The next morning, the Exploration Academy was ecstatic.
Students were gathered outside the gates in clusters with their packs strapped on. The whole front of the academy had the feel of a departure terminal except no one here was leaving the Deux Cities completely. They were going somewhere they had only heard about in lectures, maps and rumor. For the first time in four hundred years, a group from the Exploration Sector was going to be sent beyond the familiar span of the Deux Cities and into the rest of the ORS.
The Deux Cities was so enormous that no one had fully explored it in four centuries and yet nobody cared about that fact this morning. The scale of the city was no longer the point. The point was the promise beyond it. The promise that there were real floors waiting above or below them.
Asran stood with the rest of them near the front. He looked around at the other students and recognized the same expression on most of their faces. They were trying to look calm but were failing. A few were talking too fast. A few were trying too hard to act bored. One boy near the middle kept checking the contents of his satchel like he expected the floor beneath him to vanish if he didn't. Asran understood the feeling. He kept his hands in his pockets and tried not to look at the gate too often, even though he wanted to.
They were told to wait for their tour guide from the higher floors.
That detail had sparked enough rumors already. Some students said the guide would be a combat officer. Some said it would be one of the attendants. Some said it would be an Immortal who had once seen the Towermaster personally. Nobody knew. The only thing they were sure of was that whoever came through the portal would be powerful enough to make the whole gathering feel small.
Soon, a sapphire portal opened.
Brilliant blue light spread in a wide circle and the sound that came with it made several students flinch before they even understood why. The portal rippled once, then settled into a stable vertical passage and through it came the Umbra Knights of Insignia.
They entered in complete formation.
Their armor was dark and their entire presence made the students outside the academy gates feel as if the air had suddenly thickened around them. The Umbra Knights moved aside in lines and formed a protective corridor, making way for whoever was coming next. The discipline was so tight that even the people who had never seen them before could tell these were not ordinary soldiers.
A murmur spread through the students almost immediately.
According to history, Insignia was the Towermaster's personal army. That alone was enough to trigger dread in anyone with enough knowledge of the ORS to understand what that meant.
A woman appeared.
She wore white Nanorune armor shaped like that of a knight but it was far more elegant than the armor of the Umbra Knights around her. It carried the unmistakable structure of elite rank and the way it fit her body made it clear that the armor had not been chosen for show. Her hair was dark, her skin pale and her face was the sort of beauty that made people stare before they realized they had done it. She didn't look cold exactly, but she looked composed in a way that made the students feel even more unprepared.
The moment she stepped out of the portal, every Umbra Knight around her knelt.
A line of shocked breaths moved through the Exploration students. Several of them bowed their heads almost by instinct and a few looked embarrassed. The woman saw it and raised one hand.
"Don't do that. Only my mother Vienna and the other Penumbra Knights deserve that kind of bow."
Her voice was calm but there was enough authority in it that nobody questioned her. The students remained still, some with heads lowered and others too intimidated to look directly at her again. She sighed once, as if she already knew they were overwhelmed, and then gave them a small, polite smile.
"My name is Annabelle Maximilian. I've been assigned by the Lotus Lady of Miracles to guide you for the next few days."
That got another wave of murmurs. Annabelle continued as if she could hear all of them and didn't mind.
"You won't be returning to the Deux Cities for a few days, so don't worry about that. I'll be with you the entire time and I'm here to protect you. I'm also an Immortal, so I've already seen the Towermaster before."
That made the room go even quieter. She looked across the line of students with the faintest hint of amusement, then added:
"In fact, he's practically my godfather. He helped my mother give birth to me."
That sentence landed with such force that several students stared before they could stop themselves. One of the girls near the back actually whispered:
"What?"
Annabelle didn't look offended. She just smiled like she was used to that reaction.
"Yes, really."
The students had known about Immortals in theory. Everyone in the Shvé Civilization knew they existed and everyone knew the Insignia army contained Immortal beings whose rank placed them in the Divine level. But knowing that in a classroom was one thing. Standing in front of one was another.
