How should I put this… watching magical characters revolve around me felt like I was in a movie full of CG. This sight once again made me realize that I was inside a novel.

The magic characters that brilliantly revolved around me soon became smaller and disappeared into my right arm. Once they disappeared, the Founder’s legacy fell on the ground without any energy.

“Um, is it over?”

Even though the magic was engraved on me, I did not feel anything different.

This is strange? In the novel it was described that there was a brief moment of a heightening sensation, but I’m feeling none of that.

For the time being, I picked up the book that fell on the ground and checked it.

“So… all the contents of the book went into my arm?”

Every page of the book was blank. I was just about to take the book with me just in case when I saw a small character engraved under my sleeve. This was also not mentioned in the novel.

“Is this ancient language?”

A similar character came to my mind from prince Yuan’s memories. That character seemed to be from the era of the Founder, but I couldn’t understand it as the original owner of this body hadn’t studied it.

“Dammit, something’s ominous.”

First, I had to check if the Founder’s legacy had transformed my body properly. I grabbed the cloth pin and focused.

“Harden… harden… harden…” I chanted to myself to activate the power just like the supporting character who acquired this power in the novel.

Psh!

“Tssssp!”

The pin poked a hole on my finger as though there was no resistance at all.

I was taken aback seeing blood forming a droplet on my fingertip so easily. “What? That flashy effect was just a scam?!”

This was strange. The situation Prince Yuan was in, Precia’s appearance and the location of secret mechanism in the royal study were just as described in the novel <The Sage of the Winter Tree>. So why was the Founder’s legacy different? Actually no. The way the characters popped out from the book and seeping into my right arm was the same as the description in the novel as well.

That meant that the problem was…

“No, it can’t be? That can’t be true…”

The problem was with this body of Prince Yuan.

“It is still too early to jump to any conclusions.”

First, I had to decipher the character engraved under my wrist, which was different from what happened in the novel. Prince Yuan had not learned the ancient language, but the grammatical structure hadn’t changed, and the shape of the characters hadn’t changed that much.

It was not a long sentence either, so I could probably interpret it if I read the books in reverse chronological order back to the founder’s period. At most, it should be about as difficult as interpreting some of the old versions of the English bible.

* * *

“His Highness is taking a lot more time than I thought,” Precia expressed her worry while playing with her braided red hair.

Hearing her words, Herion, Yuan’s attendant, smiled bitterly and looked at the basket of appetizing sandwiches. “He is. At this rate the meal the chef brought here would get cold.”

It was both funny and pitiful watching the chef apologizing for his rudeness by bringing the meal by himself as he did not know that it was Prince Yuan that hit him in the back of his head.

While the chef blatantly disregarded Prince Yuan and looked down on him, he was not a person of the queen. He was just swept away by flow where everyone looked down on Prince Yuan. That was the case for most of the people in the detached palace except for some that were planted by the queen.

Being assigned to the palace where the first prince resided practically meant a demotion, and that he was just that ignorant when it came to politics. So, it was understandable for the chef to apologize repeatedly as Yuan even called the palace physician that only attended royalty and aristocrats.

“That’s true. Also, don’t you think His Highness has become… slightly strange ever since he woke up?” Precia asked hesitantly.

Herion thought that it was just as she said, but spoke differently, “His Highness is not strange.”

After working in the royal palace for a long time he had formed a habit of saying opposite to what he thought himself. In the royal palace, where one could be punished or killed for any reason, even chatting with a fellow servant might pose a danger to their life.

Statements that could turn into gossip were absolute taboo as no one knew who was listening. But the young knight was unaware of the ways this world worked.

At Herion’s firm words, Precia waved her hands in embarrassment. “Ah, no! I don’t mean to say he is strange but how should I say this…He did things that he would not normally do.”

That certainly was true. A person who had never touched alcohol his whole life suddenly looked for one and a person with weak heart who could not even kill a single bug in his entire life smashed the chef on the head with all his might.

“People can change all of a sudden. A person can change into a different person over smallest of incidents. And His Highness is at the age where that change is noticeable.”

“Really?”

“And the change is not necessarily always a bad thing.”

Precia nodded and smiled at Herion’s words. “That is true. Surely it was exhilarating when His Highness hit the chef on the head!”

The old servant almost nodded at her statement, but he just smiled. “That aside, I hope he returns soon so that we can prepare him for the dinner banquet.”

The two waited eagerly, watching the stairs Yuan went up and the clock.

* * *

I put my hands on the floor and despaired, surrounded by sprawled books. Fortunately it was not difficult to interpret the characters on my wrist as some of the previous kings had a dictionary compiled in their reigns.

But it was the interpretation that made be despair.

“Ah, this can’t be.”

The engraved characters were interpreted in these three lines.

-Verification successful.

-Engraving failed due to musculoskeletal deficiency.

-Applying forced engraving: 0.04 percent.

In short. it meant that it would take a long time for me to reach the same level at which the supporting character obtained the Founder’s legacy. As the percentage in the sentence did not change while I was interpreting, in the worst case, it meant that the percentage wouldn’t increase with just the passage of time.

“Shit! If I knew it would be like this than I would have left it for Gilbert, the supporting character who originally obtained Founder’s legacy!”

Gilbert was a supporting character that was helped by the protagonist, Jade and later become his loyal companion. Naturally, I knew what kind of circumstances he was in, as well as the solution to his problems, so it would be easy to bring him to my side.

