Warlock Apprentice

The Tree Spirit did not immediately ponder the meaning of the cursive script, but instead turned to look at Rhein: ”How much time has passed between the writing of this copper plaque and the other plaques?”

”It’s impossible to determine the exact time, but it should be around two hundred years.”

Rhein’s answer was indeed somewhat exaggerated. If it were just a year or two, it would be understandable, but crossing nearly two hundred years?

According to human behavioral inertia, this is clearly somewhat abnormal.

”Tizarro only stayed in this ruin for a total of just over two hundred years, which means this copper plaque was left by Tizarro towards the end of his time here. This is even more illogical behavior, as no one would deliberately leave such a plaque just before leaving.” The Tree Spirit paused for a moment: ”Abnormal behavior must be due to abnormal circumstances.”

As the Tree Spirit said this, it looked at Rhein: ”You said the text on this copper plaque was modified?”

Rhein nodded: ”That’s right, but we don’t know what was written before the modification.”

The Tree Spirit mused: ”If nothing unusual happened, following the usual pattern, the content before modification would certainly have been written on the same day as the other three copper plaques. With this in mind, the content before modification probably wasn’t very important.”

The Tree Spirit, after all, controls the Mirror World and has lived for a long time, watching how Tizarro grew, naturally understanding Tizarro’s habits better than Rhein.

At this point, Sanders spoke: ”In my opinion, there are only two possibilities for Tizarro’s decision to modify the content of the plaque before leaving the ruins.”

Everyone looked at Sanders, waiting for his reasoning.

”First, it was on a whim. Human behavior is often influenced by the current atmosphere, and without knowing Tizarro’s state of mind at the time, this possibility cannot be ruled out. However, I consider this possibility to be very slim.”

”Second, he may have been influenced by external factors.”

”There is a common understanding in anthropology that when a long-standing inertia is broken, it must be due to unconventional and irresistible factors.”

”The same goes for Tizarro. Something might have happened to him at the time, or he discovered something that led him to voluntarily modify the text on the plaque.”

When Sanders mentioned the word ”voluntarily,” he emphasized it. Because this word represented that Tizarro had the subjective consciousness to carry out a certain practical action, affecting the objective world.

Tizarro could not have done this unconsciously; he must have had some purpose to voluntarily do this.

The Tree Spirit nodded: ”Sanders’ analysis is accurate, Tizarro must have encountered some inducement to break behavioral logic inertia. But is this inducement related to the hidden room or the knight’s armor?”

The Tree Spirit posed the question and then answered it itself: ”I don’t think it’s related. If Tizarro had really discovered the hidden room, he would certainly have left a record. At the very least, he would have informed us when he left.”

Since Tizarro said nothing when he left the Southern Domain, does that mean the inducement for Tizarro to modify the plaque wasn’t noteworthy?

In other words, there was indeed an inducement that prompted Tizarro to modify the plaque, but this inducement might not be related to the hidden room.

Sanders: ”Regardless of the scale of this inducement, since there’s nothing better to do now, why not take this opportunity to speculate on what exactly induced him to voluntarily modify the plaque?”

What inducement? Blindly guessing is pointless, but it’s not entirely without traces.

”Regardless of what the inducement is, the final result of this inducement is the sentence modified on the plaque...” Angel looked at the plaque: ”Perhaps this sentence contains some clues.”

”I don’t need a bedroom, but I want a study where no one can disturb me.”

Everyone’s gaze returned to the bold cursive writing on the plaque.

When Angel first saw this sentence, he didn’t think much of it. But looking at it again now, he clearly noticed something strange.

Since this is a ”study,” why the comparison with a ”bedroom?”

Is it for rhyme? If it were a wizard who was passionate about art, it might be possible. But judging from Tizarro’s behavior and records in his handbook, he was definitely not a poetry enthusiast.

He made such a comparison certainly not for the sake of rhyme.

”Lord Tree Spirit, did you enter this ruin before Tizarro moved in?” Angel looked at the Tree Spirit.

The Tree Spirit: ”I know what you want to ask. Although I didn’t enter this ruin before Tizarro moved in, in the two hundred years since, in my exchanges with Tizarro, he mentioned more than once what he did in this study.”

The Tree Spirit knew what Angel wanted to ask — about the study and the bedroom. So, his emphasis was placed on ”this study” when he answered.

Rhein also nodded, supplementing for the Tree Spirit: ”Tizarro never mentioned this being a bedroom, it is indeed a study.”

Sanders: ”Then that’s odd. Why did he modify the text on the plaque to compare with a bedroom? Could it be, after living here for hundreds of years, he finally realized it was actually a bedroom?”

Otherwise, it makes no sense for him to compare it to a bedroom.

Angel indeed shared the same thought as Sanders, following Sanders’ words, he added: ”Precisely because Tizarro discovered it was a bedroom, and touched by his state of mind, he modified the plaque?”

At this point, the Tree Spirit also nodded: ”Following this logic, the reasoning of his behavior becomes smooth. Perhaps, this is really the case.”

After speaking, the Tree Spirit looked at Rhein, wanting to hear Rhein’s opinion since Rhein brought up this point of doubt.

However, Rhein wasn’t listening to their conversation at that moment. Instead, he summoned the Eye of Truth from his brow again, exploring the spacious study.

This time, Rhein wanted to find traces related to the ”bedroom” in the study.

After a while, Rhein opened his eyes and shook his head slightly at the few people looking at him: ”No abnormalities were found, neither traces of a bedroom nor a hidden room.”

Hope fell through again, although they were not surprised by this outcome.

”Perhaps Tizarro didn’t get the bedroom information here?” Angel thought for a moment and then added: ”Previously when searching the ruins, we were looking for anomalies, but considering the actual scenario, Tizarro likely had no reason to search for anomalies deliberately as we did.”

”Do you mean...” The Tree Spirit seemed to think of something: ”He obtained some information through normal means?”

Angel nodded: ”Yes, maybe the answer is actually lying out in the open somewhere in the ruins.”