As the stone underneath me fell away from the cliff, I reached underneath my tunic and pulled off the pendant hanging around my neck. The pendant let out a large pop. The moment the pendant left my skin I felt my cultivation flooding back into my body.

Gathering my Mana, I pushed it through my channels. Then I pushed off the falling stone. The force was enough to send me catapulting 50 feet upwards towards the mouth of the cave. As I approached I felt the force that had pushed me down before I let loose my aura and suppressed its intent which allowed me to land, at the edge of the waterfall. I rolled to try and get as much distance from the edge as possible. I stood up and looked around.

The cave was more like a tunnel. It had been eroded by the river that led into the waterfall. It was almost perfectly cylindrical and had a radius of almost 20 feet.

It was odd that the amulet was removed. My cultivation should be unsuppressed and my senses should be up to par, so why couldn't I see well? It was probably because The lack of vision was tied to the force that had tried to prevent me from entering the cave to begin with.

I didn't see any ruins or at least no visible ones. I reached out my senses trying to find any mana construct. My scan came up empty. It's unlikely, but it could be a naturally occurring Mana field. The source of the effect which I still wasn't fully sure of. However, it had to be nearby.

I decided to head inside the cave. Regrettably, there was no ledge or path next to the river. This forced me to have to wade through it. I conjured a flame hoping to illuminate the darkness. A flame manifested 10 paces in front of me. The flame was cylindrical and about the size of my head, it glowed with a warm orange light.

The light itself didn't repel the darkness but after a minute or two of walking, I noticed that the Mana around the fire seemed to devour the ambient Mana of the cave. This in turn lightened the darkness and let me see better.

After wading through the river for several minutes, I spotted a split in the cave. About 10 feet ahead the cave split into two. On the right was where the river came from. I couldn't make out any distinguishing details as I peered down the cave. To the left was something far more comfortable.

“Land oh sweet land.”

I stepped out of the river. the water's nice but at this time of year, it was freezing cold. Not to mention the memories tied to it.

I took the left path. My feet made long echoes as my shadow cast an eerie figure against the left wall. I lost track of the time as I walked through the cave. I lost my sense of time not only because of the sun's presence or lack thereof. It was also because my inner clock had suddenly stopped.

As bad as I am at keeping track of time, I should at least have had some estimate as to how long it had been. Taking a breath, I scanned my body. I pulsed Mana through every vein and artery, not leaving a nook or a cell left unchecked.

“Ah, there you are.”

My searches had found a small blockage. Fortunately, it didn't land on my brain. When I purged the Mana that comprised the blockage from my system, I felt my sense of time return. Additionally, the darkness that clung so deeply around me seemed to lighten.

As I looked around I noticed I hadn't taken 10 steps from the entrance of the cave. The river still existed but it was far smaller and seemed to almost expand rapidly to fill the exit. There was definitely some sort of space bullshint going on. Unfortunately for it, II had spent way too much time combating someone way better at manipulating space than this archaic force.

I was once again faced with a choice. I could leave, forget about the cave, and continue to hunt for stone, or I could continue further in. In all honesty, there probably wasn't anything down there but, a small piece of me that could never rest, awakened. A part of me I thought I had lost years ago.

I smiled a true smile for the first time in far far too long. I can't believe I thought I understood everything going on within myself. Running out to the boonies to be a farmer. Tahh what an idiot! I took the only option and went further into the cave.

This time however, I was almost immediately confronted with a door. The door was carved into the stone. It was simple, with no ornamentation, only a cutout for the handle and frame.

Why was a door here? This cave was located on a very wet, very slippery cliff. It was in the middle of nowhere far away from any major city. The nearest settlement was barely a town on any map. Additionally, it had at least some significant form of magical protection, none of which I could sense.

There was only one way to find out. If my curiosity was to kill me me, so be it. I opened the door. It revealed a hallway constructed of large evenly cut tiles. There were mental holders on the walls. I suspected they once held torches. But the wood of the torch had likely rotted long ago.

As I stepped through the door it shut behind me. Turning I found a seamless wall. As I walked down the hallway I felt as if I was being watched.

And just as I turned away from where the door had been I heard a loud thud. Turning I saw a familiar spherical object. I found a boulder carved into a perfectly spherical shape. The boulder was around 10 feet across. As it moved towards me it started to make high pitched scraping sounds as it brushed against the ceiling of the hallway.

Letting out a sigh of exasperation,I played along and began to run. Until I noticed a small fleck of white within the boulder. That small fleck turned into lines and then a latticework. Eventually, my mind grasped that the fucking boulder was made of the very stone I tried and failed to find.

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Reality really was a cruel mistress. Or at least for the pile of rubble. After a couple of well-placed fireballs and plenty of justified anger, the thing was destroyed. Dusting off my untarnished hands I continued. After several boulders later my hallway eventually joined others. Then I came upon and open cavern.

To call it a cavern would be a misnomer. It was in actuality the hollowed-out Mountain. With the lack of light I could barely make out the edges of the cavern. I was unable to focus on its size, for my attention was drawn to the ground. On the ground, there was a city.

It was massive,in fact, I couldn't see an end to it, It seemed to follow the curvature of the mountain range itself. It was constructed of stone buildings. What was likely wooden roofs seem to have rotted away.

