The bloodline chamber remained unnaturally subdued after Genesis Heartwood suppressed the conflict between the Crimson Abyss Core and the Scarlet Tyrant Bloodline. The relics suspended throughout the vast underground chamber still floated within their containment fields beneath the dim crimson crystal light, but the violent pressures that had filled the air moments earlier had withdrawn into silence. Even the most aggressive demon god bloodline relics no longer pushed against their seals, and the countless suppression formations across the walls and ceiling rotated with a restrained hum that made the chamber feel less like a treasury and more like a living thing holding its breath.
Noctis stood near the containment pedestal where Genesis Heartwood had awakened, his gaze fixed on the branch-like crystalline relic floating in the far corner. Faint emerald-gold light moved across its dark surface like sap flowing beneath bark, yet there was no demonic corrosion, no abyssal stain, and no sign that centuries of exposure to the vault's aura had changed it in the slightest. The surrounding relics had all carried history through damage, corruption, mutation, or sealed aggression, but Genesis Heartwood remained calm in a way that felt older than violence.
"It really could not be corrupted?" Noctis asked while stepping closer to the containment field, his coat shifting softly in the cold underground draft as the suppression rings around the relic reflected dim light across his gloves.
Valdred followed more slowly, still watching the relic with visible discomfort. "That is what every record says," he replied, his voice low beneath the hum of the chamber formations. "The academy tried abyssal saturation, demonic contamination, bloodline synchronization, soul pressure, and forced ritual corruption over multiple generations. Nothing changed. The relic did not lash out, did not break the formations, and did not absorb anything. It simply refused to become anything other than what it already was."
Noctis lifted one hand toward the formation while listening, and Valdred's brow tightened when the young demon's fingers crossed the outer ward. The suppression rings rotated once around Genesis Heartwood, but unlike the other relics, there was no surge of retaliation. The branch-like relic drifted into Noctis's palm with quiet obedience, and faint emerald-gold aura spread gently across his fingers without frost, flame, poison, shadow, or any of the aggressive reactions the earlier bloodline relics had produced.
Valdred rubbed the side of his forehead as if the night had aged him several years. "That relic was already inside the vault when this section of the academy was founded. I hope you understand how absurd it feels to watch you take it after touching it for ten seconds."
Noctis studied the relic a while longer, feeling the strange depth beneath its calm surface, and the sensation did not resemble bloodline authority at all. It felt like origin, root, and memory folded into a form too quiet to declare itself. The silence from it unsettled him more than the violent demon god relics had, because power that did not need to threaten anything usually had no reason to prove itself.
"This one is coming with me," Noctis said while opening a blood-red portal beside his shoulder, and Valdred watched with a suffering expression as Genesis Heartwood disappeared into the swirling space before the portal closed and left only the subdued bloodline chamber behind.
The two left the chamber afterward, and the atmosphere gradually shifted as they walked deeper beneath the academy through corridors where the crimson crystal light thinned into colder preservation glow. The walls here were older and smoother, layered with script that pulsed softly whenever Valdred passed his hand near a locked archway. Noctis moved beside him while his gaze traveled across sealed rooms filled with floating tomes, relic weapon racks, and storage pedestals wrapped in containment chains. The vault no longer pressed against him with bloodline authority, but every corridor still carried the weight of things hidden for too long.
They entered a restricted spell archive where ancient tomes floated in vertical rings beneath preservation barriers. Runes drifted slowly around the books like fireflies trapped in glass, and each page that turned inside the sealed fields released a faint shimmer of holy, abyssal, or demonic power into the chamber. Valdred stopped near the entrance while Noctis moved closer to a row of tomes whose seals glowed brighter as he approached.
"Those are restricted military-grade spell records," Valdred said while crossing his arms and watching Noctis's hand hover near the first barrier. "They are not student reading material."
Noctis leaned closer to the preservation field while the symbols reflected across his eyes. "Good. I am not choosing them as student reading material."
Valdred's mouth tightened. "That answer is exactly why I dislike bringing you into vaults."
