That is why, my dear diary… you have to leave a promissory note whenever someone makes you a promise. Do you know how much time has passed since Shaneth promised to bake me an apple pie and a meat pie? However, I will not say a word about it. I do not want Henrick to start calling me a glutton again. Oh, I am not a glutton for your information.

We are currently at the Library of Knowledge. You see, we are currently traveling with Kang Yoon-Soo, who is living his thousandth life this time. Kang Yoon-Soo is quite damaged from his multiple regressions, but he is still a warm and nice guy deep down inside. I am happy to have had a nice chat with you once again, and I will tell you more about my journey later on.

I will keep journaling about my travels with you, so I hope you take care of yourself.

Goodbye, my dear diary.

Iris closed her diary. As her long hair flowed down her neck, she suddenly got the urge to tie her hair up.

‘I don’t have my hair tie,’ she realized. She suddenly remembered the hair tie Shaneth had tied her hair with.

Iris placed the quill pen down and put away her diary. It was now dark outside, and the lamps placed around the library burned brightly. She loved the cozy feeling of the dark library illuminated by the flickering lamps.

‘It would be nice if Mini-Lich were here,’ she thought as she remembered the clacking skeleton.

There was no other place as perfect for Mini-Lich, who excelled academically and was naturally eager to learn more, to be in than the Library of Knowledge. Iris was certain that the cute little skeleton would have loved the library without a doubt. However, it had been quite a while since Kang Yoon-Soo had left, and he had not returned. It would only be possible to summon Mini-Lich if he were present.

‘White Shadow, do you know where Kang Yoon-Soo is?’ Iris asked inwardly.

She soon felt the White Shadow transmitting thoughts into her mind.

‘He is within history, in the secret room of the library’s basement.’

“…?” Iris tilted her head in confusion. It was a response that was hard to make heads or tails of. Did it mean that Kang Yoon-Soo was within a book or something?

‘White Shadow, can you explain it a bit more easily?’ she asked inwardly. However, the White Shadow did not respond to her request this time.

Iris pouted and thought, ‘White Shadow is a dummy.’However, there was still no response from it.

She went downstairs and found Shaneth absorbed in reading, sitting beside a stack of books. She called out, “Shaneth.”

“Ah, unni,” Shaneth replied as she looked up at Iris.

“What are you reading?” Iris asked curiously.

“It’s a book about dragons,” Shaneth replied while stretching her arms.

“Dragons?” Iris repeated, shrinking in fear. She asked, “Why are you reading such a scary book?”

“Because the power of that scary dragon is within me,” Shaneth replied with a smile.

Iris nervously rubbed her hair before saying, “I came over because I wanted my hair tied up.”

“Ah, come sit here, unni,” Shaneth replied.

Iris sat in the chair across from her, and Shaneth took out a hair tie before using it on Iris’ hair. Meanwhile, Iris hummed a tune. “Hum~ Hum hum~ Humdudu~”

“There, all done!” Shaneth said with a smile. She asked, “By the way, do you know where Kang Yoon-Soo is?”

“It said that he was in a book,” Iris replied.

“What?” Shaneth exclaimed in surprise.

“Does it not sound weird?” Iris asked.

Shaneth seemed to be deep in thought for a moment before eventually saying, “But that sounds like the kind of place he would be in, knowing him. He always does eccentric and strange things, doesn’t he?”

“That sounds about right,” Iris replied. Then, she suddenly asked, “But what is Henrick doing right now?”

“He’s probably sleeping somewhere using a book as his pillow,” Shaneth replied.

The two women giggled like a pair of naughty schoolgirls.

“Shall we go and look for him?” Shaneth asked.

“Yes, that sounds fun,” Iris replied.

Shaneth and Iris walked up the stairs, and they found Henrick after going up a few floors. Henrick was sitting at a desk with his chin resting on his hand, absorbed reading a book. The two women could not believe their eyes.

“He’s reading quite diligently,” Shaneth said.

“We might have misjudged him,” Iris replied, feeling guilty.

Henrick looked up when the two women approached him. He hurriedly closed his book before asking, “Huh? When did you guys show up?”

