My energy started to drain slightly faster but it was still low enough to be of no issue. It seems the [Time ring] was working perfectly. My eyes told me that the gravity here was stronger but I didn''t feel anything. I walked and still had floaty jumps. Hmm weird. This layer looked completely different. While layer 9 looked like it was outside, even though it was covered by a huge glass dome, this layer was completely inside.


    I looked around but the ancient technology was slightly interfering with my eyes. I could only see what was happening on this layer, which was fine. I tried to locate Ted and Gregory but this place was enormous. Their location isn''t important at the moment. I gave one clone the task to find them. I hope this place has a system to jump to layer 2 without having to go through the other layers. Maybe I should have tried to get that transporter to teleport me there but I can only interfere with its basic functions. I’m not an engineer or hacker.


    I tried sending pings out but they didn''t even return. Guess no teleporting on this floor. I tried moving around while [shadow melded]. This worked. It was slow though, well too slow for me, probably fast enough for Gregory. There was poor lighting in this area so moving around while shadow melded would be quite effective. If all layers are like this I won''t have to worry about Ted and Gregory since Gregory could easily get them to layer 2 like this. I passed by some guards that were moving slowly but they sped up on big areas. It seems the ancient technology was canceling out the time dilation at what looks like a public area. They really make this place seem like a city.


    Why do inmates need a shopping district? Maybe Raishin isn’t having that bad time in here. It was 02:47 and this place seemed peaceful and quiet. Is this really a prison? I approached a house ehh I mean cell. I couldn''t look inside but the placard indicated that it was empty. My clones confirmed that occupied cells had the name of the prisoners on the placards and between what times they were allowed out of their cells. My clones haven''t found any cell yet that allows the prisoners outside at all times. Their curfew seems to be at 21:00 and they are allowed outside of their cells at 10:00. I wonder what happens to them if they miss the curfew. I made a clone and sent it inside this empty cell. It didn''t lock behind my clone so I guess I was worried for nothing but it wouldn''t be funny if I accidentally locked myself in a cell. The cell looked like a small house it had a bathroom and a living room connected to the kitchen. These prisoners even have a tv…


    This doesn''t suit my image of a prison, the second floor had a shower a laundry room, and a bedroom. That was it. It was quite minimalistic. There seemed to be nothing special besides that the house was made out of ancient technology and I couldn''t look through the walls. I made my clone close the door but it didn''t lock itself or anything. I assume a certain procedure is needed to assign someone to a cell and cause it to actually act like a cell. I still didn''t want to risk it. I made the clone rest in that cell just as an experiment and found myself a spot that was quite hidden away in a park nearby. I swear nobody would believe me if I would describe this place and said it''s a prison. It is just like a quiet monotone neat city. I’m sure there must be something that gives it more of a prison vibe. I curled up in my tails and fell asleep.


    <hr>


    I woke up at 08:41. I checked with my clone but he was still sleeping. What a slacker! I made my clone wake up and check the state of the cell, the clone had a very nice rest in a comfy bed… not as comfy as my tails though. The clone could leave the cell with no problems. I decided to let him chill in that cell and take care of some simulations for me. I wanted to know if anything would happen to the cell if it was occupied when the inmates were allowed to go outside. There seemed to be way more guards walking around now. Is it in preparation for when the inmates could go outside?


    I sneaked around and stole more candy from the guards. These guards surely like their candy. Where are they all getting this candy from? I tried to pickpocket another guard but he didn''t have any candy on him. Maybe this guard is new? I followed him and he seemed to head over to a plaza. It had Section 58 on the floor in different colored tiles. He seemed to head over to something that looked like a shop


    Several other guards also headed over to the shop. It''s a candy shop… aren’t they spoiling the inmates a bit too much here? This place seemed popular and was selling quite well. I got concerned.


    I stole a lot of candy but only ate the peppermint of yesterday, it wasn''t that special, are adults supposed to be this addicted to candy? I inspected some candy I swiped. It looked like normal candy although no matter what different candy it was it seemed to have 1 ingredient that they had in common and I had no clue what this ingredient meant. What does Ergon mean? I never heard about this substance. I decided that it was fishy and that I won’t eat any more of this candy. Judging from this behavior it seems to be addicting. I put the composition of some candy through simulations and let the clone in the cell deal with this. Maybe something will come out that Gregory can use. If it is some drug or special substance, he might know something about it.


