Genius Wizard Takes Medicine [EN]: Chapter 676

“Astrology, huh….”

Lenok had done similar things in the Machine City a few times, but those were just guesses based on intuition.

He had never actually used the techniques or abilities of divination.

A diviner who looks into the fate of others.

Not only did she foresee the destruction of Ars Nova, but she was also recognized by the Ascendants [beings of immense power] for her abilities?

If that’s the case, then it’s understandable why the senators are observing the situation with her.

It must be because she is a powerful practitioner and a figure who provides justification for concluding this matter.

They seem to believe that if Lenok agrees to the divination, they can trust the decision to some extent.

“……”

He doesn’t think it’s just nonsense or a lie.

There were seers in this world who had seen the branching points of the future that had reached their end and returned.

Unlike Antares, who returned after seeing one path of the ending, what would a diviner who glimpses fate tell Lenok?

The fact that he hadn’t easily approached the word ‘fate’ also made it intriguing.

“……Alright.”

He leaned on his staff and slowly walked towards the diviner.

Lenok, standing in front of the diviner, spoke to the senators looking down at him.

“If you’re thinking of ending today’s events with a divination.”

“……”

“However, I will hear the results of the divination alone.”

Lenok nodded, looking at the woman with her eyes closed.

“I believe it’s a rather personal matter. You wouldn’t be thinking of sitting there idly and eavesdropping on someone else’s fate, would you?”

“You don’t have to worry about that, Ban.”

Silford replied.

“Once the technique begins, no one will be able to peek at its progress.”

“……”

“Except for one observer to keep the two of you in the present, no one will dare to pry into your fate.”

“Observer?”

The chairman opened his mouth at Lenok’s question.

“Senator Meyer.”

Thump!

The one who rose from his seat was an old man who looked older than anyone else in this place.

However, his firm gaze and spirit shone brightly, transcending the flow of time.

The old politician who had recognized Lenok’s talent early on and tried to persuade him.

The greedy old man who started his career in the lower house was now a member of the Senate, sitting in this conference hall.

The chairman looked at Meyer and asked him.

“I believe you have a personal acquaintance with Kyunroe.”

“That is correct.”

“Could you be a witness in this matter, representing us and Kyunroe?”

“It’s not an impossible task.”

Meyer tapped the throne, and instantly the height of the throne lowered, reaching close to Lenok.

Meyer, who slowly walked to Lenok and the diviner, asked Lenok.

“Ban, is that alright?”

“I’m willing to consider it.”

Lenok replied quietly.

“I knew that I would have to coordinate with the Central Council at some point.”

He didn’t like the fact that he was being mediated by the Senate, but it would be a lie to say that the method itself didn’t pique Lenok’s interest.

A diviner who divines the fate of mortals. Moreover, she was recognized by the Ascendants for her abilities, so how could he not be interested?

It had become troublesome, but if he had Meyer, who was friendly to Lenok, as a witness, it was worth considering.

Meyer had been watching Lenok’s talent for a long time and had been in contact with him, so he would balance things out no matter what happened.

Meyer looked at the diviner, who was still with her eyes closed, as if she was a curious object.

“Her abilities are more recognized than you think. It’s my first time seeing it myself. It feels like I’ve encountered a strange souvenir….”

“Oh my, you’re sharp.”

Silford, who was smiling beside him, interjected, adjusting his top hat.

“Actually, her true nature is closer to that.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, she’s not just a convenient or skilled fortune teller.”

Silford glanced at Lenok.

“Well, you’ll find out once you experience it yourself.”

“If you’re ready, may we begin?”

The diviner, who had stepped forward, spoke in a gentle voice as she looked at Lenok.

“My time is limited. The moment I can leave my consciousness in the present is fleeting. Wandering beyond the sea, repeating sleep and awakening….”

She asked.

“Compared to drifting in the truth, isn’t what we do truly meaningless?”

“……I wonder.”

Lenok, who had been staring at the diviner silently, smiled.

“Would those who desire your abilities think so too?”

The fact that they had called the diviner to mediate could be understood if it was to confirm that Lenok was not a threat to Vulcan.

However, it is also true that he suspects there might be some hidden intention in this process itself.

The topic of Evan Bailon, which Armand had mentioned while trying to gauge Lenok’s reaction, and the creation of the Magic Tower that the Senate had offered as a deal.

Even the circumstances and the deal conditions that vaguely straddled the line between Ban and Evan.

Perhaps some of them suspect that Ban and Evan are the same person.

Lenok was vaguely aware of this, and he was willing to participate in the divination to dispel even that suspicion.

She took out a faintly glowing glass bottle from her bosom and put her hand inside.

