Through the eyes of the puppet, Edward looked at the seal and analyzed the situation. An idea came to mind, so he controlled the puppet to write a talisman in the air. However, a strange wave emanated from the door before he finished, and the puppet disappeared.
"This is…outside of the Academy," he muttered as he looked around through the puppet's eyes. "One of the defensive mechanisms of the door is to exile people it deems dangerous?"
Edward retrieved the puppet and decided to try again, but not tonight as he guessed many influential people like the headmaster, the Shogun, and even the Emperor would be alerted by tonight's attempt.
And as expected, Edward detected many powerful mages coming to the library for the next few days. And even the students could feel a strange tension throughout the school.
Then, after these people left, he created another talisman puppet, and this time, he instilled 90% of his mana in this one. After infiltrating the basement again, Edward saw two Onmyou Mages guarding the door, so he made them faint with the Sleeping Mantra.
After that, he approached the door intending to use his overwhelming power to open the seal. Unfortunately for him, he discovered this door could react faster than him because of the slight power of the Universe Will.
So, the puppet once again disappeared.
Inside his bedroom, Edward frowned as he could not see through the puppet's eyes. He could feel the connection, but it was vague and seemed far away. So, he closed his eyes to locate the thing.
He opened his eyes more than half an hour later with a strange look.
'The puppet was exiled to another parallel dimension?'
In his last voyage, he developed a spell to travel the multiverse. So, he had some knowledge of parallel dimensions or timelines. So, he could sense that the puppet was not in the same space-time continuum as the main body.
"Well, I can at least use the puppet to get the coordination of that parallel dimension."
Edward planned to travel to parallel universes to gather the resources needed to rebuild the World Gate. So, he could start with where the puppet was.
'Nevertheless, this is one of the situations where overwhelming strength cannot deal with the problem. So, I need other methods.'
Numerous thoughts flashed across his mind. Then, he remembered the information Princess Matsumoto gave him. Three months from now, the school will organize a Spirit Disaster Purification.
'I can use this opportunity to get to Zuriel and gather some more information about Elysium.'
Edward knew Zuriel never left the school ground after monitoring him since school started. However, the Spirit Disaster was the perfect opportunity to get his hand on him.
For the next few days, Edward went to school as usual while ignoring the increased security in the Academy and pretending the chaos had nothing to do with him.
A month later, when the situation calmed down, he went to see headmaster Hirano as an excuse to thank her for giving her access to the library. His real purpose was to hypnotize her to assign Zuriel as one of the teachers responsible for the Spirit Disaster outing; he did not want to take the chance that other teachers would be assigned.
While leaving the headmaster's office, she warned him to be careful during the outing, and Edward smiled at her. For the remaining two months, he acted normally while removing the contractual restraints from reading all the books in the library.
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The Yamato Dynasty has strict control of knowledge. So, any book related to magic read in the library required signing a contract, which also contained the power of Universe Will.
Edward wanted to learn this level of contracts to use back in the Empire since it is much better than Soul Contracts. Additionally, he felt understanding more about the Universe Will would benefit him and the Empire besides allowing him to use Conceptual Magic.
Then, the day of the outing arrived. Edward stood as the leader of the commoner students, which displayed a level of confidence never seen since the inception of the Academy.
Usually, during these outings, the commoners were usually scared and worried they would perform poorly. But, after three months of training, the weakest of them had caught up with some middle noble households.
Furthermore, their senpai taught them how to work together to fill the gap between high nobles and royals.
Three teachers were leading the students: Kisuke-sensei, Kuruna-sensei, and Zuriel.
"Is everyone here?" asked Kisuke. After the students nodded, he looked at one student and said: "Prince Yuji, if you don't mind."
"It's my pleasure," said the prince before taking out a talisman.
"Order."
The talisman floated in the air before shining brightly. Then, a portal appeared in front of everyone. The teachers then instructed the students to enter one by one.
Everyone soon found themselves in front of a small village where the clouds above were utterly dark. Additionally, an eerie aura could be felt just by looking at the village.
"Go deal with the Spirit Disaster," said Kisuke calmly. The students waited for further explanation, but the middle-aged man ignored him. So, they realized they were on their own for this outing.
Edward led his group closer to the village, and the nobles–led by Princess Matsumoto–followed him. A few meters away, he looked at the village and saw a bunch of deformed creatures with horns and black spots covering all their bodies.
He observed for a moment with a frown. "Don't kill the creatures," he said to the commoners before looking at the nobles. "That goes for all of you as well."
"Why?" asked the princess.
"Because these creatures are the villagers."
Everyone frowned as they realized the seriousness of the situation. With a little determination, they can kill these creatures. But knowing they were once humans made things more complicated.
"But these villagers are already contaminated by the energy from the Spiritual World," said Gojo Tsuchimikado.
"I know, but I can revert then back to normal."
"Impossible. No one can do such a thing. Even if you purify them, their soul can only enter the Wheel of Reincarnation and not suffer."
"Because others cannot do it does not mean I cannot."
Everyone became quiet for a moment before some noble yelled: "Why should we listen to you?"
"Because I'm stronger than you," replied Edward casually before looking at the person who spoke, almost making the person pee his pants as he remembered how Edward was undefeated in all the Combat Practices in the past three months.
"Do you have a plan?" asked Princess Matsumoto, and Edward told the group their plan. Without any choice, the group had to follow his order.
Most of the students divided into four groups before positioning themselves in the village's four corners.
Then, they began to chant a long mantra, creating a transparent rectangular barrier to surround the village. With this barrier, the contaminated energy from the Spiritual World will no longer spread.
The second group of student of students began to confront the demonized villagers. The samurai were responsible for containing the villagers, while the Onmyou Mages used Binding Talismans to capture and immobilize these villagers.
Miko led a third group consisting of all the royal clan heirs. Her familiar–the Three-eyes Raven–rested on her shoulder as she searched different houses while the rest immobilized the attacking demonized villagers.
Soon, she stopped before one of the houses and pointed at it.
"Thank you for your hard work," said Princess Matsumoto as she appeared genuinely excited. "It's always great to have a Seer in our midst. Otherwise, there would be great casualties if the Yokai attacked us when we were unprepared."
Miko bowed and smiled politely, despite being on guard. In the past three months, too many nobles have tried to get on her good grace. And with Akimitsu-senpai telling her all the strategies they were using, she was always on guard when one of them was polite to her.
"Yokai, there is no need to hide. We know you're in here," yelled Yuji before looking at Miko. "Miss Satoru, stay behind us to not get hurt."
She nodded to him before moving a little far away from the house. Not long after she did that, the house began to tremble before an enormous creature with red skin, horns, and holding a gigantic mace appeared from the rumbles of this house.
He looked at these children with his red eyes before saying: "Humans, do not stand in my way or suffer my wrath."
As the royal children looked at this enormous creature, their legs trembled for a few seconds. Nevertheless, they were all well-trained by their clans, so they composed themselves before preparing for battle.
Meanwhile, Edward floated above the village, looking at everything calmly, waiting for his opportunity.