Saeldir kept reading all this time.

Line after line carved itself into his thoughts not just as text but as burning sigils.

His Magic energy drained with every knowledge he absorbed, it was leaking from him as if the Codex were drinking it.

The air around him quivered. His vision thinned at the edges. But he couldn't stop.

King Gulben just watched from the side with unreadable face.

Knowledge poured into him. They were vast, ancient, and devastating in its depth.

Saeldir started knowing concepts he had never imagined, they surged into his mind, heavy and immense.

His heart pounded. His hands trembled.

The first revelation struck him hard.

There existed a power older than kingdoms and even older than Magic power itself. A primordial force born at the dawn of creation.

It was called the System.

The words in the Codex throbbed with their own pulse, reshaping Saeldir's thoughts as he absorbed them.

The System was not merely another Magic. It was a framework capable of rewriting reality, bending laws, altering fate, and granting unlimited potential to those chosen as its host.

A chosen being could evolve endlessly. Break every limitation and shatter every ceiling that existence has forced upon them.

Saeldir's breath became quick and ragged. His chest tightening.

This power called 'system' was created by a being known only as the Creator.

The more he read, the clearer the image became. The Creator was no god as Elves understood it. It was something beyond divinity. A primordial architect who shaped worlds, wrote laws of existence, sculpted souls and finally forged the System as the ultimate tool of potential and control.

But then the script darkened.

Another force rose to challenge the Creator. There was a rival power born from chaos and ambition.

The pages trembled under Saeldir's fingertips as they described a war fought not between gods, but between concepts. Between creation and unmaking, between order and entropy.

And then the Creator suddenly vanished.

Nobody knows if this Creator was missing, erased, or swallowed by that opposing power.

No record described how. No record described where the Creator went.

Only that the System remained active, scattered across forgotten worlds, waiting for new hosts.

Saeldir's skull felt as if it were splitting.

The words hammered deeper into him, carving pathways through his mind, flooding him with truths his body even as an Archmage was not built to hold.

His breath turned even more ragged and his vision became blurred. A lot of cold sweat broke across his skin.

Then pain flared sharp and sudden.

His nose began to bleed. A line of crimson dripped onto the floor and table.

His face drained of all color as the pressure built behind his eyes like his brain was swelling from the raw weight of the knowledge being forced into it.

The Codex kept pushing. It didn't let him rest or breathe. It didn't care if he shattered under the truths of creation.

Saeldir swayed in his seat, barely holding on.

But he still forced himself to read.

His eyes moved across the next line but the letters no longer behaved like text.

They twisted, curled, and spiraled into his vision like living fire. Every new revelation slammed into him harder than the last. They felt more violent and more ancient.

His pulse hammered painfully in his ears. His fingers clawed the table to stay upright. His breath shook in thin, broken strands as the Codex poured another avalanche of forbidden truths into him.

His Magic energy dropped sharply, like something was ripping it out of his veins. His body trembled uncontrollably.

But his eyes refused to stop.

That's because he needed to know. He needed the next answer, the next fragment, and the next truth buried behind creation's curtain.

The Codex felt that hunger and pushed more into him. But that knowledge was more than any living mind was meant to hold.

Saeldir jerked suddenly. His vision shattered into white static. His chest seized. The muscles in his arms tensed violently.

He felt something crack inside his head, like a seam under too much strain that finally split.

A wet warmth spilled from his nose again.

Then from his ears.

He didn't even feel the tears running down his cheeks. Whether from pain or the sheer force of the knowledge, he couldn't tell.

Still, he leaned forward, breath quivering, eyes unfocused but locked on the next burning symbol.

At that point, King Gulben moved.

In one quick and forceful action, the Elven king slammed his hand onto the Codex.

A harsh crimson light flared between his fingers as he exerted his power, shoving the book shut before Saeldir could register what was happening.

The moment the Codex closed, the overwhelming pressure on Saeldir's mind snapped away and Saeldir collapsed.

His body crumpled sideways off the chair, hitting the floor with a dull thud.

King Gulben caught him before his head struck the stone.

He lifted the Archmage back into the seat, supporting his limp shoulders with one arm.

Saeldir's eyes fluttered, unfocused and bloodshot. His breath was thin and trembling.

His lips moved faintly, trying to form words he no longer had the strength to speak.

King Gulben let out a controlled steady exhale filled with both relief and restrained fear.

"You would have read until your mind tore itself apart," he said quietly. "You always were too stubborn for your own good."

Saeldir tried to respond, but only a weak rasp escaped him.

The king tightened his grip slightly, steadying him.

"Enough. No more." His voice dropped into something almost fatherly. "You survived knowledge no Elf has ever touched. Not even I read that far."

Saeldir tried to swallow, his throat dry and burning. Finally, he managed to whisper:

"I wasn't done."

King Gulben actually smiled. The tired and pained kind of smile one gives a brilliant but reckless student.

"You were done for now," he said. "If you had taken even one more line, you would be unconscious for a week, or dead."

Saeldir blinked slowly, tears and blood drying on his cheeks.

His hands shook violently, but his thoughts were still reaching back toward the Codex. Instinctively he was still hungry for the truth.

The king placed a firm hand on Saeldir's shoulder and ushered him into a bed in the corner of the room.

"You should rest for now," King Gulben said. "Your mind needs time to reorganize itself. And when you are ready we will continue together. I will help you."

Saeldir's eyes finally closed. But even in the darkness, the burning sigils of the Codex still swirled behind them, refusing to disappear.

At that point, he heard a knock on the door.

—