The moment she sprinkled black powder that shone like starlight around Lenok and herself and slowly raised her magic power.

[Contraction: Star-Linked Mirror]

Whoosh!

As if black waves were rising on a sandy beach, a thick, jet-black curtain rose up, surrounding Lenok and the diviner.

Waves of darkness, where faint stars seemed to twinkle in the distant darkness.

A black sphere that rose from the feet of the two people rotated, isolated from the conference hall.

Seeing the space that had instantly transformed into an isolated zone that blocked external gazes, the senators nodded.

“It has begun.”

“About 15 minutes, was it?”

“I don’t know. Maybe it’ll end even faster….”

“……”

The senators stared at the dark curtain with unknown gazes.

The chairman also just stared at the dark curtain with eyes that revealed no emotion.

Silford looked up at the senators’ conversation and wore a strange smile.

* * *

Lenok’s eyes lit up as he looked at the vast dark curtain that surrounded him and the diviner.

“You’ve borrowed a unique concept. Is it literally a mirror that reflects the constellations?”

The width of the dark curtain surrounding the three people was not that large.

However, the overwhelming projection that seemed to evoke a vast universe made the dark curtain itself look infinitely wide.

Its purpose was similar to the lighthouse keeper’s celestial sphere that illuminates the night sky, but it felt completely different.

It wasn’t the sky seen from the ground, but a sense of unease as if it was reflecting the scenery of the outer sea without any additions or subtractions.

“Let’s begin right away.”

Lenok nodded as he looked at the dark curtain that reflected the universe.

Meyer looked around at the dark curtain with curiosity, then quietly stepped back as if not to interfere.

Lenok asked, looking at her with a strange smile, her eyes closed.

“Do you need time to prepare to use divination?”

“……”

Without answering, the diviner raised her face with her eyes closed.

As if looking at Lenok’s face beyond her closed eyelids, the woman stood like that for a while before her mouth slowly opened.

“You do not believe in fate, do you?”

“I don’t believe… It’s a little different from that.”

Lenok answered honestly.

Because he knew that even such questions were part of the ritual.

“I am not convinced of the correlation between fate and existence.”

Coincidence, inevitability, and fate.

Lenok still did not fully agree with the concept and order.

What Lenok had been doing all this time was always rejecting and deviating from the predetermined answer.

Instead of reflecting the heart of the past and present, he was looking for answers in the future.

The process where the ending is not visible exists under the infinite cycle of causality.

The process by which Lenok built up his hierarchy and found answers was always created by twisting the established laws and deviating from the path.

The diviner slowly nodded and took something out of her bosom.

“Seeing fate is not about observing and telling the predetermined cause and effect.”

She took out an old deck of cards and slowly turned them over, placing them down.

“Even though the possibilities that can be given to a person seem infinite, if you trace the trajectory along the time they have lived, you can discuss the flow.”

“……”

“I am simply tracing the trajectory of time along the movement of the stars and telling you the direction.”

“Are these cards tools for seeing such star movements?”

“The form is not important. The direction is also meaningless. As long as meaning can be contained by reflecting the constellations, it doesn’t matter what is used.”

She knelt in front of Lenok and smiled, pointing to the cards.

The dozens of cards were arranged in a teardrop shape.

“Pick one and check it. It doesn’t matter which one. Even the order of choosing is part of the divination.”

Following her words, Lenok picked up a card and turned it over.

At the same time, the scenery of the dark curtain above the two people’s heads flipped, and a specific constellation began to shine brightly.

She opened her mouth and explained.

“The first card is related to the wish you desire most at this moment. What is the scenery?”

“There’s nothing.”

“……Pardon?”

The diviner’s reply was slightly delayed.

Instead of answering, Lenok turned the card over and held it out to her.

On the front of the flipped card, only pitch-black darkness was swirling as if distorted.

“……”

Was she trying to convey a divination that the future was not visible at all in this way?

If she was trying to trick Lenok, it was quite an ingenious idea.

“Please turn over one more card and check it.”

The diviner, who had been silent for a while, spoke again.

“The second card implies the situation you are in now. What does it look like?”

“It’s the same.”

The front of the second card also only had an unknown darkness swirling.

“……The third card is about your connections and the person who will be your benefactor….”

“I only see a hazy mist.”

“The fourth constellation is about the dangers that will come and the countermeasures….”

“Something is moving… but it’s wriggling, so I don’t know what it is.”

“……”

The diviner also seemed to sense something was wrong and tilted her head.

Unlike the serious atmosphere at the beginning, the divination kept going to strange places.

Even after turning over a few more cards, only a black and whitish something that wriggled and swirled kept appearing.

No specific picture that would give any implication appeared.

