Kai froze as he read those words.

  High humans.

  Was that even possible?

  At first glance, the idea sounded absurd. It went against everything most Mages believed about life, about natural order. Even Kai, who had seen the world end once and had torn time itself to return, would have dismissed it as madness if he had read it from anyone else.

  But that wasn’t what made him stop breathing.

  What unsettled him was how familiar the logic felt.

  The method Hendricks described moved along the same path as Amyra’s existence.

  Kai wasn’t certain yet. He still hadn’t fully deciphered the inscription woven into her astral space. But the resemblance was too close to ignore.

  A dangerous thought crept into his mind.

  Could these “high humans” Hendricks spoke of be Amyra’s people?

  The idea sent a ripple of both excitement and unease through him. If it was true, then Amyra wasn’t an anomaly. She was proof of a completed experiment or at least the descendant of one.

  But speculation wouldn’t give him answers.

  So Kai forced himself to keep reading.

  As the diary continued, Hendricks began to write about his vision for the high humans, though the entries grew noticeably shorter. The careful explanations and confident tone from earlier pages faded, and was replaced by fragmented notes and hurried observations. It seemed the man no longer had the luxury of time.

  Most of the later entries focused on the path of experimentation.

  Hendricks admitted early on that the task was impossible to complete alone. He brought in a small group of Mages he trusted—people skilled enough to assist but unaware of the true reason behind the project. To them, he presented it as an attempt to create the perfect Mage.

  And the prophecy was never mentioned to them.

  With time, they explored countless methods to refine the human vessel itself. Their first goal was simple in theory and impossible in practice: to produce a Mage whose mana organs were flawless from birth.

  They considered breeding high-circle Mages together, believing power and stability might compound across generations. They even discussed crossbreeding humans and elves, hoping to combine resilience and longevity into a single form.

  But none of it guaranteed success. And truth to be told, history was already filled with similar failures—bloodlines that promised greatness and delivered mediocrity instead. And nature rarely rewarded ambition the way Mages hoped it would.

  So they knew the truth—a couple of geniuses did not guarantee their child would be the same.

  Hendricks acknowledged it plainly. Two exceptional Mages could give birth to a child with mediocre talent, just as easily as commoners could produce a prodigy. Blood alone was unreliable. Talent was chaotic.

  So the experiments shifted.

  Kai flipped through several pages as Hendricks began describing a new direction—one far more invasive. If inheritance could not be trusted, then the child had to be shaped before birth.

  The diary listed method after method, most of them marked with brief, brutal finality.

  Failed. Unstable. Nonviable.

  Hendricks did not explain why they failed. Only that they did.

  Until, finally, one entry changed in tone.

  They had found a way to influence a developing child’s mana organs while still in the womb.

  The method was horrifying in its simplicity.

  Pregnant mothers were made to drink a specially refined alchemical solution, one saturated with the distilled essence of high-grade beasts. The goal was to expose the unborn child’s developing mana organs to a density and quality of mana far beyond what a normal environment could provide.

  Beast essence was dangerous even under the best circumstances. It could strengthen a Mage or harm them. Administering it to a pregnant woman was flirting with catastrophe. One mistake, and both the mother and child could die before ever drawing breath.

  Kai felt his jaw tighten as he read. Hendricks also clearly knew the implications.

  The diary noted that the solution had been developed with extreme care and they would be monitoring the pregnant Mage apprentices who had agreed to the experiment. Kai could easily imagine young and ambitious Mage apprentices being persuaded for this, especially when the offer came from famous, powerful Mages promising to change the future of magic itself.

  Moving forward, the entries did not shy away from the cost.

  There had been deaths and more than a few incidents. But the experiments had worked after a lot of trying.

  The children who survived the experiment were born with mana organs far stronger and more stable than any natural baseline. Their Mana hearts were dense, responsive, and capable of growth far beyond ordinary limits.

  For Hendricks’ collaborators, that was victory enough. They left, convinced the experiment had reached its conclusion.

  Hendricks did not agree.

  The diary made that clear.

  These children were powerful, but not enough for what he wanted to do. They were superior Mages, not the beings he envisioned.

  So after the others departed, Hendricks continued alone.

  He refined the process further, pushing past ethical boundaries that even his fellow researchers had refused to cross. At the same time, he intensified his work on spell imprinting—one that would redirect dead mana itself, sending it elsewhere before it could poison the body or mind.

  Only when both were complete, he believed, could his vision of high humans truly exist. The two paths Hendricks had set himself upon seemed to consume him entirely.

  Whole stretches of the diary were left nearly blank. There were entries, but many ended after a single line—as if he had started to write, then decided he no longer had the strength, time, or patience to explain himself. Some pages contained nothing more than dates and fragmented thoughts, ink trailing off midway through a sentence.

  It frustrated Kai deeply.

  This was the heart of the research. The part that mattered most. And yet, it was also the part Hendricks had documented the least.

  Still, Kai kept turning the pages, refusing to skip ahead too quickly, forcing himself to read even the half-finished notes. Then, at last, the tone of the diary changed.

