Two days later.

Noah, his vision restored, sat back in the guild president’s office—holding his head while accepting Pascal’s apology.

The echo of the holy light explosion still haunted his mind. For the past forty-eight hours, he’d endured splitting tinnitus and soul-shaking reverberations. Even now, a slight hearing loss lingered.

He barely cared about the physical pain. It was his spirit that truly suffered.

Noah just couldn’t wrap his head around it.

How on earth had the Azure Round Table gathered these three oddballs?

Anna Carole—a Ritual Mage blessed with the golden legendary-tier talent, the Undying One. She should’ve leveraged her immortal nature to shine on the path of Ritual Magic. At the very least, she’d be a revered archmage.

Instead? Near 100% failure rate. Every other day, she’d dramatically drop dead mid-ritual.

Shirley Lucis—a gifted warrior of the Avianwing Clan, born with raw strength rivaling a jungle chimpanzee. Her wingbeats alone could near break the sound barrier. She should’ve been the guild’s most reliable pillar.

Alas, she was a literal dumb bird: low IQ, and acrophobia triggered the moment she rose above two meters—combat ability instantly nullified. Usually, she only skimmed the ground. Honestly? A seagull obsessed with french fries.

Then there was Pascal.

Pascal Muir.

Possessing unmatched holy affinity, her reserves of holy light were immense. At fourteen, an accidental burst had blanketed all of Arvin Hamlet. A natural nemesis to dark cultists. As Anna once said: even a bishop of the Cult of the Death Goddess would’ve knelt, begging Pascal not to blow him up.

Problem? She couldn’t control it. A walking time bomb.

Worse…

She was completely illiterate.

Unbelievable!

Absolutely absurd!

No wonder past presidents of the Azure Round Table rarely lasted a day.

Who could endure this?

“President?” Pascal glanced at him cautiously, voice soft. “You’ve been silent for nearly ten minutes… thinking about something?”

Noah lifted his head, expression blank. “I’m thinking I should’ve stayed dead in that graveyard.”

Anna, sipping water in her witch hat and coat, choked slightly. She wiped her mouth. “It was just a holy light explosion. I thought you’d braced yourself.”

“I *had* braced for the blast,” Noah’s eye twitched. He forced calm. “But after two sleepless nights… Pascal. Why are you… illiterate?”

It made no sense.

Raised by Priest Muir. Shaped by faith within the church. Yet she couldn’t read a single character—not magical scripts, not even fruit stall price tags.

This went beyond illiteracy.

Noah suspected dyslexia.

That explained why, back in the chapel basement, she’d hesitated to verify his guild credentials. He’d thought she had bad eyesight.

Now he knew: she simply couldn’t read them.

“I’m not sure,” Pascal said with quiet regret, lowering her head slightly. “Since childhood, I’ve been unable to recognize written words. I caused the nuns and Priest Muir much trouble during language lessons.”

“Since childhood?”

*Congenital dyslexia?* Noah pondered, then shifted angle. “What about writing? Can you write?”

Pascal shook her head again. “Whenever I try to write as Priest Muir instructs… what appears is never what he envisioned.”

Noah sat up straight. “How *exactly* different?”

Anna, sprawled on the sofa, sighed and spread her hands. “Even if you guide her hand stroke by stroke—curves become straight lines, straight lines zigzag. Ask her to write ‘thank you,’ she might scribble profanity.”

“That extreme?” Noah raised an eyebrow.

Anna nodded firmly. “Try it yourself.”

Noah dismissed the thought. His mental resilience was near breaking. Witnessing more bizarre phenomena would drain him. For now, he refused another outrageous plot twist.

Besides, he had other matters.

A crystal-clear gemstone lay on his desk.

The yet-unnamed Divine Relic rested atop guild invoices, its inner glow still shimmering—though stripped of sacred purity.

The experiment had failed.

Noah’s original plan: this relic would be the turning point. If Pascal could harness it to stabilize her holy light, ascending The Spire would be smooth. Even reaching Floor 20 should’ve been feasible.

Reality? The relic only absorbed her overflowing light—temporarily calming her volatile “bomb” constitution.

Noah’s gaze fixed on the gem. Then he turned to Anna. “Where are Monica and Shirley?”

“No idea. Probably resting,” Anna replied vaguely. “Shirley’s eye healed yesterday afternoon—it wasn’t as bad as yours. But she’s eating less, weather’s turning cold… likely sleeping to conserve energy. She’s a bird, you know.”

“And Miss Monica? She’s perfectly fine. You *know* she used me as a human shield—hey, President, shouldn’t you worry about *me*? I was burned down to bones!”

For Anna, a devotee of the Cult of the Death Goddess, Pascal’s pure holy light was lethal. Without her Undying One constitution, she’d be resting peacefully like Noah once was—her tragic death a feast for her goddess.

Noah ignored her, face serene. “For you, it’s just another pilgrimage. Didn’t you call it that?”

“Holy-light death won’t get you to the goddess,” Anna grumbled. “And burning *hurts*.”

As Noah opened his mouth—

He caught Anna’s face: complaining fiercely, yet utterly nonchalant.

A half-formed idea sparked.

Pascal’s holy power *was* a massive headache.

But it was also pure, devastating force—unleashed, it delivered instant results.

The Azure Round Table reached Floor 4 solely because of it.

Yet every successful ascent was accidental. Pascal couldn’t control *when* she’d explode.

(That poor former president’s unintended gender transformation… yeah.)

What if the explosion itself became controllable?

Not the holy light—*that* was impossible.

But the *detonation*?

Like a grenade: you don’t need to understand mechanics. Just know how to pull the pin. Anyone with average smarts can use it.

“President? Are you alright?” Pascal’s concerned voice cut through his thoughts.

Noah had already settled his mind. He glanced at the Divine Relic, then cast a meaningful look at Anna—slumped in the sofa, eyes half-lidded, fully embracing idleness.

Anna shivered. A woman’s sixth sense prickled. She blinked open her eyes, panic flickering as she saw Noah rise. Dread flooded her. “President… that look… you’re literally calculating how to sell me for cash…”

In a way, she was right.

Noah made his decision.

“Pascal. Fetch Shirley. If she’s lazy, tell her—I’ve got a way to earn money for french fries.”

Pascal’s eyes widened. “You have another plan?”

“Yes.”

*A fallback plan.*

Noah met Anna’s gaze, voice calm.

“I’ve got a new move.”