"Master, Mistress said we have less than eighty minutes, and we should show you around."

  Well, I was going to ask her some things. Masa Ed made up his mind.

  He quit his exploration of the second chamber—his assigned sleeping space. With Plum following closely behind, he changed direction. Turning right and rounding the stairwell, he walked along the pool and approached Sugar, who stood in front of the doorway. As usual, she was dressed in a maid uniform, her long, straight platinum-blonde hair cascading behind her.

  "Show me the elevator first," he instructed.

  Sugar nodded faintly. "Yes, Master."

  She led the way. Masa Ed and Plum followed her, Plum walking very close beside him—her hands holding his right arm and keeping it pressed against her massive chest.

  As they passed through the doorway, they came upon Snow, who seemed to be waiting for them. Like Sugar, she wore her usual neat maid outfit, and as always, she looked completely identical to her—her twin. Together, they continued along the wide corridor—a gallery—lit primarily by wall cressets.

  Midway through their walk, Masa Ed raised his head. On the gallery’s white ceiling, twenty-seven meters high, was a circular glowing spot about three meters wide, resembling a flushed ceiling light. Its soft glow added gently to the illumination of the astra-flames burning within the wall cressets. Beyond it were others at regular intervals, lining the entire ceiling of the gallery.

  "Sugar, what’s that?" Masa Ed inquired.

  Sugar, along with Snow and Plum, raised her head. "Master, that’s a zero-plane."

  "It’s a zero-plane fixture we call an 'Glow spot'," Snow chimed in, walking slightly closer on Masa Ed’s left.

  "I think I get where the zero-plane comes from," Masa Ed said. Probably because it’s seamlessly flushed into the ceiling, he added inwardly, his unfocused gaze resting on Sugar’s back, her outfit tracing her slender torso as it gently narrowed into her tiny waist.

  A few steps later, she led them into a left turn, following the curved right-angle bend of the full-perimeter gallery. They partly rounded a pillar quarter-engaged with the gallery’s left corner floor slab—the one that housed the elevator that had brought them up the day before. They paused before it.

  "Master, this is the elevator." Sugar turned toward him.

  His lips pursed slightly as he examined the softly glowing white pillar.

  Plum giggled. "It’s the elevator shaft. The elevator is inside."

  Masa Ed nodded faintly. "I know. I’m just surprised they hollowed out a pillar and fitted an elevator inside it."

  "Master, most elevator shafts are partly decorative pieces. Even when they are not, it is their walls and tops that serve as structural support, not their hollow centers," Sugar explained. She and Snow stood close to the pillar without obstructing his view.

  "I see."

  His focus shifted from Sugar’s doll-like face back to the pillar’s surface. It was perfectly smooth like her face—without even the faintest trace of a crack or seam.

  "Sugar, what’s with your doors? How do you hide them?" he asked, still analyzing the surface.

  "Master, it’s a mechanism—a touch-and-glide mechanism," Sugar replied. Touching a specific spot on the pillar, she continued, "As long as a person has access, touching a designated location causes the door to appear and glide back. It then moves sideways or upward depending on how it is enchanted."

  As she spoke—and a few seconds after her touch—a seam appeared upon the pillar. The outlined stone slab recessed slightly before buoying upward, hiding behind the adjacent wall and revealing the familiar elevator interior: the central seat, the levitating control switch to one side, and the flame balls placed on the floor.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

  After a brief glance inside, Masa Ed stepped slightly left, guiding Plum along as she held his arm. Standing near the point where the gallery curved toward the second chamber, he made a quick scan.

  A colonnade of pillars, connected by white stone balustrades—including the corner pillar housing the elevator—stretched along the gallery’s length that faced the exterior of second chamber wall and beyond. Each pillar was quarter-engaged with the projected edge of the gallery floor slab.

  "Sugar, do the other pillars have elevators?" he asked while returning toward the entrance.

  Sugar merely smiled without answering.

  Plum replied instead. "Yes, but most aren’t functioning. Only four elevators in the entire building work."

  "Oh, I see."

  Stepping into the elevator with Plum beside him, Snow and Sugar followed with lowered heads.

  After Sugar pressed a point on the floating control switch, the hidden door sealed itself seamlessly back into place. The elevator floor began descending, moving away from the shaft’s skylight ceiling—which appeared to be the underside of a water tank that Masa Ed had been observing.

