The next day.

Before going to see Heinkel like yesterday, Alon was talking with Penia when—

“Marquis.”

“Evan, where did you go?”

“I stopped by the information guild for a moment.”

“......There’s an information guild here too?”

“No, not exactly, but at some point they started coming by often and delivering information. More importantly, I have something to tell you.”

“What is it?”

“They say a lot of strange phenomena have been occurring in Ashtalon lately.”

“In Ashtalon?”

“Yes.”

Alon heard a piece of information from Evan.

“What kind of phenomenon?”

“There are various ones, but the representative example is what they’re calling frenzy.”

“Frenzy?”

“Yes. They say monsters are killing each other.”

Alon tilted his head.

“......Isn’t that something that can happen normally too?”

Basically, most monsters had low intelligence and no reason, so there were many cases where they treated everything other than their own kind as an enemy.

In other words, unless it was something on the scale of goblins and ogres, there were times they hunted each other and devoured one another.

But Evan shook his head.

“The point is that their prey isn’t other species. In other words—”

“Kin-slaying?”

Penia’s interjection wasn’t something Evan denied.

Penia made an odd expression.

“......That’s the first time I’ve heard of that. Is the rumor really true?”

“It came from the information guild, so it should be certain.”

“That’s interesting. Usually they don’t attack their own kind.”

While Penia tilted their head, Evan continued.

“Anyway, because of that, they say the forest on the Stalian side is always stained red.”

“Is that a metaphor?”

“No. They say it’s literally like that. I guess there’s a reason they’re calling it a strange phenomenon.”

At the end of Evan’s story—“It seems like they’re killing every living thing they can see,”—Alon thought it over.

‘......Was there anything like that among the things I knew?’

No. Among the phenomena he’d seen in Psychedelia, there was nothing similar to the information he just heard.

At least, as far as he knew.

‘It’s not a descent, and it wouldn’t be a strange text phenomenon either....’

He blankly retraced what was happening in Ashtalon for a moment, and then—

“Marquis, you can think about it later. You have an appointment.”

“......Right.”

Nodding at Evan’s words, Alon paused his tangled thoughts for now and stood up to go meet Heinkel.

[I’m not going.]

Basiliora, who had stayed silent as if dead without even breathing inside the ring yesterday, slipped right under the blanket on the bed, but leaving Basiliora alone, Alon headed for the library.

[You’re here.]

“Did things go well?”

[Well— yeah.]

Heinkel nodded while looking at Alon.

But Heinkel’s gaze was slightly off from him.

......Like Heinkel was looking slightly upward—

[Anyway, I was thinking we’d continue yesterday’s conversation.]

“You mean, that information is contained inside degraded magic?”

[Right. First... how much do you know?]

“Like I told you yesterday, just that Ice Spear is the degraded version of Ice Crystal Flower Spear.”

[You didn’t know anything besides that?]

“That’s right.”

Heinkel fell silent for a moment, then spoke.

[First, let me ask— you obviously know about tier magic, right?]

Tier magic.

Since Alon used magic through spells and hand seals, he hadn’t really paid much attention to it.

But aside from Origin, which you could use once you reached the 8th tier, in the world of Psychedelia, the magic you could use was strictly fixed by each tier.

And that was called tier magic.

“I know.”

When Alon nodded, Heinkel—

[Every tier magic you know is the degraded version.]

—said plainly.

A brief silence passed as he tried to digest that.

“......All tier magic?”

[Well, that’s putting it simply. In truth, it’s hard to definitively call it a ‘degraded version.’ More accurately, rather than being degraded... ‘tier magic’ itself is closer to information transmission.]

“......Information transmission?”

[That’s right.]

Alon immediately asked,

“How did you discover that?”

[Hmm—]

Heinkel seemed to think about how to answer, then slowly opened their mouth.

[Even in life, I expected that tier magic itself wasn’t just simple magic. But I failed to grasp its intent.]

“......Its intent?”

[Hmm— how should I explain this?]

When Alon didn’t understand easily, Heinkel let out an “Ah,” and then—

Fwoosh—

created an Ice Spear in front of them.

[You can make Ice Spear, right?]

“Yes.”

[Then it’s easy to explain.]

Heinkel cleared their throat and began in earnest.

[Like you know, the elements that make up magic are the amount of mana, the structure, and the arrangement. And if you change that arrangement just a little—]

With a crack! sound, the shape of the Ice Spear twisted into a spiral.

[It would probably look like this.]

“......This is—”

[Similar to the Ice Spear used by the Blue Mage Tower, right? And if instead of the arrangement you change the mana structure—]

The Ice Spear in front of them warped grotesquely, then soon turned into the shape of a sphere bristling with sharp spikes.

[—It becomes like this. Do you know what it resembles?]

“......It became similar to the magic the Red Mage Tower’s mages use.”

This time, Penia answered, and Heinkel, approving, kept changing the Ice Spear into all sorts of shapes.

Sometimes longer than a normal Ice Spear, sometimes changing into something that looked less like a spear and more like a gigantic blade—

and then asked,

[From what I showed you, what did you realize?]

