Chương 97: CHAPTER 95: THE SUBTERRANEAN VAULT

The heavy iron toll of the Great Bell continued to reverberate across the marble plazas, sending deep waves of sound through the towering spires of the Royal Magic and Research Academy. The massive mahogany carriage rolled past the weeping willow grove and came to a smooth halt before the Grand Central Archway. Outside the crystal carriage windows, the wide plaza was packed with hundreds of figures.

Senior faculty members wearing flowing robes of scarlet, emerald, and gold stood arranged along the sweeping white steps, flanked by aristocratic scholars, high-born teaching assistants, and dozens of armed academy wardens holding ceremonial silver staves. Every gaze was fixed on the mahogany door with intense hostility. Word of the emergency appointment had traveled faster than the carriage itself.

The conservative faction of the high council was outraged that Director Vivienne had bypassed the faculty review board to bestow an untouchable Sovereign Chair upon an unverified commoner from the border slums. The coachman stepped down and pulled the door open with a practiced bow. Director Vivienne was the first to exit. She stepped onto the polished white granite, her long amethyst velvet cloak catching the breeze as she adjusted her wide-brimmed black hat.

She held her narrow briarwood pipe between two gloved fingers, exhaling a thin trail of sweet herbal smoke while looking at the gathered professors with cool, lazy amusement. Following right behind her, Shin stepped down onto the stone terrace. He wore his simple charcoal traveler coat, buttoned to the collar. The smooth, featureless white porcelain mask covered his entire face, and his leather medical satchel was slung securely across his chest.

His wrought-iron prosthetic arm hung relaxed at his side, its dark surface dull and devoid of magical glow. The moment he appeared, an angry murmur rippled through the gathered crowd.

"Is that him?"

"He wears no academic insignia! No guild crest! He looks like a common border wanderer!"

"Director Vivienne has completely lost her mind! Bestowing the Sovereign Chair of Anatomy on a masked hedge-healer while true noble scholars wait decades for a seat?!" At the top of the grand marble steps stood a tall, elderly arch-mage in heavy crimson robes embroidered with gold runes. He held a massive staff topped with a glowing fire crystal, his wrinkled face twisted in righteous indignation.

"Director Vivienne!" the arch-mage barked, his voice amplified by wind magic so that it boomed across the entire square.

"As Dean of Elemental Studies, I demand an immediate halt to this carriage! The Sovereign Seats of this institution belong to royal scholars approved by the High Council! You cannot smuggle a nameless slum butcher through the front gates and grant him academic immunity!" Shin paused at the base of the carriage steps, his eyes observing the crowd through the narrow eye-slits of his porcelain mask. Abe saale... Rudra thought in dry irritation behind the white porcelain surface.

These old men in colorful dresses scream louder than the fishmongers at the delta docks. They spend decades polishing their titles while their actual practical knowledge is probably thinner than cheap parchment.

"Look at their shiny robes!" the tiny chibi figurine giggled, floating into the air right beside his ear while swinging her little boots. Thanks to his Abyssal Shroud: Perfect Veil, she remained completely invisible and silent to everyone in the plaza.

"They look like overgrown parrots, Doctor!" she laughed, pointing a tiny finger at the red-robed arch-mage.

"Look at that old man shouting! His blood pressure is spiking through the roof! I calculate a sixty-percent chance he pops a blood vessel if you ignore him!" Vivienne took another slow puff from her pipe, completely indifferent to the arch-mage's furious shouting.

"Dean Morvath," Vivienne said, her voice smooth, clear, and effortlessly cutting through the noise.

"The executive charter of the Research Council gives me sole authority to appoint emergency chairs in times of territorial crisis. The seal is pressed, the Duke's registry is updated, and the Sovereign Chair of Pathological Anatomy is officially filled. If you have complaints, submit them in writing to the lower basement archives. They will be reviewed in due course."

"This is an insult to the entire institution!" Dean Morvath roared, slamming the butt of his fire staff against the marble stone, causing sparks of red mana to crackle through the air.

"We will not allow an unregistered outcast to walk the high halls of the upper towers!"

"He will not be walking your upper towers, Morvath," Vivienne replied with a sharp, mocking smirk.

