The Statue Moved

"You know him so well, but you don't even know this?"

"..."

She really didn't know.

The only thing she could be sure of was that if the Void Arts Space had truly been created by him, it must have been after he had reached the Divine Path. At this point in time, while he was secretly meeting with the Saintess, the version of him in her dream still had no idea the Void Arts Space existed.

Sean's mind raced. He pressed the girl, "Why did he create the Void Arts Space?"

"To exchange academic knowledge and search for a way to break through the limits of the human body," Elvily replied. "That way was called the Divine Path. During the Scholar Era, it was the lifelong pursuit of every Archmage."

"Did they succeed?"

"I don't know."

"What about Karl Black?"

"I don't know."

"What happened to him and the Saintess in the end?"

"...I don't know."

Sean complained, "How come you don't know anything?"

Elvily: "?"

Now he was blaming her?

She realized this guy had a lot of questions, like a walking encyclopedia. Displeasure showed on her pretty face. "Are you trying to get material from me?"

Sean: "..."

That was a pretty good excuse.

"I'm not talking with you anymore. I have a meeting to go to." The awakening of knowledge, like the recovery of memories, happened in stages. Elvily actually knew some things about Karl Black and the Holy See's Saintess, but for personal reasons, she didn't particularly want to talk about the two of them. And she couldn't keep chatting with Sean or she'd be late.

Sean had no choice but to let it go. He couldn't hold the girl up when she had something important to do.

Iris smiled. "You can come with us. You probably won't be able to enter the Hall of Truth, but you can look around nearby."

Outside the Hall of Truth was a small plaza. Many people liked to gather there and chat while waiting for a chance to enter the hall, so it was lively every day. It was one of the few havens for wizards whose lives had been full of hardship.

Sean nodded obediently on the surface, but inside, he was turning over his own little schemes.

He didn't entirely agree with Iris.

It was reasonable that ordinary wizards needed to meet certain requirements to enter the Hall. After all, they were outsiders.

But he was different. He was the owner.

According to the Flame Crow Girl, the Void Arts Space was like his home, and the Hall of Truth was just one of the doors inside it. Outsiders couldn't open it, but that didn't necessarily mean the owner couldn't.

He needed to find a chance to try.

Sean hadn't paid much attention to the so-called treasure trove of knowledge inside the Hall. It wasn't that he wasn't interested; nobody would turn down more powerful spells. But what he needed more right now was magic power. Without a high enough tier, even if he understood how advanced spells worked, he couldn't cast them. He'd only be a theorist.

Sean had never been one to reach for the impossible.

But after learning that he might have created the Void Arts Space himself, his mind had changed—those were all his treasures.

Though the True Formula had temporarily helped him shake Quill's surveillance, his situation was still far from safe. As long as the Witch Hunt continued, he could face an even greater crisis at any moment.

He had to make use of every resource at his disposal and grow stronger as quickly as possible.

They arrived at the plaza.

The two girls parted ways with Sean and entered the Hall of Truth.

Just as Iris had said, the plaza was packed. If you ignored the translucent, illusory quality of the people and buildings, it was no different from a bustling pedestrian street in a big city. The only thing missing was the touch of color that signified reality. Sean even saw someone setting up a stall by the roadside.

He was curious. Wasn't the Void Arts Space an illusory world made entirely from mental power? How could anyone do business here?

He walked over and asked a young vendor.

"New here, huh?" The curly-haired young man grinned as soon as he heard the question. "Can't you see my stall's full of paintings?"

But he wasn't actually selling paintings. He was selling the potions depicted in them.

Business here didn't involve immediate payment and delivery. A fictional world didn't allow you to settle up on the spot, either. Transactions worked more like online shopping: once they agreed on a price, both parties left their payment accounts and shipping addresses. Buyers and sellers didn't meet in person, and for safety, many wizards used fake information when doing business to avoid revealing their hiding places.

"I see." Sean looked enlightened.

"I'm Charles. Want to be friends?" The curly-haired young man held out his hand to Sean. He didn't look down on him for being new. He had only recently become a wizard himself, though he specialized in alchemy. The potions in his paintings were all made by him.

