Leaving behind the unresponsive robot behind in the staircase, I continued further into the fortress and found myself walking through in a passageway. The passageway was empty of decoration, yet had basic technology such as lights and switches.

However, everything seemed worn away by the passage of time; decayed and ancient, the lights were mostly broken and the walls were made of some type of black stone that had decayed overtime.

Looking around the decaying walls and rusty broken lights, I felt extremely confused.

Why was this place inside the tutorial?

It should be noted that when the Redeemers built the zones had a limited amount of time and worked on a quick schedule. They were desperately trying to create a chance of survival for themselves in this universe and reverse the universe’s eventual destruction.

All their legacies and heritages are all recently created to help those who survive the process grow stronger and give them a chance of overcoming the universe’s fate.

Where would their legacies have the chance to get old?

If this fortress was truly old, that meant this fortress was not be created by the Redeemers when confronted with the disaster of corrupted mana.

…but if the Redeemers didn’t create it, how did it get here? Was the fortress here before the Redeemers decided to utilize this place as the tutorial?

All these confusing thoughts swarmed around my head as I slowly walked through the desolate corridors of the fortress.

Despite my desire for answers, I restrained myself and carefully explored the fortress.

There were rusty robots in disrepair collapsed on the floor. The robots were similar in appearance to the robot that stopped me before, but in far worse condition. The mechanical creations had collapsed wherever they stopped functioning and had turned into junk over time.

The majority of the broken robots were in the passageway, while a few broken robots were inside various small rooms that were visible as I walked.

Eventually, while walking around blindly, I discovered a room that poured a bright light into the hallway.

The light poured out from a metal door that with secure locks and safety measures installed on it that was slightly ajar.

Forcing open a metal door, I gaze inside the room and found that it seemed to be some type of laboratory.

The room was recognizable as a laboratory from the test tubes, scientific machines, and robot slowly pouring liquid into a test tube. Unlike the decaying equipment outside, the equipment inside this laboratory seemed brand new.

My attention focused on the functioning humanoid robot in the room. Unlike the decaying humanoid robots outside, this machine was in good condition. The metal composing the robot’s body was clean, and the robot’s motions to pour liquid were precise and accurate.

Unlike last time, when I was caught unaware by the robot in the staircase, I believed I could bypass this robot’s scanning process.

I’d managed to bypass the teleportation beacon scanning methods with my unnoticed ability, there was a strong possibility that I could accomplish the same feat in this place.

Concentrating on hiding the basilisk bloodline, I entered into the laboratory. “Hello?”

The robot continued it’s pouring motion, before putting down the liquid and gazing in my direction.

“Life form detected… scanning.” The robot’s cold mechanical voice echoed throughout the laboratory.

While focusing the unnoticed ability to hide my basilisk bloodline, I was relatively confident the robot wouldn’t consider discover it.

“Scanning failed… Unknown intelligent life.” The mechanical creation’s green eyes stared in my direction emotionlessly.

The robot turned back toward the vials without caring about my existence any longer and mechanically stated, “Unknown intelligent life in restriction area. Administrator message to projected shortly.”

A message? Hmmm... interesting.

A middle-aged man appeared before my eyes. Judging by the occasional static in his image and acknowledgement my existence in specific, the man was a pre-recorded projection. The man was a scientist excitingly looking over the laboratory’s test tubes and rapidly writing down information on a booklet.

More importantly, the middle-aged man had white bunny-ears and a rabbit’s tail. When I looked at the older man in scientist clothing, it felt like a certain fantasy of mine had been destroyed.

Cute bunny ears belonged on attractive young women. They certainly didn’t belong on senior-aged men.

The act of seeing rabbit-ears on a middle-aged man in a lab-coat caused my internal fantasies of a race of rabbit-kin to be destroyed.

Sure enough, reality can never match the beauty of fiction.

“Ahem, behold! My life’s creation~” The old scientist laughed victoriously gestured toward the test tubes in the laboratory.

Apparently, the scientist was eager to show off the fruits of his labor and left this message to whoever triggered this projection.

Staring at the old scientist with a vigilant expression, I slowly and carefully walked closer.

In the direction the old man gestured, there was a sealed glass container with a black liquid inside. The black liquid had purple swirling throughout it and golden dots inside.

“Do you know what this is?!” The scientist stared toward the glass container with the black liquid.

I silently shook my head, despite knowing the projection couldn’t see me.

“Hope, my little friend! This is hope!” The rabbit-eared scientist proceeding to walk over and tap the glass. Despite only a projection touching the vial, the liquid inside seemed to swirl in a spectacular fashion from his touch, glowing slightly from the motion.

“It’s an embryonic universe, my life’s creation. Put this baby in the void, give it a bit of energy and time. Within a few billion years, you’ll have a fully grown universe.” The scientist laughed happily, but his explanation caused my eyes to begin to divert to the rest of the laboratory.

