"What the... so it was a man." Li Yifei poked his head out, muttering softly.
"Hmm?"
Merlin, who was sitting quietly on the chair, glanced at him, a faint light flashing in his eyes. The next moment, his body, hidden beneath the dark blue robe, twisted violently...
In the blink of an eye, he transformed into a graceful blonde, blue-eyed young woman!
"Gender means nothing to me," Merlin's gentle voice rang out, leaving Li Yifei at the door completely dumbfounded.
"Director... this, this..." Li Yifei pointed at Merlin, stammering.Lin Qiye didn't seem surprised by this. He shook his head and slowly spoke:
"He is Merlin, the legendary great magician rumored to be proficient in transformation. He can transform into a woman, or even your father."
As soon as Lin Qiye finished speaking, Merlin's body twisted again, rapidly expanding. His dark blue robe also grew rapidly, but the material of the robe was unknown, as it couldn't be torn no matter how much his body expanded.
Scales appeared on his body, and a crimson serpent's tongue flicked out. In just a moment, Merlin transformed into a Nanda Snake Demon several times larger than Li Yifei's original form!
The Snake Demon, draped in a dark blue robe, coiled on the chair, its vertical pupils fixed on Li Yifei's eyes. An invisible pressure descended upon Li Yifei, making him shiver involuntarily.
Lin Qiye and Lin Xi chen both turned to look at Li Yifei and ask him at the same time, "Is this your father?"
"...How would I know," Li Yifei muttered, stepping back half a step, "I don't even know what my father looks like."
"He can see through your true form and even discern your father's appearance... Is this the power of prophecy?"
Lin Qiye sighed, his gaze falling on the Snake Demon. He spoke calmly:
"Lord Merlin, please change back. Let's talk properly."
The Snake Demon nodded slightly, its form shifting, and it became the ordinary young man again, sitting quietly on the chair.
In the dim room, the two men stared at each other in silence. The air suddenly became quiet.
"You are Lin Qiye?" Merlin slowly spoke. "And this young lady....is your sister?"
"You know us?"
"As early as ten years ago, I prophesied that you would open this door."
Hearing such mystical words, Lin Qiye immediately became interested, "Then look again, what is my future like?"
Merlin shook his head, "I don't know."
"Don't you do prophecy?"
"Prophecy is not omnipotent," Merlin looked into Lin Qiye's eyes, "When you just opened the door, I tried to glimpse your destiny, but your 'past' and 'future' were a blur. Only the 'present' could be glimpsed a little."
"Present?" Lin Qiye raised an eyebrow, "What is my 'present' like?"
"You are currently in a dangerous vortex. One wrong step will lead to utter destruction, and this may also involve those around you..."
Lin Qiye's gaze gradually became serious.
"I can't see anything clearer," Merlin shook his head, "My current state doesn't allow for overly precise prophecy."
"Why?"
"I lost my crystal ball."
"Lost?" Lin Qiye was taken aback.
Merlin seemed to recall something, a bitter smile appearing on his lips, "Ten years ago, a little girl came to this room and had a competition with me. She said if I won, she would let me leave, but if I lost, she would take my crystal ball..."
"And you lost?" Lin Qiye's eyes gradually lit up, "Was that little girl about twelve or thirteen, with long black hair, and a strange mark on the back of her hand?"
"That's right."Lin Qiye pondered for a moment, "What did you compete on?"A bitter smile appeared on Merlin's lips, "Prophecy, or rather... deduction."
"Deduction? How do you compete with that?" Li Yifei couldn't help but ask.
"We started with a fallen leaf, deducing the changes of the entire Forest for the past 50 years, the present, and the next 50 years. There was no winner. Then we deduced stones, raindrops..."
"Later, we found that no matter how we competed with external objects, we couldn't determine a winner. So, we decided to use each other as targets and deduce everything about the other."
"In the second round, she successfully deduced some of my destiny's trajectory, but in the third round, I couldn't see through hers..."
Merlin recalled the situation at the time, his brows furrowing tighter when he looked at Lin Xi Chen, it seemed he mistook her for the other girl.
"Her existence was completely beyond my expectation. There were no traces of her 'past', 'present', or 'future'... She was like a ghost that didn't belong to this world. No matter what method I used, I couldn't glimpse a corner of her destiny."
"So... I lost."
Li Yifei swallowed, nudging Lin Qiye with his hand, and whispered, "That Mysteries? Who is that girl?"
"Is she really that strong?" Lin Xi Chen was just as curious as Li Yifei.
"I don't know either." Lin Qiye shook his head, his brows also tightly furrowed.
Undoubtedly, the girl who won Merlin's crystal ball, the girl who won Nyx's bracelet, and the girl who left the envelope in the Directors Office were all the same person, namely "Ji Nian".
But how could a twelve or thirteen-year-old girl defeat the Goddess of the Night in creation and defeat Merlin, the great Prophet, in deducing destiny?
The more he learned, the more Lin Qiye felt that this girl who called herself "Ji Nian" was full of Mystery. If he could figure out who she was, the origin of this Mysteries Asylum of the Gods might be revealed...
However, for Lin Qiye now, exploring this seemed a bit premature.For now, the priority was to find a way to cure this legendary great magician and extract some of his abilities!
Lin Qiye nodded slightly, observing Merlin carefully for a while, a hint of confusion appearing between his brows.
Merlin's situation was different from Nyx's. At least so far, he hadn't shown any signs of mental problems. So, where should he start?
After hesitating for a moment, Lin Qiye looked into Merlin's eyes and spoke seriously:
"What's your illness?"
"?" Merlin raised an eyebrow, "You're the one who's ill."
"If you're not ill, why are you here?"
"I don't know." Merlin shrugged, "I am just a scholar trying to understand the true face of the world."
"The true face of the world?"
"What do you think the world is, and what are we?"
Without waiting for Lin Qiye to speak, Merlin continued on his own, "For deep-sea fish, the Sea water and deep-sea creatures are their world. They would not know that there is land outside the ocean, let alone that there are creatures completely different from them on land."
"For two-dimensional beings, the world is a plane. Their very existence limits their worldview. They cannot imagine that there are three-dimensional beings observing their actions outside the plane."
"For deep-sea fish, the ocean is their world. For two-dimensional beings, the plane is their world..."
"But is what they consider the world the real world?"
"No."
"Then how do you know that this 'world' we perceive is the real world?"
"What is true reality, what is the true 'world'?!"
"What is beyond this realm? And what are we in the eyes of higher-dimensional beings?"
Merlin's gaze gradually became fervent. In his eyes, Lin Qiye clearly saw the flame called "thirst for knowledge"!
He stood up from the chair, pointing a finger at the sky, and with the other hand, he grabbed Lin Qiye's wrist, staring intently into his eyes, and spoke word by word:
"Have you ever thought that perhaps... this world we are in is just something created by a higher-dimensional existence?"