When Ibras left the large room — whom he henceforth had decided to refer to as 'the study' in his mind — he entered an enormous room that was shaped like a rotunda, with several floors different floors in it. The ceiling was made up of a huge dome. The dome's ceiling was covered with worn-out murals that depicted a stormy ocean with several smaller sea-creatures, and a few larger ones too. It looked fancy.

Every floor in the rotunda consisted of a thick hallway that hugged the walls and formed a circle. In the middle of the rotunda was a giant empty space, and Ibras could see all the floors, from top to bottom, from where he was. The only thing that separated him from this space was a balustrade made out of smooth black stone. All of the floors in the rotunda had an identical balustrade that encircled them.

On either side of the rotunda were two spiral staircases. The staircases went up to the highest floor and down to the ground floor, which also looked to house the main entrance. As Ibras observed the impressive walls and architecture of the building he was in, he noted that there were no signs of anybody else living here. However, there wasn't any dust to be seen either.

That didn't really surprise him that much, though. Salamar hadn't seemed like the kind of person who'd live with many others, and magic could surely explain the lack of dust. Although, Ibras hadn't pegged Salamar to be the kind of person to live in a place like this either. It wouldn't really be taking it too far if you were to describe this place as a palace, honestly. Ibras kept observing the walls of the building as he headed towards one of the two spiral staircases and down to the first floor.

The walls were made out of polished grey stone, but also had violet colored tapestries that hung on all the floors. It was odd, but even though Ibras couldn't see a single light source anywhere, everything was still gently light up. it was almost as if light emanated from the walls. It had a neat effect of adding a sense of mystery to the place. He liked things like that. Not that he had any idea how it was done. Magic, no doubt.

On the lowest floor of the rotunda — the foyer, if you wanted to call it that — stood several small pillars next to the walls. Beside every pillar stood two suits of beautiful black armor that all looked to be very expensive. Seeing all this, Ibras couldn't help but think that Salamar must have been a very powerful person. And he had killed him just a while ago. Having realized that Salamar Virrona might be more powerful than he had originally thought, Ibras was starting to feel a tad bit of regret. Just a tad, though. That old man still tried to make him a slave, after all.

He moved towards what looked to be the entrance. Two sets of long stairs led to two equally large stone doors. As Ibras floated down the stairs he got realized he was in a bit of a dilemma. Those doors looked heavy, but he could barely move a book as he was right now. He wanted to go outside to get a picture of what kind of place he was in, but if he couldn't even open the doors because they were too heavy, then there wasn't much he could do. Thankfully, all of that turned out to be needless worrying as the doors automatically opened by themselves as he approached them.

Automatic door opener, huh? It might be magical, but it's less impressive when every single shopping mall has the same feature. Get back to me when the toilets automatically wipe your butt after you've flushed. Now that's true magic for you.

Ibras exited the building through the open stone doors. He was met with the sight of a stone pathway that continued forward a few yards, before ending suddenly and without a trace. To his left was a large lake with water so blue that he almost thought he was imagining it for a second. It even looked like the blue was floating up from the water and into the air.

To his right, and all other directions, was a huge open field filled with grass, flowers and small hills. It was a breathtaking view, and he had to spend a few moments just taking in the beauty of it all before he turned around to look at the building he had left.

It was in the shape of a very large and very tall octagonal tower, with eight pillar-like towers jutting out from its sides. The tower itself was made out of a mix of polished grey stone and black marble. It was built on a high cliff that jutted out over the sapphire-colored lake, like a lighthouse that guided ships over the ocean. Minus the ships and the ocean.

Overall, it was an impressive view, Ibras thought. Odd place to place a tower at, however. He glanced out over the lake again and paused as he realized something. He hadn't imagined things. The water really was unnaturally blue, and some of that blue was floating up into the air. As he looked closer, he realized that the blue particles that he had seen everywhere inside the study directly after the ritual were emerging out of the lake. It was mana. This whole lake was spewing out pure mana like there was no tomorrow. That was also why the water looked so remarkably blue to his eye. It was colored by all the mana.

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The reason this tower was built here must also be because of this. If this lake was releasing massive amounts of mana like this, there had to be good ways to put it to use for accomplished mages like Salamar. But, does that mean that Salamar had built this tower just to make use of the mana leaking out from this lake? That can't be right, Ibras thought. This building looked to be much older than Salamar. Admittedly, magic is a thing here, so it's not impossible that Salamar was older than he looked. Ibras shrugged his fake incorporeal shoulders. No point in thinking about that right now.

