Elius arrived at the library. He never knew that a library this big existed until yesterday. It had five floors, the first floor was accessible for everyone, but the rest was only accessible to the adventurers. With his current license, Elius could access up to the second floor. There were very few people other than himself on the second floor, and they all were immersed in the books they were reading. The library was huge, so he quickly skimmed through bookshelves since he wasn’t sure what he was looking for.

‘Something that can give me insight.’

He found a few books that he wanted and sat on the big table in the middle of the library.

‘Huhuhu this will be fun.’

Before he began to read all of the books, an idea popped up in his mind.

‘What would happen if I commanded mana to evolve in some way?’

* * *

“Are you sure about this?! This is outrageous!”

In the meeting room of the academy, Brett slammed his fist on the table. He was one of the SS-rank adventurers and a berserker. The muscles on his body were massive, and everyone in the room looked tiny next to him. There were six people in the room currently, the five SS rank adventurers and Idarin. He only called these five because he knew he couldn’t trust anyone yet. Hence he made a blood pact with them. Right now, none of them could lie about the knowledge they had on Silvershiv, and what was said would not leave this room. Helen turned towards Jay.

“Did you know anything about this?”

Jay shook his head.

“No. I hadn’t been in the empire for years before the emperor called us back.”

Before anyone could tell anything, Idarin spoke.

“More importantly, this is just more than that. I got some serious information yesterday.”

Cassandra raised her head in curiosity.

“Like what?”

“Silvershiv might be working with those demonic bastards.”

A silence fell to the room after hearing that. Silvershiv had thousands of members. If they were all involved, that meant the enemy’s number would increase drastically.

‘But what will they gain from this?’

Idarin was in thoughts. No matter how hard he thought, he could not find an answer to the question of what might be in their interest.

“Tsk.”

Helen clicked her tongue.

“How much time do we have.”

“Thanks to a certain someone destroying their business, we at least gained three more months. I just wanted to inform you about the current situation. In two days we will hold the tournament. Please choose your teams carefully.”

Idarin got up from his seat.

“But of course, since you are an adventurer, you can choose not to attend in the upcoming war. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have somewhere to be.”

Then he disappeared without delay, leaving behind five people, both confused and in deep thoughts.

Idarin appeared in a luxurious-looking meeting room.

“You are late.”

Idarin raised an eyebrow. Aaron was sitting on his usual spot, but he wasn’t the one speaking.

“King Chase?”

Idarin turned towards Aaron, but before he could open his mouth.

“I know, but trust me, Chase was also wasn’t aware.”

Idarin frowned.

“How is the king of assassins can’t realize something like this for years?”

“I know it sounds hard to believe, Idarin, but trust me, I constantly visited and checked the headquarters. Everything was as it should be.”

Chase tried to convince him, but Idarin was still frowning. He began to move towards Chase and reached his hand.

“Idarin! Stop!”

Aaron hurriedly got up, but Idarin’s hand was already on Chase’s head, and both of their eyes were glowing blue. A few seconds later, Idarin let his head go.

“Shit. I hate this spell. It always makes me dizzy.”

He said while holding his head. Chase also seemed dizzy.

“So?”

Aaron asked while trying to help Idarin get up.

“He is telling the truth.”

Chase took a deep breath and tried to control his dizziness.

“As soon as we got the intel yesterday night. I organized a group and went to strike them. But the headquarter was emptied. We couldn’t find anything, not even a single trace or mana residue.”

Idarin raised an eyebrow.

“How did you even get the intel?”

“Yesterday in my city, citizens reported an incident. My men quickly went to the scene and found a facility under a bar. A dead high-rank member of a Silvershiv in the facility and a sentence engraved on the wall saying, ‘Silvershiv and those bastards connected.’ We don’t know who left the message and massacred all of those people. But I can’t believe they produced that elixir under my nose.”

“The best place to hide something is in plain sight.”

Aaron nodded in agreement and continued.

“We are currently looking for every nook and cranny to find them. Idarin, please train the students properly. I’m not telling this because I want to use them as soldiers. They at least need to be at the level to protect themselves.”

Idarin smiled.

“Don’t worry, this year’s students are looking promising.”

Aaron sighed in relief.

“Good to hear. Thanks to the man who destroyed the facility, we gained some more time to prepare. We should use this wisely.”

Idarin cleared his throat.

“He was Victor.”

“Huh?”

Aaron couldn’t comprehend it at first, but a few seconds later, his eyes widened.

