If a person loses themselves in a book, time often slips away unnoticed.

The newly transmigrated Noah devoured knowledge with insatiable hunger, accelerating his grasp of this world.

Night.

Pale moonlight spilled across the streets. A cold wind hummed softly. One by one, lanterns dimmed. Arvin Hamlet sank gently into the hush of night.

Noah sat in the guildmaster’s office, a heavy tome cradled in his hands, gaze fixed on the window.

From this angle, he watched Shirley swaying slightly on the swing, eyes closed, sleeping soundly beneath the moonlight. No wonder she was called a bird—able to sleep standing up.

Though honestly, she only resembled a bird when asleep.

Staring at someone’s sleeping face was never proper.

Noah quickly looked away, lowered his head, and let the moonlight trace the words on the page.

Twelve centuries had passed, yet the written language remained largely unchanged. Still, countless new terms demanded comprehension—a slow, meticulous process.

Noah wasn’t worried.

This body required no sleep.

Perhaps because he’d died once. Perhaps because he differed from the living.

As a creation of Ritual Magic, Noah felt no drowsiness, no fatigue—only steady, unwavering vitality.

Mental strain, however, still struck true.

Shirley and Anna could still give him a headache.

Still.

For a grind addict, never needing sleep was a godsend.

He could close knowledge gaps faster. Through these condensed records left by predecessors, Noah would weave himself into this world.

“Still…”

The debt remained unsolved.

Technically not his burden, yet he needed the Azure Round Table—to understand this world.

And himself.

Noah pressed a hand to his chest.

Moonlight crept upward, invisibly caressing his frame.

Per Azure Round Table archives, Anna Carole’s Ritual Magic had never succeeded.

Not once.

Except this time. Noah had resurrected—fully, completely.

No abnormalities surfaced. He moved with vigor, nothing like an undead freshly clawed from the grave.

Calling it coincidence felt hollow. Noah refused to believe there wasn’t something deeper.

Then there was 【The Spire】.

Today’s climb failed, yet the pull remained—a quiet, persistent summons.

He knew: a bond linked him to the Spire.

Inside its walls, sensing its breath, faint whispers brushed his ears—indistinct words, yet hauntingly familiar. With just a nudge, he felt he could understand them.

That voice echoed like a distant horn. When it sounded, his thoughts dissolved into the wind, drifting toward a far-off realm.

No doubt.

The Spire was calling him.

Hope? Not merely slim—nearly nonexistent.

Anna and Shirley were hopeless.

They’d thrive in sketch comedy. Their bizarre antics, while unsettling, beat making dumplings any day.

“I hope Pascal’s normal. Besides self-destructing… please, no other ‘talents.’"

Noah closed the book, murmuring. Through the glass, he barely made out his own face.

As Noah Purwin—a devoted middle-aged man—he’d raised three children. His eldest son became Beilier, the legendary Mediator revered across ages. Names of the second son and third daughter hadn’t surfaced in history books yet.

This face—lightly stubbled, yet clear-eyed and composed—bore time’s gentle marks. “Mature.” “Steadfast.” Etched right into the skin.

Perhaps inheriting Noah Purwin’s memories eased the strangeness.

“Actually… not bad.”

By his standards, this mature face held balanced features. Likely charming to a love-struck maiden or two.

The face of Beilier the Great Mediator’s father.

At the thought of “Mediator,” Noah’s expression shifted.

He’d pieced together the Spire’s nature. Scattered across Ayn Continent, these towers housed monsters and treasures, standing for centuries.

Countless adventurers chased glory, becoming Spire climbers.

This climb was the Trial.

Books revealed: Trials weren’t fabricated. Monsters, locations—all traced to real history.

Yes.

The Spire preserved the Mediators’ actual pasts, reshaping them into Trials for future challengers.

Today’s first-floor Trial? A Mediator’s memory.

Someone once fought those monsters before that cave—perhaps their first battle, vivid enough for the Spire to seal it forever.

The duchy’s Spire bore the name Aether Spire, honoring its first Mediator: Aether.

Logically, one of Ayn Continent’s five Spires must be the Beilier Spire.

These were the Mediators’ legacies—and honors.

Yet scholars still debated: why did the Spires exist?

Just as Noah couldn’t grasp why the Spire called to him…

Or what a “Mediator” truly was.

“So many questions…”

Noah sighed, ending the mental spiral.

But the “Noah” in the glass still smiled faintly.

Smiling straight at the real him.

“…”

Noah jerked his head up. Locked eyes with the reflection.

Shock froze him. The reflection seemed alive—deep, dark eyes sharpening, swelling as if pressing closer against the glass.

Holy crap. A ghost?

He stumbled back, heart pounding. Even as a resurrected corpse, seeing his own reflection move sent a chill through him.

Before he could react, the glass-born image whispered two words:

“Come here.”

Instantly.

Noah’s soul tore loose.

Consciousness fled his body. Vision detached.

He glanced back—saw his own stunned physical form frozen in place. Then his awareness shot through the glass, into the reflection’s world.

Colors swirled.

He landed in fractured space—chaos without name, shards of hue drifting like dust. A gale seized his paper-thin awareness, hurling him upward.

Weightlessness surged. Noah felt like a human rocket. Arvin Hamlet shrank below, vanishing into a speck.

No suffocation. No cold. Only warmth blooming as he pierced the cloud sea.

Was he… ascending to heaven?