The title of the book was clearly printed on its red cover.

[The Cherry Scent of Our Maid]

“…”

The two women stared at the book, speechless.

Henrick shrugged and said, “I’m reading it for the plot.”

***

Time within the trials flowed more slowly than in reality; by the time all five trials ended, it would be morning.

‘There’s no need to rush. I have to complete everything perfectly,’ Kang Yoon-Soo thought.

He checked the rewards of the first trial—the Bronze Stone and the Bloody Halberd of Vengeance.

The Bloody Halberd of Vengeance was the halberd used to kill two of the rebel leaders who had failed to escape. It gave additional experience to the user whenever they severed the neck of a living creature, and it was much lighter and stronger than a normal halberd.

‘This is a weapon that can only be obtained in this trial,’ Kang Yoon-Soo thought.

He swung the Bloody Halberd in the completely white space where he was standing. It was a two-handed weapon, but his new Bloody Halberd of Vengeance and the Vampire Lord’s Magic Sword complemented each other very well.

He placed the Bloody Halberd of Vengeance into his backpack, and the white space he was in slowly started to dissipate before turning into a completely different place.

***

“Archmage-nim! Archmage-nim!”

Someone was shaking Kang Yoon-Soo’s shoulder. He was lying down with a book covering his face. Kang Yoon-Soo moved the book away and slowly got up. His eyes were hazy from having just woken up, and all he could make out of the speaker was that she was a girl with long hair.

“I knew it! You were secretly taking a nap again, were you not?” the girl said.

“No,” Kang Yoon-Soo replied.

“Lies!” the girl retorted.

Kang Yoon-Soo got up from the worn-out bed, and the dust that had accumulated on the bed sheet flew up in a large cloud.

The girl furrowed her brows as she nagged, “Ha… Look at all this dust in the room. I keep telling you to tidy this place up a bit, but you do not even bother to listen. Hmm… You probably think that I sound like a bug buzzing around you whenever I nag; is that it?”

Kang Yoon-Soo ignored the girl’s annoying nagging. He rummaged around the table with his blurry eyesight, eventually managing to get his hands on a pair of small silver spectacles. Only after he put them on did his vision return to normal.

He looked at himself in a mirror tucked away in the corner of the room. As he inspected his body, he thought to himself, ‘Elf.’

The elf he had become was a stylish-looking man with somewhat long, pointy ears. The elf must have lived for quite a long time, as there were a few wrinkles at the corners of his eyes; he looked to be the equivalent of a human man in his thirties.

“Archmage-nim!” the girl shouted.

Kang Yoon-Soo looked at the girl, who had both hands on her waist while trying to look commanding. She was a beautiful young girl, and she seemed to have brushed her hair quite a lot of times, as it looked very soft. However, her perked-up eyebrows made her look so strict that she did not appear to be the same age as her peers.

“What?” Kang Yoon-Soo asked.

“Are you listening to me… You are…?” The girl trailed off, shocked by Kang Yoon-Soo’s response.

The Archmage usually shrank back when she scolded him a few times, but he normally only had a nonchalant expression that seemed to imply he could not be bothered by her nagging. This was the first time she had seen the usually meek and timid Archmage with such an expression.

“Err… Are you mad at me…?” she asked carefully.

“No,” Kang Yoon-Soo replied, then opened and closed his hand a few times. He stood up and took a robe off a nearby hanger before saying, “I’ll be heading out.”

“Did you not tell me that you wanted to forage seaweeds today? You even called me out,” the little girl complained while pouting.

Kang Yoon-Soo stared at the little girl for a moment, then pointed at her and muttered, “Go to sleep.”

He did not chant any fancy spells, nor did he use a wand, but the little girl instantly closed her eyes and fell asleep. He gently carried the girl to the bed and left the room.

‘Let’s skip over the useless bits,’ he thought.

The little girl’s name was Nella. She was an assistant who helped the Archmage out with basic, menial chores. She would have been a great help as a guide to provide an overall explanation of what was going on in the trial, but Kang Yoon-Soo did not need those kinds of things at all.

