The center of the building was a walkway around a circular platform that was raised a few feet above the bottom. At the center of the platform was a blank control panel. Like one of those fancy touchscreen pads they'd installed in the mall shortly before I'd died, except without any local advertising or the mall map.

"That was a rather unique experience," Calbern said, his voice rather upbeat. And by that, I mean it had a tinge of excitement to it.

"It was certainly something," I replied, stepping up to the control panel. It immediately lit up in response.

It displayed my name in the top left corner, the words 'The Golden Halls of Ascension' in the top right, and in the middle it had a list of approved sublevels. The very first was the 'Golem and Experimental Ascension Chamber'. It wasn't the only one though.

Below it were several options I hadn't been expecting, all of them with a little asterisk next to them.

Golem and Experimental Ascension Chamber. *

Spell Practice. *

Ascension Assistance. *

Reflections. *

Library. *

Clicking on the asterisk, a new message appeared.

*Restricted to Magus Protectus only.

"You seeing these?" I asked Calbern.

"It seems there's more to these chambers than we expected, though it's unclear what the restriction means. Perhaps I will be prevented from entering, or perhaps you are allowed to bring guests."

As he finished speaking, a new message replaced the old one.

*No Guests are permitted within the halls of the Magus Protectus at this time.

"Huh. Apparently it's listening to us. Hey, can you tell me what I need to do to bring a guest?"

The message disappeared, only to immediately be repeated.

"Some sort of limited recognition, looks like," I said, sighing. "Thankfully, we don't need it to access anything."

"Shall we explore the first chamber, master Percival? It seems to align with our primary goal," Calbern said, leaning forward.

"Not super keen on the whole experimental ascension thing, but it does look like it, yeah," I agreed.

*Warning! Primary Ascension Chambers have suffered catastrophic damage. Repairs to facilities required! Requires Utility Access. Proficiency must be demonstrated in the Fires of the Infinite Furnace and the Depths of the Final Rest.

"Looks like we need to pay a visit to the Final Rest," I said, rubbing my chin. "Though I think I want some better underwater spells first."

"I could also arrange swimming lessons. I believe lady Bevel had expressed interest in such,” Calbern said.

Turning away from the console, I looked at him. He simply met my gaze with his usual perfect posture.

After a couple seconds, his lips twitched. “Expanding your spell repertoire would be wise as well, mast Percival.”

Before I could reply, a new message popped up on the display.

*The use of spells outside of the Spell Practice Floor while within this facility is a Class 1 capital offense. Violators will be prosecuted to the maximum extent of the law.

"Think that confirms it's just going off keywords," I said, deciding to put off the topic of swimming lessons for later.

*Keywords: Ascension, Citizen, Guest, Keyword, Magus Dominus, Magus Protectus, Spell, Utility Access.

"It does appear your theory is correct," Calbern said, his lips twitching slightly.

“So it does,” I agreed with a dry chuckle. "Magus Dominus, huh?"

*The presence of one Magus Dominus is confirmed. Access to all non-critical levels is suspended for the duration of their stay.

"Does that mean what I think it means?" I asked, turning to Calbern. There were two possible meanings I could think of. The first was it referring to me as a Magus Dominus. The other option…

It’d been years. Surely Balthum wasn’t still…

"I am… unsure, master Percival," Calbern replied, furrowing his brows.

"How about Magus Protectus? How many of them are here?" I asked, crossing my fingers.

*The presence of one Magus Protectus is confirmed. Access to critical levels is restricted.

"And what about Citizens?"

*There are no Citizens present at this time.

"That only leaves utility access, what do you have to say about that?" I chuckled, still thinking about the possibility that we’d encounter the former Magus Dominus. "For the sake of completeness."

He nodded, his eyes fixed on the platform as the words disappeared then changed.

*Utility Access. Warning! Repairs to facilities required! Permissions for Utility Access expanded to any sufficiently proficient Magus Protectus. Proficiency must be demonstrated in the Fires of the Infinite Furnace and the Depths of the Final Rest.

