Cocotte lay amidst the swirling white mist, resting on a wispy cloud that had been summoned beneath her, drifting aimlessly through this ethereal space.
A massive moon hung high in the night sky, yet its presence did little to illuminate the pitch-black expanse of stars.
Where the pale mist met the dark heavens, faint blue runes rippled through the air like waves on a mystic sea.
These arcane patterns continued their dance even through the thick fog, as if performing an intricate ballet around Cocotte.
Gazing upon this otherworldly scene, a seed of unease took root in Cocotte's heart.
This was, after all, her first time here - some discomfort was only natural.
The Deep Library was known to ensnare the weak-willed with hallucinations, driving them to madness. Some unfortunate souls would fall prey to the seductive melodies born from the dense magical energies, remaining trapped here for eternity.
However, as a fifth-tier mage, Cocotte was beyond such simple magical deceptions.
Her concern lay elsewhere - with Henie.
Everything within the Deep Library seemed to follow its own chaotic logic, like an ever-shifting maze of endless layers.
Cocotte drifted back and forth on her cloud, searching desperately for what felt like hours, but found no trace of Henie.
Only the perpetually morphing scenery surrounded her, shrouded in that treacherous mist that left one completely defenseless.
"Hmm? What's this..."
Cocotte rubbed her eyes, noticing subtle changes in the library before her.
At some point, cracks had appeared in the black sky where it merged with the white mist, while the hazy fog beneath her feet began a gradual transformation.
Whoosh—
The white mist receded as if responding to Cocotte's silent wish.
It parted like a curtain, automatically clearing a path forward through the fog.
The clouds drew back on either side, leaving a single route stretching into the distance.
Cocotte wasted no time, urging her cloud mount to greater speed.
After what seemed like an eternity of climbing, passing three mountain peaks, she finally spotted a familiar figure on a vast plain.
Henie lay beneath the star-studded sky, the celestial lights seeming to drape her in a gown of pure radiance.
Streams of magical energy circled her like orbiting stars, creating a mesmerizing display.
A gentle breeze carried silvery grass blades past, completing the dreamlike tableau.
Cocotte shook her head, trying to clear the enchantment from her mind.
She guided her cloud closer to Henie's position.
As the distance closed, details became clearer.
Henie was bent over an enormous tome, a quill dancing swiftly across its pages.
"He—"
"He—" The words died in her throat, sealed by some mysterious force.
Try as she might, not a sound emerged.
In her mounting anxiety at being silenced, she heard only a distant, ethereal voice:
"Shh~"
Cocotte searched frantically, but saw no one.
Perhaps the library itself had silenced her, fearing any disruption to Henie's work.
She could only watch and wait.
Suddenly, her eyes widened in amazement.
Countless arcane runes had materialized around Henie, floating above the misty clouds, forming an intricate sphere of magical script.
With each stroke of her quill, new runes bloomed into existence around her.
Though the symbols seemed tantalizingly familiar, closer study revealed them to be fundamentally altered - impossible to combine into any known spell.
What could Henie be attempting?
Cocotte observed in fascinated silence, studying her companion's intense concentration.
Finally, Henie appeared to complete her runic transcription.
She stretched languidly, looking up by chance to spot Cocotte.
"Senior Cocotte?"
Cocotte found her voice had returned and quickly asked:
"Henie, what exactly are you doing?"
Henie patted the massive tome, explaining with obvious excitement:
"As you can see, I've extracted all the fourth-tier spells recorded in the Magic Library. I'm identifying runes with similar properties and experimenting with new arrangements and combinations."
Cocotte listened in growing bewilderment.
She could comprehend these runes in their original fourth-tier spell formations.
But separated and recombined like this...
Her understanding failed completely.
No wonder - though the runes seemed achingly familiar, their new configurations defied conventional magical theory.
"Can you actually understand these yourself?" she asked.
Henie shook her head.
"Not yet. That's why I keep trying different combinations."
"Trying?"
Henie lifted the enormous tome and opened it wide.
From tens of thousands of recorded runes, she selected several dozen of the most cryptic, touching them lightly with her finger.
The chosen runes materialized in the air, orbiting the book and their creator.
The surrounding magical patterns began to shift and flow, spontaneously forming a complex array.
Suddenly, cracks appeared in the floating runes, spreading like fractures in glass.
Raw magical power exploded outward as the runes shattered, a blade of pure light slicing through reality itself.
The released energy expanded in a devastating wave, detonating like magical fireworks that shook the very foundations of space.
The display was magnificent and terrifying - waves of force rippling outward in crystalline patterns that seemed to fold space itself.
