Steeling himself, Kael walked forward before slowly sitting upon the throne.
The moment he settled into the seat...
His eyebrows lifted.
"...Comfortable."
That was the first thing he noticed.
Despite appearing to be carved entirely from solid-looking materials, the throne somehow molded itself perfectly to his body.
It wasn’t soft.
Nor was it warm.
Yet it felt strangely... perfect.
Almost as though the throne itself understood exactly what kind of support its occupant required.
Kael had never sat on anything remotely this comfortable.
Still...
Other than that...
Nothing happened.
He looked around.
"...That’s it?"
Surely Varek hadn’t summoned him all the way here just to show him an absurdly comfortable chair.
As if reading his thoughts, Varek calmly said,
"Master."
"Circulate your mana."
"Do not use any breathing technique."
"Do not cultivate."
"Simply guide your mana and run one complete cycle."
To an ordinary Awakener, those instructions would’ve sounded meaningless.
Mana was merely another resource displayed on a status window.
Something consumed to activate skills.
Nothing more.
But Kael was different.
After inheriting fragments of Varek’s memories, he already possessed a basic understanding of cultivation.
Without questioning further, he closed his eyes.
His breathing slowed.
His thoughts quieted.
Then—
His mana began flowing through his body.
One complete circulation.
The instant it finished the world around him changed.
Kael’s pupils constricted.
It wasn’t that the throne room had transformed.
Rather...
Reality itself seemed to peel apart before his eyes.
Invisible layers unraveled one after another.
The world no longer appeared as walls, pillars, or stone.
Instead...
It became an unimaginably vast structure.
Countless invisible threads intertwined with one another.
Endless patterns overlapped.
Every movement.
Every phenomenon.
Every rule governing existence itself seemed to reveal tiny fragments of their underlying structure.
It felt eerily similar to using Interference.
Yet also fundamentally different.
When using Interference...
It was as though reality opened a single machine before him, allowing him to understand how individual parts functioned.
This...
This felt like someone had dumped the blueprint of the entire machine into his mind.
Not complete.
Not enough to understand.
But enough to know it existed.
The sheer amount of information made his scalp tingle.
Kael abruptly stood from the throne.
His heartbeat had accelerated without him realizing it.
"...What the hell was that?"
Varek wasn’t surprised.
Instead, he calmly answered.
"What Master perceived..."
"...was Law."
Kael frowned.
"Law..."
He had heard that word a couple of times over the past few days.
Yet he had never truly understood what it meant.
But now, after sitting on the throne and witnessing what he did, he seems to understand it. It feels as if that so-called law was the very framework reality itself operated on.
If so...
Why had merely sitting on the throne allowed him to perceive it?
As though hearing the unspoken question, Varek continued.
"This..."
He swept his arm across the entire throne room.
"...is a Seat of Authority."
Kael blinked.
"The throne?"
Varek slowly shook his head.
"Not merely the throne."
"This entire pocket dimension..."
"...is a Seat of Authority."
Kael’s brows knitted together.
"A Seat of Authority..."
"What exactly is that?"
Varek fell silent.
For several moments, he searched through the fractured remnants of his memories.
Finally, he spoke.
"I... cannot remember everything."
"But I remember enough."
"A Seat of Authority is required for beings wishing to ascend to an even higher realm of existence."
Kael immediately thought back to the overwhelming entity whose mere gaze had nearly erased him.
So...
This place probably belonged to that existence.
Which made another question immediately arise.
"Is this that valuable..."
"How does it help me?"
Varek answered without hesitation.
"Master has not reached that realm yet."
"But once one reaches a certain level..."
"Growth no longer depends solely on accumulating energy."
"It depends upon comprehending Law."
"In the greater cosmos..."
"Even treasures capable of increasing one’s comprehension speed by a tiny fraction are priceless."
His gaze shifted toward the throne.
"But this..."
"...is on an entirely different level."
"A Seat of Authority exists upon conceptual foundations."
"It naturally reveals fragments of reality itself."
"By cultivating here..."
"Master’s comprehension of Law will increase many times faster than it otherwise would."
Silence settled between them.
Kael looked back toward the throne.
Although he couldn’t fully grasp the magnitude of what Varek was describing...
He understood one thing.
Anything capable of accelerating one’s growth became exponentially more valuable the stronger a cultivator became.
His own rise had only been possible because his talent granted him absurd amounts of experience and attributes compared to everyone else.
Growth accelerators were priceless.
