Chapter 301
Chapter 301: The Goddess's Orthodox Authority in the Council
The entirety of Endymion had ignited along with it.
Every Mage was overwhelmed with excitement, each one involuntarily recalling the tremendous Magic they had just witnessed.
Not a single person was left unshaken.
The overwhelming Magic Power had transformed into a sharp lance, driving deep into their hearts—hearts that had long since grown as rigid and unfeeling as solid rock.
It was simply too spectacular.
That long blade, soaked in darkness, seemed as though it would cleave the entire world in two.
The suffocating, immense pressure felt as though it could reduce every living thing to the dust of death.
In that very instant, they had even believed the entire floating Sky City would be split clean in half.
The place known as the Twilight Expanse had very nearly collapsed entirely beneath that terrifying slash.
Countless shards of rock were reduced directly to drifting powder, and the chaotic Magic Power was completely wiped away under that fearsome assault.
Even the heavy clouds had been swept aside by that terrifying force.
A dazzling white radiance rose again like a sun reborn into this world, burning everything in its path.
The moment the Goddess disappeared, the surrounding space warped so severely that it seemed the rifts of the void had been torn completely apart.
The entire Twilight Expanse looked as though it had been crumpled up like a damaged sheet of paper.
Having witnessed that terrifying and spectacular display, every Mage was desperate to know.
Just who was this mysterious individual, possessing such astonishing power and authority—enough to even summon the Goddess of Justice herself into manifestation?
"Did anyone record it?"
"I captured the entire thing."
In any case.
Following this appearance of the Goddess.
The entire world would likely tremble, however slightly, in the wake of this event.
At the same time.
Inside the Magic Archive.
Every structure within had been destroyed—the staircases and bookshelves shattered and drifting everywhere.
Heim Horn was still meticulously inspecting each floating book with his Magic.
Although the number of scattered volumes was immense, like an endless field of stars, with Heni's assistance the pace of sorting had visibly quickened.
After all, those books that had a habit of wandering about would always make their way back to Heni's side of their own accord.
They were like a group of followers, continuously drifting toward Heni and circling around her.
This made her speed at sorting through the books noticeably faster.
Heim Horn glanced over at Cocotte, who was dozing on her cloud, and felt thoroughly irritated.
Heni, a newly inducted Council Member, already knew to pitch in and help.
And you, a former Council Member—how are you still sleeping like there's no end to it?
Sensing Heim's gaze, Cocotte lifted her head and looked over at him.
She raised an eyebrow, a hint of provocation in her expression, a touch of smugness flickering in her eyes.
As though she were saying:
Oh, so even you know I'm a former Council Member.
A former Council Member has no obligation to help you tidy the Archive.
Heni stood amid a small mountain of books, arranging volumes of every kind in an orderly manner. Whenever she extended her hand, the books would fly automatically to her side and wait quietly to be returned to their places.
She would first record the Magic from each book in her thick notebook, then sort them into their respective categories:
"Hmm…this is a 3rd-Tier Magic—Hazy Spatial Blade."
"This one is a 4th-Tier Magic, a rare dual-element spell."
"This is a 3rd-Tier Spatial Magic…it uses elemental convergence, and after rapid contraction it causes spatial folding and bending….."
Heni recorded in detail in her notebook while murmuring to herself.
She was completely absorbed in the sea of books—so utterly focused that everything around her had ceased to matter.
Watching Heni work with such dedication, Heim Horn found himself in a daze.
He stared at the enormous book in Heni's hands and fell into silence.
At this rate, every complex piece of knowledge in the Archive would be recorded by Heni in that notebook of hers.
Although the Mage Council had never restricted how deeply a Mage could pursue learning—
As long as one had sufficient talent and the mental capacity to absorb more knowledge, anyone could study here to their heart's content.
They could even monopolize every single spell in the entire Magic Archive.
But no Mage had ever actually accomplished such a thing.
The process of learning Magic was tedious and dull.
