“For the next few days, be as careful as possible. If you see anything strange—if anything at all feels wrong—don’t be alone,” Aesphyra said without taking her eyes off the blackboard.

“I understand. Thank you for warning me.” Shicodale nodded, then hesitated for a moment. “Aesphyra, is the other student’s disappearance connected to Vinny’s?”

Aesphyra did not answer him directly, clearly because she had yet to find any conclusive evidence.

“I’ve had a bad feeling lately.”

Aesphyra slowly turned her gaze toward the window.

“A bad feeling?” Shicodale asked uncertainly.

Aesphyra offered no explanation.

“Um, Aesphyra.”

“What is it?”

“Vinny... Will he be all right?” Shicodale asked uneasily. At that moment, he looked as though he had lost the one person keeping him steady.

“He will,” Aesphyra replied without hesitation. “He has never been someone willing to give up. Otherwise, he could never have made it this far.”

“I don’t know what trouble or danger he’s facing right now. The only thing I do know is that he hasn’t given up. He must still be searching for a way out.” Aesphyra looked at Shicodale. “The greatest support we can give him right now is to refuse to give up too.”

“Aesphyra...”

Shicodale stared at her blankly, unable to keep a trace of shame from rising within him.

Aesphyra trusted Vinny that much.

Compared to her, what had he been doing? To put it harshly, hadn’t he been showing that he did not trust Vinny at all?

Did he really think Vinny was someone who would give up that easily??

Shicodale recalled the many things Vinny had told him. More than anything else, Vinny had repeatedly taught him never to give up.

Sometimes, Shicodale truly wondered whether Vinny knew something about his past. Perhaps that was why Vinny had emphasized it over and over again, deliberately or otherwise, always telling him not to surrender so easily.

That was right. How had he forgotten?

Wasn’t that exactly how he himself had survived until today? Otherwise, he would have fallen long ago, during some bitter winter in a foreign land.

“I understand. Thank you, Aesphyra.” Shicodale nodded. After hearing her words, his spirits improved considerably.

Vinny had to be fighting with everything he had to escape his predicament even now. Meanwhile, Shicodale was sitting here speaking as though all hope were lost, consumed by fear and confusion while refusing to do anything.

“Only you can help yourself, Dale. If even you give up on yourself, who else can possibly help you?”

Vinny’s words echoed in his ears.

“Aesphyra, if there’s anything I can help with, come straight to me. I’ll do everything I can.” Shicodale drew a deep breath. “I want to help Vinny too.”

“All right. If something comes up, I’ll let you know.”

Aesphyra glanced into Shicodale’s eyes. The dejection and bewilderment that had filled them before were gradually being replaced by determination, and the corner of her lips lifted slightly.

“Mm!”

*****

So that was how it worked.

Several articulated arms revolved around a massive spherical blue jewel, its radiance spilling across the treasure repository and illuminating shelves filled with books as numerous as the stars.

A demure and virtuous pink-haired girl sat on a velvet sofa, meticulously reading the book laid open on the table before her.

Several stacks of books rose like small hills to her left. Most of them had yet to be opened. On her right sat a few much smaller stacks containing the books she had finished over the past several days.

Among them were Dawn Enlightenment, The Wedge of Sacred Healing, and other works that had been required reading for nearly every Dawn Saintess.

Only after reading those books did Vanessa realize just how far behind her ancestors she truly was.

Although she possessed the Virtue System—a cheat no other Saintess had ever had—her fundamentals could not compare to those of the other Dawn Saintesses at all.

It was the same problem as always. By the time her bloodline awakened, there were no longer any living elders of the Facilis Family in her world who could personally guide her and systematically teach her the proper way to study [Saint’s Envoy], magic, and weaponry; how to govern the Church; or how to make optimal use of [Saint’s Favor] and the talents and power granted by her bloodline.

Knowledge from books was certainly important, but having a teacher who could instruct her through both words and example was even more valuable.

That was how the Facilis Family educated its descendants: instruction through books combined with personal guidance from the previous generation. Having an experienced predecessor on the same path watching over you was naturally far better than blindly feeling your way forward through books alone.

Under that kind of guidance, a young Saintess could grow rapidly until she was capable of standing on her own.

For the past several days, Vanessa had practically lived inside Saint Fanona City’s treasure repository, tirelessly absorbing the knowledge contained within its books. The more she read, the more she felt as though an entirely new world had opened before her.

