“Do we have any idea what could come through this?” the young researcher gave his professor a sidelong glance, at which the man merely scoffed.

Brook set about infusing mana into the engraved orb, eyes twinkling.

“Finn, what is magic if not a little bit mysterious? How would we ever learn anything new if we didn’t stretch the limits of what could be? Live a little.”

“Well, yes, professor, there’s certainly—"

“After all,” he interrupted the young man, the last strands of pure magical fuel slipping out of his fingertips into the now glowing, grayish blue sphere, “You haven’t forgotten who gave this to me? It was his last Paragon item. Immortals above, to not use this, a gift from a now Immortal Paragon of Botany? Such cowardice would be an injustice upon the world. Think of all the undiscovered flora we could learn from, Finn.” The researcher grinned, teeming with excitement.

Manori, the de facto god of the mortal races, was not inclined to participate in divine intervention, instead preferring to observe and augment others. Paragon items, or those boons that the highest ranked members of disciplines received at important milestones, were a significant exception.

Finn tapped uncomfortably upon his oaken desk, the muggy room only adding to his frustrations, heat building in his forehead. "I don’t know, Brook. If whatever that thing is has Manori on edge… it just seems irresponsible.”

Identify Anomaly. The researcher invoked the spell with a terse fervor. Translucent tendrils of gray mana flew out of Brook, connecting him to the object. Glancing at the item only to confirm his mana had surrounded it, he took in the information for the seventh time. Aloud, he forced into the spell. Monotone emanated from the device in question, an identification acquired from Manori only through the overwhelming energy of the mage’s soul, made easier to access each time he asked.

Lost Lands' Orb, Anomaly.

Activation allows the caster to temporarily remove the boundaries between universes, opening a portal directly to the orb from an unknown land. Results may vary.

2/2 uses remaining.

“See?” Finn gestured miserably, leaving his chair. “This is insane. You’re insane, Brook.”

“Well…” the professor composed himself, adjusting his monocle. “It’s all part of the learning process, Finn. We have rooms designed to accommodate dangerous magic for a reason.”

Finn let an exasperated sigh past his lips.

“I suppose I can’t stop you,” he considered. “If you’re going to do it anyway… I’d like to see it.”

“Absolutely splendid,” Brook half-shouted to Finn, having already started walking away.

The pair disembarked to the Testing Rooms, almost crashing into more than a few scholars as they jogged to the left wing, Finn scrambling to keep up.

Brook flashed the insignia signifying his rank of professor to the scholar manning the Testing Rooms, authorizing his rental of the room.

“The largest? For a whole week?” the young scholar seemed perturbed at the exorbitant request. “Ten gold, professor,” he informed him.

“Erm… yes,” he retrieved the coins from his satchel, miffed.

The man quickly exchanged the professor's money for an inscribed metal cube, already waving him along to help the next researcher.

“Could’ve bought a cottage on the southside of town,” the professor murmured, excitement dampened.

Brook slipped the cube into his pockets, entering an area designated as the left wing. It had not seen much upkeep lately. Dust was unceremoniously removed from its resting place as the duo made their way past the entrances to dozens of infinitely larger testing rooms.

“Here it is!” Brook was positively elated, green eyes sparkling with opalescent mana streams. Finn noted it was the very last room — his professor was always the paranoid type.

He slipped the cube into the small implement in the wall that acted as a keyhole, and the door opened, leaving no trace of the mana-infused key. A similarly inscribed cube rolled out of the other side of the door onto a small platform. The professor quickly picked it up, sliding it into a pocket in his robe. A questioning look materialized on Finn’s face.

“Oh, of course. You’ve never been in a dimensional room before. Dimensional rooms are like passageways to areas our mages have carved out in other planes of this universe.” Brook squinted at the blinding white behind the door for a moment. “The ones here at Sarefall are connected to a-”

Finn was loath to interrupt his mentor, but this was, in truth, a little insulting. “Yes! Yes. I know what dimensional rooms are. I was just curious what the new cube does.”

Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

“Oh.” The professor’s face had grown slightly annoyed at his student’s interruption, his brows just barely furrowed, relaxing only when he realized his task once again. “This cube,” he said, manifesting the object from his robe’s seemingly endless pockets, “is an exit ticket. For larger rooms, such as this one, it also serves as a beacon. If you look carefully, you can see it’s connected to the door by a thin strand of mana.”

Finn then noticed the cube’s link to the door, taken aback that he hadn’t noticed it before. It was, to be fair, incredibly thin.

“The door will output mana from its reservoir as needed to maintain the connection,” the professor finished. “Is that all?”

Finn nodded, and they set out into the enormous space together.

The door disappeared as they closed it, quickly engulfed by the white walls that defined the space, leaving only a cube-shaped hole in its wake.

