He continued calmly. "I found the entrance by accident. The floor of a building I was passing through had broken, and beneath it was a hidden space. It looked like no one had been there for a very long time."
Olivia listened carefully, her hands folded in her lap.
"I went down there," Julian said. "I don't have a better explanation for why. It was just curiosity. Something about the air inside felt different from the rest of the city."
He paused again.
"Inside, there was an inscription on the far wall. I didn't recognize the language at first. But the longer I looked at it, the more it started to make sense. Not like reading words. More like understanding the meaning directly, as if it was meant to be understood rather than translated."
He fell silent for a moment.
Olivia leaned forward slightly.
"The inscription contained a technique," Julian said. "It had no name, so I gave it one. I call it Mana Reversal."