"Then how can you guarantee they'll work?" Sean joked. "I'm Sean."

"Don't underestimate me. I'm really talented. My teacher calls me a genius all the time." Charles retorted, then suddenly realized something was off. "Wait a second. What did you say your name was? Sean?"

Sean was confused. "Is there a problem?"

"Which Sean?"

Sean: "..."

"Sean as in Sean?"

Charles: "..."

He choked for a moment, then asked, "Did you write The Moon and the Knight?"

Sean was taken aback. What was going on?

Had he run into one of his readers?

Sean kept his guard up and didn't answer right away. Instead, he asked, "Are you a fan?"

Charles nodded. "Yeah."

Sean pressed him. "How much of a fan?"

"Enough to turn black."

Sean: "?"

Damn, a hater?

He was still an author. Even with his new identity as a wizard, he couldn't immediately detach himself from his ordinary life, and his professional habits were bound to show. He instinctively felt the need to defend himself. "I don't remember anything in the book that should make people angry."

"There isn't," Charles said. "But it's way too short."

"A full-time author, only updating one or two chapters a day? What kind of nonsense is that?"

Sean defended himself. "Writing a story is hard work. It's not as easy as you think."

In a way, it was a bit like magic. Magic used up the body's cells, while writing used up brain cells.

"Hard work? What's so hard about it?" Charles said indignantly. "He writes novels. Can't he just keep his head down and write? We readers are the ones who have to think about all sorts of things."

Sean: "?"

"So was it you or not?" Charles asked.

Sean flatly denied it. "No."

Charles eyed him suspiciously. "Really?"

"Absolutely not." Sean changed the subject. "Do you know what it takes to enter the first level of the Hall of Truth?"

"You want to enter the Hall?" Charles gave him a slightly strange look, then pointed to the center of the plaza. "See that statue over there? Go touch it and you'll find out."

There weren't any specific requirements for entering the Hall of Truth. That was why Elvily and Iris hadn't brought it up: it wasn't up to them. You had to be accepted by the statue.

If the statue agreed to let you in, it would send you into the Hall. If it decided you weren't qualified, it would immediately knock you back out. Like this—

As Charles spoke, a spinning figure suddenly flew out from the center of the plaza. The wizards gathered around the statue deftly cleared a space, letting him hit the ground hard. The man scrambled to his feet and shouted indignantly, "Just you wait! I'll be back!"

Charles seemed used to it. He barely glanced at the man and continued, "I suggest you wait until you reach Tier Two before trying. Don't go asking for trouble."

Nobody knew how the statue worked, but it had been in the Void Arts Space for so many years that everyone had managed to work out a few things. So far, the lowest-tier wizards who had managed to enter the Hall were Tier Two.

In other words, only wizards at Tier Two or above had any chance of being accepted by the statue.

Sean stared at the statue. Its face was so blurred, as if worn away by the passage of time, but the longer he looked, the more familiar it seemed. He couldn't help asking, "Whose statue is it?"

"Karl Black's, of course."

Sean: "..."

So it was me again.

In that case, better to do it now than later.

After a little thought, Sean headed straight for the statue.

Charles froze, then called after him, "Hey, don't do this to yourself! You could get hurt!"

The Void Arts Space was a mental realm. Any injury you suffered here would be reflected directly in your soul.

They were all Newborns, and Charles really didn't want to see Sean get hurt. If he had to get hurt, he should at least wait until Charles had learned how to make soul-healing potions. Then, at least Charles could make some money, right?

However.

What happened next was completely beyond his expectations.

There were a lot of people gathered around the statue, but very few actually tried to earn its approval. After all, there was a price to pay. Many wizards were torn between wanting to touch it and not daring to. When they saw Sean approach, they wordlessly stepped aside. If they weren't going to try themselves, they weren't going to stand in someone else's way.

And once the path had opened, it didn't close again.

Because Sean would soon be back, just like that guy from before.

Clearly, everyone was polite, but none of them actually believed Sean could succeed.

Mainly, Sean looked unfamiliar, and his spirit didn't seem very powerful. He appeared to be only Tier One, probably an arrogant newcomer.