Gilbert grew up to be a monster on the level of Jade or Precia after obtaining the Founder’s legacy, so this secret was much better to be with him rather than this pitiful body of mine that couldn’t even make use of it right now.

“No, it is too soon to be disappointed. There are still two left.”

I moved busily as there was no time to regret; I had already wasted a lot of time in deciphering the old text. Now that I had realized that things didn’t work out as I thought it would, I had to make more preparations for my survival.

“The next important thing was, let’s see… the magic circuit of Aquila, Founder’s lover who died in his hands?”

Aquila was a great witch. She was the one who made the greatest contribution in the founding of this nation, but she ultimately met a tragic demise after getting betrayed by the Founder.

The reason Aquila’s magic circuit resided in the royal study was because it was also her who made it possible for the Founder to leave behind his legacy in the form of a magical tome. As she created the Founder’s Legacy, Aquila had decided to leave behind a trace of her own magic circuit in secret for the future child between her and the founder.

However, she was betrayed before she could give birth to a child, and this tragic legacy was buried in the darkness of history. Her magic circuit was so great that anyone with a decent aptitude in magic could become an Archmage and go down in history. But in novel, the person who obtained it was one of the enemies of Precia who had helped in killing Prince Yuan.

“That is all the more reason for me to get it.”

After all, killing Prince Yuan meant killing me.

I went down, recalling the contents of the novel. It wasn’t the protagonist who obtained this secret, so the description in the novel was too rough, but according to the novel, I had to look for a book written by Aquila on the third floor.

I skimmed through bookshelves and found a book that had the author’s name as Aquila.

“Found it.”

Maybe because the Founder had erased most of the information about Aquila to hide his betrayal or maybe because no one knew about her, the book looked quite dusty as if it had never been pulled out. Looking at the state of the book it looked like the old hag, Arcana 01 had not found it yet.

I was slightly nervous because the book never mentioned when they obtained this book, so this was a relief.

I opened the book without hesitation. “Let’s see, I have to scratch out the ancient word ‘Quey’ on the last paragraph of last page…”

I scratched out out the ancient word “Quey” from the last page turning the word into something that meant “inheritance.” Then, the characters from the book shot up and made magic circle. From that magic circle fell a small crystal. Even after centuries, the crystal continued to glimmer without a single flaw.

The person that originally discovered this book only found out the secret behind it after a while. If this crystal was put against the chest, the magic circuit inside it would get engraved on the body.

“Phew~!” I took a deep breath before putting the crystal on my chest.

From what I had read, my body would turn hot in the process of the transplant. Even if I had it transplanted right now it wouldn’t be of much use as I did not know any magic at the moment. Still, it was better to get it in advance rather risk having it taken away later.

According to the description of novel, it would feel hot like suddenly getting into the hot spring after being submerged in cold water, so it should be ok-raaaaaaaaaaaaagh!

“Arrrggghh!”

When I put the crystal on my chest, I felt like my heart was being scorched with hot iron, but that sensation soon spread out through my entire body.

“Arrghhh! Ughh! How is this! Anything like! A hot spring! Urghhh.”

I collapsed on the floor because of the unbearable pain. It was so painful that I thought it would kill me so I tried to get the crystal off, but the crystal didn’t budge from my chest. If I had known it would be this painful, I would’ve have let someone else have it without any regrets.

After rolling on the floor for a long time, the pain finally subsided, and I was able to breathe properly. “Huff! Huff! Hu, Fu, fuck! I thought I was really going to die.”

I could not check my state because there was no mirror, but I seemed to be… not okay. Small blood droplets had formed on my chest because of all the scratching I did in order to remove the crystal by force and my nose was bleeding, seemingly having hit something while rolling over.

I wiped my nose with handkerchief roughly and adjusted my clothes with trembling hands. There was still some residual pain, but that didn’t feel like much because of the massive pain from moments ago.

“Huh? What’s this?”

The crystal had disappeared from my chest and a small silver ring was on its place.

This… wasn’t in the book.

The ring said something in ancient language. The only parts that I could interpret at the moment were “and”, “child” and “Aquila”.

“Does it mean ‘For him and the child, from Aquila’?”

If I was not wrong, this ring was Aquila’s magic book, which the guy that obtained the magic circuit possessed. Later on, it was obtained by Jade but that was towards the end of the novel.

The magic book was made so that the unborn child could learn magic but as it was written in ancient language, I needed to interpret it.

“I can’t use it right away, but I landed on a fortune this time.”

Aquila’s magic book also served as a magic wand and it was a treasure that even dragons coveted so its value was unfathomable.

Was this in the crystal?

I was in too much pain for me to be happy. To me, Aquila was not a woman of tragedy, but a filthy bitch. Also, what happened to me differed from what happened in the novel once again.

Is this again the influence of this cursed body?

I thought it was the reason and after a sigh I looked at the characters on my right arm which had changed.

-0.0407 percent.

“Haha, hahahaha! This ***! ***(head) ***! After so much suffering it went up by only 0.0007 percent?! Even cheap snacks would add more flavor than this!”

I barely got up and checked the time. Looking at the time I thought that it would be better to go for treasures hidden in places other than the royal study on a different day.

I picked a book from nearby, about which I presumed to be the book that only the Sage of the Winter Tree could read, and moved on to find the last hidden treasure that I could get from this place.

It was no exaggeration to say that my life heavily depended on it since the Founder’s legacy, which was my target, turned out to be a dud.