Chapter 146: Chapter 146

The sudden gate was like a grand invitation, leaving the three of them flustered. Yvette stepped forward and pressed her hand to the gate’s edge, feeling a faint thread of emotion transmitted through the door itself.

Then she simply walked in and vanished in an instant.

“Master? Hey?” Abella froze, thinking they were supposed to scout first and then decide—why did she just walk in? Should I go in or not?

She glanced at Elliot, about to speak, and saw him already take a couple quick steps and follow into the gate.

In a flash, only Abella remained on the ice cliff, accompanied by the lonely polar wind.

“I’m not that stupid. I’ll just wait here for you,” Abella sneered at the glowing gate and turned to head back to the vehicle.

But then, suddenly, a sound like a whale’s call from the deep sea rolled in from afar, penetrating the polar night like a darkness with no seams, sending an involuntary chill deep into her bones.

Abella turned and saw a blizzard-like frost haze shrouding the frozen horizon. In the mist a gigantic whale silhouette loomed, and at its flank a huge eye—an enormous eye—stared straight toward the Mysterious Polar Garden.

The King of the Sky-Sea!!

Because of the Mysterious Polar Garden?

Swallowing, Abella gave a strangled cry and darted into the white gate.

“Master, wait for me!!”

When her vision cleared, Yvette found herself at an entrance to the Mysterious Polar Garden. Behind her the White Gate still stood open; white statues in guard poses flanked the entrance. As Yvette looked, the statues bowed slightly toward her, then immediately re-stiffened as if the motion had never happened.

Clearly it had been made to welcome her.

Yvette glanced left and right; she saw neither Detective Elliot nor Abella—she didn’t know whether they hadn’t followed in, or had been teleported elsewhere.

After waiting a while and confirming they didn’t appear, Yvette moved forward. The milky stone path soon ended, opening onto a shallow pool crossed by drifting blue flowers. The water was barely knee-deep, nowhere near as deep as Elliot had described. Yvette squinted and studied the blossoms—those blue flowers looked familiar; they seemed to be Magelight Orchids.

At the same time, the entire pool was like a giant mirror, the star-filled night perfectly reflected on its surface. Standing in its middle would likely give a sensation of being suspended in the cosmos.

Yvette gazed into the Water Mirror Garden’s depths. A faint white mist rolled in the distance, and beyond it she could just make out a huge gold-blue building and the ivory tower rising from its center.

Although called a garden, the pool was only calf-deep, yet its sheer scale made it more like a great lake.

Hesitating about wading in, she saw a small wooden boat glide toward her from the Water Mirror Garden’s interior. The boat was tiny—two or three people at most—but oddly, there was no one rowing; the oar moved by itself.

When she stepped into the boat, it rowed toward the center on its own.

Along the way Yvette took in delicate pavilions, hazy islets, firefly-like drifting lights, and “flower rafts” formed by Magelight Orchids clustering in the undercurrent.

After a moment, when one blue flower drifted close, she reached to pick it up to confirm whether it really was a Magelight Orchid. The instant she touched it, the flower dissolved into starlight.

At the same time she felt a strange packet of information flow into her mind—very basic rune-theory principles.

Yvette immediately suspected these blue flowers might be information carriers: touch one and you receive the knowledge within.

She tried touching other passing blue flowers, and sure enough a stream of simple, basic data flooded her mind—mostly rune theory, mixed with bits of astronomy and geography, and occasionally repeated or useless fragments, like passages from a third-rate novelist she didn’t recognize.

Too bad the garden—or its master—had invited her in. Otherwise she might have harvested more of these flowers just for the experience… well, that would be slightly undignified.

Just then she noticed a rare variety among the blue flowers, ones that shimmered with a gold-blue light.

She reached to pluck one, but the gold-blue blossoms seemed sentient; the instant they saw her hand they darted away, refusing to be touched.

She hesitated, abandoned the idea of forcing it with Wind Magic, and looked around. As the boat moved, many miniature islets only a few meters high passed by—likely the small worlds Elliot had described, each with its own special rules.

Their forms varied: some like volcanoes, some piled with books, others swarming with tiny drifting creatures… it was likely that Ice Rain and the other missing people were imprisoned in islands like these.

If the garden’s master had shown her goodwill, might it be possible to negotiate for the release of the missing?

Thinking this, she sat in the boat and passed through the shimmering mist until it reached the gold-blue building at the Water Mirror Garden’s center.

It was a vast mansion with its doors open. In the little garden before the entrance stood unusual sculptures that looked like innumerable concretized runes. At the center was a bronze statue of a girl with long hair—her face left blank—Yvette studied it and felt no recognition.

