A huge black crow crossed the void and landed on a vast white ice field.
The snow it kicked up swirled through the air, mingling with the Magic Power surging around the crow to form a hazy mist. Sunlight fell upon that cloud, making it seem like a giant white egg with blurred edges. The black shadow within had already become indistinct, making it impossible to see the crow clearly.
Inside the giant egg.
The black crow lay curled into a ball, its wings folded before its belly and its head tilted to one side, its eyes devoid of light. It was dead. Without a doubt. Its feathers were slowly disintegrating one by one, and the dissipating Magic Power melted directly into the void, as though it had never existed in this world.
"—So this is Daoization!"
Behind the display window of Sanyou Bookstore, Yellow Flower Cat pressed its fat face tightly against the glass and looked outside. Yet what reflected in its eyes was not the young wizards passing along the Pedestrian Street, but the dead crow on the ice field. Its voice carried a trace of sorrow. "It may take a hundred years to draw enough Magic Power from the natural world to become an Archwizard, but returning that Magic Power to the world takes only a minute... perhaps even less. If the old man were still here, I would truly like to ask him whether we refine Magic Power for the world, or whether the world has been plundered of Magic Power by us... Huh! Why is it alive again?"
It sighed as it pondered lofty matters belonging to the realm of Magic Philosophy, hesitating over whether to make a quotation-style note, when it suddenly noticed that the crow, which ought to have been thoroughly dead, twitched