Chapter 99: Heavenly Arcane Comprehension

Monica did not know how she had managed to cross Stella’s will and mental barrier and arrive here, but now that she was standing within the inner layers of the Auracle, staring at something she was certain was magic, she could not bring herself to stop.

Magic was the very thing she had spent her entire life studying, the foundation upon which she had built her pride, and yet here it was, existing inside something that should have had absolutely nothing to do with it.

There had to be an explanation.

As for why she had managed to enter an Auracle when countless mages throughout history had failed to do the same, the answer was surprisingly simple.

Stella did not possess a single will or mental barrier.

She possessed three.

Each one belonged to a different personality, and although they existed within the same body, they were separated from one another, with some being considerably weaker than others.

The childish Stella possessed the weakest.

That weakness had created an opening, and Monica, with her extraordinary control over her consciousness, had managed to slip through it.

But even that alone was not enough to explain why nobody had discovered this before.

How was anyone supposed to find a swordsman with a damaged mind but a perfectly functioning Aura Core?

How could such a person possess a will strong enough to maintain an Auracle, yet have a mental barrier weak enough for a mage to penetrate?

And even if someone like that existed, what swordsman would willingly allow a mage to examine the inner workings of their Auracle when the process could potentially damage their will or reveal weaknesses that could become dangerous in the future?

The stars simply had never aligned.

Or perhaps, even if they had aligned once, the swordsman had never been fortunate enough to stand before the greatest arcane mind to exist since the First Men.

Monica Ragnar had no intention of wasting that fortune.

She looked around the enormous inner world and began examining its structures.

At first, none of it made sense.

Patterns covered the vast expanse, intertwining with one another in formations that seemed to follow rules she had never encountered.

Symbols appeared between them, but they were not written in any language Monica recognized, and the more closely she examined them, the more confusing they became.

She followed one formation from its beginning to its end, expecting to find something familiar.

There was none.

She frowned and moved to another.

The patterns and flow of this one looked almost identical to a mana circulation formation.

Yet the moment she traced its flow, the structure behaved in a completely different way.

She stopped, then she looked again.

The Aura was not circulating randomly, so she narrowed her eyes and followed the movement. A few minutes later, she finally understood one small portion of the formation.

’Interesting...’

The realization gave her another piece to work with.

She immediately used it to examine a neighboring formation, only to find that the principle she had just discovered did not apply there.

Her brows furrowed.

She tried another approach.

This time, she noticed that several symbols were connected to the same point, and although she could not understand the symbols themselves, their positions revealed that they were functioning like instructions.

Monica’s expression sharpened.

If the formations were the structure, then the symbols were defining how the Aura should behave within them.

But that only created another problem.

How were the formations overlapping without interfering with one another?

She spent several moments tracing their connections but couldn’t understand how something like that was possible.

She shook her head and focused on something else; soon she found another piece.

She began moving faster.

Each discovery gave her a new method to understand something that had previously been incomprehensible, and every new principle revealed another contradiction that forced her to reconsider what she had already learned.

She failed to understand one formation, then used three others to understand a fourth.

It was like solving an impossibly large magical equation where every answer created another question.

And Monica loved it.

A strange mark gradually appeared upon her forehead, glowing with a faint golden light.

It resembled three diamonds arranged above a crescent.

At the same time, a thin golden ring formed within her blue eyes as her comprehension deepened.

Her S-Grade talent: Heavenly Arcane Comprehension had reached its full potential.

She continued to study the symbols, the flow of Aura and the relationship between Aura and the formations.

When she understood something, she turned her attention toward another section, using what she had learned to decipher a portion she previously could not understand.

It worked.

Then another, and another. Yet despite all of that, the structure remained overwhelmingly vast.

She had barely scratched the surface. Perhaps one hundredth of it.

Monica suddenly tilted her head downward.

Her body was changing; the skin visible beneath her translucent projection was beginning to turn black.

Monica stared at it for a moment before her expression darkened.

’Leave me alone, you sadistic poison,’ she mumbled bitterly.

The Shadow Ghost Poison was acting up again.

She raised her gaze toward the enormous magical structure once more, and her eyes hardened with determination.

’I am trusting you, Elias Crimson,’ she mumbled.

Outside the projection, Elias was already ready to deal with the seizure.

He had her mouth open and was holding an antidote pill over it.

"Umm... You sure she would not get upset if she finds out about this?" Stella asked, watching him closely.

Elias furrowed his brows.

"I am doing this to keep her safe—"

Dark smoke suddenly burst from Monica’s body.

However, before it could travel even an inch beyond her, Elias dropped the pill inside and firmly closed her mouth.

Her body shook slightly before the dark smoke retreated into her.

He stared at Stella and said, "See. I told you.

Stella blinked.

Inside the projection, Monica had been startled by how swiftly Elias reacted to the seizure as her Mana Projection had already regained its previous state.

Soon, she returned her attention to the Auracle.

Some time passed, and all of a sudden, she felt the world around her shift.