Among the books on the shelf, one stood out — "The Hymn of Dawnlight."
It told the tale of the first Goddess of Light, the one who breathed life into the sun and banished the eternal night from the continent of Aschover.
Her followers once believed that every sunrise was her spirit opening its eyes to watch over the mortal world.
Gen had no intention of reading it. Everyone had heard the story as a child — a bedtime tale wrapped in myth.
Beside it sat another book, "The End of Night."
It was thin, bound in black with a silvery sheen, and spoke of the Demonic Realm — a land untouched by light, ruled by the Six Demon Gods, each representing one of the primal instincts: Greed, Wrath, Envy, Deceit, Sorrow, and Destruction.
He flipped through a few pages.
Reading it firsthand felt completely different from simply hearing it told.
There was no author's name, yet the words carried a calm, philosophical weight — as if written by someone who had once walked through that very abyss.
He quickly returned it to the shelf.
Next to it was a book with a carved wooden cover depicting swirling clouds — "The Divine Realm: The Continent Above the Clouds."
It described a place said to be unreachable by any magic or device — a realm imagined as the resting ground of the purest souls after they had fulfilled their purpose in the mortal world.
Gen turned a few pages, but found no mention of the Lord of the Gods — only dry records and unembellished accounts of the Divine Realm.
Another book caught his eye: "The Revelation of Aschover."
It was a chronicle detailing the birth of the world — when the first elemental streams merged to create earth, water, fire, and wind.
Primitive tribes slowly learned to harness mana. From simple spells of light and healing, they advanced to crafting weapons and defending their lands.
After thousands of years of chaos, the first five kingdoms were born:
The Holy Fire Dynasty, representing light magic and faith.
The Darksoil Empire, built upon alchemy and summoning arts.
The Frost Union, ruling the eternally frozen North.
The Kingdom of Rynir, home to scholars of ancient and runic magic.
The Sacred Land of Solan, the religious center devoted to the Old Gods.
One chapter was dedicated entirely to the "Age of Separation" — the era when the Divine, Demonic, and Mortal Realms split apart, each shaping its own laws of existence.
Gen pulled the book from the shelf and sat down.
Compared to the others, he clearly favored history.
Across the room, one of Gen's shadows stood before a wall map.
Its finger traced the red-inked trade routes before stopping at Venezia, a small town about twenty miles south of the Imperial Capital, near the Galdra Gorge — the outer entrance to the Dungeon.
The finger moved again, sliding across the frozen Lumer Plateau, stopping at Ravennica, eighty miles from Venezia — a city of eternal cold.
Gen had heard of the place: the people lived by mining and metallurgy, enduring nights where the wind cut like knives.
It was a natural fortress of the North, filled with ancient ruins from the Demon King's era.
Only one path connected Ravennica to Venezia — a road cutting through the Lumer Plateau.
The eastern detour had long been sealed by the Ardent Rift, a bottomless chasm born from the collapse of ancient magic.
Next came Belmare, the Eastern Plains, sixty miles east of the Capital, stretching all the way to the border of the Solvane Kingdom.
Although under Imperial rule, Belmare was practically autonomous — overrun by bandits and exiled nobles.
It was a fertile plain, dotted with relics of old times, shrouded in mist and chill winds.
The shadow's finger paused slightly longer over a town near those plains — Lathen.
At that same moment, Gen lifted his gaze from the book
He knew that region well — all too well.
The people of Lathen and the nearby villages lived off salt trading, fur hunting, and brewing medicines from swamp herbs.
Half a day's journey from Lathen lay the village where his family still lived — impoverished exiled nobles.
At the town's center stood a Sanctum Altar, the very place where Gen had awakened as a child.
He remembered the Luthen Bridge near town — an old stone bridge cracked in half, said to conceal beneath it a hidden tunnel leading to ruins from the Holy Fire Dynasty.
Finally, the shadow's hand reached the last marked location — Port Zeven, a harbor city about a hundred miles from the Capital, lying on the southwestern coast.
It was the Empire's largest trade gateway, connecting to distant southern isles and unmapped territories.
Its lifeblood was commerce — liquor, weapons, pearls, and luxury goods.
