Cassien was suddenly enveloped in a bright white light until everything around him disappeared completely.

The feeling was strange. No touch. No sound. No smell. Nothing existed there.

He simply floated endlessly in a world of pure white, like someone had thrown him into wet paint and forgotten to pull him back out.

Then suddenly—

[Hello Player!]

Cassien looked around cautiously.

’Huh?’

[I’m right here! Look at me!]

He lowered his gaze slightly.

And froze.

A tiny white insect crawled toward him across the endless void.

The moment he saw it, his senses slowly returned. He could feel his body again. His breathing. The faint movement of air.

Cassien blinked twice.

"...Are you talking?" he asked slowly.

[If you’re referring to the insect, then yes!]

Cassien immediately covered his mouth, his shoulders shaking slightly.

"S-so..." he muttered through suppressed laughter, "you’re the author?!"

[No! And stop trying not to laugh! I’m just a pawn in these grand games!]

Cassien turned away for a second, wiping tears from his eyes.

"O-okay... my bad," he breathed out. "You just caught me off guard."

[Hmph.]

The insect puffed itself up proudly before continuing.

[Now then! Let the shop reopen!]

Flash!

The tiny insect suddenly transformed into a small white-haired boy wearing oversized clothes far too fancy for his size.

Cassien stared at him for a second.

"...Still not taking you seriously."

[That sounds like a personal problem.]

Cassien laughed quietly under his breath before finally looking ahead.

A giant Christmas tree suddenly appeared in the empty void.

No presents underneath it.

Just glowing lights.

Then—

Boom!

A massive blue screen expanded outward before him like a hologram breaking through reality itself. Countless glowing tabs floated around the empty space while symbols, menus, and windows opened one after another.

Some looked normal.

Others looked completely insane.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

[PLAYER: Cassien Artfold]

[Current Points: 35]

[AVAILABLE FUNCTIONS]

→ Purchase Skills

→ Purchase Information

→ Existing Plotline Archive

→ Fate Alteration Items

→ Event Raffle

→ Restricted Items [LOCKED]

→ ???

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Cassien narrowed his eyes slightly.

"...Existing Plotline Archive?"

[Exactly!] the boy answered proudly. [Since you’ve already read the original novel, you can review future events from the timeline.]

Cassien relaxed a little after hearing that.

That made far more sense.

If completely random events started appearing out of nowhere, then everything he knew about the story would become useless.

And right now?

Information was his greatest advantage.

He stepped closer to the screen.

The moment he did, thousands of glowing pages suddenly appeared around him, floating endlessly throughout the white space.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

[The Academy Entrance Exam]

[The Moonlight Forest Ambush]

[The Duel Between Ren and Klaus]

[The Fall of House Platini]

[Aiysha Moon’s First Assassination Mission]

[The Underground Black Market Arc]

[Victoria Platini’s Betrayal Rumors]

[The Royal Banquet Incident]

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Cassien stared carefully at the endless archive.

"...There’s this many?"

[Every major event from the original story is stored here.]

Another menu suddenly opened beneath the list.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

[Future Event Raffle]

Cost: 5 Points

→ Receive one random future plotline.

→ Events may range from minor to catastrophic.→ Information accuracy guaranteed.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Cassien rubbed his chin thoughtfully.

A raffle was risky.

But if he manually searched through the archives, he’d probably just choose events he already remembered clearly.

The dangerous parts were the things he forgot.

Side arcs.

Minor details.

Hidden characters.

Those were usually the things that got people killed first.

"...Fine."

He pressed the option.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

[5 Points Deducted.]

[Remaining Points: 30]

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

The floating pages around him immediately began spinning.

Faster.

Faster.

Faster.

Until finally—

Stop.

One glowing page slowly drifted downward into Cassien’s hand.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

[FUTURE EVENT SELECTED]

[The Underground Black Market Auction]

Date: February 3rd

Summary: A secret auction hidden beneath Silver City, where nobles, assassins, criminals, and corrupted officials gather to purchase forbidden artifacts, illegal mana tools, slaves, and Demon Core fragments.

Original Outcome: Ren accidentally becomes involved after pursuing stolen academy documents. During the incident, Aiysha Moon suffers severe injuries protecting him, while Victoria Platini uncovers evidence connected to corruption within the academy itself.

Special Note: One hidden buyer at the auction possesses direct ties to the growing Demon Core experiments spreading throughout the kingdom.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Cassien’s expression slowly changed.

"...Oh."

Now he remembered it.

Back when he first read the novel, that arc barely seemed important compared to the massive wars and betrayals later on.

But after everything that happened inside the caverns?

After seeing two Demon Core hosts appear this early?

That auction suddenly became very important.

The white-haired boy grinned mischievously.

[Good pull.]

Cassien stared at the glowing page silently before smirking slightly.

"...Yeah," he muttered. "This might actually save my life."

Another menu appeared immediately afterward.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

[Remaining Points: 30]

[Recommended Purchases]

→ Beginner Mana Circuit Vision — 10 Points

→ Intermediate Firearm Mastery Pack — 15 Points

→ Information Fragment: Black Market Entry Method — 5 Points

→ Concealment Cloak — 8 Points

→ Random Skill Scroll — 10 Points

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Cassien’s eyes immediately stopped on one option.

"Mana Circuit Vision..."

[Useful, right?] the boy said proudly. [Allows you to partially observe mana flow patterns inside living beings, weapons, barriers, formations, and corrupted cores.]

Cassien narrowed his eyes slightly.

That skill would’ve made killing the Demon Core hosts significantly easier earlier.

Without Mana Threading, he probably never would’ve figured out the regeneration process at all.

"...Buy it."

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

[10 Points Deducted.]

[Remaining Points: 20]

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

The second the purchase was completed, a sharp pain suddenly stabbed through both of Cassien’s eyes.

"Tch—!"

Blue light flashed violently across his vision.

For one brief moment, the entire white world changed.

Lines.

Countless glowing lines appeared everywhere around him.

Some wrapped around the floating screens.

Others drifted through the air itself.

Mana pathways.

The very structure of magical flow.

The sensation disappeared almost immediately, but Cassien still rubbed one eye carefully afterward.

"...That feels disgusting."

[You’ll adapt.]

Cassien ignored him while looking back toward the floating shop screen again.

Then another option caught his attention.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

[Information Fragment: Black Market Entry Method — 5 Points]

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Cassien smirked slightly.

That one was almost mandatory.

Because in the original novel, Ren only entered the auction by accident after following stolen academy documents.

Cassien obviously couldn’t rely on coincidence.

"Buy that too."