But even if he did not meet Shiki, what about afterward?
He still had to participate in the Holy Grail War, did he not? He still wanted to summon Scathach, did he not? He still had to continue studying magecraft, did he not?
None of that could avoid the Root. Sooner or later, it would discover him!
Li Mo suddenly felt troubled. Did that mean he had to keep hiding until the Incineration of Humanity in 2014 before he could come out and stir up trouble?
Pah, what stirring up trouble? That was called making things happen... Though that did not sound right either?
Still, this might be far more serious than he had imagined... It was fine if Brishisan knew. It was fine if Kishua, the Jeweled Sword Zelretch, knew. But if the Root found out, there might be a huge problem.
Although the Root had no self-awareness, the Roots of all worldlines were connected. What if it noticed something wrong and automatically corrected it?
Li Mo's head throbbed, but this was a problem he would have to face sooner or later.
Mifune City—should he go or not?
"Go!" Li Mo ground his teeth and said fiercely. At worst, he would just avoid Ryougi Shiki!
Until he thought of a solution, he absolutely could not come into contact with the Root—not even the Throne of Heroes in the Reverse Side of the World!
"Let's go, then. Are we taking the train?"
Having made up his mind, Li Mo helplessly called for Kirie Sakuragi. After bidding Touki Sakuragi farewell, the two left the Sakuragi family grounds.
But what Li Mo never expected was that a solution to something he thought would take a long time actually appeared half an hour later...
Here was what happened...
"Mō-san, what exactly did that gentleman say to you back at Einzbern Castle?"
On the train, Kirie Sakuragi held a magazine and looked at Li Mo with a face full of curiosity, hesitating as he spoke.
After Kishua arrived, he had dragged Li Mo into another space. Once they came back out, Li Mo had spared Einzbern. Kirie was extremely curious about what the two had discussed.
The moment he heard that, something inside Li Mo went boom, exploding all at once.
Fuck, I forgot about the Second Magic... I got it and never even looked at it!
That's the Second Magic! Was I stupid?
It's definitely the Sakuragis' fault. I was so focused on helping them solve their problem that I lost my mind!
"Hmph!" Li Mo cast a proud glance aside and pulled a book from the personal storage space in his clothes. It was the Second Magic that Kishua had given him.
"Don't ask questions you shouldn't ask!"
Fine, fine. You're a big shot; I can't afford to offend you... Kirie Sakuragi grumbled inwardly, then turned away and picked up his magazine to pass the time.
There was no helping it. Trains in Japan had already banned smoking in 1987, and smoking was not even allowed in the gaps between carriages, so all he could do was read magazines.
Pah, who even knew how many issues old these magazines were!
How boring!
Li Mo chuckled, leaned against the window, and prepared to read the grimoire Kishua had given him in the sunlight.
As for that copy of A Brief History of Time?
It could crawl as far away as it liked. Hawking's book was clearly not published until 1988, so who knew how Kishua had gotten his hands on it...
It would be pretty awkward if he dug too deeply into that question. Did the Grand Marshal not need to save face?
First Avalon, then A Brief History of Time. Heh, the Second Magic truly lived up to the name of Magic.
"People call the realization of phenomena impossible through magecraft or science Magic. The reason the Second Magic is called Magic lies in allowing a mortal body to walk through time and space, breaking through boundaries humans cannot cross. Those who master the Second Magic may observe worlds that exist in layers, which I call Parallel Worlds, and travel freely between them. This is its first aspect."
"Its second aspect: time is a river, and I am a fish. The body becomes eternal, undying and indestructible."
Upon reading that, Li Mo suddenly gained a flash of insight.
Why were the other four among the Five Magicians all dead, while Kishua, the Second Magician, alone remained in this world?
At first, Li Mo had thought it was because he had become a Dead Apostle, because of the bite he received when he fought Crimson Moon all those years ago. But only now did he understand—it was because of the Second Magic!
Then again, it made sense. How ridiculous would it be for someone who commanded time and could freely travel through time and space to die of old age?
Of course, Li Mo also understood that every gain came with a loss. Since the Second Magic was so powerful in this regard, it surely fell short of the other Magics in certain aspects.
"To cultivate the Second Magic, one must pass three trials. The first is time. What is time? Birth, aging, sickness, death; the passing of all things; the birth and death of the universe. Some have spoken of spatial dimensions: one dimension is a point, two dimensions a plane, three dimensions form, and four dimensions time. Yet I do not accept this reasoning. Time and space are yin and yang; they are the origin of the universe."
"The second trial is space. All who know of the Second Magic know my theory of Parallel Worlds, but do Parallel Worlds contain another self? They do!
"Those who cultivate the Second Magic come to know the vastness of worlds and the wonders of the universe, confirming the Eastern saying that there is always a sky beyond the sky, and always someone greater than oneself. Yet when we set foot in a Parallel World and encounter another self, can we coexist? No!
"If the two meet, one will surely drown. I call this the Parallel Paradox."
"The third trial is oneself. Oneself is energy. Energy is magical energy. Since the Second Magic can traverse time and step through space, does it require energy?
"It does! People say that practitioners of the Second Magic possess infinite energy. But can energy truly be created from nothing?"
Could the rumor that the Second Magic possessed infinite energy... be fake? Li Mo suddenly did not know whether to laugh or cry.
Never mind what others thought. As far as Li Mo knew, the jeweled sword passed down by the Tohsaka family among the Three Great Families, as well as that five-star Craft Essence in some pay-to-win, grind-heavy game from the main world, were they not both symbols of limitless power...? Had Mushroom gone back on his word later?
Fine. No matter what had been said before, the Second Magician himself had now explained it in person.
But these three trials looked absurdly difficult. Could he really learn the Second Magic?
With no time to think, Li Mo turned another page and continued reading.
"To overcome the three trials, there is no proper path for the first two. The meaning of time must be comprehended by oneself. As for the spatial paradox, only I, who communicate with ten thousand worlds, can resolve it. Only the trial of one's own energy was solved after I traveled through countless points in time and finally found a world. All things in that world are void; it is a convergence of energy. Once the first two trials are overcome, opening a passage to that world removes all limits on magical energy."
"Thus, Magic can be achieved. Unchanged by a thousand hardships, unbroken by ten thousand calamities, transcending mortals and free from all constraints."
Li Mo closed the book. That was all the opening section contained, and he planned to find time to read the rest later.
Because reading it was seriously painful... Aside from a few key points, the entire opening was just bragging!
Talking about being unchanged by a thousand hardships and undying through ten thousand calamities—where were you when Gaeia destroyed the world? Where were you when the Alien God invaded?
Weren't you still just a useless salted fish?
And those so-called three trials—were they really that difficult? Time was the easiest thing to comprehend. Everything experienced it, so what was difficult about that?
Then there was the spatial paradox afterward. What did that have to do with Li Mo? A spatial paradox? No matter how many Parallel Worlds there were, did they have another Li Mo?
Sorry, but he was a transmigrator!
As for that final issue of one's own energy, Li Mo could not even be bothered to complain anymore.
The world Kishua discovered might have incredibly pure energy, but was it really okay to run something foreign through his body like that?
He did not even know how much energy his body stored, and he had one hundred percent control over it. Who cared about foreign energy!
He, Li Mo, would never say it smelled good!
Before you continue