Aleister touched the rock and activated the light spell. A bright yellow light emitted from it. "Eh, I wish I could make it brighter, but this is good enough for now, I guess. And for the wine, whenever you're done, force him to drink it. I dissolved another one of the strong sleeping potions in it, so it should knock him right out."

Kyoko whiffed the wine as she stared at it. "Is this Crystal Wine? I'm surprised you would use such an expensive bottle as nothing more than a sleeping potion. And you put it in the wrong type of glass."

"Well, I didn't pay for the bottle, and I'm not a wine expert, so I just used whatever glasses I could get my hands on. And the only sleeping potions I know of act much slower than the pill, which is not what I want right now."

"Oh? Did someone gift you a bottle of Crystal Wine? How generous of them."

"Gifted is a strong word, but since it has a positive connotation and sounds pleasant to my ears, I'll go with that."

Kyoko narrowed her eyes, now suspicious of what Aleister meant by this.

He, of course, didn't let her dwell on this for any longer. "Alright, Luo Yun, you go to the [half-elf] and Myra, you follow me."

Aleister had already explained the plan to Luo Yun and activated the light as the two of them set this situation up. At first, he didn't plan on involving anyone else but realized that it was highly probable that they could all wake up at the same time, and that would make communicating with them almost impossible.

"What's his name?" Myra asked.

"Stronvun. He's a human from the Crystal Ward, where he owns a fishing business. He's the oldest of the bunch and thus also has a wife and son."

Myra blankly stared at him.

"I'm not sure about the exact reason he wishes to become a Weaver, but no doubt, it has to do with his family. When I talked to them about his intentions the other day, his family was quite supportive and were willing to accept the fact that he was risking his life."

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"I see."

"Sorry, I know that you're usually a bit nervous when it comes to talking to others, but don't worry about it too much and just relax. Let the conversation flow naturally. He'll do most of the talking, anyway."

"O—okay. I'll try my best."

"As long as you try your best, then that's all that really matters."

Aleister activated the light and shifted its color to an ocean aquamarine and left the room, closing the door behind him.

He walked past the archway, and into the newly built archery room where Malozar sat, tied up. He touched the rock as it now emitted a red light before taking a seat and staring at him in silence. Patiently waiting. The silence gave him time to think.

Kyoko's right, this might really have gone too far. All of it was in the heat of the moment, but making them think that they've died? Aleister shook his head. It's far too late to go back now. I hope this works. But if it does, should I try to repeat this again with a new batch of people? If it worked now, would it work again? Probably not. Luo Yun selected these four people to be the most talented of the bunch. Still, there's no harm in trying, but I'll probably have to wait a bit before I try a stunt of this nature again. Besides, I still don't really know what I'm doing. I just came up with a crazy idea and went with it. Next time I should come up with a better plan. All of this was far too rushed. All I did was trick their minds into believing their situation was grim, but it might not be enough. Maybe I need to do more than just trick their minds, but that brings in many other problems.

I can't just recruit a bunch of people and have them kill each other or something. That won't really do anything. It'll just be a showcase of the most experienced fighter, which doesn't necessarily mean that they can become a Weaver. I wish I knew more about the arcane. About how I became an Arcanist. Actually, I wish I knew more about the process of becoming a Weaver. What does it mean to truly be devoted to a god? What will it take for them to activate your soul? And in the case of Primal Weavers, what determines bloodline strength? Not all of them can carry demonic bloodlines and even if they do, surely not all of them require a secret method of activating them? For example, Myra had a demonic bloodline, but it didn't activate until they sat upon the Crystal Throne. What is it that's so special about that throne that causes bloodlines to activate? Is there perhaps a deeper secret to becoming a Weaver that I'm not aware of?

Malozar groaned out of the blue and broke Aleister's chain of thought. He promptly stood up and walked to stand directly in front of Malozar.

After a few minutes, he eventually opened his eyes. Malozar tried to move his head and look away from the light, but Aleister bound him up in such a way that he couldn't move his head much. Along with thinness, he kept the light right between his brows so it would always fill his field of view and blind the rest of his vision. With a groggy and barely audible voice, Malozar asked, "Am I dead?"

"No," Aleister replied, shifting the pitch of his voice downwards to mask his voice.