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The runes on the stone wall shimmered again, and that gentle voice returned.
"You may have misunderstood my question… but your answer was a truth. And how can a truth ever be considered wrong?"
With a rumble, the cliff wall began to shift and reveal a pitch-black cave entrance.
"..."
Ian felt like ten thousand grass-fed horses were galloping across his mind.
This damn door… Could it be any more arbitrary?!
"What kind of lunatic designed this?" Ian couldn't stop himself from mentally screaming. But then again, he had to admit, yeah, that stupid Ravenclaw door knocker was always mentally unhinged.
"See? Isn't this fun?" Morgan turned toward Ian with a slightly teasing smile.
"Er… I don't really get it." Feeling guilty, Ian opted to play dumb.
Fortunately, Morgan didn't press the issue. She just chuckled softly, clearly amused, and then led the way into the cave. Naturally, the young wizard scurried after her.
Inside the cave, it was pitch-dark.
Morgan waved her hand gently,
A soft light appeared, illuminating the path ahead.
They descended a twisting stone staircase. On either side of the steps, ancient runes were carved into the walls, glowing faintly as if telling tales from a bygone age.
"Hm?" Ian noticed he couldn't recognize what the murals were depicting.
"I don't remember." Morgan gave her go-to, all-purpose excuse, casually and completely unfazed.
No one could say for certain whether she genuinely couldn't remember, or was deliberately hiding something. The more one got to know this legendary witch, the harder it became to tell which parts of what she said were actually true.
They continued walking forward.
Soon, a massive bronze gate appeared before them.
Carved into the stone door were intricate and complex designs.
But, just like before, they were too blurred to clearly make out.
Only the eight glowing characters etched on either side of the gate stood out sharply, once again sending a jolt through the young wizard's nerves:
(Savior of the world, Destroyer of calamity)
(Sovereign through the ages, Unquestioned for all time)
If they had been written in Old English or some other language, Ian might've been able to convince himself they were someone else's doing.
But the problem was,
They were in Chinese.
Simplified Chinese, no less.
"..."
Ian felt his face flush with heat. The good news: he had now witnessed shamelessness on a level that even he had to respect. The bad news: this legendary shameless person… seemed to be a future version of himself.
"Nervous again?" Morgan didn't even turn around. But she seemed to know exactly what was going on with Ian behind her.
"No! Why would I be nervous! I don't even know what's going on here!" Ian immediately blurted out a response, a little too loudly, which, ironically, only made it sound more like he was hiding something.
"Oh~?"
Morgan drawled the syllable teasingly. Standing before the giant bronze door, she reached out toward the countless interwoven markings upon its surface and began extracting glowing letters, one by one.
M-E-D-I-V-H.
She pieced them together into a name that seemed to answer the "eight-character prophecy" carved on the door, And immediately, the entire underground cavern began to shake.
"Rrrrumble, "
The bronze door started to creak open. Ian narrowed his eyes, trying to get a glimpse inside.
But,
A blinding flood of green light erupted from within, instantly swallowing his vision and engulfing both himself and Morgan completely.
Morgan didn't react. She simply let the green light wash over them.
And once the green glow had consumed everything, the scenery around them changed.
"Hoooo~"
A deep snoring sound echoed in Ian's ears, it was the Western dragon from earlier, still snoozing atop the castle.
He and Morgan had returned to the open field in front of the ancient fortress.
"And that's how I ended up here." Morgan spread her hands and spoke lightly, as if casually explaining her own death.
"You're remarkably calm about facing death, Professor."
Ian patted his chest, he had honestly been startled just now. That green light from within the bronze door had looked exactly like the Avada Kedavra curse. And it had felt eerily similar to his own Avada Plague spell.
However,
There was another kind of power buried within it, one Ian couldn't yet understand.
Morgan's memories had been so vivid, so clear, that Ian had felt like he'd actually lived through the experience himself.
"I don't have any heirs or bloodline successors, why would I be worried? The ones who should be scared are the ones who find that place later on." Morgan shrugged with a smile.
Her increasingly relaxed tone made Ian's pupils contract slightly.
"What do you mean?" He blinked in disbelief.
"Exactly what you think I mean." Morgan blinked back with those big, exaggerated "Cartoon Princess" eyes.
"A bloodline curse that hunts you down… That's brutal." Ian tugged stiffly at the corners of his mouth.
Maybe people had some reason to think he was a dark wizard after all…
"That was clearly a trap. And the target it was set for definitely wasn't someone like me, even a top-tier legend got insta-killed." Morgan wasn't wrong.
Which only showed, whatever kind of magic lay behind that bronze gate,
It wasn't meant for her.
What Ian didn't understand, though, was this:
Now that he already knew all of this, why would his future self still go on to build such a trap?
Did that mean… There really was something treacherous buried inside him after all?
Could it be… he truly did have a heart longing to betray his teacher and ancestors?
"So, the reason for the Gods' disappearance… isn't behind that giant gate?" Ian did his best to steady his mind, forcing himself not to overthink or let anything slip accidentally.
Inside, though, he was deeply uneasy. He even abandoned the idea of bringing out the damaged weapons and magical gear he'd meant to have Morgan study, no way was he taking them out in the Twilight Zone now.
"You saw it yourself, I died so quickly. What secrets could I have possibly uncovered in there?" Morgan beamed at him, a bright and carefree smile that clearly radiated her complete indifference.
"Er… you didn't feel even a little bit of regret?"
Ian was clearly trying to probe just how much resentment his teacher might still harbor. Seeing this reaction, Morgan's smile only deepened, her eyes once again narrowing into cheerful crescent moons.
"Though I didn't find the answer I originally sought… at the moment of my death, I did manage to unravel a question that had puzzled me for almost my entire life."
Her voice was tinged with a touch of nostalgia and melancholy.
She turned once more to look at the still-bewildered Ian,
Then, as if suddenly changing the subject entirely, she asked about something that seemed completely unrelated.
"Little one, do you know… even with the same spell, when different wizards cast it, the differences aren't just in power. The real difference lies in the imprint it carries."
"Or you could call it a personal style. A skilled wizard isn't just able to identify who cast a spell, they can also tell where the caster learned it, just by the trace it leaves."
"That's why lineage and inheritance, even after a thousand years or more, can still be discerned."
Morgan's tone was rich with implication, subtly delivering a magical lesson.
And then,
Just as Ian's expression started to go stiff again,
"Alright, enough with the explanations. Let's have a look at the mirror you recovered."
She suddenly clapped her hands and cheerfully changed the subject.
"Gulp~"
Ian swallowed hard.
The way he looked at Morgan was full of complicated emotions, once again, Ian could feel his teacher's dark sense of humor radiating from her like a cold draft down the back of his neck.
Back then,
The very first spell Morgan had ever taught him… Was the Avada Kedavra Curse.
Looking back now… Was that really just because the ancient wizards considered an Unforgivable Curse a basic travel necessity?
(End of Chapter)