The Constellation's Game [Laika]
After we put down the Krite Worm, the party disbanded.
Makes sense—the other three had come down here to clear Bellick's quest by conquering the mine in the first place. With that accomplished, there was no reason for them to hang around any longer.
Bellick thanked me one more time, grinning from ear to ear for whatever reason, then tore a Return Scroll and vanished. Novin quietly followed him back to Lumis Territory.
And yet, for some strange reason, Lowell was still lingering around the mine.
She said she had some business of her own to attend to. What that business was, I had no idea—and frankly, it wasn't my problem. Right now, the most important thing on my plate was receiving my class main quest.
Kkaang! Kkaang!
Kkaang!
Excuse me? Junk items? Such hurtful words, gentlemen.
—There is a use for everything, my friends.
Just as the Constellations said, the Krite Worm's boss room was practically a massive ore vein in and of itself. Since I'd already bought the pickaxe anyway, stripping this one room bare would net me a good fifty to seventy kilograms of high-purity raw ore at minimum. Sweep up every last shard and I'd be looking at well over two hundred kilograms.
These Constellations truly do not understand the value of LP.
Even at a measly 1LP per kilo, that's over 50LP worth of goods—and they call this honest labor "junk grinding." The audacity.
It is, actually.
That said, I wasn't swinging this pickaxe purely to sell ore, if I'm being honest. Let me say it again: the single most important thing for me right now is receiving the main quest.
Kkaang!
Which means this pickaxe work is, in truth, just the process of hunting down the Broken Statue.
Sure, I could have combed the abandoned mine's labyrinth the proper, textbook way, but—
Kukung! Kugugung!
—when I've already got a pickaxe in hand, why on earth would I bother wandering when I could just knock down one wall and be done with it?
—PUUUNK!
After a good ten minutes of hammering away at the wall, the stone barrier gave way with a thunderous roar, revealing the small hidden chamber beyond it.
And what greeted my eyes next was a beautiful statue of a goddess—half corroded, half crumbled away, and yet still radiating a soft white light.
'Broken Statue of Lumentis' has been discovered.
'Blessing of the Goddess Lumentis' has activated.
For 1 hour, HP Regeneration +1% will be applied.
My heart began to pound the moment I found it. Soon enough, I'd finally get a clearer look at just what this eccentric Alchemist of Light class I'd acquired actually was.
Thud. Thud.
The moment I stepped up before the goddess statue, a faint halo of light spreading out from my body drifted gently down over its surface.
And then, in the very next instant—
CHIIIING!
Light erupted from the statue with a crystalline shatter, as if countless panes of glass stacked layer upon layer were bursting apart all at once.
The conditions have been met.
The 'Primordial Light' sleeping deep beneath the earth is awakening.
The forgotten beings of antiquity—the Alchemists of Light, 'Seraphist'—are being restored to the world.
The Primordial Light.
That name fit it perfectly—a radiant festival of light unlike anything I had ever witnessed before.
I found myself staring at it, transfixed, and took one more step forward.
Wuuuung—!
And at the same moment... my vision flooded white, and the world began to spin.
There had been an age, long before the sun rose and set three times over the primordial continent of Asterion, when its people still spoke the language of the gods.
Among the ancients of that era were those who wielded [Light]—a force called Lumen—and those who truly understood the heart of that light were known as the Alchemists of Light, the Seraphists.
"O Lumen, awaken the sleeping will."
"I hear the song of light... They are calling out their own names."
They were neither mere mages nor simple artisans. They were those who interpreted the structure of the world itself and poured will into the shells of existence. The light they wielded could imitate and recreate many things in the world—and because of that, the people feared the Seraphists, whispering that they had stolen the authority of the gods.
For it was believed that mortals had stolen the creation of life—a power that belonged to the gods alone.
But the Alchemists of Light firmly rejected that condemnation.
"No. It is not alive. It merely carries a 'will' that wishes to live."
"We do nothing more than craft vessels capable of holding an Ego..."
"This cannot be compared, even for a moment, to the authority of creation."
The Alchemists of Light believed they must never steal the gods' authority—must never so much as encroach upon it. To do so would be to defy divine providence itself... a crime against heaven, yeokcheon, the sin of overturning the natural order.
But as the years passed, the art of light alchemy blazed ever brighter, and—as happens in every gathering of brilliant minds—heretics began to emerge.
"If light can bear a will, why can that will not perfect itself?"
"We must complete what they left unfinished. That, and that alone, is the true will of god."
