Chapter 29

When I landed my eye on Ozpin, I was unprepared for what I saw. What I saw was a man with so many souls swirling inside of him. If not for its golden color, I would think he is a vampire coming from the Witcher universe.

The vampire from the witcher universe drinks blood from their victim and takes a little bit of their victim's life force to get their victim's memory or even power. A higher-ranking vampire can fool a witcher by hiding their twisted soul, but the lower-ranking vampire can't do that.

Ozpin's soul is like that. A piece of another soul inside his bigger soul. It was like Ozpin's soul is a hurricane that gathers many items from around it.

"Angelo? Are you listening?"

I snap from my thoughts and say.

"I'm sorry. Can you say it one more time?"

"Hmmm. Before I tell you about it, I need to ask the reason why you are so distracted."

Should I tell him about it?

"... Do these people know about your secret, headmaster Ozpin?"

"My secret? I don't have any secrets, my boy."

"Do you know the story about a man with two souls?"

When I said that, I could see Glynda's eyes widened in surprise while Ozpin was able to maintain his poker face, but I could see that he was surprised by what I was saying from his eyes.

"Ah, about that. Don't worry, Angelo. Bart, Peter, and Glynda already know about that secret."

"I see. Then I don't need to hold back then."

"Of course."

"I'm just distracted with how many souls are inside your body."

"Pardon?"

I look at him for a second before saying.

"Your soul… There is a hint of at least a hundred other souls. If not for the color of your soul, I will shoot you right here and right now."

After I say that, the three professors standing near Ozpin take out their weapon and point it at me. I'm a little nervous when the three of them point their weapon at me, but I also know that I will be dead by now if they want me dead.

With a wave of his hand, the three professors put down their weapons while saying.

"Please put down your weapon."

After seeing his employee putting down their weapons, Ozpin looks at me and says,

"You said that because of my soul's color, you did not shoot me on the spot, right? Can I ask why? What does my soul's color matter?"

"Because there is a creature of the night that has the same ability as your soul. This creature will drink the blood of its victim and take a little bit of their life force to increase their power and take their victim's memory."

"Wait. You mean vampire?"

I look at Oobleck and nod my head. Seeing my response, he frowned and said,

"But a vampire is a fictional character."

"Is it? Legend and fiction sometimes contain some truth."

The green-haired doctor tries to say something but decides against it and starts to think about my words.

"Anyway, you don't need to worry about them anymore. Because of the thinning of magic in the air, they cannot survive."

"Wait. Thinning of the world's magic?"

Ozpin looked at me with a surprised expression.

"Yes. This planet is almost running out of magic. There are only a few Leylines left in this world."

"Leyline? What is that?"

I look at Ozpin as if he is stupid. What kind of Magician did not know of Leyline? Does he not study magic around the world?

"You did not know about Leyline? You have magic inside your body, but you didn't know about it?"

"No. I'm willing to admit; I don't know about Leyline. Care to enlighten us?"

"Haaaaa. Leyline is Magical energy channeled through the earth. A leyline is the heartbeat of a single, gigantic lifeform. You can say that the Ley line is a blood vessel of magic on this planet. This planet has a magical core, just like you and me. The core produces magic since humans appear on this planet. Sadly, as the planet gets older, the magic core inside our planet gets a harder time producing magic. Slowly but surely, the magic from this world will disappear."

When I finished, I could see Ozpin had a distraught expression.

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|3rd POV|

Ozpin's mind is racing at high speed. It was information that he had never heard of. He knew that the world's magic slowly but surely started to disappear, but he thought that it was only because the power of the gods was gradually diminishing every year.

He did not know the planet itself has a magic core that produces magic.

"W-what happens when the magic inside Remnant's core is depleted?" Ozpin asks Angelo with a low voice. While he is an ancient being, Ozpin will not admit that he is a master of magic. He had massive firepower, but he did not have variety. He can cast a barrier, fire a powerful spell, and cast a supporting spell, but he did not have the variety of the Magician in the Witcher universe and Fateverse.

"Nothing," Angelo shrugs. "If my calculation is correct, the planet will recover in a few thousand years. For Humans and Faunus? That depends."

"Depend?"

"Depending on if we can live without dust. Dust is a crystal made of magical energy released by the ley line. With the ley line slowly drying out, the spawn rate of dust also started to reduce. Usually, dust will crystallize every night in the mine if the Leyline underneath it still produces massive magical energy. That is the mysterious origin of dust. The reason is that they appear in one place time and time again as if they are a tree but can suddenly stop spawning."

"With the magic in this world depleted…."

"Remnants will lose all of their energy sources. This is why I said it depends on the people of the Remnant. If they can quickly switch to another energy source, they can survive. If not? Well, welcome to the stone age where we only use stone and stick to survive."

This is what makes Angelo mad at the people of Remnant. They enter the age of stagnation. Sure they still develop many kinds of technology that are more efficient and unique, but they still use one energy source. Dust.

The people of the Remnant need to get out of their comfort zone and test other power sources. Sadly, all the proposals to make other power sources get punched really hard. One man pushes a proposal to use a water-based energy generator to power up the entire city of Vale.

Sadly, his proposal got shut down before they could test it. Why, you may ask? The council gave three reasons. The first one is space. To make this proposal reality, they need a massive space as the machine proposed by this man is a massive one, and they need multiple of this machine. Even then, this can only power up a tenth of Vale.

Compared to a dust generator that has the shape of a cube with the size of five by five meters that can power up a half of Vale city with only a few kilos of dust as a fuel.

The second reason is money. To maintain that huge machine, it needs a lot of highly trained engineers. Not only that, but there is also a chance of the machine breaking, meaning that they need to buy more parts.

And lastly, angering the prominent businessman. Opening a new energy source will threaten any Dust businessman worldwide, and the councilman did not want that.

"I see."

Ozpin looked at Angelo for a few seconds before releasing a sigh. He already knows that dust is a magical crystal because of how effective it was against the Grimm, but he never knew that it was created from the magic of the world, and it was running out.

"Yeah. That's why I decided to build a machine that works without dust. We need to get out of this era of stagnation."

"Era of Stagnation, huh?"

Ozpin begins to recall all the memories of his life. For all of his life, he never thought outside the box. His mind only focused on the Maiden and the Relic. He never thinks outside the box. His only solution is always using the relic and maiden's power to defeat Salem.

That is Stagnation. He did not develop a new strategy, did not think of a new way to solve Salem's immortality, and never thought of a different game than what they already played.

Ozpin did not need to win. He just needed to make sure Salem did not win. He just needs to flip the chessboard and end the game they played since a thousand years ago.

"Yes. Thank you, mister Angelo. You really opened my eyes."