“......The characteristics of each mage tower?”

[Correct. The five towers that are divided in the first place create and use their respective characteristics by adding slight variations to tier magic.]

That’s one of the reasons the towers are separated and have colors in the first place, Heinkel muttered as if talking to themselves, and then raised their voice and continued.

[But what I want to point out more essentially here is ‘degrees of freedom.’]

“......Degrees of freedom?”

[Yes. Like you know, in most magic created by mages—aside from tier magic—the amount of mana, structure, and arrangement are fixed. Origin is the same.]

“.......”

[To put it simply, increasing the amount of mana going into a spell doesn’t make it stronger. And if you twist the arrangement like tier magic, a lot of the time the spell doesn’t activate, or it fails and explodes. But tier magic isn’t like that.]

Heinkel spoke while freely twisting and reshaping the Ice Spear.

[Even if you change the arrangement excessively, it doesn’t fail. And you can even adjust the structure or the amount of mana however you want.]

“......Couldn’t you just say that means the spell was made well?”

[I don’t think so.]

“Why?”

Instead of answering, Heinkel scattered mana in the air.

Mana, clearly visible to both of them, formed an Ice Spear in an instant, and Alon and Penia both made shocked expressions without even thinking.

It wasn’t because Ice Spear had some special feature.

The reason they were shocked was—

[Do you get it?]

“......You can make it that simply?”

[Yes.]

It had been created through an absurdly simple process. 𝓯𝙧𝙚𝒆𝙬𝙚𝒃𝙣𝙤𝒗𝓮𝓵.𝙘𝙤𝙢

To make Ice Spear—no, to perform tier magic—no matter what arrangement you made, you had to go through three processes without fail.

But the Ice Spear Heinkel made was closer to something created instantly while ignoring that process.

Anyone who handled magic would have no choice but to be shocked.

[Let me say this first: it’s not because I’m a genius that I can do this. This is tier magic too, in the end.]

“This is...?”

[Hard to believe, right? But it’s tier magic. I just removed what’s useless for implementing the spell.]

Heinkel continued.

[In other words, there’s no way the one who made tier magic didn’t know that this magic could be implemented without such a complicated process.]

“You’re saying it was made with information intentionally included to pass down to later generations?”

[Exactly.]

Heinkel added, as if as an aside, that realizing the process of magic was “information” was something they’d only recognized recently through Penia, and then—

[Anyway, it’s a good thing for you. We can’t use the magic you use, but you can gain magic just by researching tier magic—]

“......You can obtain magic.”

[That’s it.]

Heinkel agreed as if they’d been waiting.

[Do you want to try an experiment?]

“An experiment?”

[Yeah. Actually, for a 1st-tier spell like Light, I already dismantled the spell and finished a rough investigation. How about it?]

“If you tell me, I’ll try it.”

A new experiment began.

The outskirts of the desert city, Colony.

In a cave beneath a landscape where nothing but desert spread out—

“Huff... huff...”

Seollang, as if exhausted, let out ragged breaths and slumped down onto the floor in the darkness.

In front of Seollang lay a conlet.

Seollang stared at it with a strained expression, then took on a somewhat gloomy look.

“......Why isn’t it working.......”

Muttering as if suffocatingly frustrated and irritated at the same time, Seollang had already been throwing themself at it for months to pass the next test the essence had set.

But they kept failing.

“.......”

Impatience began to settle in Seollang’s eyes.

At the same time, an earlier scene surfaced in their mind.

A massive forest burning away into nothing, the Sin walking forward with overwhelming composure.

And themself, unable to put up any resistance at all, collapsing from a single blow.

“......No.”

Recalling that scene without realizing it, Seollang shook their head hard.

At this level, they couldn’t protect their teacher at all.

That was why, with an even more impatient expression, Seollang frowned while looking at the essence of the Golden Mane Tribe when—

[Do you need power?]

A voice.

So small, like a whisper that barely reached their ear—

“......!”

But so clearly heard.

Seollang unconsciously turned their gaze to the side.

And there—

[If you want power, I’ll give it to you.]

A black dragon was staring at Seollang from within the cave, deep as an abyss.

[So? Do you want it?]

The black existence spoke as if tempting.

“.......”

When Seollang’s eyes trembled, the black existence—no, the dragon like darkness itself—seemed to seize the moment—

[Accept me. Then I’ll give you power. Power you won’t need to rely on tests like that for......!]

At the moment it put into words exactly what Seollang wanted—

“......Huh?”

Seollang, who had been staring at the black thing with trembling eyes, let out a low exclamation as if remembering something.

Then a smile rose on their face.

[?]

The moment the black dragon made a baffled expression—

“Then lend me some power.”

[Good. You chose well! Accept me and infinite power—]

Seollang’s words fell lightly.

“No, forget giving it to me. Just lend me a little power for a moment.”

[......?]

“I’ll use it and give it back right away.”

[......??]

The dragon froze with a dull expression.

Seollang smacked their lips richly while looking at the essence of the Golden Mane Tribe.