For some reason, her face grew even redder.

Sean continued, "Actually, I’m a genius."

Yisha: "..."

Though she wanted to call him a narcissist, she had to admit that when it came to Talent, Sean was indeed the most exceptional person she had ever met—even more so than Miss Flame Crow back then.

However, "that’s hardly a secret, is it?" Yisha said.

Not many people knew Sean at the moment, but anyone who had met him—even if they wouldn’t admit it aloud—would be keenly aware of how terrifying his potential was.

Going from Tier One to Tier Two in less than half a month was like a student mastering all of high school’s curriculum in just one month. Just hearing about it sounded incredible.

But that wasn’t what Sean was referring to.

"I’m talking about my learning ability," he said.

The growth of Magic Power depended on Meditation, and Meditation tested a Wizard’s "discovery ability," or "innovative ability." It was closer to imagination, a different thing entirely from "learning ability."

Sean dropped a bombshell. "You might not believe this, but I can learn any form of Magic just by seeing it once."

Yisha: "?"

"How is that possible!"

Yisha didn’t believe him. "Stop trying to trick me."

Last time at the book signing, when Quill ordered the police to move in, she had noticed a golden ring appear on Sean’s hand, surrounded by tiny, dense characters. It seemed capable of deflecting bullets. At that moment, she recalled the incident in the Black Fruit Rainforest; that group of low-level Witch Hunters must have been killed by Sean in the same way.

Later, when Sean came to the hospital to help them, the Magic he used was also composed of various characters.

It was incredibly powerful, yes, but aside from that, she had never seen Sean use any other Magic. As for learning something just by seeing it once—it sounded like he was just bragging.

"Is that so?"

"Then take a look at this."

Without any warning, Sean threw a punch at the girl standing by his bed.

He hadn’t been joking when he said he would beat her up.

The punch came so suddenly that Yisha almost didn’t react in time. But she was a Tier Four Wizard, after all, with plenty of experience in brawls. She instinctively tilted her head to dodge, and Sean’s fist grazed past her face, letting her feel the rush of air from the blow.

Yisha had assumed it was just an ordinary punch, a test of her reflexes. But when she glanced to the side, she realized Sean’s punch was anything but ordinary. It felt incredibly familiar.

As the fist shot past the girl’s shoulder, it suddenly burst with a crimson glow. Surging Magic Power erupted from his fist and condensed into a giant bat that bared its fangs at her, its eyes gleaming with malice.

Yisha: "??!"

"Viper’s Bat??"

’Isn’t that my own Magic?’

Viper was the name of this Magic, and it was also Yisha’s surname. The girl’s full name was Yisha Viper, a descendant of an ancient Blood Race from the Era of Polymath.

She had used this very Magic that night at Florist Hospital.

It was Blood Magic, one of the Twelve Paths of magic, and it was also the exclusive magical system of her Viper Family. How could Sean possibly know it?

Yisha’s eyes widened. She stared at the fist, now transformed into a giant blood-bat right before her, her gaze filled with disbelief.

She had once been part of the family’s direct line and knew that the whole concept of bloodline was just a lie used to deceive others and monopolize this path of Magic. In reality, any Wizard could study Blood Magic.

However, being able to study it was one thing; being able to learn it was another entirely.

The difficulty of Blood Magic was no less than Puppetry Art, and it was several times harder than Ordinary Magic like the Invisibility Spell or Small Fireball. As a Reshaper with experience in practicing Blood Magic, it had taken her over a month to successfully master it. Yet Sean had learned it just by watching her perform it once...

’Does this man really possess the incredible learning Talent known as "At a Glance"?’

’Or could it be... that Sean was one of my kin in a past life?’

In that moment, Yisha’s mind was a mess.

Her brain felt like it had turned to mush; she couldn’t comprehend how Sean had done it.

But what she couldn’t comprehend even more was yet to come.

"I know Puppetry Art, too," Sean said.

"Ever heard of the Theseus’ Ship?"

"When the planks of a ship are replaced one by one, until none of the original planks remain, is it still the same ship?"

"By the same token, the cells in my body are constantly metabolizing, dying, and being reborn. Even right now—as we’re chatting, my speech is coherent and organized, without the slightest pause. But can you be certain that the ’me’ who spoke the first word of this sentence is the same ’me’ who’s speaking the last?"

