CHAPTER 49: DISTRUSTING HIS OWN BOOK
“A new age?” Soren looked at him with a puzzled expression.
Myrin simply nodded. “Yes. Mistress Sienna plans to reset the course of Yarian’s fate.”
Soren stayed silent, unsure of how to reply. Myrin sighed and unwrapped his arm around him. “It is fine if you cannot make a decision—”
“I’ll do it.”
“Huh?” Myrin lifted his brow.
Soren’s lips curved up into a wide smile. “I’ll join Star Fate Guild. Your goal seems fun, I’ll take part in it.”
“B-but, you don’t even know what correcting Yarian’s Celestial Fate means?”
Soren retorted, “So what? Do I need to know the intricacies to understand what seems interesting and what doesn’t?
“I’d much rather take part in something thrilling than live a boring but safe life.”
Myrin stared at him for a few seconds, lost for words, before bursting into laughter. “By the blossoms, why are you so reckless? I heard from Tina you told her something similar as well, haha.
“I truly don’t understand you. How can you be so logical yet so illogical at the same time?”
Soren shrugged, “It's a matter of balance. I strive to be both stupid and smart at the same time.”
Myrin sighed while smiling. He glanced back at the now distant Spirit Blossom Willow, “Back then, when you were taking the Saintess’ test. You considered it, didn’t you?
“Contracting with a demon.”
Hearing this, Soren’s eyes widened. He wasn’t expecting this question.
“Your reaction tells me I was right?”
Soren sighed. He leaned his arms against the wooden railing, glancing down at the enchanted forest below without replying. Myrin did the same.
“You know, I am somewhat jealous of you.
“I know if I was in that situation, I would not have been able to make a choice like you did.”
Soren glanced at his elf companion. His lips were frozen in place, neither a smile nor a frown. His thoughts churned back to when he first met him. It had been a week since the first time he’d heard him play the flute, but Soren had already noticed a slight change from the Myrin he’d known back then.
“Are you sure about that?” Soren asked. “Weren’t you also presented with a similar choice to mine?” He had heard snippets of what had happened during his conversation with Saintess Sylia. Myrin was presented with an opportunity to return back to his luxurious life in Yadria, and yet he refused.
“You didn’t make that decision purely out of loyalty to your Mistress, did you not? You too desired freedom.”
Myrin chuckled, “Am I that easy to read?” Soren shrugged in response. “I’m still not as good as you when it comes to mind reading.”
“Still,” Myrin retorted. “Our decisions cannot be closely compared. I could trust that my decision was the right one, because I knew that our Mistress, as well as Tina, Tryrel, and the others in Star Fate Guild that you haven’t met yet have my back. They are all family to me and they too see me the same way.
“You on the other hand… You have no one to call family, and nowhere to call home.”
Soren couldn’t hide his smile any longer. “Calling me a homeless bum would have been better, you know.” He chuckled softly, but there was no humor in it.
“You still don’t fully trust us, right?” Myrin sighed. “Although we couldn’t exactly hear your conversation with the demon back then because of the magical seals placed in the Subterranean Shunning Grounds, we could still see you through the projected screen.
“You didn’t give up on the demon’s offer because you believed we would come save you. You simply decided to resign to your fate to die at that moment. I could tell from your actions.”
Soren opened his mouth but no words came out. He didn’t really know how to respond to his question. He continued staring out into the distant Endless Sea horizon—the once shattered skies were clear blue once more.
“Don’t get me wrong,” Myrin said. “I am not offended at all by this. And neither would Tina or the others be as well. It just… Made me curious. The fact that from the two options you had, both signing a contract with a demon and believing in us to rescue you were equally bad choices for you at that moment interested me.”
“You said you were jealous of me earlier, correct?” Soren glanced over at him. “You probably think this because of how little effort it took me to make my choice.
“But believe me, I am more jealous of you than you are of me.”
Myrin glanced at him with a perplexed expression. “Why is that?”
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“Myrin, as much as you want to say you fully trust the other members in Star Fate Guild, you don’t actually believe that. No one in this world can be one hundred percent certain of something, especially when that something is the human heart.
“After all, isn’t it because of my lack of regret in my choice that we are having this conversation? To stay in Yadria, or to return to Star Fate Guild… Deep within you, a seed of doubt had slowly been growing. You are unsure whether the choice you made back then is the correct one or not. You envy me for my lack of doubt in my own decisions—that I was able to resign myself to death at that moment without much care.
“But believe me when I say this, it is me who needs to learn from you, not the other way around. Even with that doubt and uncertainty, you still chose to believe in your friends.
“As for me? Heh, I simply ran away from deciding at all.”
Myrin stayed silent—he watched Soren slowly make his way to the staircase that led to the cabin. Right before going down, Soren turned to face him and smiled,
“I hope you won’t regret adding a distrustful person like me to your guild.”
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As soon as Soren entered his cabin, the first thing he did was immediately jump into his bed. While staring up at the ceiling of his room, he couldn’t help but sigh as his lips curved into a deep frown.
