Magic Blessing

This library had been hollowed out and painstakingly chiseled from a kind of black stone.

The stone itself was not particularly hard, yet it could unbelievably block the Peering of most Great Old Ones other than the Outer Gods.

As long as no active connection was established, the Outer Gods could not affect any living being inside the stone.

That was why the Great Race of Yith had chosen to build this library, which contained nearly all the dangerous knowledge in the universe, within this stone.

According to Merlin's records, this stone had belonged to another native race of Earth at the time—an intelligent higher lifeform of crustaceans resembling upright crabs. After the Great Race of Yith discovered the stone's wondrous properties, the two sides had jointly built this library.

However, because Earth's natives at the time did not possess knowledge as vast as that of the Great Race of Yith, the joint library had been bestowed with three magical blessings by the Great Race of Yith.

One was called Knowledge. Every intelligent lifeform that visited this place could pass through words and face knowledge directly.

One was called Time. Every intelligent lifeform that visited this place had as many chances to avoid madness as the number of fingers on one hand.

The third was called Sanctity, an elevation of the stone's own peculiar nature. No contaminated mind could enter this library.

These were three great magics that had never faded, even after the passage of countless years.

And the reason for this arrangement...

Was that the race possessed by the Great Race of Yith had seven fingers. Their allies, those crab-like crustaceans, had pincers for hands, which counted as two fingers, while their mortal enemies, the Flying Polyps, did not have a single finger at all...

Yet even so, it could not completely erase the influence of unspeakable beings.

Some beings existed independently outside the fourth dimension, far beyond the limits of human comprehension.

According to Merlin's speculation, these two magical blessings might have been used by the Great Race of Yith to overcome difficult research problems.

Whenever some research reached a dead end, the Great Race of Yith would arrange a ritual outside the library to contact one of the Great Old Ones in the universe, most often Tawil At'umr, an avatar of Yog-Sothoth, one of the Three Pillar Gods.

This Outer God, who represented Yog-Sothoth's merciful side, sat upon a massive stone pedestal beyond the first Silver Gate at the ultimate abyss of the universe. He delighted in granting endless knowledge to any living being capable of passing through the Silver Gate—

So long as they could bear the weight of that knowledge.

After researchers of the Great Race of Yith were driven mad by the avatar of The All-in-One and then traveled back through time, their souls would always retain vast amounts of knowledge they could accept.

Just as when Tierra had been contacted by the Outer God corresponding to the Profound Lord's Seven Chapters Secret Scripture, two wondrous magical marks had been left upon his soul.

This magical blessing called Time could save him from anything except directly facing Azathoth or the Three Pillar Gods, or recklessly going toe-to-toe with other Great Old Ones on the level of Outer Gods.

In the eyes of those academic prodigies from the Great Race of Yith, this ability existed to further explore the truth of the world, not to save their lives from Great Old Ones.

Unfortunately, Tierra had wasted one such chance.

But Merlin had been far more reckless than Tierra. Tierra had at least come from modern society, attended university, taken postgraduate entrance exams, and read the Cthulhu Mythos thoroughly, so he had only wasted one chance.

Merlin, on the other hand, had lost three fingers right from the start.

By the time he truly understood what all of this meant, it was already too late.

This had also caused Merlin, the famed grand mage, to suffer extremely severe mental contamination from the Outer Gods in his later years—so severe that he seemed to have become a completely different person, a mad, cruel, unreasonable humanoid monster.

During the last time he was lucid as Merlin, he wrote the contents of the parchment Tierra now held in his hands.

"Wise one who does not belong to this time and space, traveler from another world, I foresaw your arrival..."

"I have done my utmost to remain lucid and write the following words..."

"Do not use up your five chances..."

"Do not attempt to contact the Great Race of Yith, at least not before you are in the same dimension as them..."

"You may choose the Supreme Mother Goddess..."

"If possible, please come find me. I have placed my coordinates on bookshelf III of the fourth floor, but do not attempt it lightly before attaining a divine dimension."

"If I contact you of my own accord..."

"Hide inside. Hide in the library. I cannot enter..."

After reading this passage, Tierra silently pressed his palms together.

Hope he's fine.

If he isn't, don't contact me.

Tierra flipped through several more parchments. This time, he did not merely read the beginnings, but read them from start to finish.

Since Merlin had foreseen his arrival, then given Merlin's mental state when he had been able to enter this library, he should not have left anything harmful in his own notes.

At least in that respect, Tierra could read them without worry.

It had to be said that a grand mage's notes were immensely helpful to a novice like him who had only just begun to encounter magic. Merlin himself had grown from an illiterate farm boy into a grand mage of his generation, and his notes covered nearly everything, from how to first draw out one's own magic power to the nature of magic itself.

Tierra stared at the parchment in his hands.

"Yujia Dili, Ur, Osalia." Tierra silently recited the incantation in his mind as he gently released the parchment with both hands.

The parchment seemed to pause in midair before drifting downward.

This was the Levitation Charm recorded in Merlin's diary, the simplest spell and the one most suitable for beginners to use in drawing out their own magic power.

Although Tierra had successfully cast the Curse Worm before, the Curse Worm was an instinct engraved upon his soul by an Outer God. Before he learned to guide his own magic power, the Curse Worm drew upon his mental strength rather than his own magic power.

Therefore, he still needed a simple spell to draw out the magical power that belonged to him.

"Yujia Dili, Ur, Osalia." This time, Tierra spoke the incantation aloud.

The parchment in his hand seemed to show a tendency to struggle upward, but after Tierra reached out, it still fell to the ground.

"Yujia Dili, Ur, Osalia." After roughly forty or fifty attempts, the parchment in Tierra's hand finally floated shakily in midair.

But after a dozen or so seconds, the parchment quickly dropped back down.

Tierra also felt a chill run through his entire body, and he collapsed into the chair as though utterly exhausted.