Some Mages might spend their entire lives and still fail to comprehend a single respectable 3rd-Tier Magic.
Yet today, he was witnessing an anomaly in the form of Heni.
What she was doing could no longer be simply explained away as extraordinary talent.
At her current pace, Heni might genuinely be able to speed-read through every single spell in the entire Magic Archive.
He was beginning to suspect that Viktor's detonation of the Magic Archive had been entirely deliberate.
Could Viktor really not have known that touching the Scale Archive would trigger an explosion?
The least he could have done was give some warning beforehand.
You brought a monster like this in to study, and we could have just opened the Archive and let her learn at her own pace, couldn't we?
And besides, the Council had no rule prohibiting Heni from learning here.
Even if her learning efficiency might not match the current frenzied pace, at least there would have been plenty of time.
"Heim, this section is all sorted too!"
In the middle of his daze, Heni's voice rang out, and Heim Horn couldn't help but cast his gaze in her direction.
Then, he stared in astonishment at the towering pile of spellbooks stacked up beside Heni.
Heni stood amid her mountain of books, a faint tiredness showing on her face, her posture slightly hunched.
She stretched, and even the bones throughout her entire body let out soft crack crack sounds.
Then she exhaled a long, deep breath.
Even with this volume of work, she still felt the fatigue keenly.
But her spirit had achieved an incomparable sense of fulfillment.
Watching Heni's fluent efficiency in sorting books, he was struck speechless with astonishment.
It was as though Heni had loved sorting these dull spellbooks since she was a child.
Truly, in all his hundreds of years, Heim Horn had never seen anyone so captivated by this kind of dry and tedious magical knowledge.
Although Viktor was also proficient in a wide range of Magic, what he personally witnessed of Viktor was usually only the Magic Viktor cast offhandedly.
He had never actually seen Viktor in the process of learning.
Then again, the man could just clap his two hands together and Magic would come to him effortlessly.
One had to admit—Viktor's talent was genuinely astounding.
And yet this too left him equally baffled.
How is it that everyone from the Clavena Family is this extraordinary?
Cocotte had joined the Clavena Family, and in less than two months had become a 5th-Tier Mage.
And now this Heni—though it was his first time meeting her, her unparalleled talent had already shaken him to his core.
He just wanted to know.
Was it too late to join the Clavena Family now?
Looking at Heni, he asked, somewhat puzzled:
"Heni, are you particularly gifted at sorting these books?"
"And your depth of knowledge—you don't seem anything like an ordinary 3rd-Tier Mage."
Heni's reservoir of knowledge was such that she could even grasp 4th-Tier Magic with ease.
That was clearly not normal.
Heni smiled slightly and shook her head:
"In truth, I had no magical talent to begin with—I only barely managed to enter the Magic Academy on the strength of my written examination score."
"I always believed that as long as I kept reading without pause, I would eventually become a competent Mage."
"But…"
At this, Heni's expression dimmed slightly.
After that—a familiar series of events.
Heni had no talent and could not become a Mage, and so she remained at the Academy only in the capacity of a Magic Apprentice.
Principal Rashel had taken her in and made her a Teaching Assistant.
And that was the most suitable role Heni could hope for.
Outside of that, there was nothing else Heni could do.
Because she could not become a Mage, she had no outlet for the wealth of magical knowledge she had accumulated, even after all that study.
Even with the job of Teaching Assistant to barely sustain her livelihood, Heni's path had still been far from smooth.
No Professor would look at her—and the reason was always the same.
Because she was not a Mage and could not use Magic.
So she could only take on the most basic organizational tasks within the Academy.
Such as tidying the Library and cataloguing spellbooks.
And this work—
She had been doing it since her days as a student.
It was as though, through this method, Heni could filter out all the harsh words and shut out everything around her.
To throw herself wholeheartedly into the sea of knowledge.
And so……
"Until Professor Viktor came to the Academy and became a Professor."
"He was the only Professor who, despite knowing full well that I could never become a Mage, was still willing to let me work for him."
