Chương 689: Chapter 687 – Millie Ascension.

The crystal was in her hand, shining brightly as it reflected the light within the chamber. She had spent countless hours reading books and practicing her scribing in this room built by her master. Life in Albrook had felt sluggish at first, even boring, as she was confined to studying and practicing her craft. Eventually, however, she found her rhythm and could not stop herself from wanting to learn more and more. She remembered her past and the guilt she felt for forcing her parents into this situation.

She knew they had risked their lives in the hope that Uncle Hasim would be able to help her, but even then, her class had only held her back. At one point, she had wanted to level up just to gain a regular profession like her parents, nearly giving up on the dream of using her writing for magic. Then her new master arrived and reignited that old dream. She could finally grasp it: magical knowledge through magically written words.

It was something that drove her forward, pushing her to learn more and more about the runes her teacher had mastered. Even though he was supposed to be a Runesmith like her uncle, there was far more to him than met the eye. He understood magic in ways no other runesmith did, as though he had mastered both magic and crafting simultaneously. It gave her hope. If there was anyone who could guide her forward and open the world of magic to her, it would be him.

"Millie?"

"Oh!" His voice rang out beside her, and Millie nearly dropped the ascension crystal from her hand.

"If you're not feeling well, we can do it another day."

"N-no, I want to do it today!" Her master looked concerned at how visibly nervous she was.

"Remember, the trial space will present you with multiple options. If you feel the class you chose is the wrong one, you can fail on purpose, and then we can discuss it afterward. This machine will record what you see during your trial to help you pass it, so do not get discouraged if you do not complete it on your first try." Millie nodded as she leaned back in the white chair. The crystal in her hand began to glow as she finally gathered the courage to begin.

This was her first time using such an item, and just as her master had described, the experience was disorienting. Everything turned white for a moment, and when she opened her eyes, she was no longer in the workshop, but in a place from her recent past.

"It's the Red Dragon Inn…" Just like everyone else, her ascension trial was shaped by memories from her past.

"It wasn't like this before... Previously, it was my other home..." Millie was a little confused. This place looked different from the first time she had entered this space. Back then, it had not been part of the dungeon. Instead, it had taken the form of the old village where she had lived with her parents. However, her master had warned her that this could happen, so she wasn't concerned.

"Master told me that it usually appears as a core memory, a place closely tied to my life... and that it can change if someone's life goes through a major transformation." The inn looked exactly as she remembered it, though there were subtle differences. It seemed less worn, untouched by some of the scratches and damage left behind by drunken adventurers during their brawls. She wasn't sure why the place had changed, but it might have had something to do with her inability to change her class for so long.

Her entire life had been transformed during her years in the dungeon. It had become her new home, a place she once believed she would never leave. Millie slowly stepped across the wooden floorboards of the inn. The scent of cooked meat and stale ale lingered in the air exactly as she remembered. Warm lantern light flickered across polished tables, yet something felt wrong. There were no loud adventurers or shuffling footsteps. The place felt empty.

"It really recreated almost everything…" Even though it had not been that long, this was a place she had left behind to ascend. For a moment, she forgot this was a class-changing trial. Her thoughts drifted through old memories, both good and bad. One remained painfully vivid. It was the night she cried herself to sleep after finally accepting that she could not progress like everyone else. That memory was also what snapped her back to reality.

"Millie, what are you doing? This is not the time for reminiscing. I've already wasted enough time." She was already fifteen years old, and most people had gone through their first ascension by that age. It was obvious she had fallen behind, and she needed to ascend at any cost.

"Master said these trials have a pattern to them. First, I need to find something that will lead me to the real trial…" To change her class, she first needed to locate the entrance to the trial itself. She began searching the inn, starting with the main hall. She even picked up the empty ale mugs scattered across the tables, but after several minutes, she still found nothing.

"Could it be in our room?" After a while, she moved into the staff room that also served as her family's bedroom. Inside, she found her old bed along with another flood of memories, but still no clue about what she was supposed to do.

"How did Master call it? Process of elimination? If it's not here… then it has to be upstairs!" She had learned enough from her master to know that panicking would only make her overlook something obvious. With the ground floor thoroughly searched, only the guest rooms remained.

"Oh… this looks different…" As soon as she climbed the stairs, it became clear this was not the inn she remembered. The corridor stretched far beyond what should have been possible. The Red Dragon Inn had never possessed this many guest rooms, and stranger still, each door bore a carved symbol.

