Shang continued walking for quite a while, but he could only see the two walls.
At least, by now, he knew that this building was circular and that it was made by human hands. The walls were too smooth and too uniform. Something like that wasn't something that beasts would create.
'If this were some kind of fantasy novel, I would believe that this is some ancient ruin that will teach me about the secrets of warriors,' Shang thought.
Then, he sighed. 'Sadly, the God literally said that there are no more inheritances of warriors remaining in the world since the Mages destroyed all of them.'
'However, this building still has to fulfill some kind of function, right?'
After walking for about twenty more minutes, Shang's Darkness Vision picked something up.
The inner wall had a human-sized opening.
Shang walked for a bit more and eventually arrived in front of it.
It was an open door.
'Yep, definitely made by humans,' Shang thought as he looked into the room.
The room was huge but mostly empty.
Shang guessed that the room was just as big as the entire thing, except for the space between the inner and outer walls.
And there was only a single thing in the middle of the room.
It was a portal.
It was round, and a membrane of silver colors danced between its arches.
'Well, I've never seen a portal in real life, but that's what I would imagine one to look like.'
Shang looked around the room and saw nothing else.
No second door.
No stairway.
Nothing.
It was just a big room with a portal.
Shang walked closer to the portal and looked at it.
Surprisingly, Shang didn't feel any familiar Elemental Mana come out of the portal. One had to know that Space Rings were made with different Affinities.
A portal should logically also be made of similar, different Affinities, but this one exhibited no Elemental Mana.
'Well, I did see a Mage with a Space Affinity in the trial,' Shang thought, remembering the girl that had fled from him.
He still didn't enjoy thinking back to that moment.
'I've never heard of a Space Affinity in the Skythunder Kingdom, but it obviously exists.'
'So, this place was probably not created by the Skythunder Kingdom. I saw all the most powerful Mages of the Kingdom, and none of them had a Space Affinity from what I could see.'
Shang looked at the portal for a while.
'Should I try going through it? I mean, I entered with some rewards in mind in the first place,' Shang thought as he scratched his chin.
'Maybe this is some form of old treasury?'
Shang didn't believe his own optimism.
Eventually, Shang shrugged and went towards the portal.
Shang put his hand into the portal, and it vanished. However, Shang didn't lose any feeling in his hand, and after he pulled it back, he saw that it was still attached.
'Sure enough, it's a portal.'
And then, Shang stepped through it.
As soon as Shang's remaining eye passed the silver veil, he saw his new surroundings.
Shang looked around for a bit.
'It's the same?' he thought.
Sure enough, it was a large, empty black room with only a portal inside it.
But then, Shang noticed something.
'There's no Darkness Mana!'
At the place where Shang had just been, a ton of Darkness Mana had flooded the place due to the hole Shang had made.
But this identical place had no Darkness Mana whatsoever.
In fact, it had no Mana at all.
For some reason, Shang felt nervous. It was like his being was telling him that it hated this place and that it wanted to leave, and Shang quickly understood why.
'I don't need to eat or sleep, but that's due to the constant presence of Mana. My body simply uses Mana as a replacement for energy, and in a place without Mana, I would essentially starve.'
'I've never heard of a place without Mana. I wonder how long it would take me to die of starvation or lack of oxygen?'
Shang didn't like this place whatsoever, but he still left the portal and walked through the door.
'Sure enough, everything's the same. Just like the other place, this one has a ten-meter-wide gap between the two walls.'
Shang continued walking for around thirty minutes until he found an open door.
It was the same one.
He had walked around the entire thing, and he had seen nothing of note.
Shang scratched the back of his head as he looked at the portal. 'Are these portals a convenient way to go from one building to the next? For what, though?'
After a bit of thinking, Shang looked up.
The feeling had grown weaker by a lot, but he could still feel an Abomination somewhere above him.
'I'm near the center of the room, and I can feel an Abomination probably a couple of kilometers above me. I presume the feeling is weaker since I am further away from it than when I had been outside. After all, I fell for like 20 kilometers.'
'So, there's an Abomination in the first building and one in the second. I wonder why.'
The ceiling was only about thirty meters high, still leaving many kilometers of space unaccounted for.
'There is no obvious entrance to the space above me.'
Shang scratched his chin.
'Should I try to break through the ceiling? I mean, I already made a hole in the other building. Additionally, even if the Abomination were to break free, this place is probably outside the Storm Eagle Zone. So, if I have to free an Abomination to see what's going on, I shouldn't free one in Duke Whirlwind's territory.'
'Well, in for a penny, in for a pound,' Shang thought.
And then, he jumped.
To an impressive height of two meters.
Athletes on Earth would be impressed, but it wasn't Olympic level.
When Shang landed on the ground, his legs vibrated due to the heavy impact.
Shang looked down with furrowed brows and a displeased expression. 'Gravity is stronger than expected in this place!'
Then, he looked at the ceiling again. 'If I use several Fire and Ice Blasts, I should be able to reach the ceiling. However, the fall would damage me quite a bit.'
'I mean, I don't really mind hurting myself, but this place is devoid of Mana. If I get seriously injured in here, I might just die.'
'Also, there's a smarter way to go about this.'
Shang took out Sword. "Can you check if you can crack the ceiling?"
"Yes," Sword said.
Shang pulled Sword back and threw it towards the ceiling with all his power.
DING!
Sword hit the ceiling with quite some force and bounced off.
DING!
And then bounced off the floor.
"Forget it. Too hard," Sword said as it slowly moved back to Shang.
"Not even with Entropy?" Shang asked.
"That's what I meant," Sword said. "The material is so hard and stable that I can't even pull tiny bits off it. Without these small bits, I can't convert it into power."
"So, it's impossible?" Shang asked.
"Yes, it's impossible."
"So, we came for nothing?"
"Seems like it."
Shang only frowned.
