In the pitch-black tower, opening any door required all of Mira's concentration.

She tightly gripped the gemstone in her hand, silently reciting the incantation for the Protection spell, ensuring she could cast the protective magic the moment danger approached.

Her palm, holding the crystal, was damp with sweat. Mira felt she was perhaps being overly nervous.

But the fear that arose in the face of darkness and the unknown was hard to control.

The more she hesitated, the more frightened she became. With a determined heart, Mira pushed the door in front of her open.

The light blue glow of the protection spell enveloped her.

Silence. There was no sound.

Mira looked into the room and suddenly let out a laugh.

She had been tense, cautiously guarding herself against potential danger, her heart nearly in her throat, but there was no danger here. It was grain.

The room was filled with grain!

She exhaled gently and walked up to a basket of grain.

A faint blue magic surrounded the bamboo basket containing the grains.

She reached out, and two different shades of light blue intertwined as Mira lifted a handful of unhulled wheat.

She carefully examined the grain in her hand, a look of surprise creeping onto her face. The food here was well-protected by magic; it hadn’t rotted, nor did it have the strange smell of old rice.

It was perfectly edible.

This was wonderful. Mira couldn’t help but wonder about the origin of the grain.

She recalled the unreinforced magic on the door, and based on her feelings, she guessed that the magic here must have been in place for over a century. The original owner of the tower was human, and they would have needed food.

The magic dragon likely didn’t eat bread, so he wouldn’t have bothered reinforcing the magic on the grain storage room.

In any case, the food was a great help to Mira. Holding the candelabra, she circled the room.

Because of space magic, the room was much larger than she had imagined. The entire room was filled with grain: wheat, rice, corn, and even oats.

Mira even found sweet potatoes in one of the baskets, though the protective magic around them wasn’t as strong, and most of the sweet potatoes had sprouted.

She picked up one sprouting sweet potato and sniffed it. It didn’t have any odd smell, but it was no longer edible.

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Perhaps she could plant them, Mira thought. With growth magic, it wouldn’t take long before she had fresh, edible sweet potatoes.

Mira nodded with satisfaction. Perhaps the gods were helping her. On her very first day in the tower, she had already discovered so many useful things.

Mira stepped out of the room with a smile on her face, closed the storage door, and took the medium crystal from her pocket, casting another sealing spell.

She decided to wait until daylight to sort the food. For now, she would continue exploring other rooms.

There were more than twenty doors on the side of the hallway. The vast majority were sealed with powerful magic, and Mira didn’t want to waste too many crystals, so she decided not to open those doors.

Two doors, however, had weakened magical barriers. One room was filled with thick logs, and another had many huge stones inside.

Mira glanced at them before closing the doors. The logs could be chopped into firewood, and the stones were much taller than her—temporarily, they seemed useless.

How did they even fit through the door?

Perhaps it was shrinkage and restoration magic, Mira thought as she exited the room.

The door adjacent to the stone room also had its magical seal failed. Mira didn’t think much of it; after passing through a few rooms, she was no longer as tense as she had been when opening the first door.

Mira pushed open this door, holding the candelabra as she stepped into the room.

Countless light spots reflected off the surfaces, turning the room into a starry night sky due to the candelabra’s light.

Mira blinked. Were these all reflective glass objects inside?

She lifted the candelabra higher, and the scene inside the room was reflected in her expanding pupils.

Glass jars?

Mira quickly stepped back and closed the storage room door.

She leaned against the door, breathing heavily, the image of what she had just seen still fresh in her mind.

Jars and jars, filled with floating objects in different colors.

If she was correct, those were...

Eyeballs.

Lance slowly opened his eyes.

The girl was sitting in the corner of the mattress, the candle on the table long extinguished.

Lance moved his neck slightly. He still couldn’t move.

His blue dragon eyes focused on Mira. She had heavy dark circles under her eyes.

"Good morning, Mira," Lance greeted her in the way humans often did.

At the sound of his voice, Mira slowly turned her stiff neck.

"Good morning..." Her voice was hoarse.

"You didn’t sleep well?" Lance noticed her exhaustion.

"I…" Mira was slightly confused. She had originally planned to overcome her fear of being alone in the dark by exploring the tower. But after seeing what was inside that room, she was even more afraid.

Not only afraid, but also angry and saddened.

The entire night, whenever she closed her eyes, the image of the eyeballs in the glass jars would flash in her mind.

Mira didn’t dare count how many jars there were, how many pairs of eyes.

She forced herself not to think about it, but her thoughts wouldn’t obey.

She curled her legs, stunned by the fact, and didn’t sleep a wink the entire night.

Lance had woken up. Even though he was still a patient, lying on the mattress unable to move, his presence gave Mira a bit of comfort.

She lay down again.

"I didn’t sleep all night," Mira said softly, "I just want to rest for a little while, just a little."

Lance sensed something was off. She hadn’t been like this the night before.

"Did you go wandering around the tower, Mira?"

Lying at the edge of the mattress, Mira didn’t open her eyes and responded quietly, "I found some food... and other things..."

Lance froze for a moment. "Eyeballs?"

Those were trophies from his black dragon cousins. Since Lance wasn’t interested in collecting human body parts, his cousins’ collections couldn’t be dealt with carelessly, so he had them moved to the base of the tower.

The tower was large enough—99 floors and 9,999 rooms.

Mira opened her eyes. "You knew?"