greedily. “I like the sound of that.”

Larena rolled her eyes at her brother but nodded in response to Roa. “I agree. Then let’s head back up and rest for tonight so we can pack up our campsite and head down here again tomorrow.”

They all stood up from the boulders and followed Marellen back into the control room. He cast a wind spell to lift them all and take them back to the corridor with the rift.

But he had one thought on his mind as they walked back to camp.

When I found the combination for the central control sector on the lowest level of the Centre of Dimensional Navigation… why did it say that the last registered visitor visited that place a month before the Athenaeum discovered the facility?