For example, Vanessa had only discovered after reading Dawn Enlightenment that many spells within [Saint’s Envoy] were meant to be learned in a specific order.

That sequence had been tested, adjusted, and continuously refined through the practical experience of countless generations of Dawn Saintesses.

Following it not only greatly reduced the difficulty of learning each spell, but also helped the learner understand the magic she had already acquired. It could elevate her control over those spells to another level and substantially improve their power and effectiveness.

Vanessa’s own approach to learning magic had been complete chaos.

She had stumbled around like a headless fly, clicking whichever spell happened to light up without giving the slightest thought to the proper order.

Furthermore, some spells unique to [Saint’s Envoy] had to be practiced alongside a weapon.

For instance, [Heavenly Saint Demon-Shattering Hammer] was meant to be trained together with one-handed hammer techniques. Practicing both at once allowed the spell and the martial technique to reinforce each other.

Techniques and principles like these, which improved a spell’s power and the user’s mastery over it, represented only a small fraction of the knowledge inherited by the Facilis Family.

After reading those books, Vanessa felt that her understanding of [Saint’s Envoy] had risen by several entire levels.

Before, she had wielded [Saint’s Envoy] by recklessly flailing its power around. Now, she had learned numerous techniques for using it and could derive further applications from the principles behind them.

She had not merely memorized the material by rote. She had thoroughly internalized those principles and transformed them into her own understanding of [Saint’s Envoy].

Kaleni had originally assumed Vanessa would have countless questions that required her personal guidance.

To her surprise, whenever Vanessa came to see her, it was never to ask for an explanation. Instead, Vanessa would present a hypothesis and ask Kaleni to verify it.

Every one of those hypotheses had been correct.

All Kaleni ever needed to do was nod and confirm Vanessa’s reasoning.

Kaleni’s assessment was that Vanessa would have been considered an undeniable prodigy even among the Dawn Saintesses of past generations.

She remembered everything she read, possessed an extraordinarily powerful capacity for learning, and read at an absurd speed. She never relied on rote memorization, understood how to apply methodology flexibly, and rarely needed to be taught anything more than once.

The Facilis Family’s innate abilities certainly set a high floor, but even the more mediocre Dawn Saintesses in Church history had received a complete, systematic Facilis education from childhood, along with personal instruction from their family elders.

Despite that, their achievements could only be described as more than adequate. They still remained some distance from truly outstanding.

Vanessa’s talent, however, was frighteningly powerful.

Kaleni almost did not dare imagine what Vanessa might have become if the Facilis bloodline had never been severed and she had been raised as a Saintess from birth.

Her starting point would have been no lower than Selena’s.

She would undoubtedly have led the Church of the Dawn to new heights and, like Saintess Flareli, brought at least several centuries of peace to the Tyrelis Continent.

But it was not too late even now.

Kaleni smiled as she watched the cherry-haired girl who possessed diligence, seriousness, and talent in equal measure.

She knew that what Vanessa needed most was uninterrupted peace, so after reminding her to eat her meals on time, Kaleni left the treasure repository. She instructed Rina to deliver all three of Vanessa’s meals there every day.

Before Vanessa knew it, several weeks had passed since she arrived in this world.

The shards of Nahidagon’s Original Sin Mirror had also been transported to Saint Fanona City from the various secure locations where they had been kept.

After examining them, Vanessa confirmed that the artifact responsible for sending her to this world was indeed Nahidagon’s Original Sin Mirror.

The versions of the mirror in the two worlds looked exactly alike.

The next problem that needed to be solved was the double-moon phenomenon.

Kaleni had already ordered the Church’s most distinguished scholars to devote themselves fully to its study, but even they had found no way to artificially reproduce the double-moon phenomenon.

According to their research, the phenomenon was extremely likely to be connected to some ancient deity.

That deity might even have been one of the gods responsible for the birth of the Tyrelis Continent.

If that was true, the matter had just become even more troublesome.

Vanessa had not allowed herself to dwell on those worries over the past several days.

Kaleni had told her to use her time efficiently instead of squandering it on anxious rumination. Kaleni would worry about everything else. Vanessa only needed to seize every available moment and read as many of the books she wanted as possible.

By now, Vanessa had nearly finished all the introductory texts concerning [Saint’s Envoy] and the Facilis Family’s inheritance.

Along the way, she had also learned many useful [Saint’s Envoy] spells.

