[Neutral lifeform detected… Limited access granted.]

What… What was that!?

Hearing a strange mechanical voice suddenly echoing out around her, Scaly jumped in surprise before firmly scanning her surroundings for any sign of the one behind the voice. Her somewhat relaxed stance became sharp in an instant, as the voice she had just heard sounded like the voices she had heard from humans in the past.

If a human was really hiding somewhere inside the tower, she had to be cautious. After all, she understood full well how dangerous humans from what she had seen in the past.

A human able to reach all the way down to the fifth floor of the dungeon where she found herself would undoubtedly be a powerful human; someone she couldn't afford to relax her guard against!

Because of this, for the next five minutes, Scaly remained frozen in place at the entrance to the half-collapsed tower. Not daring to make any reckless moves in case the human she now suspected to be hidden inside took advantage of the situation to ambush her.

Unfortunately, no matter how long she waited around, no human appeared to attack her. Instead, she just ended up feeling her neck hurting from constantly moving around in anticipation of an attack that could come from any direction at any time.

Only then did she realize that the voice she had heard might not have been from a living human, but instead something from the humans who had lived in the human city before it turned into the ruins it was today.

How this was possible, she had no idea, but the large number of magical sigils all over the place made her guess that it had something to do with magic. Maybe the voice she had heard was somehow stored inside one of these sigils.

Rustle~

As her fear of being ambushed by a human faded, Scaly stopped lingering at the entrance to the tower and instead began to slowly make her way inside the tower in search of the origin of the human voice she had heard a few minutes earlier. Feeling not only curious about what kind of magic could have allowed a human voice to exist preserved for such a long time without it fading but also wondering if there might be something capable of helping increase her strength in the same place.

And as she began to move further inside the tower, the rocks that covered most of the place slowly began to fade before rows of aged bookshelves filled with books that looked old enough to become dust the second she touched them appeared before her.

Maybe if she was a human, this might have been an interesting discovery, as she would be able to carefully read through these ancient books and potentially uncover the hidden past of this ancient human city that had been destroyed in the past.

But… She wasn't really one to read. Not to mention, she had no idea if she could even read in the first place. The only thing she could use to glimpse some information about the ancient books was her inspection ability…

[Damaged Ancient Book]

[Description: An ancient book that has survived millennia with the help of preservation sigils. Current state is damaged to the point where even a light touch will turn it into dust. Destroying any information stored inside. Requires a specialized book restoration professional for any chance of recovery.]

However, the description given didn't really contain any information about the content of the book itself and it only noted down the fact that the book was ancient and the degree of damage.

From this, it not only became obvious that it would be impossible to get a quick summary of the content of the ancient books, but also that she wouldn't have any viable way to read these ancient books without becoming a specialized book restoration professional, something she had no idea about.

A waste of time in her eyes, as she was at most a little interested in the ancient books. Not enough for her to spend an extended time researching how to read them without accidentally destroying them in the process.

With that in mind, she continued moving deeper into the tower while ignoring the tall bookshelves that now flanked her on either side filled to the brim with books that would crumble at the lightest touch, something she had already tested out herself out of curiosity. Ending up with her entire face being covered in dust after accidentally triggering a small chain reaction that caused a little over a dozen ancient books to turn into dust before turning into a small dust cloud that enveloped her.

Shaking her head as she purged that little experience from her mind, Scaly soon spotted something different from the seemingly endless rows of bookshelves that she had been walking beside for what felt like hours, a staircase that led up to the floor above her.

After all, even though half the tower had broken off and slammed into the ground a short distance from the base of the tower. Crushing several buildings in the place where it had landed, there was far more than just a single floor connected to the tower. Even if it did feel like there was only a single floor with just how high the bookshelves beside her stretched into the air.

From a quick estimation, they should be over twenty meters reaching all the way to the ceiling of the first floor of the tower.

Hm? Twenty meters high… But how is that possible? What is left of the base of the tower shouldn't be twenty meters tall and there is still another floor above that! Not to mention… Now that I think about it, I have been walking far too long and should have reached the edge of the tower by now and haven't.

Narrowing her eyes as she noticed how odd this first floor of the tower was, Scaly could not help looking around herself a bit more before continuing up the staircase.

Indeed…

Now that she took the opportunity to take in the entire first floor, she realized just how vast it was-

Whoosh~

Using her wind magic to lift herself off the ground and into the air, she soon sucked in breath of cold air.

The size of the first floor of the tower was far too vast to simply be the first floor of the tower, as it covered an area around a tenth of the city outside. The only difference from the city was that the first floor of the tower was covered in forest of towering bookshelves filled to the brim with ancient books housing unknown knowledge.

Although, compared to the city outside, the internal state of the tower was far worse, as outside the small section she had walked through to reach the staircase, the resto f the first floor had turned into a wasteland. Rocks and stones lying everywhere, with large bookshelves toppled over and the content inside either gone or scattered on the floor in a state where a light touch would turn them into dust. Turning them into small dust mines that would explode into clouds of dust if touched.

How… How is the interior of the tower so big!?

Filled with utter confusion at the sheer size of the first floor of the tower when compared to the exterior, Scaly found herself short-circuiting as she couldn't comprehend how any of this worked.

Only after slowly gliding back down to the floor again and having had a chance to take in the current situation did she calm down enough to conclude what was happening.

And… The conclusion she reached…

A dungeon! This is another, smaller dungeon inside a dungeon!

Feeling that her logic was flawless, Scaly silently nodded her head with approval. Only a dungeon would make this kind of situation explainable to her with her current knowledge of the world.

Not to mention, she didn't want to end up becoming a research dragon who wasted her time pondering every little unexplainable thing she encountered.

In fact, she already had a feeling that she was slowly moving in the direction and wanted to stop it before it ended up becoming a future evolution choice.

Her focus should be on her becoming stronger, becoming a powerful dragon, not anything else!

For this reason, she soon made her way up the staircase in search of something that would be able to increase her strength in a similar manner to the smolder branch eater worms she had consumed earlier-

Bang! Thump~!

But barely having taken a single step up the staircase, she found herself colliding with an invisible wall that made her stumble backwards and fall flat on the ground below.

[Warning! Unauthorized Lifeform! Access ahead restricted without supervision. Please contact related personnel for access. Any attempt to proceed without supervision will be punished.]

Following which, the strange mechanical voice echoed out around her again. Only this time around, it also threatened her…

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