Level Up Arcana

Ch.2 Welcome to Dominion

The duo passed through a narrow corridor lined with ancient portraits of former Arcana High leaders.

The painted figures seemed to watch them with disapproving eyes. Raiden ignored the creepy feeling crawling up his spine and focused on the path ahead.

A flash of black robes turned left up ahead.

Raiden sped up while Jace's chubby figure trudged behind, drawing faint gasps of breath.

They emerged into a circular chamber filled with study desks and floating orbs of magelight. Normally, this area would be packed with older students cramming for exams, but today it was empty. The silence felt heavy and deafening, almost unnatural.

"Where did she go?" Jace panted, hands on his knees.

Raiden scanned the room and found three exits. But there was no sign of Mira.

Then he heard a faint sound — a soft 'click', like a latch being undone. If not for his intensely focused ears, he'd have missed it.

His head snapped toward the far wall. At first, it looked like solid stone from afar, the same as the rest of the library's ancient architecture. But as Raiden stepped closer, he gradually noticed something off about the wall. A thin seam ran vertically along the surface, barely visible unless you knew where to look.

It was a hidden door. And it was slowly swinging inward.

"Raiden," Jace whispered urgently, drops of perspiration falling down his head. "Maybe we should go back."

Raiden didn't answer; instead, he observed the details closely. Without hesitating, he crossed the room in five quick strides and caught the door just before it closed completely. Through the gap, he glimpsed a narrow staircase spiraling downward into darkness.

There were no lights or sounds, just an empty, descending void.

Mira was down there.

"Okay, seriously," Jace said, his voice climbing an octave. "We are 'not' going down there. That's obviously a restricted area. We could get expelled. Or worse, detention for a month. Or—"

Raiden pushed the door open wider.

"—or you could just ignore me and head back to the hall. That'll be great, fantastic."

"You don't have to come," Raiden said, glancing back at his friend. "But I'm going."

Jace stared at him, then at the dark staircase, then back at him again. His face cycled through several emotions of fear, frustration, helplessness, and then resignation.

Finally, he sighed. "If I die, I'm haunting you forever."

"Deal."

Feeling touched by Jace's decision to accompany him, Raiden smiled gratefully and then slipped through the doorway. He knew his actions were selfish, but he just couldn't ignore that strange feeling of adventure to find out the unknown, regardless of the dangers ahead.

The air at the other side of the door was cooler, almost cold, and smelled faintly of old parchment and something else. Something metallic.

Jace squeezed in behind him, pulling the door shut with a soft 'thunk'.

For a moment, they stood in complete darkness.

Then Raiden whispered the simplest spell every student learned in their first week. "Lux."

A small orb of light appeared above his palm, barely bigger than a golf ball. It wasn't much, but it was enough to see the steps ahead.

The staircase wound down, down, down. The walls were made up of rough stones that were unmarked and featureless. As they moved, their footsteps echoed faintly, no matter how carefully they walked.

"This is definitely a forbidden area," Jace muttered. "Restricted sections are always underground. It's like a rule, even in the web novels."

"But then, why is Mira down here?"

"Maybe she's allowed. Top student privileges or something."

Raiden doubted that, but he didn't argue. He kept his light steady and his steps careful.

After what felt like forever, the staircase opened into a wide hallway. Unlike the floor above, this corridor was lined with tall, black doors. Each one had strange symbols carved into the wood.

The symbols were runes that seemed to shift like a helix, 'spiral illusions', when Raiden looked at them directly.

And at the very end of the hall, one door stood open.

Faint golden light spilled out from inside.

Raiden's pulse quickened and he quickly moved forward, Jace trailing close behind.

As they approached, low and tense voices drifted out from the room.

"—shouldn't even be touching it," a male voice said.

"I'm not touching it, I'm 'examining' it," Mira's voice replied, sounding cool and clipped. "There's a difference."

"Doesn't matter. If a professor finds us—"

"They won't. The lecture runs for another thirty minutes."

Raiden reached the doorway and carefully leaned forward to peek inside.

The room was small, almost cramped, with shelves lining every wall. But these weren't normal books. These were scrolls, crystals, and objects wrapped in cloth or locked in glass cases. Everything radiated faint magical energy, making the air hum richly.

In the center of the room, on a raised pedestal, sat a large piece of parchment. No, that was not a parchment. It was a map.

It was old, the edges looked frayed and yellowed with age, but the ink on its surface seemed to 'move'. The rivers flowed and the mountains shifted. Tiny illustrations of creatures prowled across drawn forested regions.

Mira stood before it with her arms crossed, studying it intently. Beside her was a tall boy with messy blonde hair and an annoyed expression. He was Kade Mercer, another top student in their 2nd year class. He was famous for his fire magic and his short temper.

"This is insane," Kade muttered. "You dragged me down here for a map?"

"It's not just a map, I've been obsessed with studying it ever since I saw words of it in my family's library," Mira said softly, a feverish glint in her eyes. "Look at the markings. These aren't standard cartography symbols. They're... something else."

Raiden squinted at the parchment. And from his observations, she was right. The symbols didn't match anything he'd seen in class. They looked almost... Alive.

One of the symbols suddenly shone with a greenish golden light.

Then another.

Then ten more, all across the map's surface.

Mira stepped back, eyes widening. "What is happening?"

The map 'moved', literally. It feels weird to explain, but it didn't just shift or adjust its position on the table.

It 'leapt' off the pedestal, unfolding in midair and then spinning like a living thing. The greenish golden symbols flared brighter, and the room filled with blinding light.

Raiden threw up an arm to shield his eyes. Beside him, Jace yelped.

"What's happening?!" Kade shouted.

The map expanded, filling the entire room, its surface now glowing with intricate lines and markings that hadn't been there before. And then, in the center, words began to form.

Those were not written words. They looked 'burned' into the parchment, letter by letter, in blazing greenish-gold script:

[SPECIAL PLAYERS IDENTIFIED.]

[TRIAL PHASE INITIATED FOR THE 10,000TH LOW-LEVEL WORLD]

[WELCOME TO THE GAME... DOMINION]

BOOMMMM!!!

The light exploded outward.

Raiden felt something 'lock' onto him, like invisible chains wrapping around his chest, his arms, his very soul. He tried to move, tried to shout, but his body wouldn't respond.

And then, just as suddenly as it started, the light vanished.

The map drifted back down to the pedestal, now perfectly still. But this time around it was massively different from the mystic feel it gave off before. It looked no different than an ordinary paper now, as if its vitality had been sapped.

The room was silent.

Mira stared at the map, breathing hard. Kade looked like he'd seen a ghost. And in the doorway, Raiden and Jace stood frozen, eyes wide.

Slowly, Mira's gaze shifted toward the door.

Her eyes met Raiden's.

"You," she said flatly. "How long have you been standing there?"

Raiden opened his mouth, then closed it. He tried again but couldn't make out a single word. He was stunningly speechless, and rightfully so. "Uh—"

A soft 'ding' echoed in his ears.

And then, impossibly, glowing translucent words appeared in the air before his eyes, hovering like a screen from a video game.

[SSS-RANK SYSTEM ACTIVATED]

[PLAYER: RAIDEN CROWE]

[LEVEL: 1]

[CULTIVATION: SPIRIT CIRCLE]

[PRIMARY QUEST RECEIVED: SURVIVE THE FIRST TRIAL]

Raiden blinked.

"What the hell...?"