Library?

Lucas would be lying if he said he didn't have any hopes about waking up in his bed again.

However, instead of opening his eyes to the familiar sound of his alarm clock ringing, what greeted Lucas was a...library.

It was a gigantic library, spanning as far as the eye could see, with books scattered everywhere, some were on the ground, others on bookshelves, and some were even flying!

'What's going on, shouldn't l be dead?'

in a daze, Lucas picked up one of the books next to him.

The title of the book was 'Basic Introduction to Magic' by Professor Liam.

Lucas remembered this book, it was the first magic related book he had read when he entered Hope Academy.

The question was, why was this book here, in this gigantic library?

With his curiosity temporarily overcoming his trauma from the torture he received, Lucas opened the book, and what appeared in front of his eyes wasn't text, but rather memories.

Memories of him reading the book entered his brain, letting him remember all the information in the book in a matter of seconds.

This feeling was very familiar to Lucas, in fact, he experienced it every day.

He got the exact same sensation when he used his Innate Ability-[Memory Film].

Was this library full of his memories?

To answer this question, Lucas picked up a few more books that were lying around on the ground.

All of them were academic books, although he never used the knowledge inside of them, he had indeed read them at one point in his life!

Lucas then proceeded to look at the books on the shelves.

All of these books were related to his daily life, from his breakfast, to walking on the school grounds, everything was recorded.

At this point, Lucas had an idea as to where he was.

There was a very popular theory among Mages.

This theory was that the Human body was just a container for the Soul.

And inside the soul were all our thoughts and memories.

Following this theory, a fictional place was created by the Mages.

This place was called the 'Thought Sea.'

If one could access their soul, they would be able to enter the Thought Sea, and look at all their memories from the moment they were born.

That was the theory proposed by the Mages about the workings of the human soul.

Lucas felt that his current situation fit perfectly with what those Mages described.

Now, if that truly was the case, there was one thing that Lucas wanted to see with his own eyes.

Heading deeper into his own Thought Sea, Lucas slowly passed by the memories containing his eighteen years of life.

What he wanted to see wasn't those boring and miserable memories, but rather something that has been bothering him his whole life.

Why him? Why was he left alive out of everyone in the family.

This was the question that Lucas wanted the answer to, and the beginning of his Thought Sea had the answers.

Despite Lucas possessing the Innate Ability to remember any moment of his life, he couldn't access any of his memories between the death of his father Ray, and the arrival of Nina Gyzer, the Lord of the Human race.

This had been bothering Lucas his whole life, and now, he finally had the chance to see the truth.

After arriving at the end of his Thought Sea, Lucas was shocked to find that...there was nothing there.

There was a clear gap between the memory of his fathers death, and the arrival of Nina Gyzer, but the reason for this gap was not someone Sealing his memories, instead, its as if these memories didn't exist in the first place.

As if they were completely removed from existence.

Lucas's entire body, or rather soul, shook.

Just what kind of existence one had to be in order to completely destroy someone's memories?

Finally giving up, Lucas collapsed near one of the bookshelves, and contemplated on what was going to happen to him now.

In theory, his physical body should already be dead, in other words, the only thing left of him was his soul.

How long could his soul last without his body before dissipating?

Lucas didn't know the answer to that question, and without any knowledge on how to stop it from happening, he could only wait for his eventual demise.

However, just as he was about to drown in despair, Lucas noticed something out of the corner of his eye.

Right next to his gap in memories was a bookshelf.

It was the same type of bookshelf as the rest, there was absolutely nothing special about it.

But on this bookshelf, hidden behind a few books, was an....Hourglass?

Curious, Lucas approached the bookshelf to take a better look, only to find out that the Hourglass was cracked in many places.

Just as he was about to grab it with his hands, the last grain of sand inside the Hourglass fell, and with that, something magical happened.

As if time was reversing, all the sand started floating upwards, and once all the sand was in the upper part of the Hourglass, time seemed to have started flowing again, and the sand that had floated up, started falling down slowly, as if nothing had happened.

-06:00

Rinngggggg

As if waking up from a long dream, Lucas found himself inside his bedroom, opening his eyes to the familiar ceiling of his room.

Getting up in a daze, Lucas looked at his watch.

The date....was still the 27th of December.

He had regressed again.

Except this time, Lucas managed to enter a fictional space that only existed as a fun theory of the Scholarly Mages.

What was the difference between this regression, and his previous one?

As Lucas racked his brain, he finally managed to find a difference between the two.

The difference was time.

In his first regression, he died at exactly 06:00am, after being pushed off a rooftop by Alfred.

In his second regression, he died at around 05:50am, ten minutes before his regression.

If we assume that time regressed not because he died, but rather because time reached 06:00am, it would explain why, after his death, his mind, which had no physical body to anchor to, would enter the Thought Space that was located inside his Soul.

Then, following this theory, there were a couple more questions that needed answering

What was the cause of his regression?

Lucas thought of the cracked Hourglass inside his thought space.

He was 99% certain that the Hourglass located inside his Thought Space was the item that Lucifer placed inside his body eighteen years ago.

He didn't understand why Lucifer would do something like that, or what his plans are at all, but that's not something he, a powerless person, should be worrying about right now.

