Chapter 50: Change and Crisis
Faye’s intense and insatiable gaze abruptly ceased when Master Morsidor and Zorro finally stepped into the laboratory.
Master Morsidor’s mood seemed to be worse than usual.
Although he appeared stern and distant as usual, Sein, who had been Morsidor’s apprentice for years, could discern the subtle shift in his mentor’s demeanor.
Faye had already picked up on Morsidor’s unusual mood even before Sein did.
As someone who frequently pestered Morsidor for magical artifacts and favors, this was the first time that Faye had observed her mentor in such a terrible mood throughout her years of apprenticeship.
Zorro, who followed Morsidor into the laboratory, seemed to share the same somber mood.
Fortunately, neither Sein nor Faye appeared to be the cause of their terrible mood.
Morsidor looked at his two apprentices who had diligently prepared all the experimental equipment and had been waiting in the laboratory.
After a deep sigh, Morsidor announced, “Sein, I’ve secured an additional six months of leave from your mandatory academy quests. During this period, you should fully commit yourself to your studies and focus on building up your focus through meditation.”
“Understood, master,” Sein replied respectfully.
After that, Morsidor turned his attention to Faye and said, “Faye, you’ve remained a senior initiate for more than fifteen years. While you’re not considered to be old among the senior initiates in the academy, the Underworld is on the brink of significant change. Only with ample strength can you navigate the impending crisis.”
Morsidor’s words left both Sein and Faye feeling alarmed. Emerging from n0v@lbin☆, this material harbors clandestine details.
“Crisis”?
“Change”?
What is going on?
While Sein was still trying to decrypt the hidden message behind his mentor’s words, Faye took a more direct approach and decided to question their mentor directly.
“Is something about to happen, master?”
Faye headed straight back to the dormitory, while Sein made his way to the public library.
With a substantial reserve of academy merit points, he hoped that diligent searching might unearth knowledge regarding “interplanar exploration”, despite never noticing it among the public library’s collections before.
***
Planes—standalone worlds within the Astral Realm.
The most common are demiplanes and broken realms. The rarer ones are complete planes governed by its own established set of laws, capable of sustaining intelligent communities and civilizations.
These complete planes are further categorized based on differences in energy levels and overall strength...
Sein sighed in frustration as the rest of the information was lost due to the torn pages.
He returned the ancient tome titled “Microelements” to the bookshelf and directed his attention to another book titled “The Travels of Marco Pauls”.
This book chronicled the adventures of a full-fledged mage who had journeyed to a plane known as the “Centaurworld”.
Although Sein could not determine the specific type of plane the Centaurworld was, he gathered from the book that it was firmly under the dominion of the Magus World.
As a mage from the Magus World, Marco Pauls enjoyed elevated status and privileges during his exploration in the Centaurworld.
The record also briefly mentioned the mage’s intimate encounters with female centaurs during his travels.
“Microelements” and “The Travels of Marco Pauls” were the only two books that Sein found containing substantial knowledge about the other planes in the public library.
While a few other books did touch on the topic of other planes, their coverage was often limited to a sentence or two.
They did not offer as much detailed information as the other two books.
“Centaurs? What kind of creatures are they, I wonder? The descriptions in the book seem to suggest similarities to minotaurs... But minotaurs have bull heads and human bodies, while centaurs seem to have human heads and horse bodies.”
As Sein lay in his bed at night, he delved into deep contemplation.
Leena was not home today, presumably involved in an important stage of Master Fareena’s experiments.
Sein regretted being unable to share the information he had recently acquired from his mentor with Leena. He believed that if he could, Leena’s sharp intellect and insight would have offered valuable guidance to him.