Rorschach returned to his dorm and stared at the panel, lost in thought.

He recalled what had happened at the hospital the day before. Rorschach was nothing like Valon, who had passively allowed two forces to battle within his body and somehow survived in a daze. Rorschach, on the other hand, remembered the details of the previous day with perfect clarity.

When Kano had been exiling the will from within the Donkey Hide, the power’s second vessel—the frail young man—had been "activated." Tiny, unstable fragments had rapidly poured into his ailing body.

From the perspective of Rorschach, Kano, and the others, the plaster on the room’s walls had crackled, flaked off, and split with a systematic pattern, the fissures forming countless ancient, indecipherable hieroglyphs.

Combined with the beige room and the gust of scorching, sandy wind, it was as if they had been transported to the ruins of the Kingdom of Sand.

"It’s the residual Soul of the God of Transformation! Use your Dispersion Skill, Rorschach. Your most powerful one!" Kano had, of course, noticed that Rorschach was holding something back and hadn’t revealed the complete version of his spell to the Elder Council. But he didn’t reprimand him, only reminded Rorschach that he had to go all out now.

A red light coalesced in Rorschach’s hand and shot toward Valon’s forehead. But then, something unexpected happened—the two of them seemed to form a connection.

Rorschach’s consciousness looked down from on high, seeing a broken god amidst endless flowing sand. It had no fixed form, its blurry shape barely held together by swirling grains of sand.

The three curses Valon had heard—"I curse you"—all seemed directed at Rorschach, for the god’s eyes had looked past Valon to lock onto him.

Only Rorschach and the God of Change knew what was said next.

"My deal with Valon was fair! I granted him everything he wanted! Rorschach, don’t you want to know why He chose you?"

"Who is He?"

The Divine Spirit’s residual Soul didn’t answer. It spoke quickly, as if racing against time. "Think! Why can you dispel my Divinity? Think! What have you used to replace the divine signs and miracles bestowed upon this world? This disgusting, blasphemous Magic is unprecedented..."

As Valon’s Ascension neared its climax, Rorschach saw an all-too-familiar scene flash by from within the nearly transparent Soul...

Rorschach wavered for a moment, wanting to stop the Casting.

"Let’s make a deal! Spare me... I can let Valon live. Man and god can coexist in a single body... He’ll live for a very long time... No, don’t!"

Balan was a negative figure, and in other mythologies, the God of Change was often also a trickster god with malicious intent. Unlike Deryats, who had shown benevolence from the start, Rorschach dared not gamble on the consequences of allowing the residual Soul of such a Divine Spirit to return to the world.

Rorschach gritted his teeth and completed the Casting. The combined effect of the [Divine Exile Technique] and the Reversing Beam was achieved; [Rorschach’s Reversing Beam] had completely liberated Valon.

The Divine Spirit was indeed in a dire state. Master Kano’s confidence had not been misplaced. Although it refused to lower itself even at the very end, Rorschach could hear what was practically a plea for him to stop.

’What does it bring... Out of everyone, I’m probably the only one who has seen a world without Magic or Divine Spirits.’ He lay on his bed, fiddling with a crystal bead. It was a clear, dark, transparent green, and sealed within was a small, golden feather.

’Isn’t this just a glass marble?’

Rorschach toyed with it for a moment, then found a wooden box. On the bottom of the inside, he wrote "Yes" on the left and "No" on the right, drawing a dividing line down the middle.

"You’re still conscious, right?"

He tossed the marble in. It bounced a few times and landed squarely on the line.

’So that’s a yes?’ "You can only answer yes or no." As he spoke, Rorschach began charging up an Exile Skill.

The marble sensed the threat and rolled into the bottom-left corner without any external force.

"Are you Balan, Quilimo, and Thoth?" he asked, dropping the marble again.

It bounced twice on the left side, then once again came to rest on the dividing line.

’A yes for the first two, and half-right for the third?’ Rorschach figured he wasn’t very good at interpretation and thought of another method.

"My apologies." He found a mythology book, opened it to a page about Thoth, then ground a charcoal pencil into powder and coated the marble with it.

The marble dropped, landing on a few specific words. Then, it bounced off the page, only to land on the words again in a different order before coming to a stop.

Fortunately, it hadn’t landed on many words, and Rorschach was able to decipher the meaning. "I... am... Thoth. Thoth... is not... me?"

The marble was now covered in charcoal powder, looking quite pitiful. The golden feather inside had also grown dim and lusterless compared to before.

Rorschach was impressed by the "marble god’s" cooperative attitude. "You’ve worked hard. One last question: Who is the ’He’ you mentioned inside Valon’s consciousness? Is it the Lord of Order?"

He dropped it into the box again, but this time the marble hit the rim, bounced away, and disappeared under the bed.

It took a while for his [Mage’s Hand] to fish the marble out from under the bed. The feather within was now completely dark. Not having the heart to trouble the marble further, Rorschach wiped it clean and said, "I’ve already helped one Divine Spirit return to this world. If you can stay put in this box for a while, I’ll consider whether or not I’ll make a deal with you." In truth, Rorschach had no idea how to resurrect the being, but he dangled the possibility of a deal to keep Balan in line.

After speaking, he placed the marble back in the wooden box. The sphere promptly rolled into the bottom-left corner and waited for Rorschach to close the lid.

Done with the marble, Rorschach now had to tackle his spells.

When he had destroyed the Donkey Hide, he had fused three of his most powerful spells for one incredibly brief instant. Now, his panel displayed [Rorschach’s Great Dissociation Technique (Gray)].

’Why is it still unusable...’ Rorschach stared at the panel, eager to give it a try. Yet when he actually entered a practice room in the Tower of Stars, he found he couldn’t replicate it no matter what. 𝒇𝓻𝓮𝓮𝙬𝙚𝒃𝒏𝓸𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝓬𝓸𝒎

He tried to recall the feeling... Rorschach remembered his overwhelming desire to destroy the Donkey Hide. When his Exile Skill was met with resistance, he had incorporated new spells into the attack. The combined assault of the Exile Skill, Reversal, and Small Decomposition Skill had broken through the Divine Power’s endless Transformations. But it was precisely the Divine Power’s resistance that had bought him enough time and forced him to invest his will into combining the three spells.

But now... facing an Enchanted Target, he was breaking out in a cold sweat but couldn’t produce the desired effect. POOF! The target shattered, but Rorschach knew it was only the Small Decomposition Skill activating at the very end.

’Do I really need the God of Change’s cooperation for it to work?’ Rorschach let out a self-deprecating laugh. Having exhausted his willpower and internal Magic Power, he didn’t rush to absorb Ether to recover. Instead, he left the practice room.

It was evening now, and Rorschach decided to head straight for the dining hall.

"Rorschach? Rorschach!" His senior brother’s voice echoed throughout the Tower of Stars, causing passersby in the main hall and the dining hall to stop and stare.

Pascal, however, completely ignored the strange looks, rushing straight toward Rorschach the moment he found him. He was an absolute mess; as he drew closer, Rorschach saw his senior brother’s panicked expression and the sweat drenching his body.

"Pascal? Shouldn’t you be at the textile mill right now?" Rorschach had run into him at the night school two evenings prior, so according to the shift schedule, his senior brother should have been managing the school again today.

Pascal grabbed Rorschach’s arms tightly. "Rorschach, Andre’s missing! He didn’t show up today. I asked the Workshop Master—he was gone yesterday, too. I... I even went to his house and the Alchemy Department. He’s not at either place!"