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I squinted in suspicion at the notification. What further proof did I need?

It was like the system was trying to warn me, especially after seeing their campground.

I looked closely at the people. It mentioned hostages, an elf commander, and a grandmaster, but I saw none of this.

Aside from the tense elves, they all looked like normal people sitting anxiously around a fire, if you ignored their glowing red eyes.

I even spotted the female elf wandering aimlessly through the camp, she ignored the members of her party, and they didn\'t pay much attention to her either.

So maybe they were inside.

Were they really after that Journal? Or was it the jewel in my possession? Or maybe the ring?

Once again, I felt the itch to bury them all for coming after my treasures. They couldn\'t reach inside the Shadow realm, so they couldn\'t get their things back even if they came after me.

But if their target was me, then my nestlings would be affected. 

With that thought lingering in my mind, I quietly slipped back into the shadow realm.

Were my spoils really worth all the trouble?

I quickly found my hammock where all three items were waiting. I already knew how dangerous the relic was, its petrification powers were just as potent as the day I found it, but inside the box, the unique resin suffocated its effect.

As for the ring, it was completely mine. After being powered by the Abyss, it posed no threat to me anymore and only responded to my signature. If [Dimensional Box] didn\'t surpass its quantity, I would have used it as my own, but alas.

I already designated it as an apology gift for Ophelia.

Which left the journal.

It supposedly belonged to a Grandmaster, but the item itself was ordinary. It was bound centrally like a book and made out of leather, or at least I thought it was leather.

[Appraisal] revealed the pages were actually the skin of an extinct race of mortal, which was so creepy that I hurled the book away the first chance I got.

What the hell. Why mortal skin?

How gross!

I had to question the sanity of its creator.

I cringed just thinking about how the dark fae had slept between its pages. I even used it as a headrest several times in the cave!

In itself, it was far from the worst thing I\'d seen, but it did make me hesitate to touch it again, and even now I couldn\'t get over its shiny waxy texture.

But far more complicated than the journal\'s materials were its contents.

I started off simply by opening to a random page. 

Written painstakingly by hand, every inch of the Journal was covered in beautiful text, but this text was not always in the Elf tongue. Some were a mishmash of other known languages that I had to decipher with [Glossary of Aeon]. They were mostly mortal in origin but the same language never repeated itself twice in a single line. 

The writer was seemingly unable to finish a sentence before switching to another language. I reasoned it was some type of protective measure and fortunately, I had [Glossary of Aeon] to help. 

However, after reading for a while, my 20 language limit started to fill up fast!

If I kept reading I would have to choose which language to let go. Either I would never talk to the nestlings again, the Nymph, or Sylrin, even the Abyssal monsters were at risk of abandonment.

Still I kept reading, and by the time I finished one page, it felt like hours had passed.

But the result was less than satisfactory.

: 12873

: 8

: 28 

: 400

What was this?

It went on to detail pages and pages of every single possible plant, livestock and ingredient produced and consumed per household in excruciating detail, for what seemed to be a medium sized town.

Just reading it made me annoyed.

What was the purpose?

Sidrian, Axael, Native Uhir, Dagnor, I couldn\'t stop counting all the strange languages I amassed just from reading its pages.

And for what?

To detail farming supplies? A harvest? 

Why did I need to know different types of plant diseases?

All of this led me to conclude the writer was insane. Why go through all this trouble to guard something that equated to a list.

I glared at the words in annoyance. 

Should I keep reading? Or was my time better spent capturing some elves?

I decided to go all the way to the beginning to see if there was more. 

There had to be a reason the elves were after this thing.

\' . . \' . ?

Hm?

. , . , , .

Hmm?

, . . \' .

\' .

I had to do a double take. 

What the heck did I just read?

. \' . . , . , . 

.

I sat up from my bed…why did this sound like medicine?

Who was this person? Was Talia his sister? 

I had so many questions.

, . ?

. , . 

, , .

.

. . . 

.

I couldn\'t believe what I\'d read. 

My first thought was a reincarnate, but from how aged and weary the pages of the Journal were, it had to be at least a few centuries old, which ruled that out.

I had to conclude that this was simply a very gifted individual, perhaps a genius.