The intensity nearly blinded Cocotte, the brilliant light searing her vision.
Even her heart seemed to resonate painfully with the waves of power.
"This spell has little actual power - I've only extracted the 'light' elements," Henie explained.
"But if I do this..."
She waved her hand, and the runes in the array began to shift again.
This time, the magical energy began to rapidly concentrate, compress, distort, and vibrate.
BOOM!
A violent explosion rocked the space, its terrifying force sending shockwaves into the black sky above.
The blast warped space itself, creating patterns like countless flower petals forcibly merged into the fabric of reality.
Transparent petal-like patterns fully manifested, folding everything in their wake.
The sheer magical pressure made Cocotte tremble in awe.
Her very bones seemed to vibrate as the thunderous explosion assaulted her eardrums in endless waves.
"Using this method, I can discard the non-essential parts of many spells to cast them more efficiently," Henie explained.
"This was inspired by Professor Viktor's non-incantation magic."
Cocotte could barely hear through the ringing in her ears. It took a moment for her mind to process what Henie had said.
Wait... was this really what Viktor's inspiration led to?
At least Viktor's magic had some logical basis, but this...
Directly breaking down spells and recombining them?
While not quite as difficult as creating entirely new spells, this was still absolutely insane.
Cocotte felt dizzy and slightly breathless.
For the first time, she truly understood what it meant to witness a genius at work.
But even greater shocks were yet to come.
Henie's voice rang out:
"But if I could utilize all tens of thousands of runes..."
With steady determination, Henie raised the massive glowing tome.
The pages turned rhythmically under her control, and thousands upon thousands of runes she had meticulously recorded sprang to life from her notes.
This book contained nearly every fourth-tier rune in the Magic Library.
Henie's eyes sparkled as she gazed at the tome in her hands.
The runes seemed to come alive, peeling themselves from the pages.
Under Cocotte's stunned gaze, they floated up toward the heavens like ascending stars.
The runes began to automatically coalesce, their powerful magical signatures igniting with brilliant light.
"[Radiance]."
Some runes combined, light beginning to surge and grow increasingly brilliant.
"[Nebula]"
"[Several Days]"
"[Heavy Darkness]"
"[Rebellion]"
"[Love of Freedom]"
"[Oath of the Rhinoceros Beetle]"
"[Fate's Path]"
"[Humid Night Light]"
"[Eight Thousand Phantom Lives]"
With each spell Henie named, the tens of thousands of runes frantically merged together.
The black sky vanished completely, replaced by the chaotic fusion of runes as ten magical arrays spun in concert.
The cryptic runes now seemed like seeds of creation itself.
They pulsed with vibrant life force, as if spring had returned to reawaken the world.
The massive magical construct reflected in both Cocotte and Henie's eyes, shimmering beneath the brilliant moon.
How was Henie capable of such a feat?
As if answering the unspoken question, Henie whispered:
"When I first entered, a voice kept telling me..."
"Only when I discovered the mysteries of these spells, when I uncovered the magic hidden in this dimension..."
"Would it let me leave."
Time flowed differently in the Deep Library compared to the outside world, as Cocotte had heard from Heim Horn.
While perhaps only fifteen minutes had passed outside since Henie entered the Deep Library, she may have spent weeks here.
"Before you found me, I had repeated this process countless times."
Endlessly breaking down and recombining, searching for the perfect combination.
Until that final success.
Cocotte dared not imagine - for a normal third-tier mage, such an overwhelming workload would surely drive them to madness.
But not Henie.
Maintaining her fascination with order and patterns, Henie had persisted in breaking down and recombining every fourth-tier spell in the library.
Pursuing her own version of order and understanding of the world.
Unlike war magic, which required stacking different arrays to achieve resonant frequency and release amplified power...
Henie's magic involved breaking down countless arrays, extracting runes with similar elements, and recombining them into entirely new spells.
The brilliant world seemed to be shrouded in a gossamer veil.
The ten runic arrays merged completely, as if reborn from the ashes.
Tens of thousands of runes danced and flowed together, transforming into a celestial scroll that unfurled across the heavens.
[Fifth-tier Magic: Universal Scroll Sunken in Chaos]
Yet beneath the rainbow-woven starlight, only Henie and Cocotte remained, seemingly entranced by the magnificent display.
But under the scattered radiant starlight, neither Henie nor Cocotte noticed.
The sky opened its eyes once more, the moon shifting slightly as if looking down at Henie.
"For a third-tier mage to achieve this level... no wonder the library was drawn to her..."
"Aubrey, it seems your Eternal Furnace is about to lose its advantage."
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