Chapter 272
Chapter 272
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Translator: Ace
Chapter: 272
Chapter Title: A Hostile Friendship (1)
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Morning dawned on the Kazra Royal Castle.
Shirone waited in a room prepared by the Inspectorate to undergo a paternity test.
While visitors weren't forbidden, no one came, as the nobility of Kazra were watching the situation closely.
Once the test was over, he could never return to his old life. What would become of his future?
“Whew, I'm getting nervous for no reason.”
“There's no need to worry. It's a simple test.”
Shirone snapped his head up.
A tall, slender man stood there. His features weren't cold, but he had an unnervingly sharp presence.
A faint tremor ran through his nerves. It was the same feeling he had when he first met Armin.
“Don't tell me... an Unlocker?”
Instead of answering, the man bowed politely.
“My apologies for the late introduction. My name is Arius. I serve as an advisor to His Highness Orkamp.”
Shirone narrowed his eyes, his guard instantly up.
“What brings someone like you here?”
The waiting room was, by human standards, a sealed space. Being alone with a master who had infiltrated it undetected was by no means a safe situation.
“I simply wanted to meet you. There's a certain understanding between Unlockers.”
As if understanding the resonance vibrating through Shirone, Arius freely revealed his own aura.
“I've heard much about your heroic deeds, Shirone. The Photon Cannon was particularly impressive. I assume it's a battery that controls mass?”
Shirone's tension mounted. If this man were an enemy, having his ability figured out was a bad sign.
Arius raised both hands, showing he had no hostile intent.
“No need to be so wary. It's purely out of interest. You could even call me a fan. For your reference, if I were to introduce my ability...”
“It's Scale Magic, isn't it?”
“Oh? And what makes you think that?”
“This room is sealed on all six sides. You couldn't have entered with spatial magic alone. If you distorted time and space simultaneously, it has to be Scale Magic.”
Arius readily admitted it. Besides, it wasn't much of a secret among mages who worked in this field.
“Correct. More than half of all Unlockers are Scale Mages. Did you know that?”
“No, I didn't know that.”
It was the first time Shirone had heard such a thing. More than half of all Unlockers were Scale Mages.
Then again, when he thought about it, Armin's magic could also be called a type of Scale Magic. After all, time and space couldn't be considered separately.
“The exact reason why so many Unlockers are Scale Mages is unknown. We can only surmise it has something to do with the nature of the Immortal Function. In that respect, your battery is quite unique, Shirone. The ability to manipulate mass is extremely rare. I'm truly envious.”
“No, it's not that amazing...”
Arius leaned in and cut him off.
“Still, I am stronger.”
It was a childish thing for a high-level mage to say, but Arius added without seeming to care.
“I just wanted to make that clear.”
“Ah, of course.”
Shirone didn't bother to deny it. The man was a master employed by the king of a nation; to a magic academy student, he was an impossibly senior figure.
At that, Arius tilted his head in surprise.
“Oh? Aren't you admitting that a little too easily? Too much humility can be a poison.”
“Huh? No, it's not that. I'm just a student.”
“Of course, your magical power is still lacking. But who knows what would happen if you were to cast Ataraxia?”
Shirone was startled. Ataraxia was the language of Heaven. No one outside his close acquaintances knew of it, and even in academic journals, Killine had used the term 'magic amplification circle'.
*This man has been to Heaven, too.*
Arius stared intently into Shirone's eyes, as if searching for a tiny fairy living inside his pupils. Confirming that the keyword had registered, the corners of his mouth lifted slightly.
“How do you know about Ataraxia?”
“Haha! Most mages who've been around the block know about it. It's Archangel Ikael's specialty, after all. Of course, the fact that a human could master it was quite a shock.”
“Then have you been to Heaven as well?”
Arius nodded nonchalantly.
“Once, a long time ago. But I didn't find it to be a particularly interesting place. Still, I continue to gather information. The very survival of humanity is at stake, after all. In a way, we're all indebted to Miro. Then again, thanks to that, she also became the greatest mage, so perhaps she doesn't feel it was unfair?”
Shirone, who had only ever thought of Miro's choice as a sacrifice, found Arius's words refreshingly novel.
“Is Miro the greatest Unlocker?”
Arius gave a self-deprecating smile.
“Well, wouldn't you say so? In truth, how can anyone know who is the best? But she saved all of humanity. And even now, she resides in another dimension we cannot challenge. No mage born in this era will ever surpass Miro's legacy. It's a shame, really.”
It might have sounded cold, but his words weren't without reason.
Everyone should have the chance to achieve their dreams. Otherwise, this world that Miro protected with her sacrifice might as well already be dead.
“I see. But I doubt Miro thought of it that way...”
“Haha! Of course, I know that! Don't take it so seriously. If it weren't for Oberk, the creator of Turn Undead magic, humanity would have been conquered by necromancers. The nature of magic is that the number one changes depending on the situation. Besides, there was already a supreme mage in this world whom no one could hope to surpass.”
“A supreme mage? Who would that be?”
Shirone thought of several names.