"Is the ’me’ of this second the same ’me’ as the ’me’ of the next?"

"Or is it possible that the ’me’ you see before you now has never been the real me at all?"

Yisha: "???"

This barrage of soul-searching questions from Sean left the girl completely stunned.

She was already reeling from Sean’s use of Viper’s Bat, and this philosophical tangent nearly fried her brain. She latched onto a single key phrase—"Puppetry Art." Did that mean... the Sean lying in the hospital bed, talking to her, then getting up to throw a punch, wasn’t a real person, but just a Puppet??

"If you can’t figure it out, don’t think about it."

"You can fight back."

"Practice is the sole criterion for testing truth."

Sean looked at the girl and said, word by word, "Kill me."

Of course Yisha wouldn’t attack. Even if it was a Puppet, it would be a shame to destroy it.

But if she wouldn’t move, Sean would.

And his first move was a killing blow.

Just as she didn’t want to hit Sean, Sean wanted to hit her.

Sean, who had never been good at close-quarters combat, now attacked with both fists. Two giant blood-bats opened their gaping maws and chomped down viciously on either side of the girl’s head.

Yisha seemed to finally sense a threat and once again instinctively threw a punch in retaliation.

It was the same move, but the difference in their Tiers was too great.

For the past few days, Sean had been taking "poison" to test his body’s resilience and had not yet officially taken the High-Potency Potion. He had activated a portion of his Forbidden Meditation Power, temporarily raising his Magic Power to Tier Three, which was just enough to barely cast Viper’s Bat.

Yisha, however, was Tier Four.

Between a Tier Three who had just barely reached the threshold and a veteran Tier Four, the Magic Power gap could be as high as 89 Lak—roughly equivalent to one hundred Novice Wizards. The result of a direct confrontation was easy to imagine.

The giant bats on Sean’s hands seemed to be made of paper-mâché, shattering on contact. His entire body exploded along with them, bursting into countless motes of light that scattered into the air.

But in reality...

Sean didn’t know Blood Magic at all.

This path of Magic had only appeared once in his book—when he listed and introduced the Twelve Paths. Sean merely knew that such a system existed; he didn’t know a single thing about its operating principles, nor did he know the Spells.

But he did know the elegant art of Deceit Magic.

The first time he threw a punch at the girl, it wasn’t a real Viper’s Bat. 𝗳𝚛𝗲𝕖𝕨𝕖𝗯𝚗𝚘𝕧𝕖𝗹.𝗰𝗼𝕞

He had simply used his memory of that night to shape his Magic Power into the form of a bat.

"Shaping" is the most basic magical ability. Every Wizard knows it, and it’s used in almost every kind of Magic.

Take the "ball" in the Fireball Technique, for instance.

It was just like how Yisha had tried to condense her Magic Power into characters to form formulas—a very simple operation.

It was just that his Viper’s Bat, like Yisha’s Truth Technique, was all form and no substance.

But under Sean’s deliberate "sneak attack," Yisha didn’t see through it.

There’s a saying: "Once suspicion is born, the crime is established." The same holds true in Mysticism.

The reason people doubt something is that their subconscious has already accepted the possibility of it happening.

This, in itself, is a form of belief.

He couldn’t perform Viper’s Bat originally, but from the moment the girl suspected he could, he truly could. As she gradually accepted this "fact," he completely mastered the Magic. That was why Yisha had felt threatened.

The same went for Puppetry Art.

This wasn’t Puppetry Art in the true sense, but a Philosophical Technique derived from the Theseus’ Ship paradox, used for self-preservation and escape. From the perspective that it was "Instantaneous" and required no prior preparation, his Puppetry Art was even more advanced than the one practiced by Zajik and others.

’If you believe I’m real, then I am real.’

’If you believe I’m fake, then I am fake.’

"So, how was it, Little Yisha?"

Yisha was still in the hospital room, her face a mask of shock and uncertainty, when a brand-new Sean pushed the door open and walked in.

He savored the shocked expression on the girl’s face with great satisfaction and said, "Now, tell your teacher, which one do you want to learn?"

...