However, if that was the cause of his regressions, why did it start now, and not say, three years ago?

That was a question that Lucas had no answer to at the moment.

Then, how about the second question.

Why was it only him?

Lucas had already confirmed yesterday that only he had regressed, everyone else was behaving the exact same way as the day before that one, so it must only be him that regressed, at least, inside the premises of the school.

For this, Lucas had two theories.

The first one was that:

'When the Hourglass rewound time, everything, including a person's physical body, and their soul, got rewound back exactly 24 hours.

And because the Though Space, which housed all our memories, was located inside the Soul, everyone's memories of the day prior to the rewinding of time got erased.

It was already confirmed that his physical body regressed along with the rest of the world.

Otherwise, when Lucas died by falling from the 20th floor, his body would regress in the same state he was left in after falling, resulting in his immediate death upon regressing back one day.

His soul, however, was connected in some weird way to the Hourglass, resulting in it not regressing with the rest of his physical body, letting him keep his memories.'

The second theory was much simpler then the first, and it went like this:

'His Innate Ability-[Memory Film] allowed him to keep his memories.'

Although it was a much simpler theory, not involving any difficult topics concerning the soul, Lucas had no way of proving this theory either.

In conclusion, he needed more information, both on the soul, and on his own Innate Ability.

As for the third question, and possibly the most difficult one:

What did Lucas have to do, in order to stop the regressions?

Even though the concept of regression sounded very nice, in truth, it was like a nightmare to the current Lucas.

He had absolutely no way to defend against Alfred's assassination.

In theory, he could seek protection from the instructors, but this was on the basis that he had any sort of convincing evidence of an assassin aiming for his life.

Should he go seek protection from the instructors without such evidence, he would get treated like a crazy person, punished, and then sent back to his dorm, with absolutely nothing to show for his endeavor.

Killing Alfred was also impossible, as he did not have the power to do something like that.

Even if he ambushed him, his senses as a 4th class Aura user would prevent him from receiving a fatal injury, thereby proceeding to brutally kill him again.

Lucas shivered at the thought of receiving the same type of torture as yesterday.

Then, if seeking help was impossible, and killing him was impossible, how about...running away from him?

If he could run away from Alfred after being attacked by him, he would have enough evidence against him to seek help from the instructors.

However...how was he supposed to run away from a 4th class aura used, and a 5th class mage?

Lucas ran through all the knowledge he had gathered inside the academy for the past three years, and found one slightly feasible way of executing his plan.

And this plan relied on one big factor called:

Formations.

Classified as a side branch of magic, Formations were developed for protection of important places, people, and items.

They were mainly used in combination with Magic Locks and Magic seals, leading to an impenetrable wall that served as protection.

Nowadays, these types of formations were called 'Defensive Formations.'

However, with the advancements of magic, Formations gained three very important new forms.

One of the forms was the widely popular 'Attack Formation.'

Just as its name said, Attack Formations were mainly used to assist a person in combat, nowadays, some magicians even used Formations as their main source of combat power.

The second form was 'Spell Enhancement Formations.'

Despite its rather long name, Spell Enhancement Formations focused on one thing, and one thing only, and that was Enhancing the effects of a spell through Formations.

One of the most widely known uses of this formation was the 'Teleportation Formation.'

This Formation allowed for teleportation across a distance much farther than one could possibly achieve by themselves.

Likewise, this Formation could be applied in a number of different ways, and combing with an infinite number of spells, its one of the reason that Formations were so popular these days.

The third, and last for form, was called 'Sealing Formations.'

As its name implies, Sealing Formations helped one imprison their target, the duration of the imprisonment depended on the strength of the formation, and the knowledge and preparation of its caster.

This was the formation that Lucas needed to prepare in order to defend against Alfred.

Funnily enough, Sealing Formations were first used in a battle at the borders of the Coalition, in a fight against Lucifer and his army of angels.

The Coalition started this battle in order to protect the Human Race, which, at the time, was running away from Lucifer and his army of angels.

Lucifer, with his injured left eye, furiously charged at the troops of The Coalition, hoping to erase his humiliation by killing the rest of Humanity.

It was at that time, when he was blinded by anger, that four Lords from The Coalition worked together to create a Sealing Formation that trapped Lucifer.

Lucifer, having never seen such a Formation before, had no way of breaking free in a short amount of time.

With the strongest person inside the Coalition being trapped, the rest of the Angels were forced back, thus resulting in the first ever victory for The Coalition in a large scale war.

Afterwards, in honor of the Four Lords that created and executed the Sealing Formation during a critical moment, the Formation was given the name 'Heaven's Seal.'

Although the name had nothing to do with the Lords themselves, it was a badge of honor for anyone living in The Coalition, as it signified victory over the angels, and more importantly, victory over Lucifer.

Now, history was nice and all, but he had absolutely no way of recreating a complicated formation such as Heaven's Seal.

Just the fact that it required four people to activate was enough for Lucas to rule out this formation.

But there were Formations that Lucas could use to run away from, or possibly even kill Alfred!

The only problem was...he had no materials for such formations.

Just as Lucas was thinking of countermeasures to his problem, a sound was heard coming from outside.

Someone was knocking on his front door.