  The sentences grew longer, and his handwriting became sharper.

  I have figured it out.

  It has taken seven years. Seven years of failure, compromise, and blood on my hands. But after all this time, I have finally determined the correct method to breed a human child with Mana organs as close to perfection.

  Kai’s eyes moved quickly through the words.

  The process is stable and replicable. With enough time, several generations of them could exist. Enough to ensure the survival of our world.

  Hendricks’ writing grew more urgent after that.

  More importantly, I have also completed the inscription. The one I have been developing alongside these experiments. The solution to dead mana itself.

  I initially wondered if it could be imprinted upon the body or the Mana heart. That would have made things easier. I was wrong. Completely. Even the strongest Mana heart would fracture under its function. No vessel of flesh can withstand it.

  So I chose the astral space.

  Imprinting the spell directly into the astral space bypasses the body entirely. The soul can endure what flesh cannot. There, the spell can exist safely, redirecting dead mana the moment it touches the host, expelling it into another realm before corruption can take hold.

  The handwriting wavered slightly after that, as if exhaustion had finally caught up to Hendricks.

  I have already survived several attempts on my life. Some political. Some personal. Others… cult-related. It is becoming increasingly dangerous to remain in one place for too long.

  I do not understand why humans insist on hunting me when all I am doing is trying to save them. But perhaps I should have expected it. Humans rarely think beyond their own fear. Especially those who worship annihilation and believe the world deserves to rot.

  The final lines were written quickly, almost violently.

  Still, I will not abandon my work. I cannot. If I fall, then everything I have done must survive me. I will make sure of it.

  The entry ended abruptly, the last sentence unfinished.

  After all, high humans are the only way to save—

  The entry broke there.

  When Kai turned the page, he found nothing.

  He flipped another. Then another. Blank parchment stared back at him again and again.

  He went faster then, riffling through the rest of the diary, his fingers brushing page after page in mounting disbelief.

  Empty.

  Empty.

  Empty.

  Hendricks had simply… stopped.

  There was no conclusion. No final notes. No explanation of failure or success.

  Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  Kai leaned back slowly, the weight of it settling into his chest. Why would a man like Hendricks—someone meticulous enough to record years of failure, grief, and obsession—abandon his diary at the very moment he claimed to have found the answer?

  What had happened to him?

  The question gnawed at Kai, sharper than frustration. He would have given anything to read even one more page.

  But the last entry was enough to confirm what Kai had suspected for a long time.

  Hendricks Klandel hadn’t merely theorized about high humans.

  He had made them.

  Amyra. Her people. Their ability to touch dead mana without losing themselves. Even the soul inscription—something Kai himself could not yet fully decipher—had likely been Hendricks’ work. A spell etched so deeply into the astral space that it had become part of who they were.

  How the man had accomplished it and how much he had sacrificed—

  “Lord Arzan?”

  Amyra’s voice cut cleanly through his thoughts.

  Kai looked up sharply, momentarily disoriented. For a heartbeat, all he could see was her—standing there, alive and breathing, unaware that he had just been reading about the possible origin of her entire existence.

  “Oh—I’m sorry,” he said after a second, forcing himself back into the present. “I was just… thinking.”

  She smiled faintly. “It must have been important. I’ve been calling your name for nearly two minutes. What have you been reading? Is it a book on magical theory?”

  Kai glanced down at the diary resting open before him, its blank pages accusingly silent. For a brief moment, he considered telling her everything—about Hendricks, about high humans, about what this might mean for her.

  Then he imagined the weight of it settling on her shoulders.

  In the end, he closed the diary gently.

  “Just a Mage’s diary,” he said lightly, lifting his gaze to her again. “Nothing you need to worry about.” His eyes shifted to the small stack of books beside her. “Did you find anything interesting?”

  Amyra nodded, her eyes brightening a little. “Yes. Books on dead mana—how it seeps into soil and alters ley lines over time. I think… If I understand it better, I might be able to purify the earth more efficiently. Maybe even take in more of it without straining myself.”

  Kai smiled, glancing over the stack beside her and lifting the books one by one. Other than the volume on dead mana she had mentioned, there were also treatises on earth-aspected mana and a thinner tome on fire alignment.

  He raised an eyebrow. “I thought you were mainly interested in the light aspect.”

  “I am,” Amyra replied, nodding. “It helps me heal others, and I’ve already read a lot about it. I wanted to understand the other aspects better too. And…” She hesitated for a moment before adding, “Magus Elias told me to read up on earth aspect.”

  “He did?” Kai asked, genuinely surprised.

  She nodded again. “Yes. He said I should focus on it for now. He also mentioned that he would teach me some of the spells he created the next time we meet.”

  Kai paused at that.

  If Elias had said that, then he wasn’t merely offering casual guidance. He must have been trying his best to take her as a disciple. A Magus’ personal spells were priceless. They were worth fortunes, sometimes more than a baron’s entire estate. No one handed them out lightly.