The map on George's wall was limited to smuggling routes — a personalized network of trade zones he dealt with.
Many regions were omitted entirely.
The Adelaide Empire was nowhere to be seen — only the territories around the Capital, a mere fragment of the vast western continent.
Finding the room too dim, the shadow walked slowly toward the window.
The thick curtain hung heavy, sealing away every breath of the outside world.
It grasped the fabric's edge — and pulled.
Light burst in like a flood, washing away the darkness.
It splashed against the walls and across the desk, gleaming on the scattered files and papers.
In an instant, the gloomy air dissolved, replaced by a gentle gold — the warmth of life itself.
"Damn it, feels like I'm in a scene from The Godfather."
The shadow muttered, turning back and sitting down at the oak desk.
Its fingers tapped lightly on the surface, eyes glancing across letters and red wax seals still fragrant with fresh wax.
A low voice murmured, as if speaking to itself:
"We'll clean everything up. From smuggler to merchant. From criminal to man of reputation…"
"Do your best."
Gen didn't even lift his head from the book as he replied, his tone flat and careless.
It sounded almost like encouragement — though halfhearted at best.
A faint smile crossed his lips.
How absurdly fascinating — not only was he living in a fantasy world, now he was playing out what felt like a life management simulator.
Game Over?
He chuckled inwardly.
No matter.
Everything here… was just another resource of George's.
Gen's finger froze mid-page.
His eyes lingered on a line of text: "Chronicle of the Shadowborn"—a side story to history that his father had never once mentioned.
According to the tale, during the Age of Magic, a man known as the Chosen of the Night emerged from the Holy Sanctuary of Yllir.
He forged a pact with the Spirit of Shadows, gaining in return the power to divide his own existence.
He called that skill [The Shadow]—a second self woven from darkness and time itself.
At first, he used it to save lives, fighting countless battles and earning the title The Twin Soul.
But as time passed, each time he summoned his shadow, the world lost a single heartbeat.
The sages eventually realized that every clone's existence formed a crack within the flow of time—and the world, in turn, began to mend itself by erasing the years that had gone astray.
In the end, everything collapsed.
The stars vanished from the sky, half the continent turned into desert, time unraveled, and the Fracture of Life appeared—a rift where reality itself was bent out of shape.
The Spirit of Shadows—a being that existed before light, before the first count of time.
Each time the skill was used, it was not merely an act of summoning a clone, but a ritual that disrupted the very rhythm of the universe.
That spirit was not a creature, but the universe's first memory of silence.
In the age before light was born, when time had not yet flowed and space had not yet opened, there existed only an eternal black plane—the Still Void.
The Spirit of Shadows was the will that dwelled within that darkness.
It did not rule over the dark—it was the dark.
And since time began only after the birth of light, its essence was never bound by linear chronology.
[The Shadow] was not merely a reflection.
It was a Temporal Echo—a reverberation of time, recreating the image of its master at another point within the continuum.
Thus, when the skill reached level 10, if the clone existed for too long, the system of time itself might mistake it for the original being—causing a causal paradox, forcing reality to "correct" itself by erasing whatever did not belong to the proper flow.
Gen's eyes drifted downward to a philosopher's note—a line that sounded half speculation, half warning:
"…And when the tenth shadow rises, fate will reverse.
The bearer of that mark shall vanish from his own era—
pulled back to a moment where he never existed at all…"
At the bottom of the page lay a marginal note, said to be the words spoken by the Spirit of Shadows at the moment the pact was forged, as recorded by the Chosen:
> "Each time you call my name, the world shall lose a heartbeat.
Each time you divide your form, time shall forget where you stand.
When all falls silent… you will hear me once more."
— The Spirit of Shadows
Whether this story was true or not, Gen could not tell.
But he believed those words truly came from the Spirit of Shadows; their dangerous tone was far too distinct to be mistaken for fiction.
When he finally looked up from the book, realization dawned—
this was the Fracture of Life.
But even if it were true—so what?
He was not the same as that man, the "Chosen of the Night" from the Sanctuary of Yllir.
There was no need for him to evolve [The Shadow] any further.
No—his skill had already become [Umbral Avatar].
