Genius Wizard Takes Medicine [EN]: Chapter 974

“Has he already entered the archive?”

Shandorei Thillian, an 8th-level black magician’s dungeon.

A giant baby lying in an obsidian coffin was facing Oliviera.

A tall woman with a transparent veil fluttering behind her, her hands clasped behind her back over a splendid robe.

Thillian, who was staring at the darkness spread across the dungeon corridor with a bitter expression, spoke softly.

“It took me over 20 years to understand Nox Biblio [a magical library] and freely enter it.”

[He is naturally gifted with senses.]

Oliviera replied slowly.

[He doesn’t seem particularly moved by it, but he possesses a divine spirit blessed by the heavens.]

“……That’s surprising. For you to praise someone else’s talent so highly.”

Thillian laughed.

“Didn’t you say that talent and destiny are fleeting standards, and that you would change them?”

[I did.]

Oliviera said.

[However, if there is an ultimate standard for the demonic castle, I am not foolish enough to deny it.]

“……”

[An ideal destination sought by retracing the entire world. Regardless of our wishes, it might have existed somewhere from the beginning.]

“Hahahaha… That’s absurd, Maze.”

Thillian muttered, looking at her with a hollow expression.

“For you, of all people, to be able to say such things now. Time is truly fleeting.”

[…….]

The black magician scoffed, and Oliviera responded, but their sentiments were not very different.

Oliviera, as well as Thillian, who had attended the meeting, knew how unrealistic Lenok was.

Even without delving into his every action, the time he had lived was enough to gauge the size of his vessel [potential].

A noble of the central city. A monster of unprecedented scale who had accumulated martial prowess and magical aptitude surpassing even the highest-ranking apostles of the Order in less than 10 years.

[If I were to guess his talent, adapting to the rules of the archive wouldn’t take him long.]

Oliviera’s eyes gleamed as she crossed her arms within her robe.

[Perhaps we might even meet the master of the archive, whom neither you nor I have ever met.]

“Yes, I understand that you have great expectations for that magician, more than you can even imagine.”

Thillian chuckled.

“So, what business do you have left with me? Even after using my favor to open the archive’s door, is there still something you want?”

[No.]

Oliviera replied, stepping forward.

[But considering our old ties, I have one last piece of advice to give.]

“Heh… Advice.”

Thillian shook his head.

“Alright, go ahead. I can guess what you’re going to say now.”

[If you don’t want to die, stop using the fragments of the Extinction.]

Oliviera’s eyes shone coldly from behind her veil.

Her gaze was directed towards the dry branches densely hanging around the obsidian coffin.

[If you saw Azamaha’s failure, you should know. The eternity you desire does not exist there.]

“……”

[The city government isn’t trying to revive the fragments of the Extinction. They just want to create biological weapons in preparation for war. And above all…]

Oliviera slowly tilted her head and said.

[That power is only permitted to the bloodline of the Underworld King. It’s a product of extinction that even the Underworld King himself has now given up on inheriting.]

“Yes. I know… I am not a member of that family.”

Thillian said, slowly rising from his seat.

At the same time as the giant baby stood on two feet inside the obsidian coffin, the branches connected to the coffin violently shook.

Swoooosh!!

A sound like something being violently sucked in was heard, and Thillian’s body began to contract on the spot.

The sounds of bones, muscles, joints, and flesh. The sounds of the skeleton and nerves being compressed and shriveled were heard, and his body was being transformed in real-time.

“What I have learned is the sorcery of the old world. The Underworld King’s black magic will not share the same world line as my formulas.”

Thillian, transformed into a ‘something,’ said as he walked out of the coffin.

“But what does it matter? All the causality of this world is already twisted and distorted.”

[…….]

“The beginning and the end will never connect again. Then, wouldn’t it be okay for me to take that place?”

Thillian whispered, forcing a smile.

[Take that place…]

“The Gabihaeng [a ritual] will surely end before the end of the world comes… That’s because that ritual is not inherently directly linked to ascension.”

Thillian said in a gloomy voice.

“Therefore, the fate of the Underworld King, conversely, could be the closest to ascension in this world.”

Thillian whispered, leaving the silent Oliviera behind.

“I want that power. I want the talent and destiny built upon death.”

[…….]

Goooooo…!!

Thillian, who slowly walked forward, muttered with a cracking sound.

“So don’t interfere. Oliviera. Before the ending you’re waiting for, I will swallow everything instead.”

[The ending I’m waiting for? Your words are wrong.]

At the same time as Oliviera raised one hand forward, she swept her veil aside with her hand.