How exhausting, he thought.
Ever since his arrival on Yarian, his life had certainly been anything but normal. From stumbling his way through an enchanted forest trying not to get killed, to meeting a group of weirdos that dragged him into a mission across a nation of elves, to finally arriving on this skyship by almost selling his soul to a demon…
Not even the drugs I took back on earth were this adventurous… He chuckled to himself.
Glancing over to his side, a large ancient tome that was held together in ragged purple leather was reflected in his eyes. He lifted his Soul Weapon up effortlessly.
Is it finally time? Ever since his trip inside the Heart’s Shroud and observing what his True Self had looked like, Soren had been hosting an experiment with himself. One that only now could be finished as planned.
Ever since he’d unlocked his abilities, a certain question had always plagued him: was the information he was [Record]ing factually true?
Could his Soul Weapon lie?
His perspective on this had continued to shift as he continued to learn about the Mysterious World. At first, he believed that it was possible for the info being chronicled to be wrong. After all, his first usage of [Record] was simply based on information he had gathered and inferred through his five senses.
However, this perspective shifted once he had learned of the Beyond. This aspect of reality, by its nature, stored and spread information, concepts, ideas—all of it regarding the nature of this world, and his [Eyes of the Fairy] pulled this information and made it available for him to use.
Once he began exploring what the Beyond had to offer, his perspective swiftly changed, however. Although the Beyond contained a vast amount of information—some of which could even be used to infer the future using divination techniques, it was still not all-knowing. There were many concepts that could dwarf it—things like the Nameless Mist or the Dragon Vein’s Aether. These existences clearly held a higher status compared to the Beyond itself. There were also the interactions he had with the Nameless Culprit which turned out to be the store owner of the shop him and Tina had visited. The fact that his affinities in Illusionary Magecraft were so potent, that the entire Court of Nightshade assassins couldn’t detect his presence for so long was enough proof that the Beyond could be fooled, and most likely has been in the past.
All of this led him to a conclusion: he needed to experiment with his abilities and find out whether lying to his Soul Weapon was possible.
To do this, he employed several methods. One such method was simply mass [Record]ing things on his trip inside his book, as well as in himself. Since his discovery of his True Self, Soren had realized that [Record] wasn’t an ability meant to chronicle things inside The Records alone—it could also be used to [Record] things inside himself as well. His ability to learn Vinuan, Yasini, and Yadrian was enough proof for this. Because of this discovery, a clever idea had struck him. What if he chronicled information in both himself and The Records and then compared them once his memories of that information slowly left him?
And so, ever since their departure from Point Sylvia, Soren had been busy chronicling everything he could see. From birds, insects, snakes, and spirit beasts, to plants, mushrooms, trees, leaves, and moss. Not even rocks and sediments were left untouched. The process was immensely painful, but relatively easy considering the powers of his Soul Realm’s inherent ability which allowed him to scan entire areas all together.
The plan was to [Record] all of this information, but to never review it. To never open it or demand to look at it. He simply requested the information subconsciously into himself using [Record]. This allowed him to gain the knowledge, but with no way to apply it, it would slowly wither away.
Unlike his Soul Weapon which seemed to have the ability to not only chronicle infinite amounts of knowledge, but also be able to retain them for an eternity as well, a human’s mind was flawed. Even he, who was insanely skilled at memorization, would not be able to keep the information he had learned but never applied in any way from degrading within his brain.
“The corrupted data,” he said to himself while smiling. His memories of the things he had [Record]ed inside his brain were finally hazy enough to start the experiment. Either his Soul Weapon would deny the information because of its untruthful nature, or it would allow itself to be chronicled. It would create a conflict between his own flawed knowledge on the subject and the more detailed information stored in the book.
Almost immediately, his Soul Weapon flared to life. The pages shifted to an empty one, and a mystical fountain pen covered in a mysterious fog slowly moved on its own to write in strange, blocky symbols that somewhat resemble Mandarin Chinese. He’d been curious about their nature one time and asked Myrin if they had any connection to Scripted Runic, which Myrin instantly denied. Even he had never seen them before—this was another mystery he would need to uncover some day.
Regardless, what he was more interested in seeing was the result of his experiment. A few minutes later, the fountain pen disappeared.
Soren ordered his Soul Weapon to turn the page on an interesting piece of information he had chronicled from when this experiment had first started. It was about an object he had grown very familiar with—Tina’s silver gauntlets.
Avalonian Silver Arc (Sacred Treasure + Mystery)
A bow that is made up of liquid silver that is stored within someone’s gauntlets. It will automatically move and merge on its own, forming a crescent shape filled with deadly anima that a person can shoot like a bow. The arrows it manifests are pure anima, condensed into a powerful and raw attack that could take out most low-level Phantasms. Its crescent shape holds the symbolism favored by the Mother of Silver, a radiant and orthodox deity that traces Her history far back into the olden Avalon Empire.
The description continued on and on. Soren was shocked. Every piece of that information was factually true. None of it was a lie. His ‘corruption’ test had failed—no, it had in fact succeeded.