"I don't know about this... All it would take is the dome giving out or, worse, us being attacked while under for drowning to become a serious risk," Marcos said, his voice tinged with doubt.

"True, but we won't be completely defenseless," Magnus replied calmly.

"I may not be able to move with my barriers, but I can still create them while we're underwater. If something does attack us, we'll still have options to react." Fighting, though, was clearly out of the question. Most of Magnus’s offensive elementrix magic wouldn’t work underwater, and while mana constructs were viable, using explosives in the same water they were submerged in was a bad idea. So, after some discussion, they agreed: if anything went wrong, their priority would be defense and immediate retreat.

Marcos was confident he could swim to the surface quickly, even if the lake turned out to be deep. Magnus, on the other hand, could jump through the water just as he leaped through the air, though with significantly more resistance. This was just a reconnaissance mission; there was no need to take unnecessary risks.

With that settled, it was time to dive in. The dome centered around Magnus as he led the way, and Marcos followed closely behind. The barrier acted like a bulldozer, parting the lake water as they moved. Their horse, still drinking nearby, briefly raised its head to watch them disappear beneath the mirror-like surface before returning to drinking.

Inside the dome, both Magnus and Marcos scanned their surroundings. Patterns of refracted light danced across the lake floor, twisting and shimmering like living threads. The sound of their footsteps crunching on wet dirt and smooth stones echoed faintly in the dome. The deeper they went, the more the dirt gave way to sand, soft and fine beneath their feet. The most unnerving part, however, was the stillness. The lake felt vast yet utterly lifeless. There were no fish, no aquatic animals, and almost no plant life. Even algae seemed scarce. It gave the entire place a haunting, desolate feel, like a barren underwater wasteland.

On the upside, the water was so crystal clear that they could see far ahead—though the light from above faded into a faint blue haze the deeper they went.

"It kind of makes you thirsty, doesn’t it?" Magnus said suddenly, glancing back at Marcos with a small, almost sheepish grin.

"What?" Marcos turned to him, blinking in confusion.

"All this water. It’s so clear, it kind of makes you want to drink something, doesn’t it?" Magnus’s wry smile deepened, but Marcos just tilted his head, narrowing his eyes.

"Are you... nervous?" His tone shifted slightly, curious. He’d seen Magnus anxious before, but this felt different—more genuine.

"Uh, maybe a little," Magnus admitted, his smile turning awkward.

"I’m not great with... creepy stuff. Dark hallways where you can’t see the end, weird voices from nowhere, and now this—an unnervingly deep lake that’s getting steeper the further we go." That last remark made Marcos glance around, and he realized Magnus had a point. The ground beneath them was sloping downward, leading them deeper into the lake rather than straight across. Despite the clear water, the hazy light and distorted reflections made it hard to see the bottom.

The lake wasn’t large—crossing it should have taken only a few minutes—but nearly ten had passed, and they were still descending into its depths.

"So, you're more scared of what could be in the water rather than what is?" Marcos asked, with the slightest teasing edge to his voice. His words made Magnus raise a finger in mock correction.

"First of all, I never said I was scared," Magnus replied firmly.

"Secondly, believe it or not, I've fought plenty of creepy things since you, Mia, and Gerald left Arlcliff City. I don’t have an issue fighting things I can see and understand, no matter how weird or gross they are. But when it’s too quiet, and I know something’s nearby—something I can’t see or make sense of—it makes me uneasy. Especially when there’s a chance it could jump at us at any moment." Their conversation continued as they walked, though the atmosphere around them grew heavier. The light from the surface was dimming, as though it were being swallowed by an unseen force.

"Fear of the unknown is normal enough, I suppose. Though if-" Marcos stopped mid-sentence, narrowing his eyes as he focused on something ahead. Magnus followed his gaze and quickly spotted it too. Green.

Algae began appearing across the lake floor, along with other plant life—tall green stalks that swayed gently in some unseen current. For the first time, the lake looked alive, like it had a functioning ecosystem, though oddly it was concentrated far below the surface and near the center of the lake. As the two pressed on, the vegetation grew thicker and more tangled. Long, snake-like greenery began covering the ground, forcing them to step carefully to avoid tripping.

And then they saw it—a sudden drop at the very edge of their vision.

"What the hell?" Magnus muttered as they slowed their pace, inching closer.

The lakebed sharply descended into what appeared to be a hole—or more accurately, a tunnel. The water around the entrance shimmered and trembled. Sand and small rocks along the edges were being kicked up, floating momentarily before sinking back down in slow motion, creating a hazy, obscured view of the area. Around it was like another ecological dead zone, the plant life they had spotted coming to a stop a couple of meters away from its edge.

