Deep inside a forest stood a building. Although massive trees towered around it, soft sunlight still filtered through to illuminate the structure. There were no signs of life inside, not even a single insect. Strangely, though, the floors were completely free of dust, and the entire place was kept in a remarkably clean state.

It was in a room within this building that Reiji……no, the person once known as Saeki Reiji, woke up.

「……Where am I?」

He put a hand to his forehead, looking around as he thought for a few seconds. Then, he nodded as if putting the pieces together.

「I see, I fused with that glowing orb……ah, I get it now. It really was a fusion. I’ve gained his knowledge, but there’s no doubt this is still my own consciousness.」

Taking in his surroundings, Reiji noticed he was lying in a bed. A magic formation was drawn on the floor. He guessed this body had been kept in stasis until some kind of magic activated it a few minutes ago. He got up and put on the clothes left beside the bed.

「I wonder what this new body is actually like?」

According to his newly acquired knowledge, the glowing orb’s name was Zephyr Zondo. Reiji found a basin of water and peered into it to see the reflection of the body Zephyr had prepared for him.

A boy with bright red hair looked back at him. His face was well-proportioned, and if anything, he could be called beautiful. In striking contrast to his red hair, his eyes were a deep blue. He was about 165cm tall, and judging by his face, he looked like a 15-year-old. Since Reiji had been a 17-year-old in his previous world, he had grown younger by about two years.

「Still, based on the knowledge I got from Zephyr, this is an outrageous body.」

According to the knowledge Reiji had received from Zephyr……this body was a masterpiece created using the absolute pinnacle of the organisation’s magic and techniques. Because the organisation had slowly died out as its members aged, this body was specially treated to possess eternal youth. Naturally, it required a constant, massive supply of magic power to maintain that state.

While the body had eternal youth, it wasn’t immortal. Even with the world’s greatest magicians working together, it seemed achieving true immortality was impossible. This was likely their next best thing. Thanks to the body’s incredible regenerative abilities, its physical strength and durability were also remarkably high.

「Well, I’ll worry about the details later.」

He had pulled the specs of his new body directly from his inherited knowledge. Satisfied with a rough understanding, he poured water from a jug on the table into a wooden cup and downed it in one gulp.

As the water quenched his thirst, he suddenly realised something.

「Come to think of it, this water must be several hundred years old too.」

He poured another cup from the jug. If Zephyr had been telling the truth, he had waited as a glowing orb in that spirit world between dimensions for several hundred years just to find a successor to the Magic Beast Art. This meant the body, the water, the clothes, and the bed must have all been prepared before Zephyr became an orb. If this was the work of an organisation of the world’s best magicians, it made sense they could keep everything in perfectly fresh condition.

The water was so fresh you would easily believe it had just been drawn from a mountain spring. Reiji had lived in rural Tohoku and was used to good, clean water, but this was on a completely different level. It was like night and day. He happily drank a few more cups until he was satisfied.

「For now, let’s take a look around the building.」

Although he roughly knew the layout from Zephyr’s memories, that was still just secondhand knowledge. He wanted to see it with his own eyes to be sure.

Aside from the bed, the room Reiji woke up in only contained a table, some chairs, the jug, and the cup.

「Hmm? This……」

Looking around, Reiji’s eyes caught a painting hanging on the bedroom wall. It depicted 12 people of various ages.

Earth magic, water magic, wind magic, light magic, darkness magic, space-time magic, void magic, summoning magic, alchemy, numerology, and ancient magic. Led by Zephyr, who specialised in fire magic, these 12 individuals made up the organisation. According to the knowledge Zephyr had passed down, these were the very magicians capable of wiping out a country in mere hours.

However, it wasn’t just the sheer power of the group that caught Reiji’s attention. It was the clothes worn by the numerology master. The person was wearing a standard black school uniform, the kind worn by almost every junior and senior high school student in Japan. Furthermore, the individual had black hair, dark eyes, and distinctly Japanese facial features.

「Takumu Suzuno. A numerology master, huh? No matter how you look at it, he’s a fellow countryman.」

From Zephyr’s knowledge, Takumu Suzuno also possessed the trait of eternal youth. Reiji’s new, upgraded body had actually been created by incorporating Takumu Suzuno’s physical characteristics along with Zephyr’s knowledge.

「In that case, aside from Takumu Suzuno and myself, are there any other Japanese people who ended up in this world……I wonder?」

He thought about it for a few seconds but immediately shook his head, dismissing the idea.

Even if other Japanese people had come to this world, aside from his consciousness, Reiji himself wasn’t exactly Japanese anymore. The most he could do if he met one would be to chat and reminisce.

「If he had eternal youth, why did he die?」

Curious, he dug a little deeper into his inherited memories.

It seemed Takumu had been poisoned after getting caught up in a power struggle between major factions. Although he managed to escape back to Zephyr, they weren’t able to synthesise an antidote in time……that was how he passed away.

「Well, I guess that’s pretty standard for noble society. That sort of thing happens when you get dragged into their political messes.」

On a side note, the numerology Takumu Suzuno used was an entirely original magic he had invented himself, and no one else could use it. Its primary function was to express objects and concepts numerically, meaning it wasn’t suited for combat.

「I see. It’s like a game interface where things are appraised and analysed using magic.」

This concept was completely unheard of in this world, but for Reiji, who loved gaming and pop culture, it was an incredibly easy ability to understand.

「Alright then, I’ve seen enough of this room. Next up is the laboratory.」

His bare feet pattered softly against the floor as he walked over and opened the bedroom door. Just as he suspected, the building itself was maintained by magic, and there still wasn’t a single speck of dust in the hallway.