  "Sugar, what’s with the skylight?" he asked, focusing on one of the flame balls swimming within the water above the ultra-transparent ceiling.

  "Master, it’s an aqua-ceiling," Sugar replied.

  Plum added, "It’s basically the bottom of a glass tank used as a ceiling. Sometimes the flame balls are placed on the tank lid instead of inside. There’s also an aqua spot—another tank embedded into the roof, but not covering the entire surface. That one is also a zero-plane fixture."

  "I see… like a glow spot, but transparent glass with water behind it?" Masa Ed asked.

  "Yes," Plum answered, pressing closer to him. "There’s also a water-well. The one in our room is one."

  "Master, it’s the fixture above the round table," Sugar added from his left.

  Masa Ed turned toward her. "You mean the round structure hanging from the ceiling, held by pillars?"

  "Yes, Master. There are two in the grand hall. It’s very easy to focus the mind beneath them."

  He nodded.

  Exiting the elevator moments later, he stepped into the ambulatory as the hidden door descended and vanished once more. Turning right, he led the group along the curved right-angle bend of the sixteen-meter-wide ambulatory bordered by a colonnade on their right.

  A few meters later, he turned again toward an opening between two columns of the colonnade. Beyond lay a white stone-paved path extending into the grand hall, flooded with magical light like that of a moonlit world.

  Running ahead, Plum overtook him. She stopped upon the path and twirled beneath the grand hall ceiling, arms spread wide, her plum-colored flip-flops gliding effortlessly across the stone.

  Masa Ed smiled warmly at her spirited display.

  Moments later, meeting her smiling gaze, he stepped onto the grand hall floor, Snow and Sugar following behind.

  Simultaneously, Plum raised a hand toward the ceiling.

  Masa Ed lifted his head—and froze.

  There was no ceiling.

  Instead, a night sky filled with stars, nebulae, and moons of varying sizes stretched endlessly overhead. Some glowed; others remained mere rocks. The grand hall appeared like a courtyard beneath an alien yet enchanting cosmos—primordial and holy.

  Plum wrapped her arms around him from behind.

  "It’s an inner heaven," she whispered. "A creation from before the ancient era. Hihihi… Grandma told me."

  Masa Ed nodded.

  Definitely a manipulation of light propagation… something like holograms from fiction books. But this looks far too real. And the scale… yes, an illusion. He smiled faintly. I understand the basic concept. But its replicating the complexity that will be difficult… I have time though, probably.

  As Plum released him and stood beside him, he turned around and his gaze traced one of the colonnade pillars. Like the others, it connected the gallery of the second floor—it engaged partly with its floor slab—and extended upward to support the third floor floor slab, which projected seven meters farther outward than that of the second floor gallery.

  Above, a ten-meter-tall low wall lined the third floor projection—flushed with its very edge —and beyond it stretched the inner heaven once more—perfectly real to his eye, captivating him.

  He sighed softly.

  "Let’s go."

  With Plum beside him and the twins behind, he continued along the five-meter-wide stone path. Flower hedges lined both sides. Beyond the right hedge stood flowering shrubs and pavilion tops, while behind the left one rose a plant-covered heap of rocks blocking the view beyond.

  Soon they reached a T-junction where the path met a wider one cutting longitudinally through the grand hall.

  Turning back briefly, Masa Ed observed the wing they had left. Plum stood on his right; the twins on his left.

  Rotating his head slightly left, he saw pavilion pillars and roofs rising among flowering trees beyond the L-shaped hedge.

  "Master, that’s the first section of the grand hall’s left wing," Sugar explained.

  He nodded, smiled and turned right, continuing along the ten-meter-wide path. To both sides lay the second sections of the hall’s wings, each marked by plant-covered stone heaps.

  A short distance later, they arrived at the third section, where both wings merged into a single structure—a large stadium-shaped pool. Two identical structure, each within the pool and near its curved edges, while a bridge carried the stone-paved path across the water toward the next section.

  "Master, that is the water-well, and the other one," Snow said eagerly, pointing in succession at the identical structures—a colonnade with an entablature on top, its pillars rising from the clear pool waters.

  Masa Ed nodded and guided Plum and the twins along the smooth white flooring surrounding the pool, heading toward its left side.