"This must be the source of the heat," Marcos said, crouching and placing one of his hands on the ground to feel the heat directly. They had both noticed the water warming as they approached the lake's center, but now it was undeniable. The ground here was uncomfortably warm, and the water around the tunnel’s entrance seemed to be nearing boiling temperatures.

"So, it’s not in the lake—it’s under it," Magnus remarked, voicing his realization.

Marcos nodded.

"Makes sense why no one in the village knew about it. Even if someone noticed the warmth in the lake’s center, there’s no way they could dive this deep to find the tunnel. And even if they tried, the heat would stop them long before they got close." As he spoke, Marcos could sense the dense concentration of mana in the area. Mana wasn’t bound by physical barriers like earth or water; it flowed freely. The mana well beneath the lake wasn’t a jet of energy shooting out—it was more like the core of a sphere. The farther its mana spread, the more it dissipated, blending with the environment until it became indistinguishable from normal mana levels.

What they had seen from the surface—the faint shimmer of mana—had been just the tip of that sphere, barely poking above the water. Now, deeper within, they stood closer to the heart of its dense layers.

"Are you feeling any strain on the mana dome yet? Do you think it can handle the drop?" Marcos asked, glancing at Magnus before they got any closer.

"A little, but nothing I can't manage," Magnus reassured. They were already hundreds of meters underwater—reachable with the right gear, sure, but not a place anyone would want to be unprepared. And now they were about to descend even deeper. As they reached the edge of the tunnel, Magnus summoned small icicles from mana, letting them condense briefly before melting in the heat. The momentary chill cooled the air inside the dome before the mana dissipated.

Both peered over the edge of the tunnel and what lay below sent a chill down their spines. Darkness. Absolute, unbroken darkness. The light from above had stopped reaching, leaving only an abyss below.

"Yeah... that’s terrifying," Magnus muttered, his voice wavering as he took a deep breath. He raised a hand, intending to summon a flame with his fire elementrix to light their way. But before the flame could form, Marcos grabbed his wrist, dispersing the spell with his aura. Magnus shot him a confused look.

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"Fire burns oxygen," Marcos explained firmly.

"We’ve got enough in this dome for the two of us, but if you use fire elementrix like that, we’ll suffocate before we hit the bottom."

"Oh, right... good catch," Magnus replied, his voice still unsteady. His eyes stayed fixed on the shadows below, his mind racing. He knew better than to use fire in enclosed spaces, but the sheer blackness around them had made him forget. The need for light—a way to see and something to fight the oppressive void—had briefly overridden logic.

"Well," Magnus said with a shaky sigh, "here we go, I guess."

He adjusted the mana dome, shifting its function from a moving barrier to a slow-moving elevator, allowing both of them to stand on it as it began lowering into the tunnel.

"Just keep trying to breathe steadily. I’ll direct us," Marcos said, his tone steady and reassuring as they descended into the pitch-black abyss. Darkness was just as blinding to a knight as to anyone else, though knights could enhance their other senses to compensate.

Magnus, however, avoided looking straight into the gaping maw below, trying to ignore the crushing weight of the unknown. The dome’s faint luminescence provided just enough light to see each other and about a meter into the surrounding void. But the tunnel was far wider than that, leaving the walls and any potential threats beyond their reach of vision. As they drifted down, meter by meter, Magnus’s body betrayed his nerves. His arms and one leg jittered slightly, and his foot tapped against the dome’s surface in an erratic rhythm. The tapping was oddly grounding—something tangible in the suffocating emptiness—but it didn’t stop his thoughts from spiraling.

This is ridiculous, calm down...

Magnus tried to talk himself through it, but the darkness, the endless quiet—there could be anything down there. Anything. Even Baskar couldn't fully silence those fears. Basker could keep him from being distracted by secondary thoughts, like vague anxieties about what might be hiding in a shadowy corner, but they couldn’t completely override his foremost concerns, anything his mind actively focused on not out of anxiety but active thought. And those concerns were very simple and very real: they were descending into something’s lair, and it might appear at any moment.

The other problem was physical. Basker could help keep him mentally calm, but the body had its own way of reacting to fear. Just like back in Eveline’s library, when he’d gotten lost, his heart had still pounded like a war drum even though Basker had stopped him from panicking. Mental control can only go so far.

Alright, you know what, screw this. Basker, can you play some music or something? I feel like I’m going to jump out of my own skin.

[Of course, Master. Will this do?]

The sound of a horn echoed faintly in Magnus’s mind, followed by the start of a melody. His eyes widened in surprise.

Oh, wow. I haven’t heard this in forever...

[You may choose another if you’d prefer, Master. I’ve yet to develop a proper... taste for music.]

No, no. It’s fine. A little odd, but if it works, it works.

As the music played, Marcos, who had been watching Magnus’s jitters, noticed him start to calm. His foot tapping slowed, and he even began humming softly, rocking his head to the rhythm.

