Shisan looked over the entire room once again. There was no color, no warmth, no sense of identity. It was clinical—precise—a cage masquerading as a chamber. The air was still, unnervingly so, like the inside of a sealed temple. There were no incense, no wards on the walls, no ancestral banners. Only cold stone and eerie quiet.
He wandered toward the desk. Its surface was nearly immaculate, save for two objects: a peculiar square-shaped device with a glass top glowing faintly with a soft orange hue, and a small, radiant disk of polished gold. The gold device looked like something carved by a dwarven priest—its tiny arms clicked over shifting symbols, ticking with eerie precision.
Shisan picked it up, turning it in his hands, searching for traces of familiar magic. Runes, inscriptions, enchantment residue—anything. But there was none. It didn't hum, didn't pulse. It simply... ticked.
He frowned as he slipped the golden disk into his pocket.
His gaze drifted to the glowing device on the desk. It didn't radiate like crystal lamps or flame globes. Its light was sterile. Cold. Controlled. A flame without fire. It made his skin crawl.
For a moment, Shisan thought back to the crimson woman — the one who had nearly ended him in a single blow, whose spear hummed with death, whose eyes pierced through him like the edge of fate.
"There has to be magic somewhere in this world..." he whispered, walking around the room with an almost inhuman precision, like a hawk sweeping through unfamiliar terrain.
His fingers brushed the front wall near the door—then paused. A subtle shift in texture.
He pushed. The stone slid aside, revealing a hidden alcove.
Inside was a small black wooden chest etched with faint purple runes. He reached in and tugged at it—it was heavier than it looked. Muscles straining, breath tight, he pulled it free.
Snap.
The sudden sound of something breaking echoed behind him—like a pencil cracking in half. Shisan flinched, but ignored it.
He dropped the chest on the floor and collapsed next to it.
"Damn this body is really weak," he muttered, wiping sweat from his brow.
Yet, even as he complained, something felt... lifted.
"Despite that... I don't feel the heaviness anymore."
His lips curved into a small smile.
He ran his fingers across the chest. Where a lock should have been, there was nothing. A smooth surface. He tried to pry it open, but it didn't budge. Still, the faint magical signature confirmed what he needed: magic existed here. It was real. Hidden. Structured.
Hope sparked.
He returned the chest to its hiding place and sealed the wall. Then, with a deep breath, he turned toward the door. It loomed there like the threshold of a labyrinth. His hand hovered over the bronze handle.
"Alright. Let's find some answers."
He opened the door slowly.
The hallway stretched endlessly in both directions, lit by flickering purple lamps that gave no sense of time. Shisan glanced back into the room and left the door slightly ajar, just in case.
He chose the right path.
"What the hell is this world? Why does everything have to be an illusion..." he muttered, half-jokingly, half-dreading.
Every step forward seemed to stretch the corridor farther. The walls didn't change, yet the distance did. He walked for what felt like ages before finally encountering a spiraling, dark staircase.
It descended forever.
Or ascended.
He chose up.
The staircase was long, but not infinite. After one floor, the hallway shifted. There, at its end, stood a tall wooden door reinforced with dark, engraved metal. Shisan approached, cautious.
He placed a hand on the door. It was warm.
Then he pushed.
It opened with a groan, and the sound echoed like a scream in a cathedral.
The moment he stepped inside, he felt it.
Like walking into a dreaming beast's mind.
The air was thick—not with heat, nor chill, but with thought. Obsidian spires stretched from floor to ceiling, etched in glowing glyphs that pulsed like veins. Scrolls floated lazily midair. Crystals hovered beside them, spinning, whispering.
Above, a vaulted ceiling reflected not his body, but flickers of his own memories—fractured images of moments he barely remembered. The room wasn't watching him.
It was reading him.
Rows of tables lined the hall. But these weren't study desks. They were altars. Sacrificial platforms for knowledge. On them lay strange devices—helms, mirrored plates, lenses bound to wire and rune.
Students in deep indigo coats moved quietly. No one spoke. Some had glowing eyes. Others stared blankly. All of them were locked in internal battles.
There was no shouting. No fireballs. No magic circles.
Yet the pressure in the air was suffocating.
This was not the battlefield Shisan knew.
He stepped forward carefully and approached one student—a pale boy hunched over a tome, eyes flicking through pages at unnatural speed.
"Sorry, excuse me, do you have a moment to talk?" Shisan asked, scratching the back of his head and bowing politely.
The boy looked up.
And scowled.
Contempt radiated from his face like a curse. He said nothing.
Shisan stepped back. The air shifted.
Others were watching now.
The moment he turned to leave, whispers surged like locusts. Incomprehensible. Derisive. Cold.
His footsteps quickened.
He exited the hall and closed the tall door behind him, sealing the whispers inside.
"It only makes sense that weirdos would live in this weird world..." he muttered sarcastically.
Backtracking was harder than expected, but eventually, he made it back to the original hallway and returned to the dorm room.
He collapsed into the bed.
His mind was buzzing.
Magic existed.
The crimson woman who had nearly killed him.
This world was similar, but so, so different.
He stared at the back of his hand. No crest. No magic. No runes. No answers.
His thoughts drifted.
Slowly...
The darkness took him again.
And the weight of a foreign world pressed down, silent and full of secrets.