"He has no interest in your gilded halls. Now, clear the walkway before I cite you for obstructing executive council business." Without waiting for another word, Vivienne turned toward the western colonnade, gesturing for Shin to follow. Shin walked beside her with steady, unhurried steps. Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

As they passed through the edge of the crowd, dozens of high-noble professors and elite scholars stepped back, glaring at him with venomous disdain. They held their robes close as if afraid that brushing against his dark coat would soil their clean silk. Shin ignored them entirely. To him, their posturing and angry glares were nothing more than unnecessary noise.

They left the grand central boulevard behind, turning away from the gleaming white spires and heading toward the older, western quadrant of the academy grounds. Here, the architecture shifted drastically. The bright white marble gave way to massive, weathered blocks of gray granite. The open glass bridges disappeared, replaced by heavy stone arches overgrown with thick ivy.

This was the ancient foundation of the academy—a sector built centuries ago during the early founding wars, before the capital was rebuilt with luxury towers. Vivienne led him toward a low, heavy stone building set against the inner cliff wall of the capital's upper ridge. Two heavy iron-bound doors made of dark oak guarded the entrance. Vivienne reached into her cloak, pulled out a heavy brass key infused with purple runes, and turned it in the massive lock. CLACK.

The heavy doors swung inward with a low, grinding groan of long-neglected hinges. Inside lay a wide, descending spiral staircase carved directly from the solid bedrock of the mountain. Cool, dry air rushed up from the depths, carrying the faint, clean scent of cold stone and ancient dust.

"The upper towers belong to the politicians and the theorists," Vivienne said, stepping onto the stone stairs as glowing crystal lanterns along the wall automatically ignited with soft blue light.

"Down here lies the true foundation of the academy. The subterranean testing zones." They began their descent. The stairs wound downward for several minutes, passing far below the street level of the capital's inner ring. With every turn of the spiral, the ambient noise of the bustling academy faded further away until absolute, profound silence enveloped them. The temperature dropped steadily, settling into a crisp, stable cold.

"This is deep," the chibi figurine noted, drifting downward ahead of them while inspecting the stone masonry.

"We are at least eighty feet below the surface. The rock density here is exceptional! The ambient mana from the surface is almost completely blocked!"

"The walls are reinforced with four-inch solid lead plating beneath the granite veneer," Vivienne explained, as if hearing the chibi's thoughts.

"During the Great Calamity, this sector was used to isolate volatile alchemical cores and dangerous bio-hazardous materials. When the new towers were built, the high council abandoned the lower levels because noble professors dislike walking down stairs without magical lifts. It has sat vacant for over forty years." They reached the base of the spiral staircase, stepping out into a wide, vaulted hallway made of massive, interlocking basalt slabs.

At the end of the corridor stood a colossal door made of solid, dark wrought-iron, reinforced with heavy steel rivets and secured with three massive mechanical sliding bolts. Vivienne walked to the door, pressed her palm against the central rune plate to release the administrative ward, and pulled the first bolt back with a heavy metallic clack. Shin stepped forward, gripping the second and third bolts with his dark-iron prosthetic hand.

With a clean, effortless push, he slid the heavy iron bars aside and pushed the ancient door open. The massive slab swung inward, revealing the subterranean laboratory. The room was vast. The ceiling arched twenty feet overhead, supported by thick octagonal stone pillars. In the center of the main hall sat three massive, heavy-gauge steel examination tables, equipped with drainage channels and cold-water basins carved straight from polished slate.

Along the perimeter walls stood rows of heavy iron-reinforced cabinets, lead-lined specimen lockers, and deep stone shelving units capable of holding thousands of reagent jars. At the far corner, an independent subterranean spring bubbled up through a filtered stone basin, providing a continuous supply of fresh, clean water. Large ventilation grates set high into the stone ceiling pulled air through passive charcoal filtration shafts, keeping the atmosphere dry, cold, and entirely sterile.

There was no gold filigree. There were no useless velvet curtains or decorative glass sculptures. It was a space built purely for heavy, practical, and dangerous physical work. Shin walked into the center of the room, looking around the quiet stone chamber with deep satisfaction.

"Now this," Shin murmured, his voice echoing cleanly off the basalt walls, "is a proper workspace."

"I thought you might appreciate it," Vivienne said with a knowing smile, leaning against the door frame while holding her pipe.

