Past Records & The Library

Mikhail arrived at the library, his light footsteps tapping against the stairs.

His eyes went once again to the card in his hand.

Although it was a normal blue card that you could find anywhere to the naked eye, it was much more special than that.

It was because it had Daniel's mana signature.

What he had in his hand right now was a referral card.

With Daniel's personal mana signature engraved invisibly on it, Mikhail could use it to access the library.

And library only.

This was what the referral card meant. Only to give him limited and temporary access.

The mana signature of the writer was also unique and known to him alone so it was damn near impossible to replicate it.

Heading up the stairs, Mikhail reminisced by observing the building.

He hadn't come here much in his past life as he wasn't the most avid fan of books.

But it was still quite a place, being one of the largest buildings in the academy.

Heading through the doors, Mikhail quickly reached the counter.

Seeing the old lady that quietly sat behind, he almost felt a pang of nostalgia.

She was nearing her time when he was here in his previous life and he had never gotten to know what happened to her.

Her name was Margaret.

Tapping on the counter, Mikhail quickly slid his referral card forward to save time for both of them.

"Referral Card by Sir Daniel Blake for Cadet Mikhail Hendrix."

The old lady nodded with a simple smile on her face, moving forward to quickly make a record.

Once done, she gave him another nod of affirmation.

"Just down the stairs to the right young man, the staircase to the third floor will automatically open for you." She pointed in the direction.

Mikhail returned her words with a nod as well.

"Thank you."

She smiled affectionately.

"No problem, take care of yourself young man. I know life's hard out there."

Giving another nod, Mikhail turned to leave for the stairs.

Though he couldn't entirely sympathize with the people of the Empire as they had thrown him here to die.

He still appreciated the few people with a sense of humanity here.

As he arrived before the designated location, Mikhail saw the bookshelves twist.

Certain parts moved and restructured themselves to open a whole entrance.

It wasn't anything new to him as he had seen it multiple times before with other people.

But it was certainly his first time going down to the third floor in both lives.

Taking a breath, he slowly stepped down to the third floor.

Immediately, he was greeted by a floor at least 3x larger than the previous one.

The bookshelves were much larger and expansive as well as much more advanced books.

Wasting no time, Mikhail quickly set out to search.

If he had to be honest, he had no idea if he would even be able to find the answer today.

With him being alone and so many books, it was definitely impossible to find it today.

Fortunately, he still had 3 days before the arrival of the Dominique.

Since it was an organization, there definitely had to be a clue in the political and history books.

Going to the labelled bookshelves, Mikhail quickly grabbed as many books as he could.

Setting them on the table, he opened several ones at once.

If there was a clue that he had or at least something he suspected, it was that the organization was new or popular.

For the guy to know their name, it was definitely one of these two.

'Why had they attacked the squadron anyways?'

Was there some sort of specific revenge against them?

Or…

It suddenly clicked in Mikhail's mind.

The Magnolia Lake.

The group had been there before the squadron arrived or vice versa.

And upon arrival, the group had killed the squadron.

In any case, Mikhail more or less had an idea now on why the group was there.

'Forced Wormholes.'

Just as the name suggested, these were wormholes artificially forced by people.

Oftentimes, it was done for training or hunting but it was also a method exploited by people for evil as well.

Using mana sources to artificially create monster raids was one of the uncommon methods.

A reason for this was because it took multiple days to set a single wormhole up.

Most of the time people would just get discovered before they could stage it.

Which was supposed to be the case here as well.

The group wasn't even supposed to get close to the mana source without getting discovered.

It made no sense how they avoided it.

There was a very minor chance for someone to betray the academy if it so happened.

Especially from outside as the guards kept record of everything.

In any case, what it definitely confirmed to Mikhail was that they weren't a normal group.

Just a normal forced wormhole required a lot of resources, not to mention multiple at once.

Not only that but to infiltrate the academy security system was no joke.

However, a point that he still didn't understand was their motive.

No matter how many forced wormholes they orchestrated, trying to execute a Dominique with it was plain stupid.

A Dominique was a force to be rivaled with.

They were literally a one person army that you do not want to trifle with.

A couple of wormholes were barely enough to stop them.

Mikhail could confirm this with definite surety after the incident in his past life.

Which was why he didn't think of it as an assassination plot or some orchestration and more of a once in a blue moon natural disaster.

That incident back then was one of the worst he had faced in the academy.

A time where he truly learned how fragile their lives were, even in the academy walls.

Mikhail's face twitched.

'And how heartless the Empire truly is.'

The way they just silently watched everything but chose to ignore it.

'Despicable.'

Suddenly, his eyes widened.

'Wait a minute, silent.'

The word 'silent' immediately clicked into his mind as memories from his past life flooded in.

A large-scale evil organization called Silent Pact that revealed themselves to the world.

'And..'

It all started clicking in Mikhail's mind.

What they were famous for.

'Famous for exploitation of mana sources and wormholes for the use of destruction and resource hoarding.'

The words he had heard about them in his previous life echoed in his mind.

'S-s-s…Pact….k-killed….b-b-betrayal…protect….the D-Dominique'

The words from the messenger echoed in his mind.

The S part.

Silent Pact.

Mikhail's eyes turned wide as realization set in for him.

'It's definitely them.'