Why Should I Stop Being a Villain-Novel

318 Hidden?

Rifir moved towards the door as black energy began covering it.

His blood-red iris shone, and the energy slowly started to pass through the door.

This wasn't a regular door that could be passed through so easily.

Each door led to a different location, utilizing a unique spatial spell and runes that enabled it.

Yet, Rifir's energy managed to penetrate that spell without getting entangled with the spatial energy.

Rifir's form disintegrated as he moved to the other side, leaving Asher alone in the room.

Asher approached the door and saw similar black energy forming a cloud-like figure in front of it.

When Asher touched the cloud, the black energy immediately wrapped around and enveloped him.

He didn't feel it, but he vanished from that room and reappeared inside another.

The skill Rifir had just used was closely related to the skill known as Shadow Travel.

Given the link Rifir shared with Asher, with close contact, Rifir could summon Asher to him.

"Too tired," Rifir murmured, his blood-red iris fixing on Asher before disappearing into Asher's right arm.

Asher observed the fading black tattoo on his arm, but quickly turned his attention to the room. Instead of being in a typical room, he was in a space where only a few books were stored.

He stepped forward, scanning the area and noticing some books in poor condition.

"So, it's also about the Space Element?" Asher wondered aloud, noting the limited number of books.

This meant that this particular door was a location only Silvus could access. He wondered why Silvus had books about the Space Element when he knew Silvus Grandus had never delved into it.

Yet the books before him suggested Silvus had indeed explored the Space Element.

"Or, maybe he didn't," Asher mused aloud, answering his own query.

He was skeptical, but picked up a book. As he'd anticipated, there was no author's name, and it didn't seem particularly ancient. It appeared to be 60-80 years old, give or take.

Flipping a page, Asher wasn't greeted by standard theories, but by accounts of various feats of Space magic. The initial pages made it sound like a diary of a mage consumed by Space Magic.

However, if this book were trivial, there would be no reason for Silvus to protect it so meticulously.

Even the Chairman of the Mage Association couldn't prevent others from reading books not authored by them, unless bound by the mana oath. Only under specific circumstances, like when a text was deemed too dangerous for public knowledge, could they intervene.

The criteria for what constituted "dangerous" were explicitly outlined in the Founding Rules of the Mage Association. Only if the Chairman genuinely believed that a work posed a significant threat could they restrict access.

Asher's skepticism stemmed from the idea that ordinary research couldn't possibly threaten an SSS Rank Mage.

As he continued reading, he realized the research must belong to a mage of at least SS Rank. However, there were no known records of a Space Element Mage attaining above an S Rank.

It was known thing that only a few mages that had the affinity for Space Element, lived long enough to reach S Rank in their late twenties, and all of them died in their early thirties.

Even in his previous life, where Asher amassed knowledge of various sectors, there was no record of such a mage that could use Space Element, and was above S Rank.

The reason why Asher already concluded that the author of this book, had to be a SS Rank Hunter was because of the way that Mana and it's form was mentioned along the crazy lines that were written on this book.

Asher himself had reached the realm where he could sense mana much better than anyone else, even with his body half dead due to his doping technique, Asher could still recall the sensation of mana that was engraved in his mind.

It wasn't something that could be taught.

One needed to reach that place and see it for themselves to understand what was being described in this book.

But nothing too shocking was present in this first few pages of this book.

But it changed after Asher reached the next few pages.

As Asher read through, he felt for the first time, that a correct representation of Space was present in the spell, but it was also a bit off but not too much.

Due to the Rune of Eirdin, Asher's perception of Space was much different from other mages, and it was because of that very reason that Asher and Nathan could use Space Element, without having to suffer through the consequences that came with it.

Asher could feel the space around him naturally, which was something he couldn't do in his previous life.

But before reading it through Asher remembered something.

There were only 17 hours left from the time they would immediately be teleported back to the entrance of the Gate, as the the badge that was used to open the Sanctuary for them also mentioned the time they would stay behind.

And taking this book out was not an option.

Due to the fact that Silvus had hid this book instead of leaving in the Sanctuary of Mages, meant that if it left this room there would be a spell that would detect such thing.

So the only way for Asher to deal with this situation was to store every single text in the book in his head.

It wasn't too hard for Asher, but that he needed to only cram the books knowledge without actually learning it.

And the time was ticking and the way this book was written was absurd.

A normal person wouldn't have even found that something was being taught through this book, but Asher could see it because of the way he sensed the space through Rune of Eirdin, was a bit similar to the way it was depicted in this book.

One by one, Asher started reading through the texts that sometimes explained something, but later on became worthless texts.

Instead of learning through this book, Asher was only focusing on remembering all this text because it was the only way he could have the information inside this book even when he left the Sanctuary.

There were a total of 12 such books, and Asher only had 17 hours in total to retain every single thing in his mind.

But he knew it was worth his time to do this instead of the books outside that were also quite valuable.

But even while reading through it, Asher felt that all the information was a complete mess.

Even if he wasn't trying to understand it, it felt as if this information incomplete.

With the way this book was written, there a chance that the other 12 books might have the answers to the things that were absent in this book.