‘Archmage Oblion,’ he thought.

Oblion was an elf who had been born with so much innate magic power that he had been able to reach the pinnacle of magic as an Archmage, and that overwhelmingly powerful magic now belonged to Kang Yoon-Soo. However…

‘The second trial isn’t going to be easy at all,’ he thought as he walked down into the basement.

He turned the rusty old knob on the basement door, revealing a room that was as worn-out and dusty as his bedroom. There were various kinds of complicated contraptions and flasks installed around the room, and there were also a few body parts scattered around the room; it was difficult to determine which creatures they had originally belonged to.

‘The Archmage’s laboratory,’ he thought.

Despite its outward appearance, this was a place that contained an abundance of ingredients that were considered to be the rarest and most difficult to find on the continent.

Kang Yoon-Soo kicked up a cloud of dust as he looked for a cauldron hidden deep inside the room. Miraculously, as he looked into the cauldron, he could see the entire continent displayed inside it. Across it, several sparkling marks were scattered.

‘The soul fragments of the Archmage spread across the continent…’ he thought.

It was at that moment that the details of the trial suddenly popped up.

[Reorkan Empire Calendar Year 123, 3rd Day of the Month of the Tide.]

[This was the day when the biggest disaster in the history of the continent happened.]

[The Archmage Oblion was an elf who lived for hundreds of years.]

[Oblion, who had great intelligence and magic power, carried out numerous experiments.]

[It was today that he realized that he had made a mistake that could no longer be fixed.]

[Oblion divided his soul into 218 fragments.]

[This was a horrible tragedy.]

[Dividing his soul into multiple pieces meant that there were now 218 Archmages on the continent.]

[Oblion lamented what he had done.]

[He was an Archmage who could split apart the land and divide the oceans if he wanted to.]

[His soul fragments were calm and peaceful like him, but there was no telling whether one of them would go on a rampage.]

[The continent would be ripped apart like a piece of paper if all of the other 217 Archmages were to rampage.]

[Go forth on a journey to collect your soul fragments, and prevent the destruction of the continent.]

[You will have a month to complete this trial.]

[You will fail the trial if you cannot collect half of the soul fragments within the time limit, or die while carrying out the trial.]

Kang Yoon-Soo took his time to read through the contents of the trial.

The main point of this trial was to scour the continent and collect all of the soul fragments scattered around it. Oblion would be able to reclaim his authority over his soul if he managed to collect more than half of the scattered fragments, and that would be enough to complete the trial. Historically, Oblion had managed to collect half of his soul fragments, then used his authority over his soul to summon the remaining fragments to him.

‘But that’s not what I’m after,’ Kang Yoon-Soo thought.

Kang Yoon-Soo was after the additional reward that could be awarded in this trial, and he had to hunt down every single one of the soul fragments if he wanted to receive it. However, there were a few soul fragments that resided in the most dangerous parts of the continent.

‘I can’t do this alone even if I’m an Archmage,’ he thought.

Oblion had immense magic power, but the soul fragments had the same amount of power as well. The soul fragments that lived in the peaceful parts of the continent would calmly agree to prevent the destruction of the continent, but the soul fragments that were currently living in the hostile and harsh parts of the continent were slowly being corrupted by their environment.

‘I need someone to do this with,’ he thought.

Kang Yoon-Soo needed companions to perfectly finish the trial. He decided that he needed to gather powerful companions who would be able to survive even the most dangerous places on the continent while hunting down the soul fragments.

‘I need to gather all of the powerful magicians at this point in history,’ he thought.

Kang Yoon-Soo sat at a desk and started to write several letters. He could have used magic to automatically write them in bulk, but he decided to write them one by one by hand.

He wrote some letters with beautiful penmanship and warm words, and others with crude penmanship and rough-sounding words. He poured the dozens of letters he wrote into the cauldron, and they somehow magically managed to reach their intended recipients.

‘They’ll come and find me on their own accord,’ he thought.

Then, after exactly thirty minutes passed, the most famous magicians on the continent at that time period all gathered at the Archmage’s small, worn-out laboratory.