I swung at the ground with all my strength and hit the spot we were inspecting.

  It somewhat worked.

  Good thing: we now knew what this thing was for.

  The wall in front of us shuddered and for a split second we were able to see an outline of a doorway.

  A bad thing: I am pretty sure the button was busted now.

  -Well, at least we know that whatever those corridors are made of, it’s not as resilient as that white room - said Mike, looking at a broken tile on the floor.

  Yeah, my punch managed to crack the floor and the whole pressure plate popped out, broken into pieces.

  -Seems familiar - I muttered, swiping the pieces away to see what was that I broke.

  It was hard to tell if that was technology or magic, because the only thing remaining was just a metal rod, almost like a cable, going towards where the door was.

  By all means it could either be working as a conductor of mana or electricity. Or both.

  I tried pouring a bit of each towards it, but only electricity managed to take hold. I mean, obviously, it was metal.

  -It’s broken - stated the obvious Mike. - But we at least know where the door is.

  -Yep. Want me to open it?

  -What, you’re going to break the wall?

  -Not necessarily… - I said, approaching said wall.

  Last time, I managed to open a similar door, so why not now?

  It probably was going to be a bit harder, but shouldn’t be impossible.

  Thanks to my abuse of the mechanism, while the door did close, the outline was clearly visible. The sudden shift of stone probably managed to break whatever was supposed to disguise it. Or just that it didn’t close completely.

  In any case, if I was to focus and change my body a bit…

  I looked down at my fingers and focused, trying to sharpen myself as much as I could, and soon I was a proud owner of a set of scalpel-sharp blades sticking out of my hand instead of fingers.

  -That should work…

  I wedged my newly remade fingers in the outline, trying to get some leverage on the door…

  It worked.

  My fingers managed to slide in incredibly easily, I didn’t even have to put much force into it.

  -That’s… interesting.

  -Good interesting or bad interesting? - asked Mike.

  -Your guess is as good as mine…

  I wiggled my fingers.

  Yeah, it wasn’t my imagination. Just a small movement was enough for the door to start opening.

  For this heavy of a thing, I expected to have to push with all my strength. Hell, I thought I might have to go ahead and destroy the wall anyway.

  But nope. It just… started opening, like a regular door. It popped out for about a centimeter and started moving on a before hidden hinge.

  -Nice work! - said Mike, taken aback by my quick success.

  -That was too easy… - I mumbled as I was grabbing the door and turning my fingers back to normal.

  -You underestimate yourself.

  -I don’t think it’s… oh.

  -Oh?

  I stopped talking the moment I looked inside the room we were now opening the passage to.

  It was very familiar.

  -Another airlock…? - said Mike, as surprised as I was.

  -Seems like it.

  -You don’t think that…

  -That it leads back to the white room? - I finished for him? - Yes I do.

  While I wasn’t keeping that much track of the corridors and how much we were walking, the overall direction was making sense.

  -Let’s not assume things… We probably should open this before…

  -And how do we do that?

  -Well…

  Right. We didn’t know how exactly the earlier door was opened before, nor did we have any idea how to open this one.

  -Want me to try and break it again? - I asked.

  -I would rather not… At least not yet…

  He quickly changed his mind.

  We took a good half an hour to inspect the room and found absolutely nothing.

  Mike thought we might find a similar panel to the one on the floor, but no luck. He even tried using the remaining men under his control, to read their minds, but only realized that it would take too long. Why did he even keep them with us?

  I was ready to blast the door open at any time, but he stopped me and instead we took a look into the earlier corridor, to see what we missed.

  And, we apparently missed an identical dead end. With the pressure plate and an airlock as well.

  -Still having second thoughts about letting me bust through this wall?

  -Not really… But I don’t think there’s a point…

  -Probably…

  Yeah. You didn’t have to be a genius to figure that out.

  Barring any sacred corridors, the airlocks were definitely leading towards the one and the same room. The white room we were trapped in before.

  -So, what should we do with that tidbit of information? - I asked the question to the aether.

  -Nothing. It’s not like it changes our situation at all.

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  -Right. We still have to leave somehow.

  -We probably could teleport from here.

  -You think it was the room that was suppressing us?

  -Most likely. I mean, they had to get here somehow, right?

  -Well, this thing has to be connected to… something, I don’t know?

  -Right… Outside. What’s outside?

  We both looked to what was supposed to be the outer edge of this building.

  After walking from and here, we had a good idea which wall should be the outer one. We tried pinpointing that with mana, but the walls were mana-tight, so we had to rely on our instincts and memory.

  -You know… I probably could bust through that wall instead of the airlock…

  -I know. I still worry that we are underground… - replied Mike.

  -So? It’s not like we'll instantly get buried.

  -I guess… Fuck it. Fine, try it.

  -Finally!

  After all that pointless walking and wasting time, I was ready to actually do something.

  Be it stupid or not, I didn’t care.

  -Step back - I warned him. - I don’t want you to complain again.

  -Yeah, yeah. Move.

  The last one was directed to the soldiers that were still following us, commanded by him.

  They stepped back and formed a group in front of him, almost like he was shielding himself from my spell.

  I am pretty sure that it was pointless… He was a lot more resilient than them.

  But, they were really only useful as meat shields after all…

  -Okay… Here goes.

  It really was a lot easier than expected.

  I actually managed to overdo it. And with a single spell that I thought was weaker than what I needed.