"The lead lining prevents any magical scanning arrays from probing the interior. No sound escapes to the surface, and no student or faculty member can access this hallway without passing through the primary security wards at the top of the stairs. You have complete isolation."

"The ventilation is well-designed," Shin noted, running his dark-iron fingers along the edge of the central steel table.

"Passive airflow prevents cross-contamination between specimens. The stone basins are non-porous and easy to clean with basic chemical washes."

"It looks so dark and spooky!" the chibi figurine cheered, zooming across the vast room and doing loop-de-loops between the giant stone pillars.

"I love it! We can dissect giant monsters here, blast things to dust, and scream as loud as we want, and those noisy old mages on the surface will never hear a single peep!" Vivienne reached into her satchel and pulled out a heavy iron ring holding three distinct keys. She laid them on the corner of the steel table.

"These are the master keys to the lower quadrant," Vivienne said.

"The academy staff will deliver standard dissection supplies, preservation fluids, and clean linen wraps to the upper landing once a week. They will not enter this hallway. Your twenty-student roster will be finalized by the end of the week, and their first introductory session is scheduled for Monday morning."

"Good," Shin replied simply, picking up the heavy iron ring.

"I will leave you to unpack, Doctor," Vivienne said, giving him a polite nod of her wide-brimmed hat.

"Try not to destroy the bedrock while you settle in." She turned on her heel, her amethyst velvet cloak sweeping behind her as she walked down the basalt corridor and began her ascent back toward the surface. Shin waited until the sound of her footsteps completely vanished up the spiral staircase. He stepped over to the massive iron entrance door, pulled it shut, and drove all three heavy sliding bolts into their wall slots with three solid, echoing snaps. CLANG. CLANG. CLANG.

The subterranean laboratory was completely sealed.

"Finally! Total privacy!" the chibi figurine shouted happily, dropping her spatial disguise and glowing brightly with pure golden light. She landed on his left shoulder, crossing her arms with a satisfied nod.

"No annoying soldiers, no screaming old men in dresses, and no nosy Director trying to steal our almonds!"

"We need to conduct a full structural survey before unpacking the delicate glass instruments," Shin said, setting his medical satchel onto the main steel table. He began walking along the perimeter of the vast laboratory, running his wrought-iron hand along the cold stone walls to check the mortar joints, the ventilation shafts, and the integrity of the lead plating. Everything was solid, thick, and perfectly preserved despite decades of disuse.

However, as he reached the darkest, most recessed corner at the very back of the laboratory, his footsteps suddenly came to a halt. Beneath a thick layer of cobwebs and ancient gray dust, the masonry of the rear wall did not match the rest of the basalt foundation. Shin raised his dark-iron arm and swept away the heavy dust. Embedded flush into the solid mountain rock was a massive, circular vault door made of an unknown, pitch-black metal that absorbed the ambient blue light from the lanterns.

The circular door had no keyholes, no handles, and no mechanical hinges. Instead, the entire surface of the dark metal was carved with intricate, interlocking geometric runes that pulsed with an extremely faint, rhythmic crimson light. The magical signature was ancient, dormant, and completely omitted from the academy records Vivienne had described.

"Wait a second..." the chibi figurine whispered, her playful tone instantly vanishing as she floated closer to the dark metal surface.

"Doctor... my spatial scan did not detect this door until we stood directly in front of it! It is completely shielded by a multi-layered suppression array!" Shin reached out with his dark-iron prosthetic hand, lightly pressing his metal fingertips against the center of the circular vault. The moment his iron fingers made contact, the faint crimson runes on the door flared with a slow, deep heartbeat of ancient mana.

Deep inside his prosthetic arm, the dormant spirit core responded with a subtle, warm hum of its own. Shin stood silently in the dark corner of his new laboratory, his eyes narrowing behind the white porcelain mask. Abe saale... Rudra thought, feeling the faint, rhythmic heat vibrating through the metal joints of his prosthetic. She gave me an isolated basement, but left an ancient sealed vault sitting directly behind my operating table.

"An unmapped vault hidden beneath an abandoned testing zone..." Shin murmured aloud in a cold, measured whisper.

"It seems Director Vivienne did not tell me everything about this basement."