My Servant System

"What do you mean you got sent to a different part of the Labyrinthian during a different time? How is it possible that these doors could just... whisk you away from the here and now and take you to somewhere like that? Isn't that impossible?"

Lilith chuckled wryly as she shrugged her shoulders, showing that - for the first time since we had met her at the entrance - she actually didn't know the answer to every single question that we could ask of her, and that just helped to show how special this place was.

"That's exactly what I want to find out; how is it possible that these doors have become legitimate doorways into a new time, a new space, and who managed to create them? Was it the citizens of this city, or perhaps was it Saturna Vera?

She had explored the Labyrinthian before, after all, and while little is known of her exploits besides various sources of speculation and rumors, we know for certain she was in here for a few years. Like me she came in here to study, and like me she was gone from the outside world for a long time... fitting, I suppose, for someone like her."

"Yes, but... still, how are these doors capable of containing these... trials, or whatever you want to call them? These tests that are specific and seemingly designed to be not only completed, but give rewards that would definitely alter the balance of the world as we know it?

I mean, 'Two cores collide to create one stronger power' sounds rather... powerful, does it not? It also sounds like a trial created to kill one of its testers and give their power to someone else, which..."

Jahi trailed off before staring at Lilith, her eyes narrowing down as she recalled the powers that the Demoness had shown off so far; a mastery over all of the basic elements, which should be impossible... was that not only proof of the power that these trials offered, but also a question that we needed to ask of her?

"If you think I went through all of this effort to drag you all here just to slowly absorb your Cores into myself to get stronger, I can promise you that I am not that idiotic. Earning the wrath of someone like the Empress is sheer suicide even for me, alongside the fact that the people she had decided to make hers are all quite scary on their own..."

"You're just asking us to trust that the doors that can apparently offer you the ability to gain mastery over all of the elements - something that is impossible otherwise - wouldn't manage to corrupt a mind like yours with the promise of even more impossible powers?"

Chuckling, Lilith looked down the street for a few moments before shrugging again as she answered "Did it cross my mind? Most certainly it did; everyone offered with the possibility of impossible powers would most certainly consider it, even if the risks were as high as they are now. It takes a strong will to decline those offers though, but it gets easier when you look at more of the doors."

Pointing at one such door, she read "This one, for instance. 'Three flames converge unto a single ocean, burning it away'. Three Fire Mages come together to combat some large Water Magic wielding threat, and before you ask... the reward is likely a boost to your own flames.

One of the doors I had completed had been 'One empty core fights against a pair', and it had forced me to survive in a battlefield without any mana whatsoever. Only my wits and my natural strength as I was tossed in between two separate forces fighting for supremacy over a natural treasure. When I managed to claim it for myself I was pulled away from the trial and given that treasure, which turned out to be a second Core..."

We all stared at the Demoness for a few seconds, trying to determine whether or not she was being truthful and if we should trust her on this... or if we needed to formulate a plan to get away before she did as Jahi 'feared'.

"Believe me or not, but the results speak for themselves. I now have not one, but two separate Cores, and then that second door allowed me to invert my Cores to access their opposite mana types; my Fire Mana turned into Water Mana and my new Core, the one with Earth Mana, turned into Wind Mana. I can invert them whenever I please without any harm to myself."

"Yes, the results are clearly there, but that doesn't just mean that the woman who called us here to 'help' her might not be plotting something sinister... and yet I doubt the woman who did so much to keep her bloodlines alive is now going to sacrifice an entire bloodline just because..."

Mom was the one to say that, her more 'naive' trust in blood causing her to say that, and yet she wasn't entirely wrong with assuming that... especially since she herself had more knowledge about the Demoness in front of us than we did, so perhaps she was making the correct assumption.

"So what do we do then? Are we heading into these doors? Was that what you brought us here for? To get an understanding about these various instances of time and space that you couldn't access on your own?"

Lilith gave me a nod before gesturing to the sun above, making us take in just how much quicker time was passing in here as she answered "That was my hope, yes. If the rewards from those single person instances were so good, what would the larger requirements give out?

And how exactly do they work? Was it Saturna Vera who had created them, or was it the people who had made this city? What about all those other people I had seen when I entered those two trials; were they really former residents of the Labyrinthian from millennia ago, or is there something else that happened for them to be there?

There are so many questions I have about this place now, so many different things that we can learn that might benefit the Empire if we answer even a modicum of those questions... that is what we are doing here. I want to start heading into these trials and claiming the rewards inside so that we might usher in a new age for the world! Just imagine what we could learn from a place touched by Time Magic!"