Advent of the Archmage

The interior of the ice cave looked like an ordinary living room.

It was approximately 100 square feet wide. There were two semicircular bookshelves hanging on the walls. In a corner of the room, there was a smaller room with an embroidered screen blocking its entrance. Through the screen, one could see a large bed in it. This must be the bedroom.

In the main room, there was a large circular table. Beside the table sat the bodies of a man and a woman. Their corpses were still intact, despite the fact that they had been desiccated thoroughly and now looked like a pair of withered branches.

The expressions on their faces remained the same as when they were still alive. The man was reading a magic book, while the woman was busy carving a golden bird figurine. Their faces were serene. The man even seemed to be talking.

There was a magic book which emitted a faint blue glow in the middle of the circular table.The empty sound that Link had heard just then was coming from it.

Lots of questions now popped up in Link's mind. Who are these people? Why did they come to live here in the far north? And why did they leave this magic book behind?

Prompted by a desire to resolve these questions, Link began walking into the room of ice. No sooner had he taken his third step than a subtle current of magical power suddenly filled the air.

Stunned, Link stopped. His hand instinctively flew to the Ode of a Full Moon sword's handle.

Two seconds later, a silhouette appeared in front of him. The silhouette swirled about in the room before coming to rest on the two corpses.

Strangely enough, when the silhouette wrapped itself around them, the two withered bodies began to swell up. Link could see that their skins was gradually regaining moisture, while their glassy eyes cleared considerably, as if the two bodies had been brought back from the dead.

A drastic change swept across the entire room as well. Everything in the room, which was initially covered by a layer of dust, now shone with almost surreal cleanliness.

However, Link knew that this was all just an illusion. In truth, the bodies still remained lifeless. The magical power that Link felt just then had simply refracted the light in such a way that the bodies only seemed to have come back alive.

A moment later, the man started speaking.

"Lucia, my life's coming to an end soon." The man's eyes did not leave the magic book he was holding as he said this. His face remained expressionless, as if his death was about as unusual as a neighbor coming by to borrow a cup of sugar.

The woman beside him laughed, not at all perturbed by what the man said. She did not stop carving the golden bird figurine. "I see. I guess we'll need to start making arrangements for that now, won't we?"

The man nodded. He stood up, walked to one of the bookcases and then took out a magic book. Link peeked at it and saw that the book the man was holding was similar to the one on the table, at least on the outside. The only difference was that it was not glowing, nor was it making any peculiar sound.

The man returned to his seat with the book and then placed it in the middle of the table.

Link noticed that there was a simple-looking magical rune etched in the middle of the table. When the magic book was placed on it, the runes on the rest of the table began to glow. Light then began flowing from the rune formation into the magic book.

Link also realized that the light did not actually come from the rune formation itself. It was flowing out from the man's hand. The magic book grew brighter and brighter as it absorbed more and more of the light. It then began to emit an empty, trembling sound.

The man was shriveling up visibly. He now looked to be 100 years old when he finally stopped pouring the light into the book.

"Dear, we can live for close to a thousand years with this power if we want to. Will you be angry at me for doing this?" said the man ruefully to the woman sitting beside him.

"No, Rosso, there's always a beginning and an end to all life. We've completed our respective journeys in life. Another thousand years would only be torment for our souls," said the woman, shaking her head.

Link noticed that for some reason, the woman's face had withered like the man as well.

This couple must have used some kind of spell to bind their life forces together, thought Link.

Just then, the man, who was still barely alive, took out a pencil and began writing slowly on the magic book before him. The woman, not at all concerned about death's approach, continued carving the golden bird figurine.

The man began reading what he was writing. "I am Rosso Schneider. I started studying magic when I was 28 years old. However, the first three years of my studies had been uneventful. When I was 31 years old, I stumbled across a Soul Stone. For whatever reason, it chose me, granting me an incredible potential for the mystic arts. Ten years later, I was given the honorable title of Soul Dominator. Another ten years later, I began studying Prophecy Magic for five years, but without any noticeable progress. One night, when I was looking at the stars, I had a sudden epiphany. At that moment, I realized that one needs to receive the realm's blessing in order to master Prophecy Magic. No amount of rigorous training was going to help me accomplish that..."

