They all raced to the door that Sky had just come out of. After exiting the room, it felt like she had stepped outside. There was a walkway in front of the door with a clear glass railing on the opposite side. Looking up, there was an illusion of blue sky and white fluffy clouds lazily moving across the ceiling. They were on the top floor of an open area that stretched at least ten floors below them.

Walking up to the railing and looking down gave her vertigo. Holding on to the railing, she tried to look at the bottom floor. It was hard to see details at this height, but she saw a large fountain and many grassy areas. Directly across from her, the sidewalls of the area were slanted. Based on the slant, they were at the very edge of the pyramid-like structure. Another illusion played along the slanted walls. In the higher parts of the illusion, there were butterflies and various birds soaring around in a simulated sky.

There was a small breeze inside the area. Not enough to be a nuisance, but enough to feel like the air was fresh. She did not notice any distinctive smells while she was standing there. Soon, she felt a nagging thought in the back of her head. They had been gone for far too long.

“We’ll come back here tomorrow to explore. We need to get back before we are missed.”

And so the days of exploration continued on in this fashion. After finding the first mural door, they were able to locate one in almost every classroom that only Violet could open. The top floor mainly had classrooms that were accessible from the entry corridor into this section. She theorized that when this building was populated, this main structure was used for teaching the different types of magic. Access to the other sections would be needed to verify her theory.

Many of the bedrooms she inspected had personal possessions left in them. Not a single bed was unmade or any clothing was found on the floor. All items were on shelves or in drawers. She didn’t believe that every single person in this building could be that tidy. The only explanation she could think of was the probability of maid service being part of the “services” referenced on the fake TV.

That sent her mind tumbling down a rabbit hole of enchanted maid golems to clean. Possibly even robots using enchantment instead of electronics. There was a distinct lack of anything electronic that she had found on Zogara since she was born here.

Some kind of catastrophe hit this area that caused everyone to flee with very little of their possessions. Maybe the robots gained AI and forced everyone out. She shut down that line of thinking right away, mainly because she had not seen a single golem or robot since coming to this ancient site. There would have been at least one in the armory beneath the barracks if they existed.

While wandering the halls of the structure and reading every bit of writing she could find, she gained her last skill point in the Runic language. She felt comfortable reading and understanding anything she found in that language.

[Skill increase: Language - Runic +1 (MAX)]

With all of the magic practice she had been doing, her skills had suffered for it. The only skills she increased were the ones that she was forced to do or that were convenient for her. Running, Writing, Visualization, Mental Notes, and Language - Runic were the only skills she had leveled in the last six or so months. The days seemed to run together and it would be difficult for her to keep track of her own age if it wasn’t on her status sheet.

Level

26

Age

6 1/2

Experience

(34290/35100)

Health

220/220

Mana

720/720

Stat Points

125

Skill Points

5

Strength

17

Constitution

22

Dexterity

19

Intelligence

75

Wisdom

72

[Traits] [Skills] [Magic]

[Basic Skills]

Acting

30

Climbing

18

Drawing

10

Language - Common

MAX

Mathematics

20

Meditation

20

Running

17

Writing

20

[Novice Skills]

Sneak

20

Visualization

30

[Advanced Skills]

Mental Notes

10

Language - Runic

MAX

Many of her skills were at a skill threshold where she would need to give an extra effort to try and level them up a little differently. With her focus being mainly on magic, putting extra effort into skills that were not immediately useful to her was put on the back burner. Mental Notes took quite a lot of practice to level up. It was an advanced skill that was created by her desire and need to have a place to privately write her thoughts and notes.

Magic came easily for her to learn. It helped that when she gained an aspect, information about what could be possible with it was planted in her mind to slowly trickle to her as she practiced with it. She had passed the threshold she needed to obtain another aspect not too long ago.

The problem of how to get to her secret room still remained. While she was given a little bit of freedom during the day to explore, they were never let free for more than a half-hour at a time. She was also not willing to trust the chatty Jade with the secret of her magic so “getting lost” for the two hours it would take her to get there and back would not be easy or even possible with Jade around. Even if she ran in both directions, it would take a minimum of forty-five minutes to get there, and then she would have to turn around and run back.

[Magic]

Type

%

Aspect

Illusion

42%

Illusion

100%

Disguise Self

Illusion

100%

Decoy

Illusion

89%

Cloaking

Illusion

57%

Shadow Blade

Illusion

26%

Dazzle

While she could see out of her decoy’s eyes when she had it out, there was a limit on how far away she could be from it before it disappeared. Through various testing, she found that the furthest she could be from her decoy was about 300 feet. That was about the length of a football field. While it was an impressive distance, it was not far enough for her to be able to reach the secret room.

