"What I’m actually more concerned about is: why did that little girl in the bunny suit leave just like that? It was clearly supposed to be Angel’s turn, she was even staring straight at him!" Dox seemed very dissatisfied about this. Even though the Black Earl had warned him earlier, he still brought it up again: "Anyway, I just feel like something’s off here."
Dox tried to steer the topic onto Angel, but Angel didn’t care at all, because he really didn’t know the specifics.
Let alone Dox being puzzled, Angel himself also wanted an answer.
"Thinking about this now is pointless. Since we’ve already got the mask, let’s just treat it as the surprise. As for the details, once we meet the Wise Sovereign, we should get an explanation." As Angel spoke, he casually tossed the mask, intending to throw it to Dox to hold onto.
But Dox’s figure flashed and he dodged the mask outright. At the same time, suspicion flashed in his eyes, the very picture of "you’re trying to screw me again."
This time Angel really wasn’t trying to screw Dox. He simply felt that since Dox had taken the initiative to hand him the mask fragments before for identification, it was only proper to give the mask back to him. As for the extra two fragments: the Black Earl didn’t care, Angel didn’t care either, so letting Dox have them wasn’t a problem.
It was just that Dox already looked like he’d developed a stress reaction; he wasn’t even willing to judge the situation, he just outright rejected any move Angel made.
Angel shook his head and didn’t bother explaining. Instead, he summoned a Hand of Magic and had it hold the mask. After they sorted out how to distribute everything later, they could hand it over properly.
After doing all this, Angel stretched lazily and said, "We’ve been stuck here for quite a while. Time to get moving again."
This time, though, they’d only taken a few steps when they stopped again.
Because in the space right in front of them, an abnormal light effect suddenly appeared.
This abnormal light was like the warped flame you see when a roaring fire burns so hot it distorts the air.
An anomaly appearing out of nowhere definitely meant there was a problem.
"Don’t tell me that relay test isn’t over yet?" Dox stared at the strange light and muttered, "It wouldn’t be like the duel from before, where the Official Wizard’s trial is done and now it’s the Apprentices’ turn, right? Is the Wise Sovereign really that bored?"
The Apprentices’ turn?! Hearing this, Kaier and Vay looked at each other. Weren’t they just there to make up the numbers? Were they really going to be tested?
While they were feeling extremely anxious inside, that abnormal light underwent a new change.
A halo of light erupted, shooting out countless rays.
These rays didn’t tangle into a mess; instead, they crossed in a very orderly fashion.
With a massive crisscross of light, a surface of prisms formed right in front of them, made up of overlapping light and shadow. Countless prisms combined, composing a planar prism surface full of geometric beauty.
The instant the prismatic plane appeared, they could vaguely see a line of Pattern curving and spreading across it.
It was as if an invisible painter were using this composite prism as a canvas, sketching with brush and ink.
As the Pattern kept extending, filling, and completing itself, it finally presented a human form outline within the prism.
It was a silver-white haired girl in heavy, ornate robes. Her hair was extremely, extremely long—not only past her waist, but with more than half of it trailing down to her feet, the strands spread out like a fountain of splashing Mercury.
The girl’s face was bloodlessly pale, her lips so powder-white as to have nearly lost all color. If not for her long eyelashes and the faint shadows of her nose and bridge accentuating her three-dimensional features, she could easily be mistaken for a faceless person.
Yet even so, the silver-haired girl still didn’t look like a real human. Combined with the regular geometric patterns of the prisms, she looked more like a fragile porcelain doll hidden behind the Mirror.
The sudden appearance of this girl made everyone both puzzled and on guard.
The puzzle was whether she had anything to do with the three "question-setters" from before; the vigilance came from the fact that the girl had appeared... inside a Mirror.
Ever since they learned the truth about the Mirror Demon God, they had been highly alert toward every Mirror in the Underground Aqueduct. Even a Mirror of light in mid-air was no exception.
Under their watchful gazes, the girl opened her eyes.
It was worth mentioning that her pupils were an extremely rare pair of heterochromatic eyes.
One was a clear emerald green, the other a bright golden yellow.
The heterochromatic eyes, paired with her outfit and looks, made her seem even more like a porcelain doll carved from fine china.
After the girl opened her eyes, she still remained within the prisms and did not step from "void" into "reality," but her voice passed through the prismatic surface and reached everyone’s ears.
"My name is... Laplace Glaipnir Luigi."