    I signaled to a clone that was sneaking around on this floor to pay attention to the behavior of these guards to try and figure out what the effect of this Ergon laced candy does. I incinerated the rest of the candy I swiped in a pocket dimension. I noticed that opening my pocket dimension went easier than ever the opening was also larger than normal. What is this place? I did a more thorough scan of this place and there seemed spatiotemporal mana mixed in with the ambient mana. I didn''t even know this was possible I thought that only the elemental mana was present in the ambient mana but this explains why this went so easily.


    Is it because of this black hole? I couldn''t look at it now but that was the only thing I could think of, a black hole is technically an enormous mass of spatiotemporal stuff. Just like a volcano would have a lot of extra fire and earth mana in the air I guess a black hole would do something similar although again ambient spatiotemporal mana isn''t normal…


    I saw something that looked like a control tower in the distance. I haven''t actually paid attention to these even though these might be the most important in getting information about this place. But first I want to see how the inmates act.


    I waited till 10:00 and saw the inmates leaving their cells. I followed some. Some went to do grocery shopping. They had some special currency here. They had their ID card with their names picture and their crime and used them to scan some device which seemed to subtract the cost of the balance they had as some virtual money. I''ve seen something like this in movies and games but never in real life. Outside of this place, we still use bronze, silver, and gold. Some returned to their cell, others started socializing. It just looked like a normal city… But every inmate I followed stopped at the candy shop.


    The vendors in these shops didn''t seem to be inmates or guards. They gave me an uncomfortable feeling; they didn''t feel human either but my eyes couldn''t identify what race they belonged to. I swiped some candy and inspected these; these candy seemed quite different from the ones that the guards bought. These didn''t have any Ergon but these candies had a substance called Mauropaidi. Probably also an addictive substance. The clone chilling in the cell had more things to work out now.


    Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.


    These words sound as if they come from an ancient language, they might be from the same language those skills my gramps taught me. I checked the status on them, and yup they still are difficult as fuck and my tails haven''t figured it out to the point where I can practice with them. Recently I checked how complicated [Tsunami] was and it’s about as complicated as these skills my grandpa tried to teach me, the difference is that Azu directly transferred this to me as opposed to me having to learn it and figure it out. If I ever meet her again, I should ask her how to do that because learning complicated skills the normal way is rough yo! Anyways things went well till noon, the inmates suddenly started to act odd and dispersed and headed to certain buildings in this sector. My clones observed the same.


    This section seemed to do things like stone cutting and carpentry and assembly. Another sector was processing crops and meat. Another was doing textile. Another one seemed to be assembling electromagic parts for electromagical devices. They weren''t just working they were working hard. These seemed like things that society would normally use slaves for. Hmm, I guess it looks more like a prison now but I''m not sure what prison would be better, a stereotypical cell that''s small and you''re stuck in it like that with no freedom but you also do not have to work your ass off or this… it looks like a peaceful city you have the illusion of freedom but you have to work your ass off. I guess they get paid in the credits they use to buy candy. But what if this candy makes them work like this, it’s just a vicious cycle. I’m not even sure if all these people are guilty.


    I swiped some ID cards. Most seemed to have crimes but I found some that are here because they were suspected of being involved in the disappearance of Ella, as far as I know, she escaped on her own so these people at least were innocent. The more I learn about this place the more unsettling it gets. I let one clone monitor the behavior of the inmates while another clone and I would head over to the nearest watch towers. Clone 3 was still chilling in the cell and running simulations, it seems he didn''t get restricted by the cell. He finished his simulations but I couldn''t do anything with this information, I achieved it and would get it to Gregory when I can.


    I decided to use this clone as a guinea pig. Clone 3 ate some of the inmate candy and I would wait and see how it would affect him. I looked up at what looked like a poor simulation of the sky, it was just the ceiling, this place tried to make it look like it was outside but it didn''t do a great job. It was also boring to watch them work in their slowed-down state. I wonder why there are so few watchtowers. I had to go through 7 sections before I reached it. My clone was still moving towards his. I sneaked inside and found a lot of guards eating donuts. I bet those are laced with drugs too. If this is the place where the guards rest why are there so few of these towers?