  It wasn’t that Kai disliked Elias taking an interest in Amyra. But such attention carried intent, and intent required understanding. Until he knew what Magus Elias exactly wanted, he couldn’t fully trust the man with her. For now, though, he kept those thoughts to himself and simply nodded.

  “That sounds good,” he said. “If you need help with any of it, tell me.”

  “I will,” Amyra replied, already picking up one of the books and opening it, her focus shifting back to the text. Watching her settle into reading, Kai allowed himself a small smile before his gaze drifted back to the diary resting on the table.

  At once, the questions returned.

  He had come here seeking knowledge, but he hadn’t expected to stumble upon something like this. With the final pages left blank and no clear explanation of how Hendricks had truly created the soul inscription, the discovery only deepened the mystery.

  Instead of answers, the diary had given him something far more dangerous.

  More questions.

  Still, Kai forced himself to focus on the positives.

  At the very least, he now knew who had created the soul inscription. One of his long-standing theories had been that it was the work of an unknown race because of how advanced and alien the structure felt. But Hendricks Klandel had been human. A genius, yes, but human nonetheless.

  And if a human had done it, then it was something Kai could eventually understand.

  That realization alone steadied him.

  He already had a clearer picture than before. Hendricks hadn’t been trying to absorb dead mana. He had been trying to send it away, pushing it into another realm entirely. That much aligned with what Kai had seen in Amyra’s inscription. There was a summoning formation embedded in it—subtle, layered deep into the astral structure.

  So the inscription allowed Amyra to channel dead mana beyond their world.

  But that raised another question.

  Why was she able to purify it as well?

  Was she borrowing mana from another realm to overwrite the dead mana? Or was there another process at work? The diary hadn’t gone that far, but the inscription itself hinted at more. There were additional spell structures woven into it, far more fiddly than a simple transfer array. Some portions were clearly defensive, designed to isolate the dead mana from the body entirely. Others seemed to regulate the flow, ensuring that nothing lingered long enough to cause corruption.

  And yet, even with all that, Kai knew he was only seeing fragments of the whole.

  Large sections of the inscription were still unfamiliar to him.

  If his instincts were right, Hendricks hadn’t used standard inscription methods at all. The structure felt… sealed. Not locked in the conventional sense, but shaped by a unique sealing methodology—one likely invented by Hendricks himself. A personal system, designed so that even if someone discovered the inscription, they wouldn’t be able to replicate it without full understanding.

  Which meant one thing.

  If Kai tried to copy the inscription into his own soul right now, he wouldn’t gain power. He would burn his soul apart. That realization made him exhale slowly, grounding himself.

  The real question wasn’t whether the inscription could be copied.

  It was how he was supposed to understand it properly.

  And whether the fragmented knowledge left behind in Hendricks’ diary was enough to guide him there.

  He flipped through the diary again, slower this time, carefully noting down every book Hendricks had mentioned, every offhand reference, every half-finished line that hinted at earlier research. One thing was clear to Kai now—Hendricks hadn’t reached his conclusions in isolation. The idea had been born from his understanding of other realms, and if Kai wanted to truly grasp the soul inscription, that was where he needed to look next.

  If he could identify which realm Amyra was sending the dead mana to, understanding the inscription would become far easier. A destination gave context.

  Context gave structure.

  So Kai shifted his focus.

  He moved between the diary and the registry again and again, cross-referencing names, theories, and fields of study. Each mention led him to another shelf, another section of the vast library. Some of the books Hendricks had explicitly referenced were present, resting quietly among centuries of accumulated knowledge. Others were missing—either lost, or never recorded here in the first place—but Kai wasn’t discouraged. For every missing volume, the library offered two more that explored similar theories, adjacent realms, or alternative magical frameworks.

  Hours passed without him noticing.

  By the time he finally stepped back from the shelves, two new piles of books sat on the desk beside the diary, stacked almost as high as the first.

  Amyra, who had been reading quietly nearby, looked up and froze when she noticed it.

  Her eyes widened. “Are you… planning to read all of them, Lord Arzan?”

  Kai followed her gaze, then nodded without hesitation. “Yes. I need to.”

  She hesitated, then frowned slightly. “But are we even staying here that long? I thought we were only going to be here for a couple of days. And there’s no way you can read all of that without staying awake the whole time.”

  Kai smiled at that, a small, knowing curve of his lips. “No,” he said calmly. “I’m going to sleep.”

  Amyra blinked. “Then how—”

  “I just have a trick,” he replied, not elaborating further.

  He didn’t explain that he had discovered something a few days ago while experimenting with the new space in his astral realm—the one his master had left behind for him. A quiet, hidden function of that space allowed him to do something absurdly powerful.

  If Kai focused on a book long enough, recalled it clearly, he could copy it word for word into his astral space and read it while he was sleeping. And now, surrounded by one of the greatest libraries in the world, he fully intended to take advantage of it.

  ***

  A/N - You can read 30 chapters (15 Magus Reborn and 15 Dao of money) on my patreon. Annual subscription is now on too.

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