It was a spring morning. Low clouds hung overhead, like a veil of gray-white gauze draped across the sky, filtering the sunlight into a soft diffuse glow.
A cold wind blew as Ivette stepped over the thin ice that had yet to fully melt, passing through a dense forest of evergreens to the foot of Mount Ish. The cold, damp air entered her lungs with every breath, dispelling some of the drowsiness from waking early.
Behind her, seventeen-year-old Rosaline wore a fitted trench coat that made her look especially tall. Her figure had also become increasingly curvaceous, utterly beyond comparison to a certain someone with the build of a young girl.
For that, Ivette could only thank the heavens. From last year until now, Rosaline's growth in height had basically stalled, remaining at around 1.7 meters. Otherwise, she truly worried that one day she would have to tilt her face up to speak to her student, or stand on tiptoe just to pat her head—either prospect sounded utterly miserable.
At that thought, Ivette could not help lowering her head and quickly glancing at her flat shoes.
Maybe I should get boots with height-enhancing soles in the future... she thought silently, only to worry that she would not get used to them. After all, in her previous life, she had been a perfect 1.82 meters tall, a man who stood tall and proud, and had never known what elevator shoes were. Now she had become a silver-haired, red-eyed beauty. She had gained much, but lost much too. Thinking it over carefully, it was rather sigh-inducing.
"Up at the summit... is that where you woke up, Teacher?" Rosaline asked as she walked, curiously raising her head to gaze at the cloud-shrouded peak.
Ivette gave a soft hum. At this point, aside from the matter of transmigration, there was no need to hide anything else from her student. Besides, even she herself did not know her origins. Letting her student know might perhaps give her some inspiration.
Then, as a breeze swept past, Rosaline quickened her pace and walked ahead, humming an unfamiliar little tune from another world. She looked extremely happy.
Perhaps infected by her mood, Ivette's gaze softened slightly. When she was happy, she too would occasionally hum a song, but as her memories grew increasingly blurry, she had forgotten nearly all the good songs from her previous life.
Sometimes, she wondered whether, if she entered the dream again, she could hurry and record every song she still remembered. Then she could become a plagiarist of Origin Civilization in the dream, dominate the entertainment industry with Earth's cultural resources, earn plenty of credits, and buy lots of high-end goods.
Well, that was just a passing thought. As a powerful mage, going off to sing and dance would be downright embarrassing just to imagine.
More than an hour later, when they reached the end of the mountain path and could go no farther, the two took out their Magic Skateboards and flew directly to the edge of Crater Lake, looking down below.
Just as when Ivette had first escaped her cage decades ago, the dark lake before her eyes remained deep blue and still, silent as an abyss. The small metal platform in the middle of the lake was still there, like a forgotten country house waiting for someone's return.
Three minutes later, after casually draining several Mutants that had come seeking death, Ivette set foot on the metal platform once more. She pulled open the small door beside it, cast an Illumination Spell, and led her curious student, who kept looking around, downward.
"The first floor is the quarantine level. There are quite a few elite military-grade weapons and pieces of equipment here. Back then, since this was the only place with sunlight, I moved most of the things I collected here, including usable books..." Ivette said as she walked, her calm voice echoing through the empty corridor.
Rosaline wore the solemn expression of a pilgrim and began investigating the level. She saw many draft papers left over from when Ivette had studied runic knowledge, written in Magic Light Vine sap as ink. She also saw many wrecks of magic equipment dismantled into components.
Though she had only caught a fleeting glimpse, it was as though she could already see the scene from countless years ago: her teacher bent over seriously here, studying, dismantling, researching, meditating, and cultivating.
Those fragments repeated monotonously day after day, like a broken film projector recording the entire birth of a Witch.
As they continued downward, Ivette introduced the purpose of every level as though reciting treasured possessions, recounting the details of her explorations back then. Rosaline followed her, reconstructing the former image of this vast underground ruin through her teacher's account.
At last, after traversing all ten underground levels, the sealed alloy door appeared before them.
But unlike before, when they had been helpless, this time they could try using the Alloy Combat Blade, whose cutting power was exceptionally strong. If that failed, Ivette could consider prying open the elevator shaft or restoring power to this level to search for other possibilities.
After activating the Alloy Combat Blade and adding the enhancement granted by Muscle Unlimit, Rosaline swung fiercely before her teacher even needed to act. The results were quite obvious—a deep gouge was carved into the alloy door.
Seeing how effective it was, Ivette took out her own blade to help. Then, with the combined efforts of teacher and student, they finally cut a crack in the door to the next level large enough for one person to pass through. The smell that greeted them was not unpleasant either—naturally, because the ventilation system's redundant design centered on wind pressure. As long as the winds over Crater Lake still blew, air could continue circulating before eventually being expelled through some outlet halfway up the mountain.
There were even traces of the all-pervasive Magic Light Vine on this level, though its glow was limited, so the two still used magical illumination.
"Teacher, what level is this?" Rosaline looked at the sign nearby. She had learned a little Black Tide Language in the dream, but since she had always communicated with her teacher in the Radiant Continent's common tongue, she had mostly forgotten it.
"It should be the management level's residential area." Ivette carefully made out the blurred writing and offered her guess.
Compared with the levels above, this floor was much more spacious, with a richer variety of rooms for daily life and entertainment. Neither of them was in a hurry to venture deeper, and they opened each door to inspect it.
"It seems the people here couldn't escape the fate of mutation either..." Rosaline guessed with mixed feelings as she looked at the strange skeletons in many rooms, as well as a relatively intact mummified mutant corpse.
Clearly, she wanted to sympathize with the people who had died so tragically in the apocalypse, yet she also felt that they must have locked everyone else outside in order to save themselves. It left her with an unresolved and conflicted feeling.
"Perhaps." Ivette nodded slightly and began searching through the clutter. The paper materials here had mostly decayed as well, but perhaps because this had been the executive residential area, there were quite a few well-preserved hardcover books. Though they were all in the field of runic medicine, they were still extremely valuable.
"Teacher, look at this!" After a while, Rosaline suddenly discovered something and cried out.
Ivette walked over and saw a lavishly styled notebook that had not yet decayed. It recorded some information in Black Tide Language, but with Rosaline's near-illiterate command of the written language, she could barely understand any of it.
Picking up the notebook, Ivette swept her eyes over the words. Her pupils contracted slightly.
"I am Aetherine Omega, executive director of Black Tower Pharmaceuticals' Ish City branch, and Vincent Omega's biological granddaughter. This is my last testament."
"If someone enters this place later and sees this letter, then the world has not yet been destroyed. There is something I must clarify to you here."
"I swear upon the honor of the Omega Family that the 'Divine Molt' of Abyss Base is still preserved in the Abyss of Divine Erosion and has not leaked out. We are not the sinners of the world."
"And the true source of the mutation is the sea!"
Before you continue