Louis followed Supreme Mage Aurelian into Magewood.
Even its outermost reaches felt utterly different from the world outside.
Tall but unadorned mage towers stood scattered among the trees, their walls scarred by the passage of time.
There was no bustle here, nor anything that could be called prosperity.
Louis saw mages in robes busy with their work. Some carried materials, some recorded runes, and others stood on open-air platforms, repeatedly calibrating magic arrays.
The moment they saw Aurelian, their conversations stopped.
Whether elderly high-ranking mages or magic apprentices just beginning to study alchemy, they all set aside their work, stepped away from the middle of the path, and bowed their heads with hands over their chests, making no attempt to hide their heartfelt respect.
Aurelian merely nodded in acknowledgment, never slowing his pace.
Louis followed close behind. The instant he entered Magewood, he clearly sensed the change in magic power.
The air teemed with highly purified currents of energy, more concentrated than anywhere else he had ever been.
This was a true sanctuary of magic power.
But soon, he noticed something else amiss. The air was unusually thick, carrying an indescribable sense of delay.
Even the sunlight falling through the canopy seemed to have been slowed by something, its patterns lingering on the ground a moment longer than they should have.
Louis instinctively slowed his breathing.
Time here did not seem to follow the outside world's rules entirely.
Aurelian offered no explanation.
He simply led Louis onward, past one mage building after another.
The workshops and towers on the outskirts gradually fell behind them, replaced by core facilities that were simpler in design yet carried a faint air of danger.
The farther they went, the more pronounced that sense of slowed time became.
Their footsteps grew indistinct, the wind sounded