They wouldn't mock Sean. They'd all been young and hotheaded once. At least half the people present had been beaten up by Archmage Black's statue when they first entered the Void Arts Space. They'd learned their lesson after that.

Sean would be no different.

But it turned out that people were not all the same, and neither were Newborns.

When Sean reached out and his palm touched the statue, its long-dormant, ashen surface suddenly blazed with brilliant golden light, utterly unlike the illusory backdrop of this world. In that instant, the entire plaza lit up and was dyed in vivid colors, as if it had come alive.

The next second.

"Vmmm."

Sean vanished.

He disappeared from everyone's sight along with the light.

Charles: "???"

The wizards: "???"

"What the hell?!"

Charles's eyes widened. He sprang to his feet, gaping. "He got in??"

"He really got in?!"

An uproar broke out among the crowd.

"How is that possible?"

"Wasn't he only Tier One? Did I sense him wrong?"

Disbelieving cries rang out across the plaza.

By then, Sean could no longer hear them.

Even if he had, he probably wouldn't have had the presence of mind to enjoy the glory of being the center of attention.

Because things hadn't gone the way he'd imagined.

It had surprised Charles, and it had surprised him too.

He had indeed made it inside.

But in a "physical" sense.

He had been sucked directly into the statue.

And stranger still, he didn't seem to be inside the statue in the plaza. Somehow, he'd ended up inside the statue on the second floor of the Hall of Truth.

The statue seemed to be in the corner of a large hall. A round table stood in the center, surrounded by people.

A meeting was in progress.

Sean could clearly hear them talking.

So, looking at Elvily's pretty profile and the girl's youthful nape, where a few loose strands of hair fell across her skin, Sean fell into thought.

He could now be sure that, as the creator of the Void Arts Space and the Hall of Truth, he really did have certain privileges here. It was just that he seemed to be using them in a rather strange way...

The people at the meeting hadn't noticed him at all. A man continued what he'd been saying. "The director of Floris Hospital in Holkodo is rarely there. The Vice Dean has been managing all the affairs of the hospital. I'm sure you all know that."

"And I've heard that the Vice Dean is also going back to his family at the end of this month. According to the intelligence we gathered before, he'll be away for three to five days and should return to the hospital around the fourth."

The old man at the head of the table asked, "Have all the patients taken the cleansing potions?"

Elvily nodded. "It's all taken care of."

Quill hadn't lied to Sean about one thing: the patients' meals at Floris Hospital really were specially prepared by a nutritionist each day. But the recipe included a plant called Withered Leaf Grass. It suppressed the magic power in a wizard's body and contained a small amount of neurotoxin that left anyone who ate it numb-skinned, mentally foggy, and listless—unable to resist their imprisonment.

The cleansing potions were meant to counteract the Withered Leaf Grass.

"What about you? Have you prepared enough people?" The old man looked toward the other end of the round table.

One of them answered, "They're already on their way to Holkodo."

"Good." The old man seemed to be leading the meeting. He made the call. "Then we'll make our move on the first of next month."

"I hope they can pull their weight, too."

"Remember, rescuing people is the top priority. The storeroom comes second."

Sean had more or less understood. Elvily and the others seemed to be planning to raid Floris Hospital, rescue the imprisoned wizards, and grab some resources while they were at it.

He thought of Chris's stockings.

When he had seen Chris's body in the morgue, Chris's feet had been bare where they stuck out from beneath the white sheet. The stockings had obviously been taken off by those bastards. They didn't just kill people; they robbed them, too. The things they stole from the wizards were most likely being kept in the storeroom the old man had mentioned.

Sean narrowed his eyes, a faint murderous glint in them.

It was purely an instinctive reaction caused by his hatred of Quill. But who could have guessed that the statue enclosing him would narrow its eyes along with him?

Like the statue in the plaza, the one on the second floor of the Hall had a blurred face. But narrowing its eyes was an obvious gesture, and since the table was round, there was always someone facing it from just the right angle.

A middle-aged man shot to his feet as if he had a spring under his ass.

"Holy shit!"

"The statue moved!"