For mortals like them, the Divine Rank was almost impossible to reach. The strongest mortal achievement most of them had ever heard of belonged to the old Third Phase Ascenders, and those were figures from centuries ago. These days, most mortals barely made it to the First Phase. A lot were in the Third Phase Essentia Rank. A handful of geniuses reached the Second. The Third Phase was so rare now it felt like something out of old stories. So hearing that this beautiful woman had an actual connection to the Towermaster himself made the whole situation feel unreal. Annabelle seemed to enjoy their stunned silence for exactly one second before continuing in a lighter tone.
"For the record, the Deux Cities are Floors Twenty-Six and Twenty-Seven of the ORS. There are fifty floors total. You'll be exploring a selection of them, but not the higher floors unless you're part of Insignia or unless you're Immortal. That's not a punishment. It's just how the structure works."
She looked back at the portal and then at the students again.
"Also, portal travel can be rough for mortals. Some of you are probably going to feel sick by the time you reach the other side. Possibly before that. Motion sickness is common. If you throw up, do it after you get through. I'd rather not clean the portal threshold. As much as I'd like to use Rune Teleportation on all of you, I'm restricted from doing that directly so the portal's our route."
A few students grimaced immediately. One boy muttered:
"That's comforting."
"It wasn't meant to be."
The boy was shocked to her her answer. For an Immortal, her senses were sensitive and sharper than theirs so that made the murmurs go down. She could hear them and that revealed not how powerful she was. Then she pointed towards the portal and spoke with the tone of someone giving practical advice to people she expected to survive.
"You're the Exploration Sector. That means you should know this already, but I'll say it anyway. Eat after you're through a portal or after you've been teleported. Don't do it right before. Trust me, you don't want to learn that lesson here."
That caused a few nervous laughs. Asran heard one student whisper that they should probably never eat again. Annabelle didn't react. She just stepped aside and looked at the portal's edge.
"Go, one by one. Stay in line. Don't break formation and try not to act like you're about to die. That tends to make people actually die."
One by one, the line began to inch forward. The first student stepped toward the sapphire light with a look of fixed determination and disappeared into the glowing passage. A few flinched as they crossed. A few swayed. One looked like he was about to regret every life choice he had ever made but still kept walking.
Asran waited near the middle of the line and watched them go. The portal shimmered with blue brightness and the Umbra Knights held the perimeter with such calm discipline that it almost made the whole moment feel ceremonial. Annabelle stood near the side, looking at the students.
When it was his turn, he stopped just before the threshold and looked at the portal for a second longer than he needed to.
His old life had already begun changing the moment the Merit Change System shifted. The Exploration Sector had opened again. His family had relented. His path had been restored. But standing there, right in front of the sapphire passage that would take him beyond the Deux Cities, he understood that those changes had only been the beginning. This was the first real step.
Annabelle noticed him lingering and gave him a small, encouraging nod.
"You'll be fine."
He looked up at her.
"You don't even know me, Miss Annabelle."
"That's true. But I know the look."
He stared at her for a beat, then gave a tiny, reluctant nod and stepped forward.
The portal swallowed him in blue light and as his body crossed the threshold, he had exactly enough time to think one last thing before the motion sickness hit.
His new life was starting now.
------
The moment they came out of the portal, the world began to wobble.
The entire group found themselves dumped into a high mountain air so cold and thin that it felt like a slap. The ground under their feet wasn't even stable at first. It tilted. The horizon moved in the wrong direction. Several students staggered like the ground had tilted beneath them after the fact. The portal travel had displaced their balance, their stomachs and whatever confidence they had managed to carry through the line.
The first student to react doubled over immediately and puked over the side of a stone pathway that was apparently meant to be a scenic overlook. That set off the rest of them. A second student barely made it two steps before he bent forward and threw up into his hands, then looked horrified by the result of his own body betraying him. A third managed to turn before vomiting, which only meant the wind caught the smell and sent it drifting back across the group. That was enough to trigger two more students, one of whom actually tried to keep his dignity until the last second and lost that battle in a very undignified way.
Asran stumbled, braced one hand against a stone railing and swallowed hard while the whole mountain seemed to rock under him. He felt the nausea rise and soon it became impossible to ignore. The air was too thin. The altitude hit harder than he expected. His knees almost gave way.
