Chapter 123: The Real World

"What's this... Turns out it's a man." Li Yifei leaned forward, took a quick look, and muttered under his breath.

"Hm?"

Merlin, sitting quietly in his chair, glanced at him. A faint glimmer flickered in his eyes, and the next moment, his body, hidden under his deep blue robe, twisted violently...

In the blink of an eye, he transformed into a tall, slender blonde woman with blue eyes!

"Gender means nothing to me," Merlin's soft voice echoed, leaving Li Yifei dumbfounded at the door.

"Dean... this... this..." Li Yifei stammered, pointing at Merlin.

Lin QiYe, however, seemed unfazed. He shook his head and spoke slowly:

"He's Merlin, the legendary mage known for his mastery of shape-shifting. Don't be surprised, he could turn into anyone, even your father if he wanted."

No sooner had Lin QiYe finished speaking than Merlin's body twisted again, expanding rapidly. His deep blue robe also grew, but no matter how much his body expanded, the robe remained intact. Scales appeared on his skin, and a scarlet snake tongue flicked out. In moments, Merlin had turned into a massive Naga, several times the size of Li Yifei!

This Naga, draped in a deep blue robe, coiled itself on the chair, its slit pupils locking onto Li Yifei. A palpable pressure descended on Li Yifei, causing him to shudder.

Lin QiYe turned to Li Yifei, "Is this your father?"

"...I don't know," Li Yifei muttered, taking a step back. "I don't even know what my father looks like."

"He can see through your true form and even discern your father's appearance… Is this the power of prophecy?" Lin QiYe sighed, his gaze still fixed on the Naga.

Merlin nodded slightly. His form shifted back into that of a young man, sitting quietly in the chair.

The room fell silent as the two stared at each other.

"You are Lin QiYe?" Merlin finally spoke.

"You know me?"

"I predicted you would open this door ten years ago."

Upon hearing such an absurd statement, Lin QiYe became intrigued. "Then what about my future? Can you see it?"

Merlin shook his head. "I cannot."

"But you're supposed to be a prophet, right?"

"Prophecy isn't infallible," Merlin replied, his gaze locking with Lin QiYe's. "When you first opened the door, I attempted to glimpse your fate, but your past and future are all a blur. Only the present can be seen clearly."

"The present?" Lin QiYe raised an eyebrow. "What does my present look like?"

"You are currently caught in a dangerous vortex. One wrong step and you could be torn apart, and it might even affect the people around you..." Merlin's tone turned grim.

Lin QiYe's expression grew serious.

"That's all I can see," Merlin continued, shaking his head. "At the moment, I can't offer precise predictions."

"Why?"

"My crystal ball was lost."

"Lost?" Lin QiYe was taken aback.

Merlin seemed to remember something and smiled bitterly. "Ten years ago, a little girl came into this room and challenged me to a match. If I won, she'd let me go, but if I lost, she'd take my crystal ball."

"And you lost?" Lin QiYe's eyes brightened. "Was she about twelve or thirteen, with long black hair and a strange mark on the back of her hand?"

"Yes."

Lin QiYe paused thoughtfully. "What did you two compete with?"

Merlin's mouth twisted in a wry smile. "Prophecy, or rather... fate-weaving."

"Fate-weaving? How do you compete with that?" Li Yifei asked, unable to contain his curiosity.

"We started with a falling leaf and traced the changes of the entire forest over fifty years—past, present, and future. No winner was determined. We then moved on to stones, water droplets... Eventually, we realized we couldn't really measure one another by objects, so we focused on each other's fates."

"In the second round, she successfully predicted part of my fate, but in the third round, I couldn't predict hers."

Merlin's brow furrowed deeply as he recalled the event.

"Her existence was entirely unexpected. Whether past, present, or future, there was no trace of her—she seemed like a ghost, not part of this world. No matter how I tried, I couldn't glimpse a single aspect of her fate."

"So... you lost," Lin QiYe murmured, intrigued.

Li Yifei swallowed hard and nudged Lin QiYe, whispering, "That's creepy. Who was this girl?"

"I don't know," Lin QiYe replied, his own brow furrowing.

There was no doubt in Lin QiYe's mind that the girl who had won Merlin's crystal ball was the same girl who had taken Nix's bracelet and left the envelope in the dean's office. She was the one known as "Memorial."

But how had this twelve-year-old girl defeated the Goddess of Night in creating things and bested Merlin in fate-weaving?

The more Lin QiYe learned, the more mysterious this girl seemed. If he could uncover who she truly was, it might explain the origins of the mysterious asylum for gods.

However, at this moment, Lin QiYe knew that investigating this further was premature.

Right now, he needed to focus on helping this legendary magician, Merlin, and extracting some of his abilities.

Lin QiYe nodded slightly, observing Merlin for a moment. There was a glimmer of confusion in his eyes.

Merlin's situation didn't seem the same as Nix's. At least, he hadn't shown any signs of mental issues. So where should Lin QiYe begin?

After a moment's hesitation, Lin QiYe turned his gaze back to Merlin and asked seriously:

"What illness do you have?"

"Huh?" Merlin raised an eyebrow, surprised. "You're the one with an illness."

"If you don't have any illness, why are you here?"

"I don't know." Merlin shrugged. "I'm just a scholar trying to understand the true nature of the world."

"The true nature of the world?"

"What do you think the world is, and what are we?"

Before Lin QiYe could respond, Merlin continued on, seemingly lost in his own thoughts.

"To a fish in the deep sea, the sea and the creatures within it are its entire world. It doesn't know that outside the ocean, there's land, with beings entirely different from itself.

To a two-dimensional being, the world is a plane. Its very existence limits its worldview, and it can't imagine that beyond this plane, three-dimensional beings are observing its every move.

To the deep-sea fish, the ocean is its world. To the two-dimensional being, the plane is its world…

But is what they perceive as the world truly the real world?"

Merlin's eyes lit up with a fiery passion, his words growing more intense.

Standing up from his chair, he pointed toward the sky with one hand and grabbed Lin QiYe's wrist with the other, staring at him intently. Every word he spoke was slow and deliberate:

"Have you ever thought... that perhaps the world we live in is just something created by beings from a higher dimension?"