  I intended to chip the wall a bit, to not go through immediately, considering how Mike was concerned. I mean, I wasn’t worried about some cave-ins, but if I could try and prevent one, why shouldn’t I?

  The moment I realized I was through, I stopped my spell. But…

  -What the fuck!? - Mike yelped and jumped backwards.

  The wall was very brittle. Even though I stopped my magic, it started cracking and some more of it broke anyway. It didn’t matter much, but gave him a scare: he probably thought that it really was a cave-in that we caused.

  -That was unexpectedly easy… - I said out loud and looked through the opening in the wall. - What the hell.

  -So we aren’t underground - said Mike, regaining his composure. - But… wow.

  -How the hell does that even work…? I mean… where? How?

  -I have no fucking idea.

  We both were flabbergasted with what we saw outside.

  We were in a white void.

  At first glance, it looked exactly like the white room we were in before.

  -What in the hell did they even create? - I asked, not sure what to think of the place.

  -This is… something… - said Mike, slowly stepping outside. - Yeah… the floor is here… It’s just like that room.

  -You think it’s the same? - I said as I kneeled, trying to inspect the floor.

  Definitely seemed like the one from before. Hard to look at, but my eyes were slowly getting used to the brightness.

  -Want to check its durability?

  -Not scared about the cave-ins any more? - I asked, already raising my fist to strike the ground.

  -At this point, I don’t care.

  -Okay.

  Thump.

  Yeah, hard. But not hard enough.

  It cracked just like the pressure plate before. But, this time there was nothing below it, I just broke a floor tile.

  -That’s… strange…

  -Strange that I managed to break it? - I asked.

  -Strange that there is a tile to be broken. Doesn’t it look like just one solid slab of… whatever this is? Rock or something?

  -I… huh. Yeah…

  -For something that smooth, I thought it would be made from one thing, probably melded with magic. But this?

  -It probably was also made with magic. But I agree. Why bother making a floor like that?

  -Right?

  Just to confirm things and that wasn’t just a very strange coincidence, I broke a couple more spots around the place. The effect was similar.

  That is, besides one spot.

  That one was the last one I intended on breaking.

  It was the furthest one so far, and the one that I used the least amount of force to crack.

  I managed to break it cleanly in half. Or at least thought so.

  In reality, it was not broken at all: I just hit right in between two tiles and managed to pop two of them out without damaging them much.

  I picked up the two pieces and inspected them more closely.

  -What kind of material do you think this is? - I asked, looking at the tiles from every possible direction.

  -Marble? Maybe something similar?

  -Maybe… Oh! That’s peculiar…

  Thanks to the fact that the tiles have not been destroyed, I managed to notice that the bottom was not just a flat surface as I thought it was before. I mean, I couldn’t really tell at all what my doing was and what was there before when I crushed them into gravel…

  -Letters.

  -Yup.

  Very hard to read, thin and barely there, but definitely letters.

  -Some kind of spell?

  -Probably. But it’s weird. I don’t feel any magic coming from them.

  -Hm. Me neither.

  -What does that even say… - he mumbled. - Fuck…

  -Yeah, there’s no point even in trying. It’s just random scraps of it.

  -Like reading a torn book, I know - he mumbled, annoyed.

  -But at least we know it’s magical.

  -Yeah. And that makes it doubly weird.

  -Yep.

  There was no mistaking it: there was magic in it, the letters were the proof.

  But, the problem was that we couldn’t perceive it.

  Between the two of us I am sure at least one would be able to see SOMETHING. I mean, at this point I was sure that I could detect any kind of mana, but apparently was wrong.

  Mike wasn’t happy about that either.

  -I don’t know… maybe it’s just unpowered…? - he asked himself more than me.

  That was one way to think about it..

  It was certainly possible that whatever was this thing, it was just an unpowered creation. That would at least explain the whole thing being so plain… and white.

  But…

  -I think we’re grasping at straws here - I said. - Let’s be real, it’s just us being blind to whatever is going on here.

  -...

  He didn’t respond, but I could tell he was not disagreeing.

  -I mean, if this thing was unpowered, what was trapping us here. I mean, portals were…

  -Right. Portals.

  -Huh…?

  Before I even realized what he was doing, he already was drawing on the wall and channeling mana into a spell.

  -Again with the portal? - I said, seeing the opening form right next to him.

  -I just want to confirm something…

  The gateway formed, and just like before, he wasn’t able to pass through.

  -Same shit?

  -Yeah… I was hoping…

  -For what?

  -Well, I just had a thought… that we were blocked from leaving but only in that room… the sealed one, I mean. This having less durable walls and stuff, I thought that whatever was blocking us was gone, but…

  -No luck - I finished for him. - Good idea.

  -Too bad it only confirmed the worst scenario.

  -Come on, it’s not the worst.

  -Not being able to perceive something we are attacked with is not the worst scenario for you?

  -Well it is up there - I agreed - but it’s not like it can’t get worse.

  -Stop. You’re gonna jinx us.

  -I know you don’t believe in that shit.

  He didn’t reply.

  -Eh, the worst or not, this doesn’t change much. We are stuck. Still.

  -I mean… sort of. I think - he replied. - We do have a lot more room to work with.

  -True enough…

  I looked into the distance.

  It was eerie to see something like this. A vast, white open field. Nothing above you, no sun, just overwhelming whiteness. The bland horizon, riddled with strange shapes…

  Wait. Shapes?