Her decoy acted like a zombie, mindlessly following her orders. It could not respond verbally to anyone and the limitation of nobody being able to touch it hindered her use of it during the day. Anyone who tried to interact with her decoy would notice something wrong fairly quickly.

Lately, she had been using her decoy to explore the town on the other side of the classrooms. So far she had found a whole lot of the same thing. She couldn’t use her decoy to go down a floor due to the distance problem. The stairway heading to the next floor was on the far side of the walkway from where she was located during the day.

More researchers started arriving about a month after the enchanted objects were found. Many were unable to stay, but over the course of six months, the number of researchers doubled. All children were still put to work alongside their parents, but there was less to move now. The new focus for the children was to organize by symbol and then by color.

Even with the new influx of people, there were only one hundred adults and around thirty children researching hundreds of thousands of enchanted items. Once one hundred adults were found, the influx of people stopped once again. To accommodate the number of people living in the Illusion area, classrooms were converted into living arrangements. Each classroom held twenty adults.

This would have been ideal for Violet to allow her to slip away at night to go get her new aspects and magic. Unfortunately, her family and several other “original” families were left in the first room used for sleeping arrangements. She still did not have access to a way to get to her secret room.

She was on her bed practicing making her Shadow Blade different shapes and sharpnesses when a message popped up in front of her nearly scaring her to death. Thankfully it also caused her to lose her concentration on Shadow Blade or she probably would have cut herself.

Congratulations! For gaining 50% synchronization with a type of magic, you have earned 10,000 experience. Continue on this path to earn more rewards!

[Level Up +1 (27)]

[Level Up +1 (28)]

[Level Up +1 (29)]

[Level Up +1 (30)]

It was always odd to her that magic did not give her experience of any sort for leveling her aspects. Magic was broken in her opinion. Once she mastered an aspect, the cost of mana to use that aspect dropped dramatically. Her most expensive spells were when they involved someone else or if they could be used offensively. Both Shadow Blade and Dazzle cost her quite a bit of mana to use for any length of time. They were slower to level because of this.

She was still unable to unlock the stat and skill points on her status screen. It was her hope that they were locked behind an age barrier of some sort instead of needing outside help to use her points. Maybe when she was shipped off to school at twelve years old? With her luck, it will be when she is assigned a profession at sixteen.

Depending on which profession she was placed in, she had up to two more years of school after that. Doctors, Accountants, and Teachers all had to stay the full two years. If she became an enforcer, she would be sent to what she likened to boot camp. When she asked if girls could be enforcers too, the teacher informed her that it was possible but it very rarely happens for girls to be assigned that profession.

It was difficult for her to see what it was like in a normal city. Over half of her life on Zogara was spent at the site of an ancient ruin. It was unlikely that she would leave this place until she turned twelve and was forced to attend school.

“Happy Birthday!” Jade yelled while sneaking up behind her. “You turn seven today that means I’m six and a half! Do you know what you want to be when you grow up?”

Violet jumped when Jade popped out of nowhere to yell that at her. She then proceeded to tune the green-haired girl out. Sheesh, could that girl talk a mile a minute! Thankfully she never expected actual answers to her excessive chatter-filled questions. Sky just rolled his eyes at Jade’s antics. Age was very important to Jade because she was the youngest of their trio and she wanted to keep up.

Sky whispered to her while Jade continued to prattle on in the background, “Have you found a way there yet?”

Violet just shook her head and sighed. He had been trying to come up with ways for her to get away ever since she told him she hit 50%. Even if he was able to distract Jade during the day, it wasn’t worth getting punished for staying out longer than thirty minutes. Another group of kids had done that and now all of their breaks were supervised by an adult. Thankfully that supervision did not apply to those who were following the rules.

“No, and at this point, I can get three aspects when I go next time,” Violet whispered back to him.

[Magic]

Type

%

Aspect

Illusion

54%

Illusion

100%

Disguise Self

Illusion

100%

Decoy

Illusion

100%

Cloaking

Illusion

98%

Shadow Blade

Illusion

84%

Dazzle

She was unsure of which aspect she would not take when she did find a way to the secret room. The decision had been narrowed down between Fear and Contracts. She really didn’t have a use for either of those aspects but they could end up being useful. It was difficult to judge what each one did solely based on the name. For all she knew, Fear could remove fear from herself and Contracts could be a way to issue quests. She didn’t know but anything was possible with magic. A quest system was probably just wishful thinking on her part based on fantasy novels that she read from her old world.