It has been several hours after Maria passed the light portal and falling straight down. For the speed that she was traveling, Maria wondered how deep this place is. Suddenly, Maria saw her body stopped falling from the sky and land perfectly on two feet. The ground where her body land is a weird one: it was filled with words, runes, and symbols everywhere, from the ground up to the sky. Some of them randomly floating in all directions. She saw her body looked around and searched for something. Then she heard the Advisor’s voice.

“This place is quite tricky to travel so I will take control of the body until we are out of here.”

As the Advisor finished her explanation, Maria saw her hair turned as white as the snow, her eyes turned into shiny diamonds, even the clothes which she wore converted to white. When the transformation is completed, her body still had the appearance of Elisa, but she looks more beautiful and elegant than ever. Maria was speechless. She felt like a peasant on the side road when she looked at the Advisor transformation.

“Please don’t stare at me for too long, I was designed to make people feel inferior when they look at me for too long.” The Advisor reminded Maria.

“What? Why?” Maria was confused at this information.

“I am not too sure.” The Advisor responded.

Then suddenly, the floating words and symbols started to gather around in a far distance behind where the Advisor stood. With a flash, it transformed into a sea of flame and was heading toward the Advisor at incredible speed. The Advisor reacted immediately and dashed away from the danger and keep on running while avoiding other runes and symbols that were rapidly forming ahead of them. Every time the sea of flame ate another newly form words or symbols, it grew bigger, faster and started to threw projectiles at the Advisor. Each projectile either evaporated anything it touched or transformed into a tornado. The Advisor was able to dodge evaporation projectiles, but the tornado kept slowed down her speed even if it was just a little. What more, the sea of flame, when passed by many tornadoes started to fuse with them, increase its speed further and rain down even more projectiles as time went on.

“Isn’t this a little bit too intense for a test?” Maria shouted out inside herself.

“Well, I think I understand why but let’s find a way to get us to safety first.” The Advisor quickly intercepted a few runes before they transformed and quickly combine them into a new one. She then threw them directly at the floor. The new rune instantly created a trap door and she immediately jumped down and closed it before the sea of tornadoes flame engulfs the surface. The trap door passage led her to a room illuminated by many balls of light floating in the air. A strange voice rang within the chamber as soon as the Advisor step further inside.

“Impressive, you were able to learn how to use the ancient runes from observation and escape without getting caught even once in the purifying flame.”

The strange resounding voice shook up the place and frightened Maria. The Advisor, on the other hand, acted as if she anticipated it and face directly into the dark corner of the room as if waiting for something.

“My name is Tir, or if you prefer what the people outside call me as Palace of Knowledge. I apologize for testing you earlier. It has been a long time since someone was able to enter this place and still alive. The last one that entered this place didn’t even know how to use her power and wandered off without even noticing me, so you know… I was a bit too excited and impatient when I saw someone with such colossal energy enter this place.” The entity known as Tir stopped talking as if waiting for the guest to introduce themselves.

“….” The Advisor still stood silently.

After a few moments of silence, Tir's voice rang within the room again “Alright, Alright… I will get to the point. The truth is I wanted to gather knowledge, to discover new things. I rooted myself in this land in order to exchange knowledge with many wise creatures. However, due to the cataclysm thousands of years ago, they were either die off or forced to migrate to a new homeland. The quality of wise creatures living near this place dropped to zero" Tir's voice stopped as if he was recalling the decade worth of living in boredom then sigh heavily "so I tried to fix that problem by testing and feeding the new denizen with knowledge. The results were disappointing… so I have been trying to move to somewhere else. However, I need a host strong enough to carry me. It wasn’t a big problem to find one before the cataclysm but now, well… thousand of years later and I can’t find one until you came. So… how about it? I will supply you with knowledge stored here, in exchange, you only need to carry me with you.”

The Advisor tilted her head:” You said you are this entire place, right? How would I carry someone as massive as you?”

“It is very simple; I will miniaturize myself into an accessory and you can carry it with you.” Tir explained his method.

“So what if you can miniaturize yourself, would all that weight disappear after you have done so?” The Advisor asked.

"Well, no. That's why I need a strong host body. You are plenty strong as I am seeing right now. What's wrong? Was my offer not enough?" Tir asked.

"It not about the offer. It is about my current condition. The strength that you are seeing in me right now is conditional. It will be gone once I am out of this place." The Advisor explained, "But if you are that desperate to leave this place, then I am willing to help you with my own method."

“Oh? What would that be?” Tir eager to hear it.

“I want you to not ask anything about what I am going to do.”

As Tir still confused about what the Advisor meant, she squatted down and put her hand on the ground, reveal a hidden rune beneath. With the Advisor as the center, the color of white rapidly spread around the entire spacious room.

“Are you crazy? If you do that, you are going to implode.”

The Advisor turned blind eyes to Tir’s voice and continue her work. After a few moments, the Advisor retrieved her hand and clap it together. Her action immediately caused an earthquake. She then revealed the second rune in her hand and slap it toward a wall and run directly toward it. It teleported her to another tunnel similar to the entrance. As the Advisor approached the light at the end of the tunnel, her appearance started to transform back to normal Elisa.

“Alright Maria, let switch back. I will give you full detail about what I did when we go back to the mansion.”

“Ah, rig…”

Just as Maria took back control of her body, she felt an indescribable pain in every part of her body. She wanted to scream but couldn’t speak and collapsed at the exit.

“…”

“Ah, so that's how it works.” Those were the last word that Maria heard from the Advisor before she lost her consciousness.