Oliviera stared at Thillian with her seven-colored magic eyes and coldly muttered.

[I have never waited for anything.]

* * *

[I’ll stop here.]

In the endless darkness.

Lenok, who was walking along the corridor of the archive, stopped in front of the bookshelf that the skeleton librarian was pointing to.

The skeleton glanced back at Lenok and quietly stepped aside.

There seemed to be a faint smile mixed in the gaze looking at him, but it was impossible to read the skeleton’s expression.

[In front of this archive, the minds of the librarians are forcibly closed. This is to prevent our minds from being contaminated by incomprehensible information.]

“……”

[I hope you achieve what you desire…]

With those words, the light in the skeleton’s eyes slowly faded.

Like a machine that had lost its will and only responded to commands, it silently passed Lenok and focused on organizing the archive.

However, instead of entering the archive section that the skeleton had guided him to, Lenok was silently looking at its back.

Was that skeleton librarian mistaking someone else for Lenok?

Or had the past Lenok really visited this archive sometime?

There were so many possibilities to consider that he couldn’t be sure of the answer.

In the end, it was a problem that could only be solved by directly checking the archive section, as the librarian had said.

Thud.

Lenok, who had been pondering, pulled out a grimoire from the bookshelf.

The bookshelf that the librarian had guided him to. Among them, the book that was placed closest to his hand.

Surely, this was the very book that someone the skeleton librarian had mentioned looked at most often.

[Fate Sealing: Àΰú¿ªÀü]

“……”

The title of the book was written in characters that were half understandable and half incomprehensible.

Lenok frowned and immediately turned the cover.

====

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I leave this writing from beyond the fourth.

====

On every page of the book, bizarrely distorted characters were written that were impossible to even understand the meaning of.

Only the phrase written at the end was translated into understandable characters.

Thinking that far, Lenok understood why he couldn’t decipher the title and contents of this grimoire.

“……A grimoire from the old world.”

It was not a character used in this world in the first place.

If it were in the form of a formula, he could understand it, but the moment it was written out in the characters of the old world, it became impossible to understand.

As Oliviera had said, finding the formula information he wanted in this dark archive was solely up to the user’s knowledge.

‘It’s difficult, but it’s not impossible.’

Although the surroundings were filled with only incomprehensible characters, Lenok was not shaken.

Oliviera had told him to ‘borrow’ an astronomical formula to distort the orbital period of the barrier from this archive.

That was possible because the astronomical formula that existed somewhere in the archive existed in a form that Lenok could understand.

Lenok immediately closed the grimoire and placed it back on the bookshelf, and calmly began to examine the other bookshelves in the archive.

Rustle!!

He passed by a bookshelf of grimoires written in characters that seemed to contaminate the eyes just by looking at them.

He also passed by a bookshelf piled with bundles of parchment that were not written with characters but only with bizarre drawings.

Jars, sculptures, animal furs, horns of magical beasts.

He ignored all the old antiques that made him doubt whether this was an archive or a museum.

The important thing was whether Lenok could understand and interpret the form.

At that moment, as he was quickly scanning his surroundings while repeating that in his head.

Thud.

Lenok stopped walking when he realized that the skeleton librarians who were wandering around the archive were all looking back at him.

“……”

All of them, carrying books and transporting them, were just silently staring at Lenok with blue flames flickering in their eyes.

It was a strange sight, as if they had just now recognized Lenok’s existence and were watching his movements.

When Lenok stood still, the skeletons slowly began to move one by one.

They slowly began to organize the books again, classify the parchments, and move the bookshelves to adjust the position of the archive.

Why did they discover Lenok? What was the trigger that made the skeletons react?

Lenok, who had stopped in place for a moment to think, realized that some characters had appeared under his feet.

[Do not run in the archive.]

“……”

A warning that was so absurd that even Lenok, who had been slightly tense until just now, could only smile bitterly.

However, Lenok was rather convinced that his guess was close to the answer as soon as he saw this warning.

Unlike the books written in incomprehensible characters all around, the warning that appeared under his feet was in the continent’s characters.

A phrase written in characters and language that Lenok could understand.

Surely, somewhere in this archive, there must be grimoires or formula information written in characters that Lenok could interpret.

“……Alright.”

Lenok found a bookshelf with grimoires written in characters that he could understand.

He had come a long way, so far that he couldn’t even remember the path he had first taken, but Lenok didn’t bother to care.

Since the space of this archive was not three-dimensional, remembering the path and retracing it would not lead to an exit.

