Chapter 196: The All-Knowing Perspective

Chapter 196: The All-Knowing Perspective

Amir's funeral was a simple affair. He had only requested to be buried beside Lady Roine, leaving behind a final wish for the simplest of send-offs. Sally and Anri honored his request, inviting his friends to mourn briefly before closing the coffin and burying it along with a few of his personal belongings.

They placed a wooden sword, a symbol of their friendship, inside the coffin as a companion. After a final glance at the coffin being covered with earth, Luk silently turned and left. The departed cannot be brought back; the elaborate funeral rituals were for the living, and he needed to focus on those who were still alive.

By the time he returned home using his flying magic, the sun was setting. Luk paused at the front door, entering and relaxing a bit when he saw everything was in order. The servants were busy with their tasks, and no one had any bad news to report.

He gently pushed open the bedroom door, and Trella, as usual, was quietly sitting by the window. She turned her head at the sound.

"You didn't have to come back so early."

"I was a bit worried without seeing you."

Trella smiled, her tone a mix of amusement and exasperation. "You should have said that more often in the past. Now, it doesn't make my heart race anymore."

Luk didn't respond. "You seem more relaxed today. Did something good happen?"

"Not exactly good, but I found out something that would have worried me otherwise." Trella pointed to the table. "Someone sent something that you might need. It's on the table."

Luk frowned and walked over. On the table was a stack of unmarked manuscripts. He flipped through them, his expression growing serious. The manuscripts not only provided extensive interpretations and translations of the Chapter of the Time Bird but also detailed many insights into the nature of time and various methods of observing it, as if the author had repeatedly glimpsed the flow of time.

While the future sight didn't offer much help in stopping or reversing time on an individual, it at least gave him some direction.

"Who sent this?"

By the time he asked, Luk had a pretty good idea who it might be. Only two people in this world could make such detailed conjectures about time magic from a time observation perspective. One was the yet-to-be-born Southern Hero, leaving only one other person.

The All-Knowing Shura Hart!

"He called himself Shura Hart and said he meant no harm, but if you saw him, you would attack him the moment you laid eyes on him. So, he just left the items here."

Luk mentally simulated the scenario and had to admit it was accurate. The demons were intelligent but emotionless beasts. They understood that humans experienced emotions and knew the effects of these emotions, but they could never truly feel them.

One of the Seven Fallen Sages, Mahat of the Golden City, had once spent decades cultivating a friendship with a city lord out of curiosity about human emotions. The moment they acknowledged each other as life-and-death friends, Mahat turned the lord and the entire city to gold. He did this to experience the emotion called "guilt," but even after doing so, he felt nothing until the moment of his death, when he experienced a unique stirring.

Trusting a demon was the epitome of foolishness, but the manuscripts were genuine...

Luk's brow furrowed deeply. Regardless of why Shura Hart was helping him, if he wanted to, he could have delivered the manuscripts silently.

Facing a character who had read the script, Luk felt an instinctive aversion to anything such a person sent.

"Did he say anything else?"

Luk walked over and used magic to check Trella's body. There were no immediate signs of anything amiss, but to be safe, he would have a powerful monk examine her as well.

Trella watched Luk quietly. "He also told me about the time of his own death."

Luk's head snapped up, a flash of anger in his eyes.

"Don't listen to his nonsense. There is no such thing as an all-knowing person. The title 'All-Knowing' is just an exaggerated name."

Trella didn't argue the point. She looked at the flowers by the window, a common type called "Star Creep" in Balum, a light blue flower that wasn't particularly beautiful but was resilient and required little care.

"They are withered."

Luk snapped his fingers, casting a simplified version of the flower field magic. The dead flowers merged into the soil, and new ones grew visibly.

"Magic is convenient, but there are some things magic can't do." Trella watched Luk's actions with a hint of resignation.

"I can't understand the rest, but I know the Divine Canon. You are studying time magic because my life is coming to an end, right?"

Luk wasn't surprised that the truth was out. It was hard to keep secrets from someone you lived with, especially when you spent so much time together. He suspected Trella had noticed when he started researching the canon.

"There's nothing wrong with that. I haven't done anything illegal, and it hasn't affected our normal life."

In his past life, he had read many stories where characters performed taboo research to resurrect their loved ones. From an omniscient perspective, it seemed madness, but now, he slowly understood.

"It's not just for you. If I can develop a magic to reverse or stabilize time, I will surpass Flamel, the originator of human magic, and become the greatest mage in history, eternally.