“What?! That bastard decided to crawl out of his cave?”

Idarin nodded.

“How do you know it was him?!”

“His son enrolled in the academy.”

“Who is Victor?”

Chase asked in confusion.

“Our friend.”

Aaron smiled and got up.

“Idarin, when is the tournament thing to put students in groups?”

“In 2 days. Why?”

“Save me a spot. Dismissed!”

Then he left the room without saying anything more. Idarin turned towards Chase and shrugged.

“Let’s keep in touch.”

And Idarin disappeared while Chase was blending in shadows.

* * *

In the afternoon, Ian was looking for Elius all over the academy.

‘Where the hell is he? Is he gone out?’

In the end, he gave up and knocked on Idarin’s door.

“Yes?”

Ian opened the door and went in.

“Mr. Idarin, I’ve come to tell that Lizzie woke up.”

He quickly went to the infirmary after hearing Ian. Nora was also in there, chatting with Lizzie. With the entrance of Idarin, they both turned their head.

“Hello, how do you feel.”

“I’m okay, thanks to you.”

Lizzy forced a smile. Even though she woke up, she still wasn’t fully recovered, but her complexion was much better than when she first came.

“Don’t thank me, thank the kids. So could you tell me what happened?”

“Sure, I was on my way to the academy five days ago, but the cart I was on got attacked by an assassin. I guess he was a Silvershiv member, and he tried to kill the cart owner, but I interfered. I just wanted to know what was happening because the owner seemed just a regular old man. However, there was also an adventurer traveling with us. He must have thought the same thing, so he began to fight with the assassin and won. Then he questioned him about something like a facility and killed the assassin without hesitation. After the night we parted ways with the adventurer, I got attacked and barely survived three days ago, but they kept coming for me. I don’t know what they want from me, but I’ve been running since then.”

She shivered in fear, and her eyes were teary. Nora put her hand on Lizzie’s shoulder and tried to comfort her.

“Come on. You are safe now. They can’t harm you here.”

‘They even went this far… And they tell me I’m a psycho. But this girl… She managed to survive. Good job.’

Since Idarin learned about the true side of Silvershiv, he was furious.

“We should protect her. We can’t know when they’ll strike again.”

Ian proposed.

“They won’t. It seems like we won’t be hearing anything from Silvershiv for a while.”

It confused Ian, but he chose to trust Idarin. After learning everything from Lizzie, they left her alone to rest.

* * *

‘Holy shit! Holy shit! Holy shit!’

Elius was sitting in the middle of the library while his eyes closed.

‘Just three more lines and mana will evolve? How could this happen? What will happen? I want to know!’

He was screaming inwardly since the moment he gave an evolve command to mana. At first, his expectation was close to zero, but now, he was about to finish connecting the lines after almost ten hours. His heart was pounding like crazy from all the excitement because he couldn’t guess what would happen.

‘Will it be a spell about evolving something? But I directly tell mana itself to evolve. Fuuu, finish already!’

He held his breath, connected the last line, and waited for a few seconds, but the number of his nodes didn’t increase.

‘So?’

He frowned.

‘Did I get scammed?’

He was about to open his eyes, but a voice echoed inside his mind. It was a woman’s voice, and she was yawning like she was waking up after a very long sleep.

“Huh?”

Elius panicked and wanted to look around.

“Who is that?”

He tried to open his eyes but failed.

“What the hell?”

He wanted to scream but couldn’t open his mouth then he realized that he couldn’t move his body. All of the sounds around him disappeared for a second, and his breathing began to accelerate.

*Chirp* *Chirp*

‘Birds? I was at the library what is happening.’

His anxiety was about to turn into fear, then slowly, his eyes opened. He found himself near a lake, looking at his own reflection on the water, but with an exception… It wasn’t Elius.

‘Who the hell is this?’

He examined the reflection. The face looked young. He had short black hair and a pair of black eyes full of life. He leaned closer to the water and examined his face.

“Hmm. What a handsome guy I am.”

‘I-I can’t move.’

All Elius could do was watch from the guy’s eyes. Then he was shocked after hearing the voice from behind.

“Julius, what are you doing?”

‘Julius? The founder Julius?!’

“Admiring how good I look.”

The man behind him sighed.

“Stop fooling around, and let’s go.”

“Fiiiine.”

Then Julius turned towards the man. That was the second shock for Elius.

‘What the actual fuck? What is Ian doing here?!’