Book

I urged Sharon on.

“Keep reading, hurry.”

“The beginning of magic is to nurture a god within the body. To do this, make the body one with nature. The best way is to build it up within the body…….”

A sentence I knew all too well.

“Those who seek to embrace everything, eat earth. Those who wish to take flight, throw their bodies into fire….”

It was exactly the same as the method by which I had awakened as a mage.

The contents of the handmade macro the magic villain Beetle had been using.

I remembered eating sand for thirty days to make it to the featured post… no, to become a mage.

“… On the thirty-first day, the flesh is reborn as a body fit to serve as a vessel for a god.”

At last, I had reached the end I knew.

I stared at Sharon in shock.

“Th-th-that’s all?”

“No. There’s still a long way to go.”

My mind grew complicated.

Beetle had clearly said the contents of his comment were something he’d found inside the tower.

Then did that mean he had seen the same book as me?

‘No, that’s impossible.’

This book was written in ancient characters.

Within the tower, only Sharon could read this script.

There was no way a modern person could read this book.

The problem was that, in other people’s towers, Sharon was already dead.

That Sharon only ever appeared in the background.

Of course, neither Kim Suho nor anyone else had ever met Sharon while she was alive.

The only one who survived in my timeline because of my intervention.

‘Where on earth did he learn this from?’

It felt like puzzle pieces were floating around in my head.

The more I thought about it, the more confusing it became.

‘I’ll have to ask him directly later.’

For now, I decided to set those complicated thoughts aside for a while.

It wasn’t something I could ask right this moment.

Something more important was right in front of me.

“Sharon, what comes after this? Not the part about awakening….”

“It looks like it talks about side effects or failed cases.”

“What about after that? Don’t tell me that’s it?”

“Just a moment…….”

Sharon kept turning the pages for quite a while.

At last, when she had turned about halfway through the book, Sharon cried out as if she’d found something.

“There’s new content!”

“Oh?”

“O you who have opened the door, go deeper still. Through breathing, break down the vessel…. I’m sorry. It seems the rest describes the detailed method, but I can’t understand it.”

“It’s okay. I’ll figure out the meaning, so just read it as it is.”

“Yes, then….”

Sharon began explaining the strange breathing method and posture written in the book.

As expected, it wasn’t easy to understand.

The explanation was a mess of all kinds of abstract words.

Still, I had a rough idea of what I was supposed to do.

My heart pounded hard.

A chance to move on to a new stage.

There was no reason to hesitate.

“Wait, stop right there.”

I cut Sharon off and was about to sit down right there.

“Sage? You’re going to do it right now?”

“Yes. I’m curious.”

“Then go inside over there. I’ll block the entrance so no one can come in.”

“Good idea.”

I suddenly remembered how every time I’d done something similar before, the surrounding area had turned into a complete mess.

Indeed, it would be best to avoid destroying the painstakingly decorated temple.

“Let’s go down into the basement instead.”

“Huh? I’ve prepared a private room just for you, Sage….”

“No, I think that place would cause the least damage. It’s also somewhere no one can get into.”

I said that and went down into the underground cavern.

It seemed they hadn’t really maintained this area separately; traces of the last battle still remained in the basement.

I sat down cross-legged in the middle of it.

“If anything happens, I’ll wake you right away.”

“Yeah, do that.”

I answered casually and closed my eyes.

I recalled the breathing method I’d just heard in my mind.

Take a deep breath, then exhale very slowly.

Picture my entire body in my mind.

While imagining my consciousness dispersing into the air.

Phew…. This is a little hard.

I kept repeating deep breaths.

But it wasn’t easy to reach the image I wanted.

My sense of self only grew stronger.

It felt as if I alone remained in the world.

It was the exact opposite of what the book described.

“The explanation itself is way too abstract.”

Break down the vessel’s boundaries? How exactly?

Then one memory flashed through my mind.

The black mage’s mistification spell.

I already knew how to use that spell.

Not through a skill, but solely through my own senses.

“Yeah, if I recall what that felt like….”

The core of mistification was loosening the bonds between the particles that made up my body.

A feeling that, no matter who asked how, I could only answer, “Just because.”

What if I applied that trick here?

I focused on my breathing again.

This time, I focused on the sensation I had when using mistification.

It felt as if even the parts I still couldn’t turn to sand, even my soul and consciousness, were all being turned to mist.

Sure enough, it worked.

My consciousness grew hazy, and the sensations around me drifted farther away.

Beyond my closed eyelids, a new world unfolded.

Here….

When I opened my eyes again, I was no longer sitting cross-legged.

I was standing in a desert.

There was no sun, moon, or stars in the sky—only darkness.

Even without any source of light, the endless desert of night shone gold.

I bent down and scooped up some sand.

Grains of sand that glowed on their own, rather than merely reflecting light.

The grains slipped through my fingers.

“We meet again.”

Before me sat a massive being upon a throne.

A sand giant so enormous it seemed to pierce the sky.

It was the same one I had already seen in this inner world.

I sat at its feet and began meditating again.

Take in a breath, and let it out.

The work of breaking down boundaries.

Imagining all the shackles binding me to the world being undone.

The change began.