"God has ceased creating. Yet is everything we see not still made of light?"
And in truth, they were a great people. Their minds were brilliant, rational, and boldly creative.
But greatness, in turn, kindled the wrath of god.
Again and again they attempted to shape life from light, and at last the Sun God raged.
On that day, the sky tore open.
The sun shed seven layers of its shell as it blazed, and the entire continent was washed in white. Cities collapsed within a single day, and the flow of Lumen, left uncontrolled, ran wild—a colossal pillar of fire cleaving the space between heaven and earth. The Lumen Torrent devoured the world.
Light lost its life, and life lost its will.
Countless Seraphists vanished along with the creations they had made. The vessels they had crafted remained behind as hollow shells, scattering faint motes of Lumen for thousands of years—silent testimony to the god's fury.
The sun had once been the emblem of grace that shone upon Asterion, but from that day forward, no one could bring themselves to look up at its sky.
The continent fell silent.
The Golden Tower of Asterion crumbled, and the countless Lumen vessels dwelling within it scattered into darkness. The alchemists' records blew away like sand and were forgotten, and the survivors grew so terrified of light that they would not even kindle a lamp.
Upon the gray ruins, atop one of the massive fallen pillars of the Golden Tower, a single sentence was all that remained carved into the stone:
And Raphaël Estère—the greatest of all Seraphists, and the final Alchemist of Light.
The last legacy he left behind lay sleeping in the deepest chamber beneath the Golden Tower.
My head throbbed.
What on earth was it I'd just seen?
I'd experienced plenty of hidden classes on the beta server, so having class-related lore unfold before my eyes like this wasn't entirely new to me. But lore of this sheer, overwhelming grandeur didn't normally show up until at least the 2nd Class Advancement.
And there was one more thing.
You have inherited the legacy of Seraphist.
A new quest is now available.
A quest spawning like this—that was a first in my entire history of playing Laika.
"Raphaël! Honestly, what are you staring at now? Professor Martel is about to arrive!"
It seemed that I... had just been dropped into the body of that very 'final Seraphist'—Raphaël Estère himself.
Raphaël's Memory — A
《Vessel of Ego》
Category: Class — Main (Linked)
Difficulty: —
You have been acknowledged by the Primordial Light and have gained your first access to the design left behind by 'Raphaël, the greatest of all Seraphists.'
From this moment on, you must earn Raphaël's recognition within his memory, and in order to become a true Seraphist, you must claim the legacy he left behind.
......(omitted)......
The quest format itself was something I'd never seen before... and honestly? This was getting interesting.
Not interesting because the content was fun, mind you—it was interesting because I was finally starting to get a feel for what the hidden class I'd worked so hard to obtain actually did.
This alchemy the Seraphist performed... my best guess is that it feels like creating something akin to summons you could deploy in combat.
I mean, the Seraphists in the class lore were literally churning out every manner of monstrous creature and commanding them at will.
Which means you gentlemen are seeing it for the first time too, huh? Knowing that even the Constellations don't recognize it put me in an even better mood. Proof of just how rare this class really is.
Thankfully, I can still read the Constellations' chat even while possessing someone's body. There must be no interference with my streaming—one of my core professions(?), after all.
......(omitted)......
First, within Raphaël's memory, prove the aptitude you possess as an 'Alchemist of Light.'
Should you succeed in crafting a vessel capable of holding the will of light (Ego), your most basic aptitude will be acknowledged.
🎁 Reward:Pickaxe of Light, ??? Synthesis Formula
...The rewards did feel rather distinctive, I'll admit. Not that it's the kind of quest you can just decline because you're unhappy with the payout. And since it chains into a follow-up quest, more rewards will stack on top of it anyway.
No, it is not that.
What exactly do these Constellations take me for...
"Hey!"
As I was mulling that over, the girl's voice rang out beside me again.
"Raphaël, you did hear me, right?"
Yes, I heard you.
"Uh-huh. You heard me."
I answered reflexively and turned my head—and there she was, a girl in a deep blue robe casting a sidelong glance at my face.
Eyes that sparkled like lapis lazuli, skin white as porcelain, and a face that was, frankly, stunning.
When the NPC is this pretty, doesn't it just make the quest that much easier to immerse yourself in?
Her name is Seria Bellian.
Hailing from the Bellian Workshop family of southern Asterion...
Hold on. Why do I know all of this?
What is this? That's creepy, actually.
I did not, thank you very much.
What gives?
This time I'm genuinely being wronged here. This quest is a complete first for me, I swear!