This was the most well-preserved place in this castle and it didn’t seem to have anything valuable. There were various medicines and liquids in test tubes, but I didn’t understand what any of them were.

The sealed glass container containing simple black liquid with purple swirls and golden dots was nothing important to my untrained eyes.

The laboratory itself could be considered of some value... but I couldn’t take any of the equipment with me. I wanted a treasure that would help me in combat later on. None of the material inside here qualified.

“Our universe will be destroyed.” The scientist explained, “The corrupted mana is only a symptom of the problem. There’s a beast, lurking in the void. It has been trapped by our universe since the universe’s creation. It desires the end of everything and created the corrupted mana, but we have a plan.”

The scientist excitedly projected a diagram onto the wall. “We’ll let the universe break apart and the void beast escape. Our souls and bodies will be reborn through this embryonic universe. While our current universe is accepting of outsiders, most other universes reject foreign life and there isn’t enough time to migrate. ”

The diagram showcased a circular universe getting swallowed by a massive beast. The beast left and the embryonic universe took its place shortly afterward.

The scientist said excitedly, “With this embryonic universe, we can have a peaceful and perfect universe to ourselves after the current universe is destroyed.”

The scientist continued speaking. “I wasted countless materials… fire dragon egg, ashes of a phoenix, tears of the siren, along with countless other priceless material… but I finally succeeded.”

To be honest, it felt like this projection was talking utter nonsense.

An embryonic universe in a bottle? Making a universe isn’t like making a weapon… how could someone make a universe from with a universe and fit inside a bottle?

All complete universes contain the building blocks of a universe, but those materials have already been warped into their final form. Trying to make an embryonic universe from those final forms is similar to trying to create a perfect clone from someone’s hair.

In the human body, cells are designated a purpose and those cell’s deactivate the DNA strains containing redundant or unused information. The cells optimize themselves for their own specific purpose.

The usage of cells with deactivated or tangled up DNA strains is why clones tend to have biological problems and barely works. All cells have a specific purpose and turning them into embryonic cells might be possible, but the cells will have tons of errors.

In a similar fashion, it might be possible to clone in a universe (heavy emphasis on the word ‘might’)… but the resulting clone would be considerable worse than the original universe.

The cloned universe would have a far shorter lifespan and more prone to disasters and problems.

Whether this scientist had succeeded in his creation, a clone of any universe would have multiple problems. His idea was flawed from the start (and I seriously doubt he has succeeded as he is claims).

Despite the scientist’s overexcited explanation of his work through the projection, his idea was flawed at the starting point. Far as I could tell, instead of trying to clone the universe, it would be a better to simply find a natural embryonic universe in the void (if that the goal was simply to survive).

I absentmindedly gazed toward the scientist’s proclaimed 'embryonic universe'.

It was only after reconsidering the middle-aged scientist’s thoughts on the void beast and need of this universe being destroyed that I suddenly understood why I felt the scientist was a complete idiot.

This guy was a cultist… not part of the Redeemer’s faction.

Well, more specifically, the ideals that the scientist was spewing out were the same as those cultists trying to accelerate the demise of this universe.

The only cultist I’d run into was that young kid Leonardo in the illusionary universe, but I recognized the cultist’s philosophy instantly.

A key portion of their philosophy was that this universe had to be destroyed.

This fortress must’ve been left over by the cultists, which explains why it seemed decayed and old. This place must’ve been abandoned or captured by the Redeemers.

Hearing the scientist’s explanation, I finally understood how those insane cultists managed to confuse so many people.

…But, as far as I could tell, their beliefs were just theories.

Theories with no evidence or information to back them up.

The cultist scientist might’ve made a great slideshow… but I’ve heard the logical, yet insane ramblings of those who believe the earth is flat (when Earth-chan is certainly not flat)… and I have long since understood that spaghetti logic almost never results in a logical conclusion.

Even if the scientist is correct and there is a beast in the void wanting the universe’s destruction, the idea that the proper response to such a threat is letting the entire universe be destroyed is pure insanity.

There is definitely a logical fallacy somewhere in this insane person’s logic.

Granted, the cultist had done a good job selling his philosophy and I had little doubt that he himself believed it.

However, the cultist’s belief that the universe had to be destroyed had little to do with me. This isn’t my universe. While it would be a shame for it to be destroyed by insane cultists… unless they seriously threaten our lives, we can simply find a way to leave the universe.

All we’d need to do is find a legacy of a group that escaped this universe and follow after them.

While I respected the Redeemer’s belief that wanted to save their universe and didn’t see want to see it destroyed… to be completely honest, this wasn’t my universe.

Survival is the most important factor… and Rin.