“As if that’s not terrifying,” the younger scholar muttered under his breath, appraising his chances of escape if he lost his professor.

While Finn was staring, enamored, at the door, the professor had made his way to the center of the room. The researcher-in-training turned around just in time to see his teacher summoning an enormous glass prison; it was the size of about five small cottage-lengths in every direction, even extending upwards.

"Is that some sort of rare item, or perhaps an ability?" Finn was squinting at the ungodly thing.

“Finn! Come over here!” Brook was grinning maniacally at his work. He continued speaking as the trainee began to reach him, “These structures are unbelievable. The inside is lined with a translucent and ultra-durable magic repelling substance; no living being should be able to approach it.”

Finn’s face twisted as he took in the spectacle, admittedly impressed. This prison should be able to hold anything the orb will throw at us, right? Finn contemplated.

Gray pillars came together on all sides to form the cube, encasing the glass. It was, he realized, the perfect conservation tool.

Brook approached the structure and… phased through. His only reply to Finn’s questioning look was a curt “It’s attuned to me.”

Finn cocked his head.

The professor carefully placed the Lost Lands’ Orb in the center of the prison. Phasing back out, he left only a finger-sized hole in the glass from which he could maintain his connection to the Anomaly.

Finn rubbed his hands together in anticipation. His professor’s enthusiasm had apparently suffused into him as well.

“I’m activating the orb. Brace yourself,” the older man half-joked. Finn was not amused.

Swaths of mana started to accumulate around Brook as he forced it out of himself, until finally a gray-blue mass found its way through the hole in the structure, entering the hungry orb in streams. Infused by the professor’s mana, the orb began to change, adopting his sky-blue color. As the orb consumed the last of the life essence he had provided, it expanded, material walls melting away to form a larger circle of pure, unadulterated magic. The circle continued to grow until it nearly matched the size of the structure itself, much to the concern of Finn, who was standing barely outside. Finn let out a sigh of relief as it stopped just at the wall.

“That was too close,” the perturbed student stated drily.

The professor seemed almost amused at this, momentarily; much to Finn’s bewilderment, he noticed a smile starting to form at the sides of his lips. Brook decided not to tell Finn he was aware of the size the portal would expand to beforehand and had formed the prison to its specifications.

“Oh, yes,” he said, pretending to wipe sweat off his brow, “too close indeed.”

The ethereal, lapis material that characterized the portal had faded; a fantastical landscape emerged in its wake.

“Fascinating,” the professor commented.

Within the expanse, a field of supercharged mana was struggling against the repellant walls; even the air inside was laden with the essence of life. The grass and plants transported contained immense amounts of mana, with many of them harboring multiple bulbs through which essence was being expelled in its pure, liquid form. The life forms inside, sentient or not, were shaking with energy.

“They have… too much mana?” Finn had moved closer to get a better look. “How is that possible? I can’t think of a single living thing in all of Aro that would be efficient enough at ambient mana gathering that they would need an output.”

“Look at that rabbit,” the professor pointed out breathlessly, “It is drinking mana from the nodule on that flower. Has it evolved to metabolize mana like food? Do you know what this could mean, Finn? It is likely these animals and plants came from a world much, much older than our own.”

The professor tried to send a tendril of mana into the structure to retrieve the orb, but immediately stopped himself. A deviously ornate crimson lily lay over the Lost Lands' Orb; a drop of highly concentrated scarlet mana had found its way onto the Anomaly. It had begun to glow violently, expanding for the second time.

“Immortal Paragons above,” Brook cursed his lack of preparedness.

“What should we do?” Finn queried, concerned.

“This is unexpected, but… hmm… well… I… I am unsure how large the portal will be, Finn. I specified the size in our first trial to match my conservatory; but, without an input, there is really no way to tell how large the area will be. We should move away.”

“You knew how large the portal would be?” Finn was visibly rattled, but not especially surprised at his professor’s behavior.

“I must’ve forgotten to tell you,” he replied, smirking.

“Typical.”

The Lost Lands' Orb, meanwhile, had stopped expanding as it reached a circular radius of about one cottage-length, give or take half a cottage.

“Thank the Immortals,” the professor let out, satisfied that the transported biocube would likely survive the unexpected second portal. As the red haze dissipated, a young man, surrounded by black boxes, emerged.

“Look,” the professor observed. “A human.”

“Does he have no aura?” Deathly pale, Finn motioned at the soulless corpse. “He must not have survived the portal. Did we... kill him?”

“Take a closer look,” Brook’s sharp gaze scrutinized the black-haired male adult in question. “I can see him breathing.”

“Is it possible for a living thing to exist without a soul?” Finn was lost.

“Not from our world,” the professor appeared deep in thought. “No, not at all.”