From the giant’s shoulders, grains of sand began to be blown away by the wind, worn away bit by bit.

Like a rock slowly weathered by the wind, the giant began to crumble.

But this felt more like liberation.

The more the giant’s form blurred, the more my consciousness blurred as well.

I was no longer myself.

I was a grain of desert sand, the earth that swallows everything, and at the same time, the universe.

My body crumbled.

My consciousness dispersed.

I was merging with nature.

Becoming part of everything, sinking endlessly into the deepest abyss of magic.

How much time had passed?

Someone shook my consciousness awake as it freely swam in the sea of tranquil unconsciousness.

A soft yet urgent force.

It was a familiar sensation.

“Sage! Snap out of it!”

I slowly opened my eyes.

Through my blurry vision, I saw Sharon’s worried face.

Sharon, with a water bucket in hand.

“………… W-what?”

My voice wouldn’t come out right.

I felt dazed, as if I’d just woken after being asleep for a very long time.

I looked around.

The desert was gone; I was back inside the original cave.

“What exactly happened?”

I cleared my throat and asked slowly.

Sharon let out a relieved breath and answered.

“Your body had completely turned to sand and flowed away, and even after quite a while you still hadn’t come back. Fortunately, the book had a method for dealing with that. I followed it exactly.”

“You mean the countermeasure was to splash water on me?”

“Yes. I splashed you with water and kneaded your body.”

“Huh?”

I hurriedly felt my own body.

I wanted to check whether anything had changed.

But both my height and my chest were exactly the same as before.

“… Though I think I could have been made a little taller.”

I clicked my tongue in disappointment.

But there was no way Sharon would know my exact body size, so it wasn’t her fault.

Apparently, my current body state had been set as the default.

‘Does that mean I’m not going to grow any more from here? That’s a little disappointing….’

Then I noticed a change in my body.

I lifted my clothes and placed a hand on my chest.

My chest began to turn into sand and spill away.

I realized I could now turn everything except my head into sand.

There was only one exception, however.

“The heart won’t do it.”

Around the left side of my chest.

My heart alone would not turn to sand.

It felt as if an invisible barrier were protecting it.

It seemed some special process was required to change my heart.

“Hm, this?”

Suddenly struck by mischief, I turned my entire chest into sand.

Skin and muscle. The ribs vanished, leaving an empty cavity.

Only the red heart remained, beating as it floated in midair, a grotesque sight.

“Eek!”

Seeing that, Sharon turned deathly pale and screamed.

She squeezed her eyes shut, barely holding back from fainting.

‘Maybe I should avoid making just my head float.’

Seeing her intense reaction, I turned my body back to normal.

I wanted to try saying, “Why on earth did only the head come out?” but Sharon looked like she’d pass out instantly.

Besides, honestly, I didn’t particularly want to go that far either.

‘Come to think of it, it does seem pretty hideous. It’s so bad you’d be forgiven for mistaking it for a monster….’

For some reason, I felt more and more distant from the idea of being human.

I felt a little eerie, but for the moment, my satisfaction with this new power was greater.

‘Anyway, being human is about what’s in the heart, not the form. As long as I don’t lose my humanity, it’s fine.’

“Sharon, if it’s all right, please keep reading the next part too.”

This was the result of reading only a few pages of the book.

And there was still half the book left.

I was looking forward to what other secrets might be hidden inside.

Sharon picked up the book with trembling hands.

“O you who have broken the boundaries, now it is time to reach for the heavens. All magic exists solely for this…….”

Sharon’s voice rang out clearly.

But after reading a few more sentences, her voice suddenly cut off.

“…?”

I looked at Sharon in confusion.

A face gone pale and rigid. Eyes that had lost focus.

Cold sweat poured down her forehead like rain.

She was clearly not in a normal state.

“Sharon?”

“Ю п ж а Щ ы б…….”

I called her name, but Sharon gave no response.

She only stared into the void and uttered incomprehensible words.

The cause was obvious.

“Damn….”

Thwack!

I quickly knocked the book out of Sharon’s hands and onto the floor.

At the same time, Sharon collapsed to the floor.

I was startled and hurried to support her.

Her body was as hot as a furnace, and her breathing was ragged.

Fortunately, the symptoms didn’t last long.

Sharon slowly opened her eyes and looked at me.

“Sage….”

“Are you okay? What happened?”

“I don’t know…. The moment I read the book, it felt like a flood of information was pouring into my head. It was more than I could handle….”

Sharon trembled slightly.

It seemed the shock to her mind had been considerable.

‘What am I supposed to do about this?’

I looked down at the book in my hand.

It seemed that reading the latter part of this book required something more than mere deciphering ability.

But since I had no idea what that something was, it was frustrating.

Then one method came to mind.

A consultant who had recently joined our house.

‘I should ask the black mage. Let’s see if this is some kind of curse.’

“Sharon, get plenty of rest today. Sorry for pushing you so hard.”

I used sand to carefully lift Sharon up and move her.

Her face was still pale, but once I laid her in bed, her expression looked much better.

I stayed by Sharon’s side until she was completely settled, then quietly returned home.

My mind was completely filled with thoughts about the book.