The diviner, who had been silent, muttered.

“……That’s strange.”

“Such predictions can’t always go well.”

Lenok shook his head.

Considering the target designation resistance ability he possessed, it wouldn’t be strange if the divination targeting Lenok didn’t work at all.

Even if Lenok allowed the divination, it was not surprising that the technique might not work at all.

“No. That’s not it.”

However, the diviner immediately denied Lenok’s words.

“Divination is a divine art that tells the direction by comparing the flow of stars to humans. If the divination doesn’t work, the cards won’t even be arranged. It’s impossible for fate to stop like this. Unless the constellations themselves are fluctuating….”

“So?”

Lenok asked.

“Should we keep turning over the cards like this?”

“……Let’s try another method.”

The diviner, who had been contemplating, took out a crystal ball from her bosom.

A crystal ball that contained a pitch-black fog.

She held the crystal ball with both hands and stood up, carefully reaching out to Lenok.

“Place one hand on the crystal ball and align your gaze so that both eyes are looking at the center. When the time comes… Kyaaak!!”

Clang!

Before Lenok could even place his hand, the black crystal ball shattered the moment he glanced at it.

It exploded in the diviner’s hand, and the fragments cut her hand, causing blood to flow.

Without even thinking of stopping the bleeding, the diviner blankly raised her head.

Meyer, who had been standing silently behind them, also looked over here, slightly surprised.

Lenok looked at her and said.

“Isn’t this enough?”

“……”

Was it because he was a fated being? Or was it because he was a being who defied fate?

Perhaps it was because fate did not exist for Lenok in the first place.

Was there even a great will that governed the entire universe in the first place?

[Accept fate.]

The last message he had seen just before opening his eyes in this world.

There was still no answer. Only questions that kept popping up.

He had agreed to it out of curiosity at the words that he could see the fate of mortals, but the result was as expected.

However, the diviner bit her lip slightly and shook her head slightly at Lenok’s words.

“No, it’s not. The divination was definitely conveyed. I can tell.”

“……”

“There is something unexplainable here. It is with us. If we just reflect it…!”

“……Something unexplainable is here?”

Those words had a slightly different meaning than simply saying that the divination didn’t work.

Lenok thought so and inadvertently lowered his gaze to his feet at that moment.

“……”

His eyes sank coldly enough to freeze.

Meyer, who was watching from the side, called out to Lenok with a flustered look.

“Ban…?”

“……It’s moving.”

“What do you mean?”

“The pictures on the cards are moving together.”

Something black and whitish. However, the speed at which the colors reflected on each card wriggled and rotated was the same.

As if the pictures on the cards were not existing separately, but were divided and connected.

What did that fact mean?

“……I see. Were you watching this place from the beginning?”

Lenok muttered and began to turn over the mirrors one by one again.

The cards that the diviner had scattered were not reflecting different futures, situations, or dangers.

The picture contained in this deck of cards was pointing to only one thing from the beginning.

Every time he turned over a card and placed it on the floor, the whitish something that was wriggling drew a round circle.

From the outer edges, he turned over the cards and matched the picture to the center, and the shape became more concrete.

“Ah, ah, ah…!!”

The diviner, who was looking at the cards Lenok was turning over, realized the identity of the picture and trembled, stepping back.

Her eyes, which had gone blank, were half-open, and she was convulsing and trembling madly in place.

Crack, crack, crack…!!

Every time a card was turned over, the scenery of the dark curtain that the diviner had spread out began to crack.

As if it could not bear the scenery that was about to be shown, the mirror reflecting the universe was distorted.

“Ban?!”

After making Meyer, who was trying to approach in panic, step back, he turned over the last card and completed the picture.

“……”

A giant eye floating in the endless darkness.

The eye drawn on the front of dozens of cards slowly wriggled and looked at Lenok.

Below the pale pupil of the eye, sticky vitreous fluid flowed down like tears, as if it had been wounded.

The size of the eye was so large and enormous that it was difficult to guess its true form with just a few cards.

From the beginning, the divination was showing only one picture.

“Aaaahhh!!!”

Ignoring the diviner who was convulsing and vomiting blood, Lenok silently stared at the eye.

Because he was as sure as she was about who the owner of this eye was.

The Ascendant Gye Baek Sa Chul Operation that he had attempted in the Well of the Compendium [a place of immense knowledge].

The miracle of the magic gunner who shot the body of a fallen Ascendant as a bullet to the outside sea.

Lenok had shared his consciousness with the edge of the well and saw how far that bullet had reached.

The abyss of the outer sea. The end that swims in the distant universe and sings of destruction.

The wounded and bleeding outer god was watching Lenok.