    I don’t understand, although these guards seem to have a slightly different uniform, are these of higher rank? The higher ranks slack off while the lower-ranked ones work their ass off, can’t say this is an unusual situation. Sounds about right. I pickpocketed these guards but they didn''t seem to have candy on them. No maps. I also listened to their conversations but they were only talking about stupid stuff. This is the shittiest watch tower ever! I listened to their bullshit but they really had nothing useful to say. The energy that was draining from me increased a little bit more. I assume they safely made it to Layer 7. My clone arrived at his watch tower but it was empty. it actually looked abandoned. I sent the clone to another watchtower. I also sent the clone watching the inmates to a watchtower. Clone 3 was acting strange he tried to outside even though his task was to stay inside. I went over to clone 3 and put an illusion on him and let him go outside. He headed toward the building where all the inmates were working their asses off and tried to work. I tried to make him resist this urge but he seemed to have difficulties.


    I shadow melded him and myself back to his cell and I tried to get him back in it but he was struggling. I dispelled him. This is interesting. It seems this candy makes them want to do all this shit. The information I got from this clone; it caused him to not even want to consider escaping. I did seem to have overdosed the clone but I guess this showed fast and clear results. Right, this might be a problem if Raishin is on this stuff, he is probably going to be weak to this stuff. Gregory might need to multitask and find something to counteract this. I tried to send him a Teleroad but it had static and didn''t really get through. Ugh, everything is trying to interfere here. I bet it''s this black hole’s doing. What a pain. I made a new clone 3 and sent him to the next layer and try to send a Teleroad from there. I will probably have to keep the clone close to them to make sure the communication will go without any issues. I think I should move over to the next layer; I’m wasting too much time here. This thing with these drugs still concerns me a bit. Since I was still in the north wing so I had to just head south to get to the next layer. I headed south and realized that this is a mistake.


    These layers use the black hole as the center of gravity which means I should go down; I need to find some stairs or an elevator. I went back to the watchtower. I’m assuming the entrances to deeper floors won’t be common and out in the open so they should be in these watchtowers. The clone that I want to send to Gregory and Ted for communication purposes didn''t find any stairs yet so he went to a watchtower too. I reached the watchtower and the guards were still talking shit. I sneaked around and looked for stairs but couldn''t find any. Also, no elevator. Maybe they use transporters? I had no idea what I was looking for. It was just a boring watchtower. I was convinced the method to go down was in this watchtower. This is such a pain. I bet Gregory and Ted found a discreet spot and just dug their way to the next layer. I looked down, there seemed to be a lot of dirt down and at a point ancient technology. Hmmm, how did they get to the next layer? Clone 3 didn''t have any luck either. This place sucks.


    I spent the rest of the day figuring out how to get to the next layer. I could really use Gregory’s advice now. Ted would try to talk to people. Is that going to work? It was nearing 21:00 and the inmates started to head over to their cells. Clone 2 saw some inmates buy some candy before heading over to their cells. Clone 2 used [shadow bind] on an inmate since I was curious about what would happen if he would miss his curfew. The clone made sure that this inmate actually had a serious crime. Hmm, this guy is here for fraud, right let''s see what happens. 21:00 came and nothing happened. The inmate did seem to become restless. The closer it became to 21:15 the more restless he became. He started screaming at 21:15 and guards started to head over to the inmate. It was quite dark so it was impossible to see that he was bound by [Shadow bind].


    The guards tried to move the inmate but he started to scream louder and his face seemed like he was melting. The guards were acting odd too they didn''t seem to adapt but just started to pull harder on the inmate while the inmates'' whole body started to stretch out and started to become thin. Well, this was disturbing. The inmate kept stretching and getting thinner until he bifurcated at the waist and turned into countless thin strands of uhm, meat, and blood splattered everywhere. It got all over the guards but it was as if a switch flipped in their heads and they just calmly walked away as if nothing happened.


    Totally not disturbing. At least now I know why these guys keep their curfew. Right, now I still need to get to the next layer. Clone 2 noticed something else that was odd. All the stores closed besides the candy store. Right totally not suspicious. I headed towards the closest candy store to me and clone 2 and clone 3 also headed towards a candy store. None of them were closed but the candy sellers were still inside and they still gave me this strange feeling. We sneaked into the candy stores. We were in stealth but these things… seemed to be looking at us but they didn''t react. I don’t like this; I don’t like this at all. The clones and I found stairs inside these candy stores. The things looked at us as we descended the stairs. It gave me goosebumps.