I heard not a peep, not a pin drop, not a sound. I stood there admiring The stitching of streets the magnificent manners and in the center a grand temple.

I stepped away from the edge of the cavern and walked in. Judging by the buildings, it was abandoned rather than sieged. Which of course begged the question why? To my knowledge, this region of the Barrier Mountains contained no gems or gold. Additionally, the city was heavily hidden and fortified. All the defenses I had encountered were no insignificant obstacle for the average cultivator. The city was also hidden to the point of absurdity.

The fact that the buildings were intact and at least some defenses still remained functional was likely an internal problem. Considering the Mana of density and the size of the city it was unlikely to be a plague. This left the two other likely causes political unrest or some sort or shortages.

I stared at a building. It was three stories tall and constructed of a beautiful ivory marble with black streaks. It looked like the exact inverse of buildings in Rendfire.

From visual appearances, I had no idea how old the stone was. But then I smiled I didn't need to know visually when I could use Mana. I reached out with a tendril of my Mana. I felt the stone. Beyond just feeling its base level of power I felt its Intensity, its energy.

I reminisced about one of Professor Mescrim's lessons.

“As Mana sits it builds up momentum. Mana doesn't like to stay in one state for very long as it disturbs the natural Manacycle. That's why with air the Mana is fresh and new. It is easy for Mana to escape from its form due to its gaseous state. In contrast with solid materials such as Earth. Mana stays trapped for significantly longer. And when Mana Is trapped it builds up momentum.”

Later in life when I was exploring the Beast Barons I had thought of that lesson and figured out a trick to estimate the age of solid objects by judging their momentum or intent. Factoring in the intent of the ambient Mana the stone was likely somewhere between 12 and 15,000 years old.

Considering its environment it very well could be older. That meant that the city dates to around the time of the Formation. But then why was it abandoned? If it existed during that time. The city would have been supported when it came to food and resources. During that period of history, there were no political struggles with all seven seats filled.

It was more likely that I had misjudged the age of the stone. Once again, I sent out a tendril Mana, this time at a building constructed of Red granite Its age was similar to that of the marble. 12 to 15,000 years old.

I probably missed something in history considering how much I slept during that class. Something in my gut told me I hadn't. Eventually, I reached the temple. The temple's base rested on a higher level than the rest of the city, being around 250 ft higher.

The temple was carved into a large pillar. The temple face crawled up about 5 or 600 feet of the pillar. The pillar reached up to the top of the cavern vanishing into the darkness. The temple itself was blocky with a large rectangular face jutting out of the pillar. Its battlements burst from the sides of the pillar-like reaching limbs. The temple completely encapsulated the pillar which was around half a mile wide.

I walked to the temple's large carved doors. They depicted the city bustling with activity. Tall buildings constructed of stone foundations with wood and plaster walls on top. When I looked back over my shoulder at the city, what I had mistaken for shorter buildings glared back at me.

I mentally mapped the image of the full buildings onto the city. The mental image was impressive. The buildings were all more than doubled in height. Most reaching above six stories tall, giving the city a far grander feel. If the city was still intact it would likely rival the splendor of Krivale. Turning back around I stepped through the open temple doors.

The nave stretched from one set of doors to the other. The temple was in the Sheep of a plus. I hadn't been able to make it out due to the stone pillar it was built into. The nave was decorated with mosaic tiles. The tiles were large, each one being 3 feet wide. With the size of the Temple, the mosaic created a beautiful spiraling pattern of stone. The stone's colors range from the darkest of black, and magenta to glittering blue sapphire and even the occasional green.

Unlike the mosaic, the pillars were all constructed of that same black stone with white streaks that I desired. It was by far the biggest temple I had ever visited. I couldn't even fathom what people would build this.

As I walked through I ran my hands along the stone pillars. They were immaculately carved with sharp lines and smooth edges. My attention was pulled towards the center. At the heart of the fractal pattern stood a pillar larger than anything else. It was the same pillar on the outside. It was significantly slimmer being only around 40 or 50 feet wide. But every millimeter of its surface was carved and shaped like a cherished child.

To compare it to the Mosaic and the rest of the temple, It would be like comparing the work of a novice to that of a master. Any one of the tiles or pillars would be a treasure of any town or city.

The pillar was carved with scenes of the mountain range. The depicted scenes were of the city and its people. The people seemed oddly shaped which was strange considering the masterful attention to detail given to the rest of the pillar.

As I approached the large pillar I instinctively reached out a bit of Mana. It was old and its weight was immense. It was as if the entire mountain range was concentrated on the singular point.

As I walked around the pillar I noticed steps on both sides winding up to the ceiling. I was now on the exact opposite side of the doors I had entered the temple from. I spotted a chair. It was grandly carved to the stone painter and embedded with glistening gems of gold and silver.

I reached out to Mana once again to touch. The gems and gold felt strongly fortified. There was some sort of enchantment to keep them pristine. I briefly thought about stealing the gems. However, something about that felt wrong. I decided that they belonged here.

As I continued to stare at the pillar I noticed something at the corner of my vision. The stairs I had spotted earlier continued to curve and eventually started to descend. I turned and walked down the stairs, wondering what other beauties would lie beneath the earth.