To physically escape this archive, a different method would be needed.

“The title of the book is…”

[The Three Infallible Curses Guaranteed by Akramushu with His Name, Fortune, and Status]

[The Concept and Definition of Sorcery. And the Distinction Between Sorcery and the Trashy Techniques That Pretend to Be Sorcery.]

[How did Staut Become the Coolest Black Magician in the Pre-Continent?]

“……”

He didn’t know when they were written in strange characters, but the titles of the grimoires were quite familiar.

Perhaps the black magicians who created the grimoires also made their own efforts to get their disciples or successors to read the books.

Lenok, who felt a sense of humanity from the ancient black magicians in an unexpected place, looked around the bookshelf with a disgruntled expression.

[Black God Demonic Art]

[Yin Chain Ghost Script]

[888 Trigram Curse]

“Is it about containing darkness in the body to replace the role of a microcosm? A way to become both a sorcerer and a warrior…”

There were also several grimoires that seemed quite serious, and books or parchments that contained quite tempting formulas or spells.

The entire content was not written in understandable characters, but if the proportion of strange characters was less than half, it was possible to read it while guessing the context.

“Meditation in the darkness for 49 days. If you pluck out your eyes and memorize the spell, the eyes without pupils will grow back on their own… for the awakening of reversed vision…”

“The method of killing 100 people. Receive the blood of 100 people and bathe for 100 days. If even one person dies, the training starts over from the beginning…”

“Restricting the formulas that can be used according to feng shui, and increasing the power of curses of a specific system by four times…”

As befitting the name of the Sorcery Archive, it was full of unique formulas that were bizarre or beyond imagination in their very conception.

The conception and training methods were so different that even Lenok became engrossed in looking at the grimoires for a while.

However, if he became engrossed in looking at the grimoires like this, he would have to read books in the archive for the rest of his life.

It was a shame, but it was reasonable to pick up a few formulas that seemed useful and move on.

[Black God Demonic Art], which contains darkness in the whole body to replace the microcosm, and [Hellfire Illusionary Bow], which manipulates an unquenchable flame in the shape of a weapon.

Lenok, who had picked out two grimoires that seemed useful right away, immediately moved on.

Unlike when he first entered the archive, his steps were smooth as if he had memorized both the direction and the location.

From the moment he had looked through a few readable grimoires, he had been able to recognize a clear ‘regularity’ that existed in this archive.

‘The grimoires and parchments gathered here are not stored without any rules.’

From the point where grimoires that Lenok could read existed, it was clear that the formulas of Nox Biblio were not classified randomly.

The existence of countless skeleton librarians who manage this dark archive was also to periodically classify and manage the grimoires of the archive.

The important thing was to understand that regularity and guess the location where the information Lenok wanted might be.

Black magic. Curses. Necromancy and command magic. Dark contracts. Demonic arts.

Among the information and flow of all kinds of formulas classified as sorcery, the information that Lenok could find was-

“It’s here.”

[Celestial Formula: Miniature Garden]

A thick book with only a short title written without any modifiers.

Only a small drawing that seemed to depict the stars hanging in the night sky was scribbled under the cover of the book.

The formula contained in this grimoire was the celestial formula that would provide a way to change the orbital period of the barrier and enter the outer city.

The very method to reach Kundara that Oliviera had mentioned.

All that was left was to borrow this grimoire as Oliviera had said.

However, Lenok’s expression, who had picked up the book and opened the pages, frowned as if he was momentarily perplexed.

===

In the name of the Heavenly Emperor who embraces and watches over the sky.

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===

Unlike the title of the book, most of the text was written in incomprehensible strange characters.

He had passed by all the books written in strange characters so far, but if the celestial formula was written like this, it would be troublesome.

“……”

Why could he understand the title of the book, but not the main text?

In the first place, why was this grimoire written with two different characters mixed together?

Should he ask Oliviera about this fact, or does he need someone else to decipher the characters?

Since the opportunity to enter the archive was limited, he had to make a quick decision here.

Just as Lenok was pondering with the grimoire in his hand, someone’s voice echoed softly from behind him.

[Do you need an interpretation?]

“……!!”

A voice with a will that was so powerful that it was on a different level from that of the skeleton librarian he had met earlier.

Kugwagwagwa!!!!

At the moment when Lenok’s face hardened at the voice that echoed without any warning, the bookshelves split open on both sides and turned into a huge road.

At the end of the road filled with darkness, a mountain of parchments and books were piled up.

And someone with their back turned was quietly tilting a pen among the piles of books.