"This one… is that a broom and dustpan?" The first door displayed a carving of cleaning tools, making her wonder if the room beyond had transformed into a storage closet. Across from it stood another door marked with cooking utensils.

"Wait, I know what this is! These must be classes… perhaps cleaning and cooking related ones." Millie clapped her hands together as she stared at the two doors. At last, she understood how to move forward and finally obtain a new path.

"So every door represents a possible class?" The realization made her heartbeat quicken. If this corridor truly contained class paths, then somewhere ahead was the future she had been searching for all this time. She approached the door marked with cleaning tools and carefully touched the handle.

"... So it won't be that easy..." Nothing happened. She had not tried to push the door open. She knew entering one of these rooms would probably begin the trial, so before doing anything reckless, she followed another piece of advice her master had given her: test things first before proceeding further. She hoped for some kind of description or hint about what lay beyond the door, but even after placing her hand against the carving, nothing appeared.

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"This might be the Housekeeper class, and the other is probably Cook." Before meeting her master, she would have been ecstatic to receive either of those classes. They would have helped her maintain the inn and support her mother with better cleaning and household skills. But things had changed. Now she wanted something greater for herself, something tied to magic.

"Master said the classes are usually arranged from the most common to the rarest." Millie paused in the middle of the corridor, her fingers still resting against the carved symbol of the cleaning tools. Slowly, she lowered her hand and looked farther down the hallway. If this truly represented possible classes, then the first doors must correspond to the most ordinary outcomes. The farther she went, the rarer and more valuable the classes would become. Her heartbeat quickened again.

She stepped away from the first door and continued forward. The next door displayed a set of cooking utensils, though these carvings were far more detailed. Pots, knives, and a ladle had been etched into the surface with remarkable care. Even the wood itself looked finer and more expensive, implying this was an advanced version of the cooking class. Across from it stood a similar door marked with cleaning tools, also more refined than the earlier one. The same pattern continued as she walked onward.

The doors became increasingly elaborate, and many of the classes represented were ones she had only read about before.

"This one is probably an accountant... so that one must be some kind of administrator... and that one, perhaps a farmer?" There was a staggering number of noncombat tier one classes before her, as if she had truly been given another chance at life. To her knowledge, there should not have been so many possibilities, but over the years, she had picked up countless basic skills to compensate for her own class being unable to level properly.

"This..." Farther ahead, the doors no longer felt ordinary. The earlier ones had seemed simple, almost comforting in their predictability, but now she had reached the end of the corridor where she would likely need to make a choice.

"This one looks promising..." At the very end stood a door pulsing with magical energy. Even without the mana sense of a mage, she could see it clearly. The door was forged from metal, and at its center was a quill surrounded by a strange pentagram covered in unfamiliar symbols. They were not runes, nor were they ordinary enchantments, yet they felt similar enough to leave her uneasy. Another similar door stood to the side, this one marked with a smaller quill before a magical scroll.

It reminded her of her current class and was most likely a direct upgrade to it. However, the final door at the end of the corridor was far more intricate.

"If I fail, I can always try again. That's what Master said…" Even though she felt ready for the challenge, she still feared that all her work could go to waste. More than that, she felt a strange pull toward the last door. The closer she came, the brighter the strange symbols carved into its surface glowed. After a moment, the symbols even began to move.

"This has to be it… But can I really get through it?" One problem still followed her even in this world: her lack of mana while scribing. Although her level had increased and she was now level twenty-five, she could only create a few basic scrolls without the aid of her bracelet. Her master had managed to obtain several skill books that improved her mana and regeneration, but their effects were limited. The stronger ones were compatible only with battle classes.

Her hand settled on the door handle, and she carefully pushed it downward. The moment the latch clicked, the symbols carved into the metal door flared with light. Thin streams of pale blue energy spread across its surface like veins before the entire corridor began to tremble. Millie instinctively stepped back. The other doors lining the hallway slowly faded away. The simple wooden doors representing ordinary professions dissolved into mist one after another, leaving behind only darkness.

Soon, only the final door remained. Then a tremendous force pulled her forward, and she was suddenly dragged into a completely new area.

"Whoa!" She stumbled forward and caught herself on something soft and fuzzy. When she opened her eyes, she found herself in a luxurious room resembling a nobleman's study. The carpet beneath her hands was softer than anything she had ever touched. Thick red fabric woven with golden patterns stretched across the polished floor, while towering bookshelves lined the walls from end to end. Hundreds upon hundreds of books rested upon them, each bound in leather or cloth.