"Damn it," someone muttered nearby before vomiting anyway.
Annabelle and the Umbra Knights had gotten through the portal completely fine, which only made the students feel worse about themselves. She stood a few paces ahead of the group on a wide stone landing built into the mountainside, her white Nanorune armor reflecting the weak mountain light.
Behind her, the 18th Floor spread out in its beauty. The Leisure Mountain Ranges were beautiful to say the least. The wind swept through the passes with a clean, dry chill. Snow rested in patches on the higher ridges and the mountain cliffs dropped away into wide valleys that looked peaceful from a distance.
The students who had been told to expect motion sickness now looked extremely offended by the fact that the warning had been accurate. One girl crouched near the edge of the path with one hand over her mouth and her eyes watering. Another student had gone pale enough to look almost green under the mountain light and was trying very hard not to bend over. A boy in the back made a strangled noise, then turned sharply and threw up.
Annabelle glanced around, then sighed with the weary patience of someone who had seen this exact scene too many times to count.
"Yeah, that's about right. Kind of reminds me when I did this for the first time."
A few students glared weakly at her, which would've been more effective if they hadn't all looked halfway dead.
"I told you not to eat right before travel."
One student wheezed, "I didn't."
"Then you just learned your body hates portals for free."
That didn't help anybody.
Asran stood up slowly, still gripping the stone railing and took in the mountain floor properly for the first time. The place was absurdly beautiful. That was the annoying part. It was beautiful in a way that made the vomiting feel personally insulting. The Leisure Mountain Ranges stretched in vast slopes across the floor with mountain paths winding between peaks, frozen lakes glimmering far below and old carved structures visible in the distance.
Annabelle waited until the worst of the gagging and stumbling had passed before she spoke again.
"All right, now that everyone's been properly taught by portal travel, welcome to the 18th Floor."
Nobody sounded grateful.
"This is the Leisure Mountain Ranges. If you're wondering why the floor is built like this, the answer is because the Towermaster liked giving people places to breathe, train, remember things, and occasionally act dramatic on cliffs. You'll find memorial zones, rest areas, mountain tracks, snow routes and a few specific sites that matter for people with history here. For today, we're not going to wander off and let you die just because you're curious."
A student near the back, still pale, lifted a hand weakly.
"Is dying a common issue here?"
Annabelle looked at him with a calm, almost thoughtful expression.
"Only if you're stupid."
A second student, one of the more stubborn-looking ones, wiped his mouth, stood up straight by force of pride alone, and asked:
"So what are we supposed to do first?"
Annabelle turned and pointed at the mountain path ahead.
"First? You breathe normally again. After that, you walk. There are safe routes on this floor but that doesn't mean the mountain will carry you just because you're exhausted. Keep your pace steady. If someone still feels sick, they stay near the rear where I can watch them. Don't wander off. Don't try to prove anything. Don't run because that'll make your head worse. And for the love of everything decent, if you're going to throw up again, do it off the path."
Asran finally lifted his head and looked farther out over the floor. The mountain range beyond the landing was immense. Some of the routes were broad enough for groups. The nausea was still there, but it was beginning to settle. His stomach no longer felt like it was trying to escape his ribs. Nearby, the students were also recovering in stages.
Annabelle watched them all like a field commander who had no sympathy left to waste. She clapped her hands once.
"All right. The mountain routes here connect to several important sites and I'll be taking you through the floor in stages. Some of you will be climbing, some of you will be walking and some of you are going to learn that the ORS doesn't care how impressive you think you are if you can't keep your footing."
A student who looked like he had recovered a little too quickly raised a hand.
"Are we going to meet anyone important?"
Annabelle gave him a look that made the student immediately regret speaking.
"Probably."
Another student, still holding his side like he was checking whether the portal had left him intact, asked:
"What if we can't keep up?"
"Then you fall behind. Which is why I'm giving you a guide, not a prayer."
Asran stayed near the middle of the group while the students gathered themselves and started listening more carefully. This was the first step beyond the Deux Cities.
Annabelle turned and started walking.
"Move. I'm not carrying any of you."
That got them moving.