And yet... Looking at the ancient throne before him a strange sense of caution still lingered deep inside his heart.
Kael remained silent, his gaze lingering on the ancient throne.
The opportunity before him was undeniably enormous.
Yet the memory of that terrifying gaze still lingered vividly in his mind.
Even now, recalling it made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up.
Seeing the hesitation in his expression, Varek finally spoke.
"Master."
"I can tell you’re having second thoughts."
He paused for a moment before asking respectfully,
"If I may ask..."
"What is troubling you?"
Kael didn’t hide anything.
He calmly recounted everything that had happened during his previous visit to the Instance.
From attempting to use Sovereign Claim on the Page Wraith to the horrifying pressure that had descended afterward.
And finally...
That indescribable gaze that had nearly erased him from existence.
The throne room fell silent once he finished speaking.
Varek’s expression had grown unusually serious.
After several moments, he looked at Kael and said,
"Master..."
"You’re incredibly fortunate."
Kael raised an eyebrow.
"Why do you say that?"
Varek slowly lifted a thumb.
"You survived after attempting to tamper with the Seat of Authority belonging to a high-level existence."
"...That alone is worthy of admiration."
Kael stared at the thumbs-up before letting out a helpless sigh.
For some reason instead of feeling praised he only felt stupid.
"I really was asking for death, wasn’t I?"
Varek nodded without hesitation.
"You were."
Kael rubbed his forehead.
"...Good to know."
However, another question quickly surfaced.
"There’s something I don’t understand."
"If I had simply killed that Page Wraith..."
"Wouldn’t the result have been the same?"
He folded his arms.
"In fact, had I never claimed you, I would’ve destroyed the Instance Core after clearing the Instance anyway."
"Wouldn’t that also destroy this place?"
"So what’s the difference?"
Varek contemplated the question for a moment before answering.
"Master..."
"Imagine this entire pocket dimension as a giant machine."
"Only..."
"It isn’t an ordinary machine."
"It is a conceptual one."
Kael quietly listened.
Varek continued.
"Every component within this machine serves a purpose."
"Every monster."
"Every rule."
"Every phenomenon."
"They are all parts of its complete structure."
He paused briefly.
"Killing one of those monsters..."
"Or even destroying the entire pocket dimension may simply fall within the acceptable rules established by that structure."
"They are damages."
"And damage..."
"...can be repaired."
His eyes became slightly more serious.
"But claiming one of them is different."
Kael narrowed his eyes.
"How so?"
Varek slowly explained.
"It is no longer a matter of damaging the machine."
"It is equivalent to removing one of its components entirely."
He pointed toward the throne beneath Kael.
"Imagine someone taking away one of the gears from a machine."
"Not breaking it."
"Not bending it."
"But erasing it from the blueprint itself."
"The machine permanently loses one of its intended functions."
He looked directly at Kael.
"If someone did that to something you painstakingly built..."
"Would you simply ignore it?"
Kael remained quiet.
After a while...
He slowly nodded.
"When you put it that way..."
"It makes a lot more sense."
Trying to enslave one of the monsters wasn’t merely killing it.
It was attempting to rewrite part of the Seat of Authority itself.
No wonder its owner had reacted so violently.
Another thought suddenly crossed his mind.
"Wait."
He looked at Varek.
"Are you saying every monster inside this Instance..."
"...is actually a part of the Seat of Authority itself?"
Varek nodded.
"That is correct, Master."
Kael frowned.
"But I killed them."
"If they’re part of it..."
"Wouldn’t that still mean the Seat loses something?"
He paused before another possibility occurred to him.
"...Or..."
"Are you saying they can revive?"
A faint smile appeared on Varek’s face.
"You are correct once again."
"They revive."
"I’m quite certain..."
"By now, every guardian within this Seat has already returned to its original position."
Kael’s eyes narrowed.
Without another word, his senses expanded outward.
Luckily, there was no mysterious barrier obstructing his perception.
His senses spread smoothly throughout the surrounding sections of the castle.
Although the fortress was far too enormous for him to cover completely, reaching the nearby areas wasn’t difficult.
Within moments...
He found them.
The Grey Shamblers wandered the same ruined corridors as before.
The Slothbound Knights silently stood guard in their original positions.
The massive Sloth Hounds rested exactly where he had encountered them.
Farther away, the Page Wraith floated quietly among endless shelves.
And not far from it...
The Cataloguer calmly continued organizing ancient books as though nothing had ever happened.
Every single one of them...
Had returned.
Exactly as they had been before Kael entered the Instance.