Kergos, who established the photonization theory? Ibris, the creator of the ignition magic, Ignite? Or perhaps Gloria, who compiled the four-directional system of the Spirit Zone.
“The greatest mage in history is... McClain Guffin.”
Shirone slapped his knee in frustration.
“Ah! I should have known!”
The mage who installed the gate to Heaven in the Kergos Autonomous Zone. He knew from Ikael's words just how incredible a mage he was.
“What kind of person was Guffin?”
Arius scratched his head, as if it were a difficult question to answer.
“Hmm, truth is, nobody knows. There are no records of Guffin left. There's even debate over whether he was a real person who actually existed in this world.”
“Huh? But Guffin...”
“Yes. His achievements exist all over the world. But all that's left are ruins. There are absolutely no historical records of the actual Guffin. Even now, archaeologists wander the globe searching for traces of him, but not a single record of any kind has ever been found. Not even a folktale.”
“How is that possible?”
Shirone was bewildered.
Every human being leaves behind traces of their life. Even a nameless nobody might be recorded through their acquaintances, so for someone like Guffin, it would be normal for the entire world to know of him.
“Whether Guffin was a real person is still a matter of academic debate. Some scholars even claim he never once made contact with an intelligent life form during his lifetime. But there's another hypothesis that's currently gaining the most traction.”
The man called the greatest mage in history had vanished without a trace. Shirone thought that perhaps this itself was an incredible form of magic.
Arius raised a finger and said.
“The hypothesis is that Guffin did exist in the world. But for some reason, the world has forgotten him.”
Hearing those words, a memory surfaced on its own. It was a story he'd heard from the Heaven fairy, Peope.
Archangel Ikael was said to have committed an unforgivable sin. But the subjects of Heaven did not know what that sin was.
Because Anke La had erased the memory.
“Guffin certainly existed in the world, but he's currently in a state of non-existence. In academic circles, this is called the Guffin Erasure, or the Reset.”
“A reset...”
“Guffin could have simply erased his name from the Akashic Records. But if that were the case, this entire world would have to be a modified whole. So why do Guffin's ruins still exist? The Reset theory offers an answer to that. In other words, this world we experience was once initialized at a certain point in time.”
To Shirone, who had not yet reached the deeper realms of intellect, Arius's words sounded like the ravings of a madman. Nevertheless, the reason he couldn't dismiss them was due to the Unlocker's disposition to be naturally drawn to such problems.
“A key piece of evidence for the Guffin Erasure is something called the 'Fissure Field Verification Test.' It shows that the total amount of time and energy in the world we live in is subtly misaligned.”
Arius spread his ten fingers and made a gesture as if holding a sphere.
“The Akashic Records are perfect as a whole. Therefore, this world cannot lose its perfection. However, fissures can occur. A fissure is an individuality, not a flaw. Scholars theorize that traces of the Reset remain within that fissure.”
Shirone couldn't believe it. But if many scholars were seriously discussing it, it couldn't be a completely baseless story.
“If the Reset is real, does that mean everyone in this world is living the same life for a second time?”
“That would be the case. Don't think of it as too difficult. Time doesn't flow; it is perceived. For example, let's say humanity began 10,000 years ago. Did the people of today wait 10,000 years to live this day? No. They didn't wait a single second. Because time is perceived from the moment one is born. That's why scholars point to déjà vu as evidence of the Reset. The feeling of experiencing something you've been through before. This, too, is a cognitive error that occurs when the brain confuses the time before and after the initialization.”
Arius raised his index finger and asked.
“Now for a question. How could McClain Guffin have initialized the world?”
A word automatically popped into Shirone's mind.
“The Immortal Function.”
Arius nodded in satisfaction.
“Correct. When the mind expands infinitely, the ego dissolves. But every phenomenon has a critical point. If one could perfectly control the Immortal Function, they would enter a paradoxical state of being both infinite and finite. In other words, becoming the whole while retaining the self.”
Arius's explanation awakened a similar concept Shirone knew. To become the whole while retaining the self meant, conversely, that the self would inhabit everything. And people of the world called such a being a god.
“I see. So the person named Guffin...”
Shirone finally understood. Why McClain Guffin was the supreme mage, whom no one in this world could ever hope to surpass.
“Yes. McClain Guffin is...”
Arius said with a smile.
“The one and only Infinite Mage in human history.”
It was the second time he had heard the term 'Infinite Mage' since Armin, but the impact was far more intense.
Back then, he had been ignorant about the Immortal Function or the Akashic Records. But now, he could faintly picture the process of how a human could attain the station of a god.
“We don't know which era Guffin belonged to. 100 years ago? 1,000 years ago? Perhaps even before humanity began. However, the prevailing theory is that the Reset occurred 18 years ago from the present. Because no new achievements of Guffin have appeared since that point. Coincidentally, 18 years ago is also the year Miro's space-time was born.”
Arius spoke of it as a possibility, but Shirone had heard directly from Ikael that Miro was Guffin's successor.
Also, 18 years ago... was the year he himself was born.
But he didn't think too deeply about it. He wasn't the only person born 18 years ago, was he?
Arius checked his watch. The test time was approaching, so it was about time he focused on his original duty.