Rivers of the Night

Theron's gaze didn't so much as flicker when he saw the woman's rage. He had a guess in his heart, and if he was correct, he had made the correct choice.

There was no one in the world that could just decide what Mancy Path they were. These four statues looked like they were set up as real people, but they were likely incredibly far from that reality.

It was more likely that they were item spirits.

Much like Imbued Resonances, Theron had only caught faint snippets of this concept. He wasn't even really sure what level of treasure you had to be to reach this stage, or how to even create them, but what he was certain of was that these projections weren't real people.

As a result, they were certainly bound by rules, rules set by whoever created this realm and also whatever bound their treasures.

The words of the woman were very carefully chosen.

Will you take the rewards of the Bronze Mancer? Or will you attempt to take those of the Silver?

There didn't seem to be anything wrong with them, but rarely did anyone ever just refer to Mancers as "Silver." Most times, one would say Silver Mancer or Silver Resonance, at the very least.

The use of "take those" was also quite vague. It was like she had front-loaded all of the information, trying to get Theron to make his own assumptions and fill in the gaps of the latter.

Honestly speaking, Theron wasn't some mind reader, and though he thought he was intelligent, just this sentence alone wasn't enough to get him to feel that something was wrong. Instead, it was the fact that he had felt something wrong first that he grasped the other problems.

This was the first time he had faced another Water Mancer in combat. That was to be expected; Water Mancers weren't usually adept in battle, they were most often in the backline acting as support healers.

That was why he was confused… was he always able to read the emotions of Water Mancers so easily? It practically felt like this woman's mind was an open book.

She was plotting, scheming, sinister down to her very bones.

And she was filled with killing intent.

But Theron couldn't understand why.

What he was clear about were two things. He didn't actually need to face the Silver Mancy challenge at all. He was a Bronze Mancer, not a Silver Mancer. Because he had cleared it as a Bronze Mancer, all of the rewards available would obviously, likewise, be accessible to him.

What this treasure spirit was trying to do was to get him to challenge the Silver Mancy version of herself of his own volition. In fact, because they hadn't specified which level of Silver Mancy, he doubted that she would just choose the First Resonance either.

The second thing he was sure about was that she wanted to kill him because of his talent. And he wasn't sure how that aided her at all.

Sure, he had heard of taking over bodies before… mostly in fairy tales and stories. But even assuming that it was possible, a treasure spirit was bound to their treasure. One of the fundamental laws that governed them was that they would always be.

It was hard to fathom how it would even take advantage of his body even if Theron presented his neck to it.

"…" The young woman paused and then cleared her throat. "… Are you sure, little brother? You know, all the great geniuses of the world love to take on challenges."

"I'm sorry. I will have to disappoint you." Theron said lightly.

Once again, her words didn't allude to exactly what she wanted.

"I—."

"Please take me to my rewards." Theron interrupted.

The body of the young woman stiffened. As though compelled by something, her body was ejected, the projection jetting through the air and slamming back into her statue where her aura completely vanished.

Theron frowned as he watched this, still not understanding why she was so adamant about his life.

However, he didn't get a chance to consider it much before the moons above began to rotate. As they moved, the world seemed to shift.

The ground beneath his feet slid, but he felt like he was still in place. But his vision warped and twisted just the same.

And then it all came to a stop.

Theron found himself standing in the middle of a library truly endless and unfathomable in scope.

'A library…?'

As much as Theron liked books, he certainly couldn't stay here his entire life, and even worse, these weren't the sort of rewards that he had risked his life for.

He had gone through all this trouble in hopes that he would find the resources he could rely on to reach Gold Mancy as quickly as possible.

Everything he had learned about this Secret Realm, either directly or indirectly, told him that it was harboring a great secret.

Maybe that secret was in these books. If there was anyone that understood the power of knowledge, it was certainly him. But…

This just wasn't enough. No, more accurately, it wasn't fast enough.

Theron took a breath and calmed himself. Then, he began to do the only logical thing.

Walk around.

Who knew if there was something else?

Slowly, he made his way through the library, lines upon lines of bookshelves as tall as 20 meters up shimmering beneath the moonlight above.

There really didn't seem to be anything here other than books…

Until Theron made it to the center.

There, there was a wide space, circularly in form, and carrying the etchings of a complex magic circle.

It reminded him of a Forbidden Spell.

'Hm?'

Maybe it was because he had been staring at those booklets for so long, but this etching felt familiar.

Theron raised his head to the nine moons above, his eyes narrowing.

'… Interesting… how do I align them? Do I just need to wait for their cycles to complete?'

Theron looked down from the nine moons, picking out nine nodes in the formation beneath him.