He followed the stone path further away from the tower. He noticed a slight glimmer in the air in front of him. When he reached the end of the pathway, he realized that the glimmer he had noticed was a thick wall of half-translucent mana that seemed to surround this entire tower.

I wonder what this is for. Some kind of protective barrier? Thief protection?

He tried sticking his hand through the barrier. It passed through without a problem. He could also bring it back inside again without the barrier stopping him. He tried doing the same with his whole body, without running into any problems. Satisfied that he could enter and leave the barrier as he wanted, Ibras stepped outside the barrier and started walking — or floating — next to the cliffside of the lake as he observed the landscape around him. He had been moving slowly for a few minutes when a loud sound suddenly caught his attention.

From the lake, he saw the surface of the water suddenly shift and start moving. Soon, the water itself morphed and moved upwards like a huge tentacle of liquid. It stood high up into the air, close to where Ibras was. The water inside the tentacle constantly moved about, creating fronts of white foam in the tentacle. Suddenly, the liquid struck out towards Ibras. He was so shocked that he didn't even have time to react. Luckily for him, the tentacle made out of water had barely any effect on him. As it tried to strike him, it merely moved through him, making him feel a tingly feeling.

He was, of course, jubilant when he realized this. But he was less happy about the fact that he was attacked out of nowhere. Suddenly realizing what that barrier might have been there for, Ibras started moving back towards the tower. Even though he was trying his best to move quickly, he still couldn't float much faster than he usually did when walking so it would take a minute or so before he reached the barrier again.

The tentacle of water kept striking at his incorporeal body again and again, before seemingly realizing that its attacks had no effect. Then something peculiar happened. Out of the corner of his eye, Ibras could see how the base of the tentacle starting turning a more blue color, which moved throughout the water that the tentacle consisted of all the way to its top. The tentacle had been imbued with mana.

The tentacle struck out against its target once again and this time, instead of just passing through its target, the mana-imbued water slammed into his shapeless body. The pain he felt throughout his body was akin to getting hit at the back of your head with a baseball bat, and he immediately lost control of his body shape. Once again having the form of a cloud, he kept floating towards the barrier that was only a dozen or so yards away now.

Another strike from the tentacle left him shaken and confused, but he kept on moving. He felt like he lost a large part of his body every time he was hit, and a few more hits like that might actually kill him.

Just when I'd managed to escape death once, too!

When he saw the tentacle charge up for another strike, he panicked. Trying to come up with a way to survive this situation, Ibras remembered one of the few spells he had seen in his brief time in here this world. Without thinking, Ibras conjured up the same circuit that Salamar had showed him earlier, the very first circuit that Ibras had learned.

Blue-colored mana moved from Ibras' damaged body, turning a red color, and created a hand-sized circuit that consisted of three circlets. As the circuit glowed a bright red, a knuckle-sized flame started burning above it. He thought about the flame flying towards the tentacle, but nothing happened. Realizing that he had no idea how to make the small fireball fly away, Ibras did the only other thing he could in this circumstance.

Immediately, more and more mana flowed out from his body. It was several times the amount that had been used for the single circuit just now, but it was barely anything compared to how much mana he had left in his body. Suddenly, several dozens of red circuits appeared that looked exactly like the first one. They had formed three lines between Ibras and tentacle that was now moving towards him, and above every single circuit, a red flame appeared. When the water-tentacle touched these flames, the water that touched the flame sizzled and evaporated before the flame was snuffed out. A single flame barely affected the tentacle, but when the tentacle had to pass through several dozens of those flames to reach Ibras, large puffs of steam appeared and the tentacle's size lessened considerably.

This time, when the tentacle struck Ibras, the damage it did was much less. More water surged forward from the lake and the tentacle regained its original size, but Ibras merely repeated the same process with even more flames. Like this, he managed to seriously dampen the effect of the tentacles next three attacks at him and made it to the barrier alive, although not entirely in one piece.

As soon as he had reached the barrier, the tentacle made out of water had stopped trying to attack him and returned to the water, as if nothing had ever happened here to begin with.

His body had reduced in size quite a bit, and he felt incredibly tired, but he was glad that he was safe now. He had no idea what that tentacle thing had been, but now he knew not to leave this barrier unless he had a death wish.