Two days passed in the blink of an eye.
Yuuki sat casually on the floor, a thick tome in his hands as he flipped through it with focused attention. Around him lay books, scrolls, and documents piled in chaotic stacks taller than a person.
This was the library of the Witch Forest.
Compared to the library of the Vermillion family, it was actually much smaller—but unimaginably ancient.
At first, seeing that this library was even smaller than the Vermillion family's, Yuuki had thought the Witch Queen was merely brushing him off. But he quickly realized his mistake.
For someone who had lived for over five hundred years, the Witch Queen herself was a living archive. What the four great kingdoms considered "long history" was, to her, merely a short chapter in an extended life.
And precisely because of that—
The older and rarer the records preserved here were, the more valuable they became.
For two full days, Yuuki searched through the archives nonstop, yet still found no breakthrough.
As the Witch Queen had said, there had never been a case in the entire history of the Clover Kingdom where a three-leaf clover grimoire evolved into a four-leaf clover.
There were no records of magic or rituals directly tied to luck, either.
On the other hand, the library contained an abundance of material on Fate Magic, greatly deepening Yuuki's understanding of it.
Beyond that, the archives recorded a vast number of ancient curses, elven magic, and even information about races that had already gone extinct.
It was an eye-opening experience.
Some of the ancient spells and magics described within were clearly terrifying in power just from their descriptions alone—yet nearly all of them came with extremely harsh activation conditions.
Yuuki's understanding of Word Soul–type formula magic was still only surface-level; these even older forms of magic were far beyond that.
Still, having come all this way, he wasn't about to leave empty-handed.
Even if he didn't fully understand them, Yuuki still replicated copies of these ancient curses and spells, storing them away in a subspace to study later. (T/N: Not replicating with his magic, he just copied the text.)
He strongly suspected that truly dangerous, less restricted ancient magic had never been placed here at all. Otherwise, the Witch Queen would never have let him enter the library so easily.
"Haa…"
Yuuki exhaled, closing the thick volume in his hands. Fatigue showed faintly on his face as he raised a hand to massage his temples.
After two days and two nights of nonstop reading, even he was starting to feel worn down.
"Still nothing…"
Yuuki murmured softly.
By now, he was almost certain that the only known method for evolving a three-leaf clover grimoire into a four-leaf was the one the Witch Queen had mentioned.
That method was currently impossible for him, and he had yet to find any alternative.
"Is stacking more and more mana cores really the only option?"
"No matter how much mana I accumulate, there's still a fundamental gap compared to devil power. And compared to the Wizard King Julius in the later stages… I'd have no chance at all."
A trace of helplessness crept into Yuuki's expression.
Did that mean he could only rely on devil power in the end?
Yet devil power came with far too many uncertainties, and the initiative would never truly be his. Power borrowed from the outside was ultimately flawed.
Yuuki's thoughts drifted to the future Wizard King Julius, who unified soul, blood, flesh, and bone into one—fusing them all into his body and ascending to a godlike state.
Yuuki had no idea how Julius had managed to fuse such different powers together. That method was likely known only to Julius himself.
Yuuki came back to his senses and let out a quiet sigh.
Standing up, he began returning the scattered books and documents to their shelves. As he placed the final volume back, his gaze paused on a corner of the last bookshelf at the far end.
There lay a stack of books completely covered in dust.
Not only were they thick with grime—spiderwebs clung to them as well. Clearly, no one had touched them in a very long time.
Yuuki had noticed them earlier but hadn't paid them any mind. Now, having found no answers elsewhere, he finally stepped toward the forgotten pile.
He raised a hand and swept it forward.
Mana stirred lightly. A breeze formed, lifting the dust from the book covers, gathering it into a gray cloud that condensed into a dusty sphere and dropped to the floor.
Yuuki picked up the topmost book and began to read.
At first, he wasn't particularly invested.
But before long, surprise flickered across his eyes.
"These records… they're about the elves?"
There was a note of astonishment in Yuuki's voice.
The elven race—Licht, Patry and the others. He had already seen information about them on other shelves, but he hadn't expected to find an entire forgotten collection here.
The surprise lasted only a moment before his expression returned to calm.
The elves' history might be secretive, but to the Witch Queen it was hardly noteworthy. She had even known the elven chieftain of that era personally.
Yuuki continued reading. As the pages turned, his eyebrows slowly lifted.
"According to this… the elves are descendants of the gods?"
A serious expression resurfaced on Yuuki's face as he read each line carefully.
Gods?
This was the first time Yuuki had ever encountered information explicitly referencing gods.
This world had devils, multiple races, and countless forms of magic—yet there had been virtually no mention of gods at all. That, in itself, had always struck Yuuki as strange.
As time passed, Yuuki became completely absorbed in the contents of the records.
After a long while, he finally looked up, dust clinging to his clothes, his eyes sharp as he stared at the two documents in his hands.
According to these records, the elven race were the descendants left behind in the mortal world by a being referred to only as a "god." As for what that god truly was, the texts offered no clear explanation.
However—
One particular entry caught Yuuki's full attention.
Long ago, an elven clan leader sought to return to the embrace of the gods—and in pursuit of that goal, devised a ritual.
To complete this ritual, that ancient elven chieftain created ten unique magic tools.
"Magic stones…"
Yuuki slowly spoke the words as he stared at the document in his palm.
If the records were accurate, those so-called ten magic tools were none other than the ten magic stones.
Yuuki remembered that in the hands of ordinary people, these stones served only as mana amplifiers. But in the hands of elves, they could unleash terrifying power.
And the name of that ancient ritual—
The Apotheosis Ritual.
(End of Chapter)
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