To be separated from his family at such a young age was a tragic event to experience, though I never got the sense that the writer seemed particularly bothered about it.

After this there were a couple of blank pages and by the time I got to the next entry, the story seemed to have skipped forward by a couple of years.

And then the mess truly began.

Through the bleeding ink I came across pages filled with detailed analysis of monsters both dead and alive, their dissected bodies filed several pages continuously, and the writer loved to detail his excitement at each new discovery with pages of descriptive text.

No longer were these the records of a farm boy, he seemed to have changed into some sort of mad sorcerer!

I had to flip through pages repeatedly when I came across a couple of unfortunate serpents, in order not to recoil, and I was so upset, I took a break from reading for a while.

But it wasn\'t just monsters, there were also mortals, elves, fae, mutant and other humanoid races.

I wasn\'t used to seeing such human-like depictions treated like pieces of meat, nor was I happy to see so many monsters filling the pages.

The author was likely the same because alongside these drawings were inventory lists much like the earlier farming records.

Only now, they were lists of ingredients, potions and body parts, the Journal becoming littered with records of experiments, spells, and other unsavoury ventures.

If the Journal\'s author was this elf Grandmaster, then he was a truly evil being.

All those poor monsters and mutants, someone ought to string him up and cut him open just to see if he bled.

The only reason I waited so long before reading the Journal was because Sensei was adamant that I didn\'t, and perhaps this was why. It wouldn\'t surprise me that he didn\'t want me to see such things.

But I was glad I read it.

Aside from the demented drawings, there were spells I could learn with practice, alongside information about this world that I wouldn\'t know otherwise.

Still, I had to wonder what happened to the farm boy in the beginning?

The pages that followed made me question if they were the same person.

Between the words were detailed maps of Labyrinths that matched none of the ones I stole from the elves – which meant they were not part of the Ailith Labyrinth!

According to it there were eight continents discovered so far.

Ailith, Maelgyn, Dyrsyn, Castellan, The Stormlands which were uninhabited, unnamed and overrun with mutants, the Crystal Isles where dragons roamed, Abeloth, a dark realm where demons lived, and the Aerie where guardians, beings of light made flesh, recorded the history of every living race since creation.

With eight known land masses, it meant there were eight other Labyrinths I hadn\'t seen, which meant Ailith was merely a tiny cog in a wheel much larger than I imagined.

Yet, even more unbelievable was the sorcerer\'s claim that each Labyrinth was connected through invisible pathways, which also happened to be…the roots of an ancient tree so large its roots spread across continents, with branches so tall they reached the Aerie in the heavens.

This also happened to be where he lost me. Because how could all the things it claimed, be true?

How could mere roots link land masses together?

Perhaps it was a metaphor or some figure of speech?

But this wasn\'t the end of the Journal\'s nonsense.

It details silly things like common rules and greetings shared between different races when they met for the first time. Apparently, a mortal must never look a giant directly in the eyes or it would feel threatened or be seen as small, which always ended in death.

And yet, the sorcerer made this very mistake and survived somehow – as if he wasn\'t already suspicious enough!

According to him, Elves were born from the fruit of this giant continent hopping tree and every fae creature and Nymph that existed were birthed from its flowers.

I had to pause because this was far from believable.

If the farm boy and the wandering sorcerer were the same then perhaps he had gone mad from his travels, or from his excessive record keeping.

From the earlier entries, I got the sense he was on a quest of discovery and power. But if he was going to lie, at least make it believable!

There were limits to these things!

I rolled around to give my wings a stretch, realising I\'d been in the same position for too long.

I thought I would gain some insight to his discoveries by reading more, but the more I read the more I concluded the sorcerer had lost his mind.

It wasn\'t just the detailed experiments on monsters, elves and creatures he captured, there were even musings on the anatomy of demons – and other creatures I couldn\'t begin to describe.

He seemed to have a habit of gathering unique parts like a macabre collector, slaughtering whole civilizations for their parts was like a typical day in his list of misadventures.

The Journal also suggested this sorcerer had paid a visit to a Labyrinth once, although which one wasn\'t exactly clear. His notes explained each Labyrinth was created by a different god, of which there were seven – but I recall Sensei saying there were six gods.

And yet, this was only the start of the confusing rabbit hole I was about to embark on.