"Haah..." After Valyr had disrupted the connection allowing him and Mystia to talk with one another, the latter stared at the orb she was holding for a bit before letting out a long sigh, the thought she had placed to the side earlier gradually returning to the surface.
"Was there anything wrong with our deciphering process?" Muttering these words to herself, Mystia placed the orb on a nearby pedestal before getting up from the chair, deciding to roam the streets for a bit as she allowed the gears in her mind to turn. "We employed the help of over 100 experts in decryption for the past few decades or so, some of which even have subclasses related to deciphering ancient languages themselves."
"Surely, such a prophecy with that many people checking it would most likely be certain, yet it isn't." Faintly scratching the back of her head as she wondered which part of their decryption process might be flawed, the woman continued to mull over it.
"Is it perhaps our interpretation of the text? Have we taken it too literally?"
"Or is it perhaps our method of reading the text? Should it be read from right to left and not left to right? Or should it have been read from top to bottom? Would changing the reading direction give us a different meaning to it?"
"No... that doesn't seem right..." However, even after all of the thinking she had done over what might have gone wrong, Mystia was incredibly certain that the message they had obtained from deciphering Otto's passage was the correct one. Even if she were to change the method of interpreting the words the man had used on the passage, she felt like she would still arrive at the same message from earlier.
"Perhaps Valyr is right that the counting of the Heralds began after Otto." Having immense confidence in the message she and many others had obtained after putting years of effort into deciphering the passage, Mystia instead looked at the problem from the perspective the young man had given her earlier.
"However, I'm quite certain that one of the passages we deciphered mentioned that Otto was the first Herald and Harbinger of the Zeihardt clan." Continuing to think out loud, Mystia brought her slight journey through the streets of the Meltierre Empire back to the place she was staying in, returning to the estate the empire had given her as one of their imperial advisers.
"Hmm..." Sitting at the stairs leading up to the entrance to her estate, Mystia looked at the sky for a while, letting her mind wander about as she allowed the thoughts in her mind to come and go as they pleased. Eventually, a certain thought surfaced in her mind, a thought that, frankly, was something she should have come up with from the very beginning.
"Is Valyr lying?" she asked herself, feeling anger gradually rise up as she thought about how she easily believed his words. Though, after taking a few deep breaths to compose herself, she eventually let out a sigh, putting herself in the young man's shoes as she understood the reasoning behind his actions.n0velusB.c0m
After all, even though a Harbinger was not well known by the world, Mystia was certain that it wouldn't take long for many to find that out once Valyr made it known.
"Well, whatever the case may be, I'm sure I'll find out the truth at some point." Feeling like a weight had been lifted off her shoulders after this realization, the woman finally made her way into the estate, arriving at the place she had been talking with Valyr earlier.
Gazing at the orb she had used to talk with the young man, a faint urge to contact Valyr once more arose from within her. However, after a while, she let out a chuckle as she turned around, deciding to do some of her tasks for the day in the meantime.
"I'm pretty sure the young man's currently in the process of consuming those items I've given him."
"He'll definitely contact me soon enough."
...
Whoosh!
At the very moment Valyr had placed the True Rebirth Pill into his mouth, the golden orb swiftly melted into a viscous liquid that flowed down his throat, causing him to subconsciously swallow the liquid in its entirety.
"Mmph!" However, once he did, his stomach began to churn, prompting the young man to widen his eyes in surprise as he felt a wave of nausea wash over his body, only for a feeling of hotness emanating from his stomach to appear not long after.
Taking in a few deep breaths to make sure that he did not throw up, the young man soon focused the entirety of his concentration towards the absorption of the pill, releasing some of his own mana inside his own stomach to form a barrier that separated the viscous liquid from the other contents that resided within.
Unfortunately, before the young man could even contain half of the liquid that made up the True Rebirth Pill, as if it had a mind of his own, the liquid charged at the walls of his stomach, causing the nausea he felt to drastically increase in intensity.
"Bleeerrrgghh..." Eventually, the nausea he felt was so severe that the young man could not restrain himself anymore, purging out the entirety of the contents of his stomach onto the floor.
Though, rather than vomit out half-eaten food, as well as digestive juices, the young man instead vomited out a black mass, which definitely made the young man's eyes widen even more.
"Mnh..." By the time he had stopped purging out this black mass, the young man felt that his current condition had surprisingly become better compared to his condition from before he had eaten the pill. To him, it was as if all of the fatigue and stress he had accumulated so far had been removed from his body all at once, making him wonder whether this feeling he felt at the moment was true relief.
"Ah..." Then again, before he could inspect his current condition any deeper, a feeling of hotness emanated from his stomach yet again. However, unlike before, rather than remain in the stomach, this feeling of hotness soon spread out throughout his body, making him feel as if he had entered a relaxing sauna all of a sudden.
For a while, this soothing feeling washed over the young man's body, prompting him to lay down on the ground and immerse himself while he could. Sadly, by the time a few minutes had passed, this feeling gradually began to disappear, letting out a slightly disappointed sigh as he stood up once more.
Hearing a series of notification sounds go off in his mind, the young man went ahead and commanded the system to bring up a screen before him, allowing him to take a look at the gains he had obtained.
"Damn."
"That's a lot more than I thought."
Ding!
[Due to the effects of the True Rebirth Pill, you have gained the passive skill 'Enhanced Mana'.]
[Due to the effects of the True Rebirth Pill, you have gained the passive skill 'Enhanced Vitality'.]
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[Due to the effects of the True Rebirth Pill, you have gained the following stats: +80 VIT, +80 STR, +80 AGI, +80 DEX, +80 INT, +80 WIS, +80 PER, and +80 LUK.]