That was an excellent development. Since she could learn them directly, Vanessa did not need to spend [Virtue] unlocking them, saving herself a considerable amount.

As for why she had been unable to study those [Saint’s Envoy] spells in her original world, that came down to the rules of the Church of the Dawn.

Anyone who was not a member of the Church clergy was forbidden from studying [Saint’s Envoy] magic, much less drawing upon [Saint’s Envoy] itself.

Anyone discovered doing so would be arrested by the Church.

Vanessa’s exceptional learning ability and flawless memory proved enormously useful under these circumstances.

After finishing the books every member of the Facilis Family was expected to read, Vanessa began studying some of the precious magic preserved within the treasure repository.

The Sacred Treasure Repository of the Church of the Dawn was a paradise for scholars.

From the outside, it resembled a circular pagoda that towered into the clouds. Inside, its bookshelves rose like colossal trees, every branch and tier packed with books.

The repository contained many forms of magic that had been lost because of war or various other causes, as well as original spells created by Dawn Saintesses, commanders of the paladins, great sages, and other clergy throughout history.

And books were only one part of the repository.

The higher floors displayed holy artifacts forged by the Church’s predecessors, alchemical formulas they had developed, magic scrolls, and many other treasures.

Whenever Vanessa looked upon the towering repository, a wonder that pierced the clouds, she found herself wondering whether that Pope had laid his hands on the Sacred Treasure Repository in her original world.

Was everything inside still intact, exactly as it had been in Sophia’s era, without a single item missing?

Vanessa wanted to improve her combat strength as much as possible before Kaleni found a way to send her back.

Unfortunately, which magic book she happened to find was entirely a matter of luck.

Wherever she looked, books on every conceivable kind of magic filled her vision. Vanessa had never even heard the names of nine out of ten of them, much less knew what effects they possessed.

She had deliberately come to the ice-element magic section and selected quite a few books, but choosing the ones best suited to her still depended entirely on intuition.

All she could say was that those forms of lost magic had not been lost without reason.

Their introductions were so miserly with words that they could hardly have been any shorter.

It was as though the author were glaring at her with an expression that said:

“Practice it if you want. If not, quit whining. Stop asking so many damn questions. Once you learn it, you’ll know what it does, won’t you?”

As if that were not bad enough, most of the actual contents were obscure and extremely difficult to understand.

Without a teacher, learning them was genuinely difficult. An ordinary person would be fortunate merely to reproduce the spell’s outward form. As for gaining any deeper understanding, they could forget about it.

No wonder they had been lost.

Setting aside wars, broken lines of inheritance, and similar causes, some of these spells might genuinely have been tremendously powerful.

Yet even if later generations managed to learn one, they might still be incapable of unleashing even a tenth of its true power.

Over time, its niche would be occupied by other spells that were explained more clearly and proved more practical. Once those alternatives replaced it, how could the original spell not end up lost??

At first, Vanessa had imagined that magic lost to the outside world had to be something lofty and extraordinary.

But the more she studied, the stranger her impression became.

By now, she had been completely disabused of the mystique surrounding so-called lost magic.

Who knew whether some of it had disappeared simply because it was so terrible that nobody used it, leaving it to be eliminated naturally??

When she thought about it, that made perfect sense.

If a spell was both powerful and practical, how could it possibly lack practitioners?

Once enough people studied it, it would eventually become required coursework in textbooks for anyone specializing in a certain Spirit Soul or elemental affinity.

Once it had become required coursework, how was it supposed to become lost??

Vanessa finally understood.

She could not speak for every form of lost magic stored here, but at least half had probably been eliminated for the same reason as [Armor Fortress].

They had either been discarded by the times or had never been practical in the first place.

The spells still used in the present day were the ones the Tyrelis Continent itself had rigorously filtered down to the most practical.

Vanessa did not doubt that there were terrifyingly powerful spells that had nevertheless been lost.

But the repository was filled with such a dazzling, overwhelming number of books. How could she possibly find them?

Even she could not hope to finish every book on a single floor of the repository.

With her time and energy both limited, Vanessa could only rely on intuition and search for spells that felt promising and seemed as though they might prove useful.

She reached the end of the book.

Vanessa glanced down at her hand. Sunlight filtered through layer after layer of glass in the treasure repository’s ceiling and pooled in her palm.

Then, from somewhere across the silent, deserted first floor, came a sudden burst of hurried footsteps.

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