She entered the mansion and found a figure-eight symmetrical split staircase. On the central landing, a figure composed entirely of white stood, looking down at her with a pure white face.

Yvette paused in the main hall and watched the white figure, waiting for it to speak. Instead, it turned and trotted up the stairs, stopped at an upstairs corner, and looked back at her.

Was it guiding her upstairs?

Yvette followed. After weaving through the building, she entered a corridor that, from its layout, likely led into the Ivory Tower.

The White Shade pushed open a door and a spiraling white corridor appeared; it darted up without a word. Hesitating only briefly, Yvette followed—curious what message it sought to convey.

She had a strong impression that it wasn’t just the mute, likely magical White Shade, but the entire Water Mirror Garden conveying a kind kindness to her—emotions woven into drifting rune fragments like a subconscious thread she could sense.

The tower’s interior was peculiar—like a vast, well-like library. Walls lined with bookshelves overflowed with tomes. Tiny glowing runes drifted in the air like slowly orbiting stars.

A long marble stair spiraled upward. Yvette trailed the White Shade, climbing and occasionally passing through a corridor in the wall to enter another well-like library.

Later, the surrounding shelves and glowing runes faded away until only darkness remained, with a shaft of light from above revealing her path and the faint steps around her, as if walking a Möbius loop that stretched infinitely.

After who knew how long—perhaps ten hours, perhaps ten days—the endlessly extending marble stairs finally led to a platform bathed in light, like a pilgrim finally reaching paradise.

Yvette climbed up and found a door bound by dark-red chains, and the White Shade waiting beside it.

It made a cutting-throat gesture toward Yvette.

Yvette was silent for a moment, then asked in Black Tide Tongue, “Do you want me to break these chains?” For origınal chapters go to novelFirｅ.net

The White Shade nodded vigorously.

Yvette hesitated, then unleashed a powerful wind blade at the chains. The magic here was thick to the point of terror; the wind blade she casually cast became akin to a forbidden spell, over ten meters across, crashing into the chains—yet it had no effect.

She tried many other spells, mostly combos of Wind Magic and force-field arts, optimized for cutting and impact to break through a single point.

“What material is this made of?” Yvette asked the White Shade.

The White Shade stared at her without replying.

Seeing its silence, Yvette tried to study the chains herself, but after only a few dozen minutes she gave up—even with assistance from the Soul Brain she turned up nothing.

Use Ashen Touch? Yvette raised a brow. She was reluctant to expend her aberrant power on a faceless White Shade; the chains looked extraordinary—firstly, she wasn’t even certain it would work, and even if it did, the cost in aberrant mana would be in the tens of thousands. Who would compensate her for such an expense?

With that thought, she said to the White Shade, “I can use my strongest method, but it will cost dearly. You must compensate me.” The White Shade nodded.

“You must be holding a lot of people—release them first,” Yvette said.

The White Shade nodded.

“If I help you open the door and there are treasures inside, I’ll take a share based on the situation.”

The White Shade raised an arm and looked troubled.

“It can be paid in other ways—like the knowledge I need.” Yvette thought of the floating flowers in the Water Mirror Garden.

The White Shade finally relaxed somewhat and nodded in agreement.

“Pay a deposit first.” Yvette wasn’t trusting. When the White Shade cocked its head in puzzlement, she added, “Do you have the basic rune information for Light-Shadow Magic?”

After using Shadowstep and merging into shadow, she’d developed a strong interest in Light-Shadow Magic. Unfortunately that technique was encrypted and locked to a terminal; after the terminal broke she could no longer use it.

The White Shade extended a hand and a blue flower suddenly appeared in its palm, which it handed directly to Yvette. She touched it and instantly a foreign stream of information flowed into her mind—indeed part of the foundational rune-theory knowledge for Light-Shadow Magic.

Though not as deep as her grasp of elemental magic, the basic rune cognition was enough for her to explore the theory and applications on her own.

Yvette absorbed it for a while, delighted and stunned at the White Shade’s generosity. Then, as agreed, she summoned Ashen Touch. Countless silver strands of hair converged above her head into a long blade, and she struck the chains with all her might.

The heavy thud made the door tremble briefly. Under the fierce impact the Ashen Touch-formed blade shattered, and a barely perceptible dent appeared on the chains.

But before Yvette could press the attack on that tiny dent, dark-red light flowed and the dent vanished.

It restored so quickly—how to break it? Even if she poured two hundred thousand aberrant mana into it, she couldn’t match the recovery speed.

Yvette looked at the White Shade and found it watching her. After a few silent moments the two regarded one another, then Yvette suddenly said, “Deposit’s nonrefundable.”

The White Shade’s glow dimmed slightly and it looked more dejected.