The heavy slab of the Warehouse gate retracted with a groan of protesting metal. Unlike the Armory, which had been a frozen snapshot of a massacre, the Warehouse looked like the aftermath of a frantic riot. Shelves were overturned, and massive storage crates lay smashed, their contents scattered as if an invading force had pillaged the room in a desperate hurry.
Despite the chaos, the floor glittered. Enormous mana crystals, larger and purer than anything the modern world had seen, lay discarded like common gravel.
"The purity of these stones..." Anne whispered, her eyes widening as she picked up a fragment that pulsed with a deep, violet light. "Even the High Assembly doesn't possess clusters this refined. They just... left them here?"
"They were in a rush, or they simply didn't care about wealth," Ethan remarked, his eyes scanning the room. He looked at Anne. "Do you wish to inspect the remaining sealed crates?"