If the Fracture of Life was born from being surrounded and devoured by one's own clones once they reached level 10…
then perhaps, he thought, that might be entertaining.
Gen flipped ahead several pages and continued reading, until the narrative reached the Age of Chaos.
It was the darkest age in all recorded history—
a story told and retold for a thousand years, for traces of that era still scarred the continent.
It was also the tale Gen had heard most often in his childhood.
A thousand years ago…
The continent of Aschover had fallen into ruin.
Once-glorious kingdoms collapsed like sand.
The Demon King Arkran, master of darkness and commander of demonic legions, trampled half the world beneath his heel.
There were no gods. No hope.
The words on the parchment seemed written in the blood of their authors.
In that despair, twelve great sorcerers of the Arcane Codex sacrificed their own lives to perform the Ancient Summoning Rite—
an invocation that transcended the limits of the world.
From it stepped two beings who had crossed beyond both time and space.
People called them—Heroes.
One was named Nara.
The other, Lee.
No one knew where they came from.
Their language, behavior, and way of thought were entirely alien—
as if they had arrived from a world beyond Aschover itself.
After being summoned, they too stood upon the Altar of Awakening, just like the natives of this land.
They each summoned a unique spirit and were granted skills beyond the known system.
Nara—the Sword of Dawn, a master of every blade art ever known.
His sword could cleave even lightning in two, and each strike carried the will to protect.
Lee—the Mage of Night, a genius who commanded pure elemental power.
His magic could shape reality, bend space, and tear the boundary between life and death.
Together they rose against Demon King Arkran, gathering allies from every race—
humans, elves, beastfolk, dwarves of Dwalin, merfolk of Merlan, the ancient serpentkin Sylthar,
the sentient undead Obsidian, the winged Aetherians of the floating isles,
and the Runeborn—artificial beings created by the mages of the Arcane Codex, carved from stone and runes.
They had no souls, yet carried the will of the dead to keep fighting.
All stood united as the Final Alliance.
It was an age when the world burned—
not from destruction, but from the desperate will to survive.
Gen fell silent—not from emotion stirred by the tale of friendship and faith,
but from thought.
According to legend, when the twelve crystals of the Arcane Codex shone for the final time,
they reversed the summoning ritual—performing the Rite of Return, the means by which Nara and Lee went back to their world.
The Arcane Codex itself had been founded by the Twelve Sages, a council loyal to no nation.
Their goal was to preserve and control the knowledge of magic,
to prevent the world from falling into the hands of those who would wield mana recklessly.
They were the first to decode the World Script—
the primordial language said to have been written by the gods when they forged magic itself.
They believed that every spell originated from written words, and every word was a fragment of truth.
Once, magic required long and complex incantations.
It was the Twelve Sages who refined those into short phrases—
the names of skills.
The Codex referred to Nara and Lee as "Outlanders of the Seventh Plane,"
yet Gen suspected they were modern humans—from Earth.
In the Chronicle of the Shadowborn,
the philosopher who wrote that final annotation was himself a member of the Arcane Codex.
"How unfortunate…"
After the Age of Chaos, the Codex disbanded.
History records that the surviving members went into hiding,
founding Scholar Towers scattered across Aschover.
While Gen was still absorbed in those ancient records,
footsteps echoed outside the corridor.
Moments later, the wooden door creaked open.
Mo Hamus entered.
He did not knock—likely out of habit, since Geogre had never required it.
Mo Hamus froze, his scarred face stiffening in shock.
Before him sat a stranger—a young man calmly occupying Geogre's desk, as if he were the true master of the room.
At that moment, Gen gently closed the book and returned it to the shelf.
The Arcane Codex might have dissolved, and perhaps there would never be a way back to Earth again—
that, more than anything, was what weighed on his mind.
Across the room, his clone stood up.
The staff of level 90 lying on the table was ignored, as though it were beneath notice.
The clone's gaze fixed upon Mo Hamus—deep, still, unreadable.
A faint smile touched his lips—polite enough to seem civilized, yet unsettling enough to make the other man tense.
"Greetings," the clone said softly. "You must be Mo Hamus, yes?
I am Umbral Two, and from this day onward—
I will act in Geogre's stead."