The moment Qin Chuan stepped inside the spire, the deathly gray light outside was completely shut out.
Absolute darkness swallowed everything. He could not see his hand in front of his face; even his enhanced vision was useless.
At the same time, an even thicker, more suffocating stillness pressed in on him, as though the air itself had hardened into something solid.
Yet in that pure darkness, the strange sense of familiarity grew clearer, more distinct.
It was no longer a vague feeling. It had become an almost instinctive guide.
Qin Chuan did not even need to think. His feet naturally avoided a faint crack in the floor, and he leaned slightly aside to pass a sharp bone spur suspended in midair, invisible to the naked eye.
This feeling... What the hell.
Qin Chuan complained inwardly, but he did not slow down.
Guided almost entirely by that "memory," he walked through the darkness as easily as if it were broad daylight.
Now and then, his hand brushed the cold bone walls. His fingertips recognized the familiar grooves and hollows, and he could even "remember" what some of those hollows had once held, though they had long since been emptied.
The structure was more complex than it appeared from outside. Its passages twisted and spiraled like a labyrinth.
But Qin Chuan never hesitated, as if an invisible map had been etched into his mind.
He could sense himself moving deeper, toward the spire's core.
Along the way, he began to find more concrete traces.
At the edge of a relatively spacious platform, he "remembered" that a structure resembling a workbench had once stood there.
He reached out and felt around. Sure enough, beneath a thick layer of ash, his fingers touched something hard.
He brushed the ash away, revealing the remains