The Exit Anchor is the runic circle embedded in a wall in every Rest Area. It is the primary means by which adventurers leave the Tower and return to the surface.

Activation requires placing mana stones on the circle's payment points. The stones are not handed to any guild or institution — the Anchor itself absorbs them directly, the energy drawn inward through the runic structure in a process that leaves no residue beyond the faint warmth of a recently fed mechanism. Five seconds after the payment is absorbed, the portal activates.

Once active, the Anchor remains open for exactly one minute. During that minute, anything placed or pushed through the circle is transported to the surface — people, materials, harvested components, equipment. A party that sends four members through in the first five seconds and then spends the remaining fifty-five seconds passing materials through loses nothing. Everything that crosses the threshold during that minute is extracted.

The portal closes under two conditions. Either the full minute elapses with fewer than five people having passed through, or five people pass through before the minute is up — whichever comes first. The moment either condition is met, the Anchor closes and enters a twenty-five-minute cooldown. During that cooldown it accepts no mana stones and transports nothing. It simply waits.

After twenty-five minutes the Anchor is ready to receive payment again.

The cooldown is longer than most new adventurers expect. The common explanation — that the Tower makes leaving harder than arriving — is practically accurate even if it is not technically precise. The real reason is structural. An Exit Anchor must reach the surface, identify an Entrance Anchor that is not currently handling another portal, and hold that connection open long enough to transport the party through. In periods when many parties are extracting simultaneously across multiple active Tower instances, the surface Entrance Anchors are handling a shared queue. The twenty-five minutes reflects how long the system typically needs to secure a clean line. It is not a punishment. It is logistics.

Two rules govern every Exit Anchor without exception.

The first is capacity. Each activation transports a maximum of five people. A sixth person who attempts to pass through after five have already crossed finds the portal already closed.

The second is cooldown. Fifteen minutes between activations, without exception. Parties that arrive at a Rest Area and find the Anchor recently used either wait or make other arrangements.

The cost of activation scales with depth. Extracting from Floor 005 costs considerably less than extracting from Floor 025. This is not a Guild policy. It is a property of the Anchor itself, which demands more mana the further it must reach to return a party to the surface.

The Anchor cannot be destroyed, relocated, or bypassed. It is the only reliable way out.