Diary

The tomb's ethereal blue ghost fire finally extinguished, leaving only the flickering orange glow of Xia Lin's torch and the ominous dark red emanating from Sera's sorcery stone, casting distorted shadows on the rune-covered walls.

The air was filled with a sharp, clean scent, characteristic of holy water purifying evil.

"Finally, some peace and quiet," Xia Lin muttered, kicking aside the remains of a spectral spear lying on the ground. The fragments dissolved into smoke.

Holding his torch high, he cautiously approached the massive black stone sarcophagus.

The torchlight illuminated the ground before the sarcophagus, revealing a hapless skeleton sprawled in a grotesquely twisted pose, a gaping hole where its head should have been.

Clearly, this was some unfortunate tomb robber who, in their greed, had tried to tamper with the sarcophagus and ended up losing their life here forever.

"Tsk, tsk, this fellow traveler died quite spectacularly," Xia Lin mused, looking at the skeleton. "No need for Item Appraisal, just looking at this scene tells me there's definitely no good stuff under this coffin lid."

Despite his internal grumbling, a pale blue [Item Appraisal] screen reappeared.

[??? Sarcophagus (??? Seal)]
[Material: ???]
[Status: ???]
[Effect: ???]
[Evaluation: ??? Strongly Advised: Before you figure out what the hell is inside, it's best to stay far away, as far as possible!]

A series of question marks, like a guard dog's growl, clearly conveyed the message: "Do not touch me."

"As they say, no information is also a form of information," the torchlight danced in Xia Lin's eyes. "Sera, with your soul-seeing eyes, did you notice anything?"

Sera slowly paced to the sarcophagus. She extended her gloved fingertips, not touching the stone, but tracing a path in the air an inch from the lid, sensing the invisible energy fluctuations. "This sarcophagus itself is a powerful Magic Artifact. The protective arrays and curses attached to it are more complex than any Temple guardian's armor I've ever seen."

Her voice echoed in the empty tomb. "If we force it open, we'll likely experience a 'welcome ceremony' a hundred times more enthusiastic than those two little gatekeepers we just dealt with. Those ceremonies usually end with the intruders' souls being torn to shreds, or their bodies twisted into deformed works of art."

"Doesn't sound very friendly," Xia Lin shrugged. "So what do we do? We can't just leave empty-handed, can we? I was hoping to find a few burial items in this old fossil's coffin that I could sell for booze money."

"No need to rush, human greed is always written all over your face, impossible to hide," Sera's tone returned to its usual mockery. Her purple tail flicked impatiently behind her. "You go see if there are any other trinkets in this tomb worth your 'risky recovery.' I'll check over there."

Xia Lin readily agreed. He held up his torch and began to search the tomb meticulously, not missing a single corner that might hide a "surprise."

Sera turned her gaze to one side of the tomb, where several dust-covered bookshelves stood alongside an equally dusty stone desk, resembling a small study area.

Clearly, the owner of this tomb was also a reader in life.

Sera walked directly towards the study area.

Most of the books on the shelves had long since rotted away, turning to dust at the slightest touch and emitting a heavy scent of mold.

She brushed the dust off the spines of the books with her fingertips, her gaze scanning the now illegible titles.

Most were dry, tedious academic treatises, such as Preliminary Study of Elemental Plane Tidal Patterns, Fragmentary Textual Research on Astral Plane Journeys, and a few thick volumes of Comprehensive Geography that could probably kill a Halfling.

Just as she was about to lose patience and dismiss them all with a remark like "All just boring trash, smellier than a Dwarf's feet," her eyes were drawn to an inconspicuous corner on the bottom shelf.

There, amidst a pile of rotten parchment scrolls and broken book boards emitting a foul odor, lay a heavy tome bound in dark, lustrous leather.

Unlike the other books, it was exceptionally well-preserved. The leather cover felt supple to the touch, and a faint scent of ink could still be detected.

Sera pulled out the tome. It was heavy in her hands. The cover bore no text or patterns, only a complex, twisted symbol embroidered in silver thread at the center, resembling an open eye staring into the infinite void.

She opened the cover. On the flyleaf, written in an elegant, flowing Common script, was a single line: "Agnos's Private Diary."

