The youth of today would become slaves to the future. I have…experimented with extracting the power from the plant, and found my results more successful than I could have imagined. No one except with a strong will would resist the allure. That is why I must repeat this with confidence.

Were they to use Prophecy, the youth of today would become slaves to the future.

-From Professor Shokolov’s Journal, 7th Entry

In some ways, Nook and AxEl were excited to be entering the house of the old man. It was a place of mystery to both of them, filled with every strange and enchanting idea they had come up with over the many hours they spent looking at it, talking about it and thinking about it.

AxEl used to think that it would be filled with immense riches, and that the old man was just reclusive due to not wanting to let his wealth be known. He hoped he wasn’t entirely wrong as he stepped inside.

Nook was a bit hesitant at first, but AxEl burst through the locks easily and cracked open the door to reveal darkness inside. Only the starlight kept the entrance illuminated. AxEl and Nook’s shadows extended further into the house, leading a ominous path inside.

Nook felt around on the walls for the switches and flicked one up. The lights flickered on after a moment, revealing a disappointing sight. The entrance had a table near it, with a telephone attached by a cable.

That’s archaic? AxEl noted as he moved deeper into the house. He kept his feet light, on the off chance that the place wasn’t deserted after all. Nook decided to move around in another direction, and they both began exploring a place they once considered sacred.

Soon enough, their reverence was replaced with confusion. The house looked…normal. Nothing out of the ordinary. There was a large living room with papers lying about the tables. A half-eaten breakfast sat there. AxEl took a whiff of the sandwich and found the stench foul.

Left in a hurry, he did. From their investigation, it seemed the man really did live alone. Bit sad to be so alone, isn’t it?

The upper halls contained a bedroom, a bathroom and one other location that seemed to have been dedicated to work. The papers had all sorts of writing on them. From what little AxEl could grasp of their contents, it seemed to be botany. And not any ordinary sort either. It seemed to be botany related to Magic Bullets specifically.

Nook was searching through the dense room along with him. It contained enough material for both of them to spend a while. When Nook happened upon a set of letters bound by a rubber band, he slid one out and opened it.

“Anything interesting in there?” AxEl asked, glancing over.

“Nothing much. Just seems to be letters between colleagues, requesting copies of archaeological records and talks about the history of HuedoLupan,” Nook answered.

“The professor was old fashioned, huh?” AxEl noted. “Wait. If those are letters. What’s the name written on them?”

Nook opened a few more letters and read the top of the pages. “Professor Shokolov,” Nook answered.

“Sounds foreign. Read through those and see if you find anything else.”

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AxEl let Nook clear that room while he went downstairs. That was the one place they had no clue of, and the one place they might find the most incriminating evidence. Near a secluded spot of the house, AxEl found a set of double doors.

He flung them open and found a stairway leading downwards to the basement. Despite the condition of the rest of the house, the basement seemed to be lit up. Pale blue light floated up from floor towards AxEl.

He swallowed and then walked towards it. The room that spread in front of him looked like it had been stolen from a greenhouse. Blue luminescent shrooms lay in soil on top of tables. There were several sections of the soil that were divided among the rows of tables.

Equipment lay about the place. Pieces that AxEl didn’t recognize. The only thing that he was familiar with was the centrifuge, as they had a similar model in his chemistry class. AxEl walked past the tables with a curious expression.

He looked into the mushroom tops–whose faces formed into roughly squarish or triangular forms–seeing phantom images appearing and disappearing. He couldn’t make all of them out, but some were solid enough to stick in his memory. A strict looking young woman wearing formal clothing. A man that reminded AxEl of someone familiar.

Those images soon disappeared, and AxEl’s attention was taken by other curiosities within the room.

Get out of here, A voice chimed in his head. He knew he was too far gone to turn back now, so he ignored that warning and walked ahead. AxEl was more determined than ever, knowing what he had seen.

AxEl happened upon a stand near the back of the room. There was a giant crystal of bewllan set upon the wall. He’d learned a bit about the large crystals during his studies on Magic Bullets. If one took too many Magic Bullets, they would no longer work. The only way to maintain the effect was to touch one of the crystals and let the energy flow in.

It was something Questors did, not someone like AxEl. For him, they were just lighting tools used in the place of electricity. The stand, however, had something interesting on display, A step-by-step instruction manual was sitting on the desk, with an image of a pill at the end of the pill.

One of the same kind of pills was sitting between two clamps on the table. AxEl took it out of the holds with extreme care, then rolled it around in his hand. Magic Bullet, huh? He tried looking for a name, but found none inscribed onto the pill.

It was blue in colour and smooth all around. AxEl looked back at the greenhouse and held the pill up against his face. The colour matched. Magic Bullets can’t be harmful, can they? AxEl thought as he cautiously put the pill on his tongue.

He was hesitant to swallow it, but forced himself to. Grey consumed his eyes and he experienced a Prophecy.

Images appeared, infinitely expanding. AxEl felt afraid as those sights tore through his mind, terrifying, unknown, invading. He understood them. Mirage bless him, he did. A smile crept across AxEl’s face as those sights were burnt into his mind, an event he remembered happening once before in his life.

Then they began to fade, and AxEl’s worries returned. He looked around the room, distracted by his own mind. There, he thought as he looked towards the bewllan crystal. He rushed forward to it and pressed his hand against its surface. The power within flooded AxEl and the images sharpened once more.

There he stood in silence before the mental exhaustion overtook him and he fell to the ground.

****

“Hey! Hey, AxEl, come on, wake up!” Nook shook his friend. AxEl groaned before knocking aside one of Nook’s hands.

“If you’ve got enough energy to annoy me, open your damn eyes!” Nook ordered. AxEl cracked open a single lid, and found the little greenhouse like he left it. The phantom images left him, but the impact they’d had…

AxEl began laughing. Nook didn’t share in his delight, as he wore a confused expression.

“AxEl…are you okay?” he asked.

“Nook, you won’t believe this. All of these,” he gestured at his immediate surroundings, “They’re Magic Bullets. They might even be the best Magic Bullet!” he said with a manic grin.

“I…I kind of guessed. But they don’t look like any plant that Magic Bullets are known to come from?”

AxEl looked around for more pills to show Nook, but found none on the desks or stashed in any of the drawers. Nook did have a point there. “How many different kinds are there, Nook?”

“Around seven we know of?” he answered back. “And none of their Origin plants look like those,” he said while pointing at the mushrooms. AxEl picked at one of the mushrooms, but it didn’t react in any abnormal way.

“Then we might just have found the eighth one.”