Chapter 330: The Third Gem

Ding‑dong.

At the instant Naimi Xisi's consciousness returned, he found himself standing inside an entirely white elevator, whose panel had only three floor buttons, and it was currently stopped at the first floor.

"Did I just enter a library?" he asked, looking at his hands with some doubt; they were his human body, but through the faint reflections on the elevator walls he saw that his reflection had not silver long hair but a neat short black haircut, a familiar look that made him feel as if he were caught in a reverse flow of time.

That was his former self, the healthy, vigorous him before he contracted bone cancer.

Naimi Xisi felt a sudden panic; he sensed that the Mage's magic and his Psychic Ability had fallen into silence, as if they had never existed. Yet how could that be? Even in a Dead Magic Zone, Mages do not lose the power within them.

"Is this an illusion? Or a dream? No, the Power Gem and the Mind Gem are still reacting," Naimi Xisi quickly summarized his condition: all his extraordinary power had vanished, as if the past nearly hundred years had been a dream, turning him into an ordinary mortal. Yet the core he has relied on since his crossing—the Infinite Gem—still floated silently in his mind.

As he called inward, the reflection showed a seven‑pointed crown appearing above his head, with two exquisite gems that do not exist in this world floating beside it.

The Infinite Gem still existed, Mind Power could be wielded, and even his Physical Quality now exceeded that of an ordinary person by tenfold. This proved this was not an illusion; the existence of the Infinite Gem is undetectable even to deities, and he did not believe a tiny library could simulate its power.

The elevator doors suddenly opened, interrupting Naimi Xisi's contemplation; he stared in surprise at everything beyond the doors and slowly stepped out.

The space beyond the door seemed to compress Earth's long history into a single building.

The steel‑frame dome was overgrown with vine‑like holographic conduits, flickering with pale blue data streams. Outside the floor‑to‑ceiling windows, clouds solidified into creamy amber, raindrops hung suspended in midair, each droplet reflecting a library from a different era.

Medieval parchment scrolls fluttered beneath the Gothic dome, Victorian brass reading lamps coexisted with holographic projection screens, and the antistatic floor beneath his feet was seeping the grain of nineteenth‑century oak.

Naimi Xisi walked slowly forward, weaving among countless bookshelves. The shelves were cast from breathing bronze, their hollow supports contracting and expanding with the visitor's gaze.

Naimi Xisi reached for a metal book numbered t‑1945; its gilded title suddenly shattered into firefly‑like pixels that coalesced in his palm into "Testimonies of Hiroshima's Dead: The Un‑detonated Third Atomic Bomb." As the pages turned, the yellowed paper continuously exuded new annotations, the ink at times resembling dried blood, at other times liquid binary code.

The book's content was extremely odd: the thick volume contained only two pages of text, the rest being blank front pages. Naimi Xisi flipped through casually; the text read as if the author were using the perspective of a Japanese who died in the nuclear blast, vividly describing the flash he saw before death, the void he felt after, and how eagerly he awaited the arrival of the third atomic bomb, hoping more people would accompany him along the grim road of death.

Naimi Xisi slipped it back onto the shelf and kept moving forward. The books here were bizarre; some were ordinary volumes already existing in the world, while others, like the previous one, seemed to be miniature portraits of ordinary lives—titles such as "The Suicide of the Embroidered Girl—The Loom's Destruction," "The Honorable Sacrifice of the Agent—Repaying the Sun's Grace," and other strangely titled works.

The bronze‑shelf corridor seemed endless, and Naimi Xisi had no idea how long he had walked within it. Through the gaps between the shelves, he saw that the view outside the floor‑to‑ceiling windows remained unchanged, as if

time itself were halted here.

Upon realizing this, Naimi Xisi suddenly felt a wave of excruciating pain surge from his brain; he knelt on the ground, curled up, clenching his teeth to endure the unimaginable agony. A seven‑pointed crown materialized above his head, proclaiming his authority like the ruler of all things. After the yellow Mind Gem and the purple Power Gem

an orange gem flickered tenuously in the illusion, as if ready to descend into the world at any moment.

"Witnessing a miracle—Stagnant Cycle"

Whether it is the Mind Gem possessed from birth or the Power Gem naturally acquired during slumber, this third gem is the first awakening Naimi Xisi has experienced while conscious; he did not expect to endure such torturous torment.

He felt his soul being reshaped by a tremendous force, countless fragments ripped out, inflicting piercing pain. Then innumerable unknown elements merged into his soul, making him feel as if a whole planet pressed down, bringing despair and suffocation.

The orange‑yellow gem continuously solidified its form throughout this torturous process, but just as Naimi Xisi anticipated its final shaping, the witnessing process halted.

The excruciating pain receded like a tide, and Naimi Xisi lay on the ground panting heavily, the seven‑pointed crown above his head vanished.

"W-What's happening? Could it be, like the Power Gem's awakening, that the witnessed miracle is insufficient?" Naimi Xisi asked, uncertain; the previous Power Gem awakening had been achieved in two steps.

When Selennye first displayed true divine power, the Power Gem reacted. Later, after a massive influx of true divine power from Omega entered the body, it truly awakened.

Naimi Xisi guessed that the third gem might require the same, but an instinctive intuition told him—no.

What he lacked was not a quantitative gap, but an awakening of perception.

!

Unlike true divine power, a known entity, he did not understand at all what the embodiment of Mind Power meant by "Stagnant Cycle" in his mind.

Although there were no clues, Naimi Xisi seemed to know innately, naturally discerning the condition to unlock the third gem—understanding the meaning of "Stagnant Cycle".

Having grasped these, Naimi Xisi endured the lingering throbbing pain in his mind and rose. Though his Physical Quality now exceeded that of an ordinary person tenfold, compared to his original form that could split mountains and fly at supersonic speed, he felt as fragile as a block of tofu.

He leaned on the bookshelf and walked forward slowly; regardless, he must find the sealed Vickna here.

Before, he sought only that holy relic; now he has an additional unavoidable reason. Perhaps only by finding Vickna can he understand what secret this library truly hides, and what "Stagnant Cycle" signifies.

(End of Chapter)