"Looks like I've found something interesting," Sera murmured, beginning to flip through the pages.

The first half of the diary, as indicated on the flyleaf, recorded the early life of a mage named Agnos.

The handwriting was neat, the prose beautiful, filled with the youthful vigor and aspirations for the future.

"...Today, I finally completed the preliminary deciphering of the ancient runes of 'Stormcliff.' The primordial magic power contained within is awe-inspiring. I firmly believe that true magic is not merely the simple manipulation of magic net energy, but the understanding of the world's deepest Laws..."

"...Traveled to the 'Scorching Desert' in the south and had a night-long conversation with the wise men of the sand tribes. Their understanding of the stars actually coincided with some 'otherworldly knowledge' I glimpsed from ancient texts. Could it be that the starry sky we see is merely..."

"...Orlando, this burgeoning city, is full of vitality and opportunity. I have submitted preliminary proposals for the establishment of a Mage Tower to the Magic Emperor. My dream is to build a beacon of knowledge here, attracting all souls yearning to explore the Arcana, and let the light of magic illuminate this land..."

Reading this, Sera paused slightly. Proposals for the establishment of the Orlando Mage Tower? Could this Agnos be one of the legendary founders of the Mage Tower? She continued to flip through.

The ink color in the diary gradually deepened, and the handwriting became more hurried. The elegant, flowing strokes were gradually replaced by a rapid, slightly neurotic script.

"...'It' is whispering again. Those voices, like tides from beyond the stars, assault my sanity. They promise power, they promise a 'truth' beyond the mundane..."

"...No! This is not our world! That azure sky, those brilliant stars, they are all just a false curtain!"

"...The ritual was successful! I can feel... that infinite wisdom, that cold truth! The gods? A bunch of imposters wearing borrowed robes! A pack of despicable traitors! It was they who, with the most venomous schemes and the most shameful betrayal, banished the true Master! Exiled Him to the cold, forgotten void beyond the stars!

"They stole the Master's authority, and divided His creation. Foolish mortals! You rejoice, you pray piously, unaware that you have long since become livestock groveling at the feet of false gods! They sing praises of order, yet know not that so-called order is merely a higher form of enslavement!"

The diary's content became increasingly chaotic and insane. The Common language began to be interspersed with distorted, insect-like symbols that Sera had never seen before.

The handwriting became frantic, as if the writer was struggling in extreme excitement and fear.

"The Master... the Master will return! His footsteps already echo beyond the Astral Plane! He will return, from the other side of the stars, from the end of time, descend upon this place, and reclaim all that rightfully belongs to Him! Bestowing 'truth' upon all souls who open their eyes!"

Sera's breathing grew slightly rapid. In her dark red eyes, the light flickered unstably.

The dark red glow emanating from the stone cast Sera's distorted shadow on the wall, the shadow sometimes expanding, sometimes contracting, as if some entity was lurking within, watching this diary alongside her.

She turned to the last few pages of the diary.

The handwriting there had completely devolved into wild scribbles, ink splattering everywhere, as if the writer had poured all their remaining strength into shouting onto the paper.

Most of the content was illegible due to its hasty scribbles and interspersed unknown symbols, but one passage describing a certain "Great Revival Ritual" was clearly outlined with an almost frenzied stroke.

"...With the bones of eternity as the foundation, the blood of vengeful souls as the guide, supplemented by seven forbidden materials that reverse life and death... at the critical juncture of annihilation and revival, call upon the slumbering will..."

The core steps of the ritual were smeared with large patches of ink or encrypted with more obscure symbols, making them difficult to decipher.

However, the final condition for initiating the ritual was marked in striking crimson ink, as conspicuous as a curse.

"...When the 'Soul Devouring Flower' is saturated with the miasma of death and blooms anew... if a living hand awakens it from the slumbering soil... then, the great will shall return to this place, and the decaying withered bones shall be reborn..."

"'Soul Devouring Flower'... pulled by the living..." Sera's pupils contracted sharply. She finally understood that the corpses of the tomb robbers she had seen at the entrance of the passage were probably not just killed by ordinary traps.

Sera slammed the diary shut. The notebook felt extraordinarily heavy in her hands.