"Now its just repeating itself," I grumbled, shaking my head. Then I let out a long breath, cracking my knuckles while thinking over my available spells. If Balthum was still in the facility, he might not be too keen to receive guests. "You ready?"

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"Indeed," Calbern said, one hand on his sword, the other on his Petal rod.

I reached forward and tapped the sublevel selection for the 'Golem and Experimental Ascension Chamber'. Golden threads spun up around my ankles to wrap around us. The second they passed by my eyes we disappeared from the platform and reappeared in a dark room. The golden threads faded away leaving the room lit only by a single flickering spark in the corner.

I'd appeared alone, though it only took Calbern a second to follow me in another flash of golden light. After it faded, I pushed my mana into a little ball hovering over my hand. Technically, it wasn't a spell. Just unstructured mana.

With the room lit up, I took a step down from the central platform. There were a few sarcophagi scattered about the room, a word I only knew thanks to Memory Palace. One of them was the source of the sparking electricity.

I moved over, Calbern a step behind. As we approached, a display to one side flickered to life. On it were several messages about a body contained within. It didn't say who.

Looking down, I noted the familiar female face within. It was Keria. Or someone who looked just like her.

Moving back, I read through the message log. "Corrupted body template, huh?"

"Do you suppose it's Magus Dominus Balthum?" Calbern asked, staring down at it.

I chuckled. "Yeah, seems likely. Let's see if there's anything else… oh, hello," I said as I found an open book nearby. After reading the passage, I shook my head. "Yeah, good chance it's him. Really had a thing for his genetic heritage. Always good when those people don't get to have kids."

My old man had been like that. Was part of the reason I never wanted kids of my own.

Calbern accepted the book from me as I investigated the rest of the chamber. It seemed most of the other sarcophagi had been pulled into pieces and used for parts. A lot of which he hadn’t needed. Despite figuring out the Spellcode to get in, he hadn't understood what he was doing. Not really.

Cause he'd never had access to Keeper. Cause he'd been a Magus Dominus, instead of a Magus Protectus.

"All he would've needed to do was uphold the oath he'd sworn and he would've saved himself. There's an irony in there somewhere, I'm pretty sure," I said, walking back to where Calbern was standing.

"By seeking to preserve his own life by forsaking his duties, he ended up failing to do so… that is indeed an irony, master Percival," Calbern agreed, setting the book to the side.

I came back to stand beside him, looking down at the chamber that likely held the former Magus's soul.

"Is there a way to get the name of the occupant?" I asked, tapping at the edges of the display. "I'd hate to accidentally pull the plug on one of his victims?"

"Pull the plug?" Calbern asked, tilting his head. "I can understand its meaning in context, but what does pulling a plug have to do with terminating him?"

"Uh… there's a whole lot of context to that one, but it's kinda like disconnecting the drive in Fang. Without the drive, Fang's dead in the water," I replied as I succeeded in getting the tablet to scroll up several pages. And sure enough, right at the top was what I was looking for.

"Ascension Calibration starting, subject: Magus Dominus Arthe Balthum. Priority: Minimal."

"Oh, I bet that had to burn," I said, chuckling at the word minimal. Then I looked through the tablet some more, checking to see if there was an option to disengage the process.

To my surprise, there was. But when I went to click it, a new message popped up.

"Insufficient clearance. Class-1 Citizen clearance is required to terminate an ascension process in progress."

"Figured it wouldn't be that easy," I said as I moved over to inspect the machine itself. It would be easy enough to sabotage it, but the problem with that was it'd break the only working sarcophagi in the chamber. And I didn't know everything there was to know about the whole process, but I knew enough that if any of the former golem attendants wanted anything resembling their original bodies, I'd need it. "Think it'd accept Utility Access?"

"Perhaps, master Percival. You do have time to consider your options."

"Yeah, almost three years, according to this," I said, sighing. "Can't believe we found the bastard and we can't even off him without screwing over the ladies."

"Could you not simply cut off the mana?"

"I… not without potentially damaging half the setup. There's a lot of finicky devices here," I said, gesturing at the display.