Luk changed his approach to explain his actions.

"I think it would be better to spend more time with me rather than doing this."

Trela gently shook her head. "Compared to eternal life, living a meaningful life within the limited time we have is more valuable."

Luk suppressed the irritation rising within him. "That's just what humans say to comfort themselves. If that were true, why would so many people chase immortality... or do you want to leave me?"

"You know the answer to that question. I just believe that doing the right thing at the right time is correct. Instead of chasing an unrealistic dream, we should focus on the present."

"Unrealistic."

Luk chewed on this word, his gaze resolute as he picked up the manuscript on the table.

"I will succeed."

This was a race against time, and he was already behind. He had to develop time magic, even if it couldn't reverse time, it needed to slow it down.

There was a lot of work ahead. He needed to carefully study the manuscript, starting with a "Wakefulness" spell, which was relatively easy to complete.

Luk left the room, closing the door along with the sighs that followed.

...

The progress of his research was not promising. His theoretical knowledge was still insufficient, and his imagination lacked depth. After confirming that he couldn't develop time magic through conventional means, Luk chose another path.

Future Sight!

By reverse-engineering the manuscript to deduce Xylarth's future-observing magic, he could then observe his future self and bring back his future self's research.

Once he absorbed this knowledge, he could continue using Future Sight in a loop, an infinite cycle!

This was a bug exploit, and Luk didn't know if it would work, but it was theoretically possible!

With his goal set, Luk threw himself into reverse-engineering the Future Sight spell, but progress was slow.

This was a miraculous spell on par with or even surpassing that of the Seven Sages. If the manuscript hadn't detailed the information thoroughly and if Luk hadn't had a solid foundation and an expanded worldview as an outsider, it would have been impossible to reverse-engineer it.

Trela watched as Luk worked tirelessly, trying to persuade him at first. "Don't push yourself so hard. Your eyes are already red. Your health is the most important thing."

"I understand."

The next day, his eyes were back to their usual clarity. But this wasn't because he had rested; he had used magic to conceal it.

Trela stopped trying to persuade him. She knew Luk had entered a dead end, and it was because of her.

The result made Trela's heart heavy, but she knew she couldn't have major emotional fluctuations at her age. She had to control herself.

The only thing she could do was take care of her health so as not to worry Luk and give him more time, even though this essentially meant wasting the remaining time they had together.

Time passed quietly. Two years later, the news of Sally's death arrived.

It seemed to be a common pattern; when one partner fell, the other quickly followed. Sally was even younger than Trela, but she had withered away rapidly after Amir's passing.

This time, both Luk and Trela attended.

Anri cried uncontrollably at the funeral, unable to understand why his mother had left him so soon. Trela, who had always treated him like a son, comforted him for a long time before his tears finally stopped.

Witnessing Sally's burial next to Amir was another blow to Luk. Upon returning, he threw himself into his research even more.

By the fifth year, Luk finally completed the Future Sight spell.

During the process, he discovered that the spell was incomplete; Xylarth had hidden something, and he couldn't see clearly beyond two hundred years.

This didn't matter. He didn't want to become a second Xylarth; he just wanted to use Future Sight to bring back future knowledge.

Without hesitation, Luk cast the spell.

"Show me my future."

He murmured softly, feeling his thoughts being pulled away, rising higher and higher. Then, from a god-like perspective, he saw the entire world.

He saw Fyllian hiding in a forest, seemingly chasing something, and the restless and frustrated Greater Demons trapped in the Demon King's castle.

His perspective rose again, and he saw a wandering Elven monk and the ancient elf Sylia casually seated on a throne-like chair, her eyes lifting as if she sensed something. The most powerful being, who knew almost all the world's magic, made eye contact with him, then they both looked away.

His perspective continued to rise, and he saw the diverse lives of the people in the Central Kingdoms, from the corruption of the nobility to the hardships of the common folk, from small acts of kindness to the spread of malice.

It was truly a god's perspective.

The vast amount of information he received made Luk frown. He endured the pain and manipulated the magic, causing time to speed up in his vision.

Meanwhile, countless branches of possibilities appeared, a kaleidoscope of potential futures. The future was not set in stone; to obtain the information he knew, he had to explore each branch, one by one.

Luk suppressed his restless heart, took a deep breath, and stepped into the first possibility branch.

(End of Chapter)

Chapter end