Saying this, Heni relaxed.
It was as though a great weight had been lifted from her entire being.
From that encounter in the Library on that evening.
From the next day, when she had arrived at Professor Viktor's home with dark circles under her eyes and was still greeted by him with warmth and kindness.
Viktor's image had imprinted itself on Heni's heart, towering and immovable as a giant.
From the very beginning, Heni's affection for Viktor had long since reached its maximum.
Every subsequent experience after that—every act of care Viktor showed her—
Was nothing more than bonus points already overflowing past the maximum.
Listening to Heni's account, Heim Horn fell silent.
He had never once imagined that Heni had gone through such experiences.
Feeling that his question had been somewhat rude, he even began to feel a touch of guilt.
He couldn't help but turn his head and shoot a sharp glare at Cocotte.
Something this important—and you never thought to tell me beforehand?
Cocotte paid him no mind whatsoever, even giving him a contemptuous smile.
At that moment, a thick and heavy book drifted slowly over to Heni's side.
The surface of that book was coursing with silver-white patterns, flowing like blood beneath a pulse—extraordinarily unsettling.
The patterns converged on one another, gradually forming a pair of warped eyes across the book's surface.
Seeing this spellbook suddenly appear beside her, Heni's instinct was to do what she had been doing all along—reach out and flip it open.
But then Heim Horn spotted Heni's movement and shouted at the top of his voice:
"Don't! Don't touch it! That's—"
But his words came a few seconds too late.
Heni's hand had already come to rest on the book.
At that instant, the pages suddenly split apart at the center.
Accompanied by a frantic rustling, they began to swirl at tremendous speed.
A terrifying aura surged outward from all sides like a great demonic claw, dragging everything toward the book's center.
It was like a bottomless abyss—greedily devouring everything in its vicinity.
That enormous silver claw lunged suddenly for Heni's shoulders.
So fast that no one present could react in time.
A white light flashed—and Heni's figure was pulled into the center of that silver-glowing book.
Until she vanished entirely from sight.
Heim Horn stared blankly at the silver-white book that had snapped shut again, frozen in place.
This time, things had gotten serious.
Even Cocotte immediately straightened up, every trace of drowsiness gone.
"Isn't that the Deep Archive!"
"She got swallowed by that book!?"
The Deep Archive—that had originally been Cocotte's destination for today.
Inside it were countless spells forbidden from the present world's sight.
Not because the Magic within was particularly wicked—but because of their tier.
The Magic in that place was sentient.
The spells of the Deep Archive would, much like recognizing a master, automatically bestow the appropriate Magic upon the appropriate person.
Most critically of all.
The Deep Archive was forbidden to anyone below the 5th Tier.
Because the Magic stored within was Magic that no Mage below the 5th Tier could possibly learn.
By all rights, the Deep Archive should not have been appearing here.
But because the Archive had been blown apart, the section housing the Deep Archive had also been destroyed in the explosion.
To think—that even this book had come looking for Heni of its own accord?
"We need to find a way to get her out."
Heim Horn spoke, his expression gravely serious.
If a low-tier Mage stayed inside the Deep Archive for too long, there was a very real chance they would lose their sanity.
Just then, a ripple appeared within the space of the Magic Archive.
A spatial Teleportation Formation lit up, and a magical parrot emerged from within.
It flapped its wings and perched itself on Heim's shoulder.
"Beep boop beep boop, beep boop beep boop."
As though it were transmitting some kind of message to Heim Horn.
Then, having apparently delivered its message, the parrot's body began to dissolve into streams of Magic Power and vanished.
At this moment, Heim Horn suddenly froze.
His phantom-like head began flickering.
His square head looked exactly like an electronic receiver that couldn't process the incoming information fast enough.
Blue phantom static gradually overtook Heim's entire face.
After a long while, a giant question mark finally surfaced on Heim Horn's face:
"What in the world?"
"You're telling me the Goddess of Justice actually manifested?"