「I see……the flow of time within the building has been stopped using space-time magic.」

He walked down the corridor, cross-referencing Zephyr’s knowledge as he went. After Zephyr became the final surviving member of the organisation, he had repurposed this massive building specifically as a base to find a successor to the Magic Beast Art. Because the facility was so large, it took Reiji a few minutes just to walk from the bedroom to the laboratory.

A plate on the laboratory door bore a warning, 『Those who open this door without the qualifications of the Magic Beast Art will be struck by a spell.』

「……Well, at the very least, I can read this world’s language thanks to the fusion.」

He muttered to himself while reading the warning.

According to Zephyr’s memories, anyone who lacked the magic power required to succeed the Magic Beast Art would be thoroughly incinerated by a fire spell the moment they tried to open the door.

「That’s some pretty extreme security.」

He chuckled softly at the sign and gently reached for the doorknob. Even though Zephyr had explicitly chosen him as the successor, it paid to be cautious.

However, as his hand grasped the knob, the door swung open so effortlessly he was genuinely surprised.

「……Phew.」

Breathing a sigh of relief, he stepped into the laboratory.

Compared to the bedroom, the laboratory was huge, roughly 50 square metres by Reiji’s estimation. A massive magic formation was drawn across the back half of the room. In the front half near the entrance, various pieces of experimental equipment and reference books sat untouched. However, sitting prominently on a nearby table was a beautifully crafted jewellery box. It was the only item of its kind in the room.

「A jewellery box. I wonder what’s inside.」

Murmuring to himself, he approached the box and quietly lifted the lid.

「A bracelet?」

He lifted it from the velvet lining. It was a simple metal bracelet about 10cm in diameter. Given where it was stored, there was no doubt it served a specific purpose.

He examined the mysterious bracelet in his hands. It looked incredibly plain, yet it had been stored in an exquisitely crafted, expensive-looking jewellery box.

It didn’t quite make sense. Why keep a cheap-looking bracelet in such an extravagant box? Normally, you wouldn’t. That meant there was a lot more to this bracelet than met the eye. Searching for an answer, Reiji tapped into Zephyr’s memories once again.

「Wow. Yeah, this thing is priceless.」

According to the knowledge he found, the bracelet was a top-tier item storage device. It had been created through the combined efforts of the organisation’s best space magician, Liza Flow, their best alchemist, Esta Nord, and Takumu Suzuno’s numerology. All the magic tools, weapons, and precious materials Zephyr had promised him were stored safely inside. Its name was the Misty Ring.

(……Why call it a ring when it’s clearly a bracelet?)

Reiji wondered. He figured it was just a quirk of whoever named it.

A smile spread across Reiji’s face. He placed the Misty Ring back into the box for now and walked over to the huge magic formation at the back of the room.

「So this is the magic formation for the Magic Beast Art.」

The Magic Beast Art. Reiji already knew exactly what kind of magic it was thanks to Zephyr.

When the user stands in the centre and recites the incantation, the formation absorbs their magic power to create a magic beast. The caster has no control over the final result, as the beast’s mind, personality, tastes, and physical form are all complex manifestations of the caster’s own magic power and psyche.

The secret principles behind its operation were known only to Zephyr’s organisation. However, every magic beast produced this way shared one defining trait, which was that they all possessed a magic stone within their bodies. If the magic beast devoured the magic stones of other monsters, it would grow stronger and evolve. Because the evolutionary path depended entirely on the types of stones consumed, there was an infinite variety of possibilities. Theoretically, there was no limit to how much a magic beast could evolve, though no one had ever lived long enough to test that theory to its absolute limit.

In short, the Magic Beast Art creates a partner that constantly grows alongside you.

But because the magic formation required such an immense amount of magic power to activate, a normal magician would have their very life force drained dry just trying to use it.

Drawing the required knowledge to the front of his mind, Reiji took a deep breath and stepped into the centre of the formation.

「I have an agreement with Zephyr, and honestly, I’m genuinely interested in this Magic Beast Art. ……Now that I think about it, I’m usually a lot more cautious than this. Is this the influence of the fusion?」

These must be the minor personality changes Zephyr mentioned before they merged. Pushing the thought aside, Reiji focused his mind on the incantation.

Since the exact phrasing was seared into his inherited memories, he spoke without a hint of hesitation.

『We, those who create magic beasts with magic power. Living with the magic beast. I offer my magic power to manifest the magic beast that slumbers within me. It lives with me, and it dies with me. Show me your form!』

Imbuing spoken words with magic power to cast an incantation was a skill that usually took ascetics years of harsh practice to master. Yet Reiji, armed with Zephyr’s knowledge, pulled it off flawlessly on his first try. Even he was surprised by the sheer volume of magic power flowing through the words.

The lines of the magic formation beneath Reiji’s feet began to glow, gradually lighting up the room. The formation rapidly absorbed the massive waves of magic power pouring out of Reiji, growing brighter by the second. But naturally, even though Reiji possessed a vast reserve of magic power, it wasn’t infinite. The formation continued to glow and drain him for five minutes, then ten, then twenty.

「Gah!」

Eventually, as he neared his absolute limit, he dropped to one knee. The next moment, the glowing formation flashed with a blindingly sharp light……and then abruptly went dark.

「Is……is it done?」

The formation had completely drained the ambient magic power in the vicinity. Light-headed and struggling to stay conscious, Reiji looked up and caught sight of something with a glossy, jet-black lustre. It looked like a massive black cocoon. The cocoon started to crack. The moment it broke open, Reiji’s vision faded to black. Just before he passed out entirely, he felt something warm and feathery brush against him.

「Gururu~!」

Hearing that affectionate cry, Reiji collapsed onto the floor.

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