"Unfortunate. Perhaps further exploration of the facility will reveal more answers," Calbern replied.

"Could be," I agreed, but I stayed there, staring down at Keria's face. "Though… what if…"

"Master Percival?" Calbern asked.

I went into the menus again, and checked over the diagnostics. And sure enough, moving into the body hadn't fixed his mana body. In fact, the system had purged it. He wasn't an ensouled anymore. Wasn't even a he, technically. There was more. It didn't seem that he'd realized it, or he probably wouldn't have made the ladies so strong, but there were parameters that could be set for the body.

It was early enough in the process it was entirely possible to change it so he was weaker than an average human. Slower too. The screen glitched for a second when I put in the changes, but the controls weren't locked.

"You know, I'd prefer to just kill him, but there'd be something poetic if he awakened without his magic or his precious manhood," I said, showing the screen to Calbern. "Though I don't think I've got the right to make the call on either."

"Are you proposing allowing his victims to make the call?"

"Think they'd want to?"

"Hmm. Actually, if you lower his durability and the rest of these parameters, the estimated time to completion drops as well. If he was weak enough, we could easily destroy him after he awakens. Perhaps give the ladies some closure," Calbern said. “It would also allow us to question him.”

"That's… yeah, we'll probably weaken him one way or the other. How low can we get it?"

After a few minutes of adjusting settings Calbern nodded. "It appears that a month is the minimum time we can achieve."

"Not bad. Let's not leave it at one year, just in case we need more time," I said, tapping the confirm button while keeping my hand well away from the cancel icon. There was another glitch on the screen, then the time updated, along with a much weaker final ‘product’.

"Very well. Shall we continue our exploration of the facility?"

"Not much more you can explore. And I'm not sure if it'll let me poke my head around without the Utility Access. Not as long as he's in there," I said, gesturing towards the golem.

"It would behoove you to check," Calbern said, following me towards the platform at the center of the chamber where we'd arrived from.

"Course I'm gonna check," I said, chuckling. "After all we did to get down here, you think I’m just gonna head back?"

Calbern stood next to me, giving me a slight arch of his eyebrow even as the golden light wrapped around us and returned us to the gazebo.

Three of the options in the Golden Halls didn't work.

To my surprise, one did.

When I tapped Ascension Assistance, I disappeared, only to reappear within another dark room. Unlike the last one, as the golden light of the teleportation faded, it moved to the floor, blooming on its own, spreading in a cascading wave out from where I was standing to light up the massive chamber I found myself in.

Around me, several displays followed suit, flashing with golden text and diagrams. And on those displays was my status. Exactly as it'd been when I ran the Diagnostic, except updated to reflect the changes recent trial with Conflict, which I intended to take a closer look at.

None of the information was buried, it was all laid out across dozens of displays.

I stepped down off the central platform as I started exploring the room. And as I moved away from the center, I saw that there was more listed than just my status. There were recommendations. When I walked up to my Astral-form, it said I was at 83%.

Which should've meant I had my fourth slot. But I hadn't noticed it form. According to the display, I needed to even out the distribution. Something I could easily do now.

With a few minutes of moving around the contents of my Astral Form, my fourth slot clicked into place. My gaze swung up to the screen, which now simply stated to continue 'Injecting Mana' into 'recommended zones'. Next to the display was a projection of those zones.

It was…

I was being shown how to ascend.

I laughed. The secrets people would kill me for seemed to be growing by the day. This room was… beyond powerful. Only people I absolutely trusted could ever know about it.

There was no guarantee it would work at the higher tiers, but if it did… and I was able to use it to reach Dragon-souled.

I sat down, hard.

I hadn't said it out loud. Hell, I'd barely let myself think about it but…

But I'd been terrified of what was happening. The Pillars were falling, most of the civilized world was at war with itself, Althon was turtling up and… and I'd been forced to ignore it, because it was all so far beyond me.

Wanting to make Tamrie had been me grasping at a way to have some small control, to find a way to protect those I cared for. This…

This changed things.

With this, we might actually have a chance.

With this… my world might not crumble again.