Telling the others to stay put I take the last step of the path and walk into the boulder. It turns out only part of the boulder is illusionary as I find myself in basically a closet sized space. The only thing here is a large lever and in the language of the ancient empire it is labeled on and off.

Since the lever is pointed to on I decide to try turning it to off and see what happens. Of course I can't see any changes since I am in this small space but from the sounds the others are making something happened. Stepping backwards out of the illusion I am finally able to see what has changed, a tower appeared.

Set on the very top of the summit where before there was nothing is a massive tower. Just from the size it could easily have a hundred floors in it, and the entire thing is covered in glowing arcane symbols. I can't even imagine how they managed to build something like this all the way up here.

The amount of mana I can feel radiating from the tower is even stronger than what I felt from the dragon when I met him. Even if the tower was hidden from sight by an illusion, how could this much mana have been hidden? Eager to start exploring I walk up to the huge double doors on the front of the tower and try pushing them open.

The doors are about twenty feet tall and look like they are extremely heavy, yet they start to swing open as soon as I touch them. There is a rush of warm air as the doors swing open and suddenly I am able to breathe normally. Through the doors I can see a lavish room and seeing no threats I slowly step inside.

??? says "Welcome supplicant! Congratulations on completing the trial! Time since last completion, one thousand three hundred and fifteen years!"

"Um, hello? Who are you? Where are you?"

??? says "I am the spirit of the tower. I do not have a physical body."

"Do you have a name? Or should I just call you spirit?"

??? says "I do not have a name, you may call me whatever you wish."

"Is giving you a name going to cost me a thousand power?"

??? says "No, the cost of naming only applies to living beings. I am just an artificially created spirit."

'Since I already named Asuna from SAO should I just continue? May as well I guess.'

"Alright, I will call you Yui."

Yui says "That is acceptable."

"So Yui, what exactly is this place?"

Yui says "This is the great tower, home of the mages of Allothal. Your master should have informed you of this before sending you to take the trial!"

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"Actually, I don't have a master. And I hate to tell you this but Allothal no longer exists."

Yui says "That cannot be correct! Even if the demons invaded the mages would have returned for the weapons stored here!"

"Hmm, were you aware of the civil war?"

Yui says "You are referring to the rebellion of Duke Daggun? Yes, I was aware of it."

"Well, from what I have been able to learn the Duke attempted to control a dragon and failed. The dragon, or maybe two dragons, burned the empire to ashes in a single day. This happened a little over a thousand years ago."

Yui says "Please wait. Calculating!"

After a minute of silence I motion the others to come inside and I push the huge doors closed. Taking a quick look around I spot an area off to the side with comfy looking couches. Since we have to wait we may as well be comfortable, almost an hour passes before Yui speaks again.

Yui says "Calculations complete! It would be possible for two enraged dragons to destroy the empire in a day. The fact that none of the mages returned supports this."

"I am sorry to be the bearer of such bad news."

Yui says "Your apology is unnecessary, I do not feel emotions."

"So what are you going to do now?"

Yui says "According to my instructions I must attempt to verify the death of the last recorded archmage and then initiate the inheritance protocol."

"Was the last recorded archmage named Phillip Deburin?"

Yui says "That is correct!"

"What would it take to verify his death? And what is the inheritance protocol?"

Yui says "There are a number of ways to verify an archmage's death, including through his personal items. The inheritance protocol allows ownership of the great tower to pass to someone deemed worthy."

"Well, first I have his pouch here, will that work?"

Yui says "Scanning!"

A beam of light comes from the ceiling and slowly goes back and forth over the pouch for a few minutes.

Yui says "Negative! I am able to verify that the pouch was the one registered to the archmage but the impressions are long faded."

"What would have caused the impressions to fade? And what do you mean by impressions anyway?"

Yui says "Impressions are like a mana fingerprint left behind by mages of a certain power level. The only way they would fade is through another mage using the item."

"Well, no one but me has used the pouch since the archmage. I don't think I would count as a powerful mage though."

Yui says "Scanning!"

Once again the beam of light comes from the ceiling, but this time it is aimed at me. I can feel the beam penetrating my body, and it just plain feels weird. It slowly moves back and forth over my body, it takes about twenty minutes before the beam finally stops.

Yui says "Unknown energy detected!!"

"Um, I take it that is a bad thing?"

Yui says "It may or may not be, but it disqualifies you to inherit the tower. You are not a mage!"

"I know I am not a mage. I was not expecting to inherit the tower."

Yui says "Then why did you take the trial of a supplicant?"

"I am searching for the Temple of the Winds."

Yui says "Then you have found it."

"What? This is the temple?!?"