"This place… is it some kind of library?" The sheer number of books was overwhelming, but as she looked ahead, she noticed a lone desk standing in the middle of the room. A strange quill rested upon it beside several crystal ink bottles filled with shimmering liquid that shifted colors every few seconds. Millie slowly stood and brushed off her dress even though there was no dust on it. The room felt pristine, untouched by time itself. Not a single sheet of parchment was out of place.

The bookshelves stretched so high that she could not even see where they ended. Above them was only darkness.

"So this is my trial? This looks similar to Master's first trial…" Her teacher had once told her about his own first trial, the one that made him a mana scribe. He had been tasked with creating a magical scroll within a strict time limit. However, this trial already felt far more serious. As she stepped closer to the desk, she noticed a massive book resting on the left side and a neat stack of parchments placed on the right.

"What does it want me to do here, exactly?" She approached the desk cautiously. The strange quill resting upon it looked nothing like the feather pens she used at the workshop. Its shaft appeared to be crafted from silver metal intertwined with crystal veins that pulsed faintly with mana. The tip glimmered with blue light, as though waiting for her touch. The large book beside it suddenly opened on its own. Millie jumped slightly as the thick pages began turning rapidly.

Lines of text flashed past too quickly to read before finally stopping near the center. The moment the pages settled, glowing words appeared across the parchment.

"Recreate the presented magical formula using the provided tools. Failure to complete the formula within the allotted time will result in failure." Below the message, another page slowly revealed itself. Upon it was an intricate magical pattern unlike anything she had ever seen before.

"What is that...?" Her eyes widened. It did not resemble the runes she had seen before, though there were faint similarities. The lines curved with impossible precision, intersecting one another in ways that made her head spin. Beyond the runic symbols, she noticed something entirely new. Magical circles were woven into the structure, tying everything together in ways runes never did. It was something she had never studied before.

"This is... Can you connect things in such a way?" She had spent months studying rune structures under her master, enough to understand that magical formulas always followed an internal logic. Mana needed pathways. Enchantments required anchors. Effects had to be stabilized through balancing points. This strange diagram obeyed similar principles, but its methods felt foreign and unorthodox.

There was something more than mana flowing through it, yet she could still sense the same power emanating from the ink bottles resting nearby.

"So this is it..." The task lay before her, and a moment later she heard something click. Turning toward the sound, she spotted a large hourglass. Sand had already begun to fall. Pale white grains streamed steadily downward, marking the passage of time.

"By the size of this hourglass... I should have a few hours for this. I'd better start." Millie clenched her fists as she looked from the diagram to the bottles of magical ink and the quill. The moment her fingers wrapped around the silver shaft, a sharp pulse of mana traveled through her arm. It was not painful, but it startled her enough that she almost dropped it. The crystal veins embedded within the pen brightened in response to her touch.

"It reacted to me... and this feeling... It's kind of refreshing." The bottles of ink beside the desk shimmered in various colors as she slowly dipped the quill into one of them. The moment the tip touched the liquid, faint ripples of mana spread across the surface. The ink almost seemed alive as strands of glowing energy climbed upward into the pen itself.

"It's absorbing it..." The sensation reminded her of the enchanted scrolls she created with her master, except far stronger. Usually, she needed to carefully guide every bit of mana into the ink herself, which was the reason she had always struggled with proper scribing. But this pen drew the mana naturally, functioning much like the bracelet her master had made for her.

"This... perhaps with this..." Her eyes widened as she felt the magic flowing through the tool in her hand. Slowly, she guided the pen to the parchment, and her hand began to move just as it had countless times before. Copying runic diagrams was something she did daily. She had written countless practice scrolls since childhood, even using ordinary pencils to train when she lacked the mana required to create true magical scrolls.

"I can do this..." She muttered to herself while sweat beaded across her forehead. The moment the quill touched the parchment, the glowing ink resisted her. The line she tried to draw twisted slightly to the side before snapping back violently, ruining the pattern.

"What?" Her eyes shot open as her first attempt failed. While her limited mana did not seem to matter within this trial, the ink moved on its own as though it were alive and fighting her for control.

"So... this is the true trial... controlling the ink!" Millie nodded and tossed the ruined parchment aside. Even though she had already failed once, there was still time. Even if it took a hundred attempts, she would succeed. She would make her parents and her master proud for believing in her and giving her this chance. Failure was not an option. Soon, the study was filled with the scratching of the quill and the sound of crumpled paper hitting the floor.