Saul stood at the entrance to the twentieth floor of the Wizard Tower, watching as Kaz pressed both hands against the bronze double doors and pushed them open with great effort.
It was pitch black inside.
As the doors gradually opened, candlelight from the corridor slanted into the growing gap.
“Heehee… Soso…”
Slurp slurp…
Buzzz…
For a mont, Saul thought he saw sothing lurking behind the doors—things shrinking away from the candlelight, scattering like frightened insects.
At the sa ti, eerie noises like children giggling seeped into his mind.
Kaz didn’t step inside imdiately. He paused, catching his breath, and said to Saul, “This door is different from the one on the first floor of the East Tower. You have to open both sides at once, then wait a while. Let the light drive away the little things inside before going in.”
He paused again, clearly winded. It seed that pushing open the bronze doors had drained him unusually.
Then Saul heard him mutter self-deprecatingly, “Getting old… my eyesight’s gone, and my ntal strength’s not what it used to be. Once we’re inside, mark the door lock with your ntal energy. That way, you can co and go on your own in the future.”
Kaz did look extrely old. But Saul knew that once a person advanced to beco a true wizard, there were many ways to extend their life.
What truly cut short a wizard’s lifespan wasn’t aging—it was the unforeseen dangers and accidents that could strike at any ti.
From the way Kaz spoke, it seed he genuinely felt his age catching up with him.
By now, the strange whispering and chittering from behind the doors had ceased, yet Kaz still didn’t step inside. It was as if he were waiting for sothing.
Saul had a thought—perhaps Kaz was waiting for the last of those "little things" to flee.
Only after standing there for another three minutes did Kaz finally step inside, with Saul following close behind.
The mont they crossed the threshold, the temperature dropped by more than ten degrees.
The Wizard Tower was already cool year-round, the ambient temperature rarely rising above ten degrees Celsius. But the wizards and apprentices had far stronger constitutions than ordinary people. They never felt cold, much less caught a chill.
Still, the sudden plunge to sub-zero temperatures made Saul shiver. He wore only a long robe and a drafty cloak that let in wind from all sides. For a mont, the cold bit into him.
But then, his skin began to give off a faint heat. It instinctively resisted the external chill.
Before long, Saul no longer felt uncomfortable at all.
As he walked, he glanced down at his naturally swinging arms. "My skin conducts ntal energy and magic with ease—was it reacting to my desire to warm up, and so began to heat itself?"
The second-generation Soul Resin is truly a massive upgrade over the first-gen plastic bones!
Once he had acclimated to the chill, Saul finally lifted his head to take in the laboratory before him.
He was instantly surprised to find it was an enormous circular chamber.
A single, unpartitioned space.
Apart from the entrance ramp and the bronze doors, the lab occupied the entirety of the twentieth floor.
What filled this lab wasn’t materials or apparatuses—but rows upon rows of cold, stone coffins.
They were arranged just like the corpses in the second storage vault: in neat, uniform lines, each coffin spaced exactly one ter apart.
So coffins were sealed tight with lids. Others had lids that were slightly ajar. And so had their lids leaning against the side, exposing the contents entirely.
It didn’t feel like a lab at all. It felt more like a morgue.
Saul followed in Kaz’s footsteps, moving slowly forward. Their footsteps were barely audible, as if afraid to disturb the slumbering souls that lay within.
Yet Saul doubted whether these things had souls at all.
As he passed one of the half-open coffins, curiosity made him glance inside—only to find a very familiar wooden puppet, the kind used to test ntal aptitude.
It was identical to the ones Kaz and ntor Rum used in their tests. How this one earned a place in a coffin was anyone’s guess.
Saul leaned a bit closer as he passed, intrigued.
Suddenly, the puppet inside, which had been lying quietly, shifted to face him—turning thirty degrees in his direction.
It had no joints in its neck, so the whole body rotated. One shoulder rose slightly off the stone surface, hovering unsupported in the air.
As Saul’s gaze swept across its hollow eye sockets, the familiar plea rang in his mind again. But unlike before, he didn’t feel dizzy or ntally drained at all.
The diary still floated gently within his soul body, undisturbed—its pages closed, as if refusing to even acknowledge the puppet’s existence.
As Saul kept walking, the puppet kept subtly rotating to follow him.
Its “eyes” never left him. But that was all it could do. The eerie display didn’t even make Saul pause.
Perhaps because he hadn’t stared for long, it didn’t release that usual, heart-wrenching “kill …”
Throughout it all, Kaz gave no instructions.
He clearly considered everything in this lab to be safe—or at least, safe for Saul.
The second coffin they passed lay completely open. Inside was a woman dressed in immaculate clothing.
At first glance, Saul thought she was a perfectly preserved corpse.
But with a second look, he realized it wasn’t a human body—it was a lifelike imitation, made of so kind of unknown material.
A full-scale, anatomically accurate human doll.
Saul’s expression grew a little complicated. Is this entire room filled with puppets like these?
Though Kaz hadn’t looked back once, he clearly understood Saul’s reaction.
Every first-ti visitor to this circular lab had the sa look. Shocked—or thrilled.
“As you guessed,” Kaz finally said once they reached the round table at the center of the room, “these are human models made from all sorts of materials. Different sizes, different substances. Most of them, however, are corpses repurposed into puppets. Though we call them ‘vessels.’”
“I suppose you’ve already guessed our research focus.”
Saul nodded. “The Tower Master once told he wanted to resurrect Lady Yura.”
Kaz’s expression wavered. His voice grew airy, almost dreamlike.
“Yes… resurrection.” He placed one hand on the table and closed his eyes, as if gathering his thoughts. “It’s a trendously difficult subject. Our only real advantage is that the soul in the Tower Master’s possession is whole, lucid, and has neither turned into a wraith nor been corrupted into an evil spirit. So our experints are, in a way, starting from the second half of the process.”
“But even then, our progress has been painfully slow.”
Kaz let out a sigh. “Truthfully, the domain of death and resurrection is sothing only Fourth-Rank wizards usually touch. They’re the ones who explore the essence of space and life. So powerful Fourth-Ranks can even transition between life and death multiple tis.”
“So laugh if you must—at first, I didn’t believe in this experint. I thought it was dangerously ahead of its ti. It would only bring us risk and corruption.”
“But the Tower Master…” Kaz tilted his head and gave Saul a knowing look, “he’s always had a fondness for tackling high-tier fields.”
(End of Chapter)
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