The man was writing his life's story in the book. Link patiently listened in a corner, curious as to how the man's story ended. Ten minutes later, the man stopped writing. He gave a sideways look at the magic book that was emitting a faint blue glow for three seconds. His eyes then returned to the book in front of him. After looking at it for ten seconds, he resumed his writing.

"The gift of clairvoyance had allowed me to see what the future holds. It was both a blessing and the most terrifying curse one could hope to receive in this realm. I had lost all hope in life. In order to recover the hope I had lost, I had struggled upstream against the river of time, peering into the future until at last, I saw a turning point, 120,000 years into the future.

"120,000 years later, the realm's timeline had diverged into multiple branches. It was like a tree that had begun to branch out, creating multitudes of possible futures. Some of these futures I had seen were bleak, some even completely annihilated. However, there were also some filled with light and hope. The possibilities were endless. 120,000 years was too long a time. Even if I ascended to godhood, I would not be able to live that long to see which future unfolded... I have seen my end. I have received the realm's blessing, and then I will fade from this world as quietly as I had entered it. And so, I have decided to leave the Book of Spirits behind for posterity."

The man finally put down his pencil. He lifted his head up and looked at Link. He then spoke, his eyes seemingly focused on nothing in particular, "To the future possessors of this book, your identities are legion. Demons, Beastmen, servants of the God of Destruction, elves, or even humans. Whoever you may be, the fact that you have come this far means that you have passed the Guardian's test. You now have the right to possess this book. Take it. Finally, the wisdom I have accumulated for a lifetime has an heir."

When the man finished speaking, the silhouette vanished. Everything was back to normal. Only the magic book remained humming on the table as if waiting for Link to pick it up.

Link was not in a rush to pick up the prophet's book. He stood in the entrance and bowed low before the bodies of the two ancient sages. Only then did he walk forward and picked the Book of Spirits up from the table.

As soon as the Book of Spirits left the table, the room began to sway gently. Cracks appeared on the table, the withered corpses, the bookshelves, and even the small bedroom. They began to crumble, bit by bit.

In the blink of an eye, the whole room of ice collapsed into a pile of ash. Only the magic book that Link was holding in his hand remained unscathed.

The surrounding walls in the ice cave also began to crack, threatening to collapse all around him. At that moment, Link cast a spell to keep the walls intact as long as he could.

The sword spirit's voice sounded in Link's head.

He's the Soul Dominator. He was the most powerful entity to ever exist in ancient times. He was the ancestor of Celine Flandre as well as a good friend of the Storm Lord. He had even tried telling the Storm Lord to keep his temper in check, or there would be consequences. However, his words fell on deaf ears. Soon, the Soul Dominator stopped telling his friend off, which ultimately led to Storm Lord's downfall.

Link was moved by the sword spirit's tale. He recalled Rosso's life story and vividly felt the hopelessness that the prophet had felt due to being submerged in visions of possible futures. Link could only imagine what it must have felt like to bear such a curse throughout one's life.

He bowed again at the Soul Dominator's body before leaving the room. As he stepped out, the room lost the support of Link's spell and instantly came crashing down.

Outside the cave, the Book of Spirits in Link's hand stopped glowing. Link tried to put the magic book inside his spatial ring but failed. The book seemed to be resistant to spatial magic.

The book's cover was made of a leather specially forged through alchemy. Link decided to simply bind the book securely to his waist.

Suddenly, there was a flash of light in his vision. The game system had brought up some information regarding the magic book Link had just gotten.

Player has received the magic book titled Rosso's Book of Spirits.

Book of Revelation: Rosso's Book of Spirits

Level-19 Flawless Divine Gear.

Special effect 1: Contains all the magical wisdom Rosso has accumulated in his lifetime.

Special effect 2: The caster will be able to activate the Level-19 prophecy spell, Divination of the Fates, by channeling enough power into the book. This spell allows the caster to divine the fates of everything that exists in the Firuman realm. Higher-level targets will require more magical power. (This spell can be cast on any target, regardless of its level.

Cooldown time: one year.

(Note: This world holds no secret from me.)

Reading the message, Link let out a sigh, before saying, "Such a terrifying spell. I guess that's to be expected from a Level-19 master."

Composing himself, Link headed towards the bottom of the ice mountain. Gretel was still frozen in stasis by his spatial spell. Her injuries were grave. Patching her up under these circumstances would be a difficult task, even for Link.

"What should I do?" said Link as he began thinking of ways to treat Gretel's injuries.