"Looks like you’ve managed to relax," Marcos noted, offering a small nod. Magnus glanced at him, smiling faintly.

"Yeah, I think I’m good now," Magnus replied.

"Good, because I think we’re getting close to the bottom." Magnus was about to ask how he knew when his eyes caught it—a faint orange glow breaking through the suffocating darkness. It was dim and distant, but unmistakable, just barely visible through the dome’s haze of mana.

"What is that?" Magnus asked, his eyes narrowing as he tried to make sense of the faint orange glow below.

"Not sure," Marcos replied.

It took another twenty minutes of descent before the light became clearer. That’s when they realized the tunnel didn’t end—it split. The main shaft, filled with water, continued deeper into the earth. But the soft orange light they’d seen originated from a branching path in the tunnel wall.

"The mana is denser that way," Marcos noted, pointing toward the light. Magnus nodded, adjusting the dome to stop their descent and guide them into the branching tunnel. It stretched roughly straight for a few dozen meters before curving upward. As they followed the path, the temperature spiked again, and soon they saw it—the source of the glow.

An air pocket.

The tunnel curved upward until the water gave way to open air. Magnus carefully controlled the dome, letting it rise into the pocket.

"I... woah..." Magnus's eyes widened as they emerged into a massive chamber. But it wasn’t just the size of the space that stunned him—it was what filled it. The chamber was a magma chamber. Rivers of molten rock crisscrossed the floor, their glow cutting jagged paths of light through the darkness. Superheated cracks in the walls revealed streams of magma, glowing like veins of neon fire lighting up the entire area. But even that wasn’t the strangest part.

Curtains of magma connected the rivers below to the chamber’s ceiling, flowing upward against gravity. Where one would expect the magma to pour down, it instead defied the natural order, rising into small holes in the roof.

"What... am I even looking at?" Magnus muttered, his voice tinged with disbelief. He scanned the chamber, noticing other strange phenomena. Sections of the walls appeared to bubble like liquid. At first, they seemed solid, but then the stone would bulge, glowing a fiery orange before the bubbles popped, spraying molten rock. Moments later, the walls would settle back to their normal state as if nothing had happened, only for more bubbles to form and burst.

"It’s a magical location," Marcos said matter-of-factly. Magnus turned to him, slightly surprised. He’d learned about magical locations in his studies—places where natural magic thrived—but he’d never seen one in person.

"I thought magical locations were supposed to be rare," Magnus muttered, still in awe.

"They are," Marcos replied, his tone serious.

"Though I wouldn’t exactly call us lucky for finding one." Magical locations were uncommon for a reason. All magical phenomena relied on precise and complex mana formations, the kind that didn’t happen by accident. Spontaneous magic, like the Arcane Awakening Luden or any other mage experienced, was rare because it required either incredible luck or an innate, extraordinary affinity for magic.

For mana formations to manifest naturally in an environment like this? It took far more than just a high concentration of mana, such as a mana well. It also required the mana to somehow arrange itself into a stable formation by pure chance. Once that initial formation appeared, it acted like a spark, triggering the surrounding mana to adapt and also fall into this pattern. Over time, this feedback loop made the formation increasingly likely to recur, solidifying its presence in the environment. It was sort of like a water current being created; the longer it remained stable and unblocked, the more powerful the current would become pulling more and more of the surrounding water into its flow.

The result was self-perpetuating: as long as there was enough mana to sustain the cycle, the same formation would continue to appear naturally in the mana-rich environment.

Magnus’s voice dropped to a murmur as he pieced it together.

"So either this was already a magma chamber, and a mana well formed here later... or it was a mana well first, and the magma came afterward." Either way, the heat had mutated the mana, infusing it with thermal properties and kickstarting the cycle that turned this place into a natural magical location.

"At least we know where that fire-type mana beast came from," Magnus said, shaking his head as the pieces fell into place. The mana beast’s origin, the lake’s anomalous heat—it all made sense now.

"Maybe," Marcos replied, frowning.

"But I doubt it got in or out of here by swimming. There’s probably another entrance somewhere, or-" He stopped mid-sentence. Something had changed. Marcos’s trained senses picked up on it instantly: Magnus’s heartbeat had quickened. His head snapped toward him, noting the way his gaze darted sharply around the chamber.

"What is it?" Marcos asked, his hands instinctively drifting toward the weapons beneath his cloak. Magnus wasn’t scared—that much was clear. He was alert.

"It’s here," Magnus muttered, his voice low but steady. His eyes settled back on the Command Console.

"I don’t know where, but the spell I told you about—it just went off. It’s close."

Command Console

↑…

[WARNING]: A glitch has been detected!

Initiating Debugging Protocol…

Debugging Protocol Activated…

[Debugging Protocol]: Initial glitch has been designated as Codebreak-008.

Users:Magnus_Wright:\>