The teleportation platform activates with a sharp pulse of mana, the sigils beneath Alix's feet flaring with blue-white light.
Then—
Silence.
Stillness.
Pressure like slipping between folded dimensions—
And he's through.
Alix steps out into a dim, circular chamber. Not ruined. Not dusty. The walls are clean, lined with obsidian plating veined in living mana circuits that pulse gently beneath the surface—new construction, or at least maintained.
He glances around. The room is built into stone, but reinforced with aether-treated steel, the air filtered and dry. No welcome committee. No sensors flaring in alarm. Just an automated presence that registers his arrival and logs it silently into a nearby console.
"Smart," Alix mutters, stepping off the pad. "No direct connection to the network… just a controlled endpoint."
