Let’s review the information that we have for a moment.

Currently, we three are stuck inside a single room. There are two doors at each end of the room. Both doors always lead to the same room. We confirmed this by scratching the walls and pillars.

That’s the basic rundown of the situation. I think there’s nothing else of note.

Now… about the mysterious lever and the missing potion bottle. If I look at it from face value, then the answer is simple. The potion bottle that I left became the lever. Considering that the lever had the same qualities as the potion bottle, then that’s the only logical explanation.

We haven’t touched the switch yet, so we wouldn’t know what it does.

If I were to guess… Then I believe that this room that we are stuck in is just one out of many rooms. If this is the case, then the missing goblins are immediately explained. They were also teleported into the same Lost Ground, but just in different rooms.

If so, then the clear condition of this place is that each room must successfully flip the switch to move forward.

With all information that we have, that is the best answer that I could come up with.

If this is true though… then what would happen if there are not enough people to flip all of the switches in each room? We would be stuck here for eternity. We would die here.

With that said… I wholeheartedly hope that I was wrong. Getting stuck and dying here would be so boring.

I can’t think of anything else. I’ve used and linked all the information that we have to form a conjecture as to how this place works, but… something is weird. I have a feeling that there is something that I missed

I racked my brain trying to find out what is this weird thing I’m missing. I pored through every single piece of information that we have repeatedly. Still, I couldn’t get anything else.

I sighed and lay down on the floor. Of course, I made sure to still keep an eye out at the doors.

“I’m tired. Waaay too tired. Physically, I feel fine. But the mental strain is getting to me.”

I whispered to myself.

I don’t know how long have I been stuck here.

We still have enough food and water. So we shouldn’t worry about that for the time being. But what about bathrooms? We can’t just drop excrement on the other side of the room. That would affect morale in so many ways…

Hm? Wait a minute.

Food and water.

Excretion.

THAT’S IT!

How come we haven’t been feeling hungry or thirsty all this time?

Salim and Alisa said that they don’t want to drink or eat until it is necessary, but there’s not a single biological sign of thirst or hunger between the three of us. That’s not natural. There is no rumbling stomach. There is no parched throat. Come to think of it, even though we have been moving about all over in a place with no ventilation, we haven’t sweat at all!

This is it! This is what I’ve been missing.

If this place stops our biological functions, then even if there aren’t enough people in all the rooms, then we would be able to sit here and wait for as long as we have to! That’s genius! …Wait not! That’s bad! If that is true, then that means that we are basically immortal… But what about injuries? Will blood still drop if I cut myself? What if my limbs got cut off? What if I got beheaded? What will happen then? Will I die? What about my sanity? Can my mental faculties deteriorate in this Lost Ground? What ab─

Stolen story; please report.

“Kak!”

“Ha?”

When I noticed, Salim and Alisa appeared behind me all of a sudden. I was so preoccupied with my thoughts that I forgot to keep an eye out for the surroundings. Even though I was supposed to be on the lookout…

“Sorry, I was thinking. What is it?”

“It’s bad kak.” “It’s weird!”

The two told me at the exact same time.

“Our magic power isn’t replenishing!”

……..

Of course! Our magic pool is part of our biology, so if this place really do stops our biological functions like hunger and thirst, then stopping the regeneration of mana is as expected.

I told the two about my hypothesis about this place. They are shocked. They immediately went ‘now that you mention it’ and started listing all the things that they noticed via hindsight.

“Okay. You two try to cast [Solid Barrier] or some Crafts and see what happens. In the meantime, I’ll meditate and check my mana pool.”

“Alright, kak.” “Okay, kak.”

I sat down and started to meditate.

Right… This clinches it. My magic power is basically within the zero mark. The red, RED zone area. I used up all my mana to cast [Borrowed Power] and [Delayed Consequence], so the fact that I am still standing and operating like normal here means that those two are still in effect even though it’s way past the time limit.

This means this Lost Ground PAUSES the state of our biological functions. It doesn’t stop them.

This brings up so many questions that I want to know… What if I entered this Lost Ground while I was holding my pee in? What if I entered this place while I was holding my poop in? What if I entered this place while having an erection?

So many questions… As the one that discovered this Lost Ground, I will make sure that I can have those answers and some more. Alright, time to switch gears.

l have to confirm our combat situation and then we can flip that lever.

I approached Salim and Alisa to ask them about the result.

Alisa cast [Solid Barrier] and [Flash Step]. Both failed to activate.

Salim cast [Fire Ball] and [Water Disk]. Both also failed.

Alisa said that he tried casting [Sense Entity] but he didn’t notice any difference.

I call that weird. How come he didn’t notice anything? If it activates then he will surely be able to sense us being here with him. And if he didn’t sense anything, that means it failed to activate. Could he perhaps never try activating [Sense Entity] in the city? How come he doesn’t notice it? I’ll have to ask him about this later.

Best case scenario, he’s just dumb. Worst case scenario… He’s ignoring understanding the Signs and Crafts that he uses. That’s fatal.

Anyway, this means we can’t count on Signs and Crafts here. It’s all about physical combat.

The two looks dejected and worried. Especially Salim. She looks grim.

It’s understandable since this means she’s useless in combat.

I told her not to worry, since we are going to exploit the hell out of this predicament of ours.

“I’m going to train you two.”

“Huh?” “Eh?”

Their faces turned to a look of confusion. I think they don’t understand the situation that we are in.

“Listen, I already told you that our biological function is paused here, yes?”

The two nodded.

“Then you two do realize that that means that we can’t get tired, no?”

They nodded again.

“Then we can exploit this situation of ours and benefit from it by training as best as we can.”

They became confused again. They looked at each other, totally lost.

Salim raised her hand. Slowly.

“Erm… Kak… If our biological functions are paused, doesn’t that means that our body won’t change? We are essentially in some kind of a static or limbo right?”

Ooh, she’s pretty smart. Alisa still looks confused, however.

“Correct, Salim. Although we don’t really know for sure, it is highly likely that that is the case. Yes. It is likely that our bodies would not change while we are here...”

We could easily test this by wounding ourselves to try and see if that’s true or not. But I’d rather not stab myself. I don’t wanna stab these two either.

“But you can still gain experience from training. Our body may not change or remember all the training we did, but our minds will. Most likely.”

Salim face changed to that of an understanding. Alisa’s still looking confused.

I turned to him and smack his forehead lightly.

“That means, even if you won’t get stronger physically; even if you won’t get any muscle from training; you would still be able to remember the feeling of combat and accumulate knowledge by training here.”

Get it?

I stared at Alisa dead in the eyes as he slowly processed and understanding the purpose. He’s so slow!

“Great. Then I’ll begin by teaching you the basics. Then I’ll scold you about the importance of understanding your tools. And then we’ll do some mock combat.”

This is great. While I’m teaching these two, I would be able to practice using this black sword too. It’s a win-win situation for me.