No man could resist the allure of yellow.
Clearly, Shane was a real man.
"Entry Extraction!"
The moment he saw the entry information, Shane focused all his attention and went for it without hesitation.
As it turned out, hesitation meant defeat.
Frieren's movement was just 0.01 seconds behind his command to extract the entry.
"Hm? It all crumbled..."
Frieren, standing by the table, had wanted to pick up the diary and take a look. But who could have guessed that the moment her hand touched it, the long-sealed pages would crumble into dust, leaving nothing but a pile of scraps.
That was normal. No paper could last a thousand years; even surviving for a hundred or two was its limit.
But at the very instant her hand touched the diary, three yellow points of light suddenly shone behind her, right in front of Shane.
The extraction had succeeded!
With her "Mana Detection," Frieren naturally sensed the faint fluctuation of energy coming from behind her.
She turned around in confusion, then saw Shane collapse without warning.
"Shane?"
"Another failure! Why did it fail again!"
A hoarse voice raged beside his ear, repeating the words over and over. Along with it came the sound of something being thrown to the floor.
Shane felt as if his head were about to explode.
He struggled to open his eyes. The same cramped, shabby room came into view.
But unlike before, the room was now piled high with books and parchment. There was so much of it that there was nowhere to step.
"There must be something wrong with the mana needed to activate the spell! Should I increase it or decrease it? Let me calculate, let me calculate..."
Before him, a hunched figure in a cloak and hood leaned over the desk, constantly working through some calculations and muttering under their breath.
Shane didn't know who the person was, but a voice deep in his heart faintly told him that this might be the room's owner.
He wanted to ask what was going on, but when he opened his mouth, he found he couldn't speak at all.
He tried to pat the person on the shoulder to get their attention, but his hand passed right through their body as easily as it would through a thin mist. The person didn't notice a thing.
Shane was stunned.
"￥%@!"
He let out an angry roar, but no sound came out.
He was scared. He wanted to leave the room, but found that he couldn't.
He was like a ghost, suddenly bound behind the room's owner, unable to speak, unable to move, and unable to leave.
"￥%@!"
Unaffected by Shane's frantic struggles behind them, the figure at the desk focused intently on writing and drawing.
After trying everything he could, Shane finally stopped, as if resigned to his fate.
Then everything in his field of vision darkened, and the scene changed.
The hooded figure was studying a grimoire.
From Shane's vantage point, he could clearly see the title: Notes of Sage Aewich.
The book seemed difficult to decipher. The hooded figure kept sweeping drafts off the desk, and soon the floor was covered in discarded paper.
The hooded figure tried to activate a magic spell formation, but failed. They grew furious.
They cursed and grumbled for a long time.
The hooded figure stood in the center of a palace hall. An extremely complex magic spell formation had been drawn on the floor beneath his feet, and thick blood had been poured over it. The sight was both bloody and eerie.
Shane could almost smell the stench of blood.
Frowning deeply, he watched the hooded figure stand inside the formation and cast the spell.
The pool Shane and Frieren had seen earlier suddenly began to boil. Then countless black droplets rose from it, slowly gathering into a mass in the air.
How could he describe the thing?
It churned and twisted, like a mass of living black tar.
Then he watched the hooded figure casually summon a cup and shuffle toward the mass of black water, hunched over.
"For humanity to completely destroy the Demon Race and claim ultimate victory, everything is worth it."
"Teacher, when we meet again, will you praise me or despise me?"
The hooded figure tried once more to activate the spell formation that had failed before, but failed again.
The hooded figure began doing more and more calculations. Torn-up drafts were everywhere.
The hooded figure tried once more to activate the spell formation that had failed before. It still didn't work.
The hooded figure began adding that "churning, twisting black tar" to the failed spell formation. This time, the magic went out of control.
A blurry human figure appeared in the formation. The hooded figure tried to stabilize it, but in the end, the blurry figure melted into a pool of blood.
This time, the hooded figure didn't curse. He sat blankly beside the formation for a very, very long time.
The hooded figure began testing the formation over and over, repeatedly adjusting the amount of black tar it required.
The floor of the palace hall was stained red with blood again and again.
Bones and flesh began to appear in the magic formation.
Formed human limbs appeared in the magic formation.
Shane felt as if he were going insane.
He had no idea how much time had passed. It felt as if a whole lifetime had gone by.
He hung behind the hooded figure, watching day after day as they descended into madness. At first, he hadn't understood what was happening, but in the end, he had grasped the figure's intentions... This deranged person was trying to create a "human."
Shane was sure he must have entered the dungeon the wrong way.
It was all an illusion.
"My teacher's method must be right."
The hooded figure's hoarse muttering sounded beside his ear once again.
"This is the last time."
"I have to destroy all the research materials to prevent those who can [Foresee the Future] from interfering."
As the words rang out, the hooded figure snapped his fingers. All the books and draft papers in the room flew into the air, and the hooded figure controlled them, piling them up in the palace hall.
Then he flicked a fire spell at them.
All the materials burst into flames.
As the flames soared, he activated the magic formation on the floor. The results of countless experiments finally paid off: it worked.
A complete human appeared in the magic formation.
"￥%@!"
Shane let out a roar.
But no sound came from him in the empty hall. Through the heat shimmering above the flames, he clearly saw the person standing at the center of the formation—that was himself in his previous life, rushing across the road in a panic because he was running late...
Beep—
It was as if an electric current had shot through his brain and slammed into his eardrums.
Shane clutched his head in pain. He really wanted to curse, and even more, he wanted to ask the madman before him if he knew how much it hurt to be hit by a truck and sent flying two hundred meters!
Just then, the hooded figure, who had kept his back to Shane, suddenly turned around.
A pair of scarlet eyes, filled with madness, met Shane's gaze. Their owner tilted his head, slowly curled his lips, and gave Shane a murky, sinister smile.
"Heh heh, Teacher, we did it."
Before you continue