Before me lay a slope rising at about forty-five degrees, and further up, it became even steeper.

Clambering up such a sharp incline is exhausting for a human, but not for the lodestone; it continued to glide onward effortlessly.

Initially, I spent all my time trying to figure out why this lodestone moved on its own. At first, I assumed a powerful magnetic field somewhere else was pulling it along.

However, if that were the case, the closer the lodestone got to that immense field, the faster it should move. But nothing of the sort was happening; the lodestone seemed to be moving at a constant velocity—at least, I couldn't perceive any change in its speed. This led me to a different hypothesis.

I wonder if you've ever played that game where you place a small disc on a table and use a magnet underneath the tabletop to guide its movement.

When we were kids, we called that magic, and we often used it to trick little girls.

The current situation might be quite similar to that trick.

In other words, there might be a magnet located outside this layer of copper plating beneath my feet, pulling the lodestone on the ground forward.

I imagine the copper skin of these twenty tiers of Tancheng must be quite thick to be built this high.

Therefore, the magnet capable of influencing the lodestone from the outside must possess considerable strength.

Either the external magnet is enormous in size, or its magnetic force is extraordinarily potent.

Looking at the lodestone beneath my feet, it was moving almost perfectly in a straight line, leading me to think the possibility of the external magnet being actively controlled by someone was slim; perhaps it was merely some kind of fixed, mechanical mechanism.

If I kept following this lodestone, I might simply fall into a pointless, never-ending magnetic loop.

Thinking this, a sense of disappointment washed over me. Yet, that was still just a guess; only by moving further ahead could I confirm whether this was true.

However, after walking forward for just a little longer, I realized the outcome was slightly different from what I had surmised.

Because after passing through the cluster of gravestones, a doorway actually appeared on the ground ahead.

The opening was about three meters wide and five meters high, pitch black, and emitting white mist steadily outward.

The lodestone beneath my feet was moving straight toward this very doorway.

Arriving a short distance before the entrance, I looked down and discovered a passable slope leading down, but there was no light.

So, I hesitated, debating whether to descend.

If the Enforcer that Xiao Ge mentioned was inside this doorway, wouldn't I be walking straight into my own demise?

But I had no time to dwell on it; the lodestone had already slid down the incline inside the doorway.

After a moment of hesitation, I finally gritted my teeth and followed it down.

The space inside the doorway was truly dark and utterly silent, save for the soft huā huā sound of the lodestone sliding. Thankfully, I always carried a flashlight, allowing me to keep pace with the stone and avoid getting lost.

This space was utterly unadorned—no lamps, no pillars, and the walls were made of clean, unembellished bronze, appearing unremarkable.

However, the mist that constantly permeated the space was something that kept drawing my attention.

I reasoned that the outer wall of this Tancheng couldn't be overly thick; even with a chamber in the interlayer, the space wouldn't be vast.

As expected, before I had gone far, I suddenly encountered a sharp right-angle turn, and at the corner, there was a faint glimmer of light.

“Could it be…” A surge of joy hit me, as I realized this light ahead was very likely the sunlight from outside the Tancheng.

The lodestone rounded the corner a step ahead of me, entering the section where the light was visible.

I glanced at the time on my phone—around 1:00 PM—which further solidified my conviction that it was sunlight.

I then quickened my pace and ran forward.

As I rounded the corner, my eyes were suddenly flooded with brightness. I could indeed see that the exit of this passage was not far off; sunlight poured in from the opening. It was a clear day.

But I also noticed a strong wind blowing down this passage, causing the inner walls on both sides to whistle and howl.

I considered this and guessed that it must be because we were now over a hundred meters high, accounting for such powerful gusts.

Lifting my foot, intending to step out to view the scenery outside, suddenly, almost instantaneously, a towering dark silhouette materialized right at the exit.

It was unmistakably the shadow of a person, as if they had descended directly from the sky and were standing stock-still there.

Since I was backlit, I could only perceive the person's silhouette; they stood facing me, completely motionless.

At that moment, the lodestone in front of me also stopped precisely at their feet.

The person paused briefly, bent down, picked up the lodestone, examined it in their hand, and then looked back at me.

I still couldn't make out this person's features, but they must have been the one manipulating the strange stone outside the Tancheng; thus, they had likely led me here. I felt it necessary to speak with this mysterious figure.

The mysterious person continued to stare intently at me. Just as I walked closer, nearing the point where I could finally discern their appearance, they suddenly turned around and walked out of the passage.

I was momentarily stunned, unsure of their intentions, but then I quickly recalled how the Atlanteans had guided me in the Durban ruins before.

I surmised that this mysterious person now wanted me to follow them as well.

After a brief hesitation, I finally decided to follow and see where this led.

After exiting, the person immediately turned right and vanished from the doorway.

Now unobstructed by their figure, the sunlight seemed exceptionally harsh.

Perhaps this was simply due to having been in the dark for so long?

I shielded my eyes from the intense light, yet the long-absent warmth and the fresh air were immensely uplifting.

Taking a deep breath of the novel air, I took my first step out of the exit.

But that single step almost made me gasp in terror.

Because as my foot landed, I realized that outside the exit, there was only a narrow copper plank, about half a meter wide.

And beyond that half-meter plank was an abyss of immeasurable depth.

This meant that if I had misjudged my stride just slightly, I would have plummeted into that dizzying chasm.

Seeing that I nearly stumbled, the tall figure standing next to me suddenly reached out and grabbed my collar, preventing me from falling.

Pulled back by him, I pressed myself against the wall near the doorway, my heart still pounding from the near miss.

The tall figure remained utterly silent, merely watching me.

Once I had regained my composure, I leaned in with curiosity to examine the person's face.

But upon seeing their features, I felt a touch of disappointment.

I could only discern that they were about 1.9 meters tall, dressed in a black cloth robe, with graying hair, but wearing a very ordinary white mask that obscured any clear view of their face.

Seeing their eyes looking out from the mask's holes, I extended my hand and said, "Thank you for catching me."

The mysterious figure didn't speak, instead handing me the lodestone they held.

I took the lodestone from their hand, uncertain of their meaning.

The mysterious person seemed unwilling to explain, instead stepping onto the narrow copper plank along the edge of the wall and beginning to walk along the outer perimeter of the Tancheng.

I hurried to follow, observing the external structure of the Tancheng as we walked.

It was then I noticed that the overall shape of the Tancheng was spherical, which explained why the slope felt steeper the further we progressed.

It seemed this structure was geometrically similar to the bottom-most level enclosed by the mesh walls.

If that were the case, wouldn't all twenty tiers of the Tancheng, linked together, resemble tanghulu (candied fruit on a stick)?

The thought struck me as rather absurd; this was, after all, supposed to be a divine marvel. Designing a divine structure to look like a street snack—what were they thinking?

With that thought, I looked upward, intending to verify if the upper Tancheng tiers were also round.

What I saw when I looked up was completely unexpected: the towering spire I had imagined above simply did not exist; my head met empty space.

Could it be that Xiao Ge had lied to us, and this Tancheng actually only had one level?

Then, looking down along the outer edge of the copper plating, I was shocked again, because beneath us, there was absolutely nothing!

This implied that I was currently situated on a metallic sphere floating in mid-air!

But upon reflection, it seemed impossible, because we clearly used a passage to climb up; there was no reason for that path to vanish once traversed.

I concluded that my perspective must be flawed, and I needed to change my angle to look again.