Noctis ignored the complaint and studied the spell classifications engraved into the rotating fields. Two of the tomes carried Tier Seven holy spell structures, one designed around layered suppression fields and another around high-density holy bombardment. The third tome held a Tier Six abyssal spell that eroded terrain and destabilized enemy formations through spreading corruption. As the pages shifted inside the barriers, the holy tomes released warm gold pressure that should have been hostile to demons, while the abyssal tome bled a dark pulse across the floor that caused several preservation rings to hum in response.
"These will suit the fallen angels and clergymen," Noctis said as he opened the first barrier. "They inherited holy and abyssal affinity through my blood, and most of them already understand spell circulation from the memories. What they need are structured applications with enough power to matter on a battlefield."
Valdred watched the first tome disappear into Noctis's blood space, then the second, then the third, and his shoulders gradually sank beneath the red archive light. "You are not collecting treasures anymore. You are outfitting a military branch."
"I brought back one," Noctis answered while turning toward the next corridor.
"That is not reassuring."
"It was not meant to be."
The next chamber carried the smell of iron, incense, and old sanctity burned black by corruption. Weapons floated in layered containment fields across the room, their shadows stretching strangely across the floor beneath the rotating seals. A silver spear drew Noctis's attention first, its holy engravings darkened by thick abyssal veins that crawled along the shaft and blade. The weapon's aura flickered between sanctified pressure and abyssal corrosion, never settling fully into either side, and the air around it twisted faintly whenever the two forces collided inside the metal.
"That spear belonged to a templar execution commander during one of the older crusades," Valdred explained as Noctis approached it. "The commander died during an abyssal campaign, and the spear absorbed enough battlefield corruption that the Church refused to reclaim it. The demons sealed it here after several handlers lost their arms trying to purify it."
Noctis reached through the barrier before Valdred could add another warning. The spear trembled in his grip as holy and abyssal energy surged along the shaft, but his blood aura wrapped around it and steadied the conflict until the weapon quieted. The former templar knight heads among the clergymen would adapt well to something like this. Its nature was violent, disciplined, and already broken away from purity.
A blood portal opened, and the spear vanished.
Valdred sighed through his nose while Noctis moved toward a long blade suspended deeper inside the same chamber. The holy sword looked more restrained than the spear, but its killing intent spread through the room with a cold pressure that made the preservation seals around it pulse continuously. Black-red corruption darkened the edge, while the remaining holy inscriptions along the fuller glowed with a severe light that felt less like mercy and more like execution.
"The wielder of that blade killed his way through an entire battlefield before dying," Valdred said quietly, his tone more cautious now. "The killing intent remained inside the weapon after death. It does not corrupt the user immediately, but it feeds on decisive intent. Weak-minded wielders become tools of the blade."
Noctis closed his fingers around the hilt and felt the weapon's murderous pressure rise through his arm, testing him like a predator deciding whether the hand gripping it deserved to remain attached. His aura thickened, the blade shuddered once, and the killing intent gradually folded inward beneath his control. He turned the sword slightly beneath the chamber light, already thinking of which clergyman might best endure its temperament, before storing it in the blood space as well.
By the time they left the corrupted holy weapon chamber, Valdred's patience had become thinner than the ward threads stretched across the corridor walls. Noctis walked with the satisfied calm of someone steadily assembling tools for future use, while the vice principal followed with the look of a man calculating how many explanations he would owe the academy leadership by morning.
They passed through several more vault paths where sealed doors glowed faintly behind layers of demonic script, but Noctis eventually slowed before an isolated chamber hidden behind a ward denser than the others. The entrance did not radiate violent pressure, and that alone made it stranger. It felt sealed not because something was trying to escape, but because someone had intentionally removed it from ordinary classification. The formations around the doorway overlapped in careful layers, and the preservation glow behind them had a different texture from the demonic vault seals surrounding the other chambers.
Noctis stopped in front of the ward. "What is inside there?"
Valdred's expression changed before he answered, and Noctis noticed the brief tightening near his eyes. "Nothing important," the vice principal said while placing himself slightly between Noctis and the doorway. "Old storage. We should continue."
Noctis looked from Valdred to the ward, then back again. "Old storage does not need this many seals."
"It does when the principal dislikes people touching his things."
"The principal sealed it personally?"
Valdred's hand came down on Noctis's shoulder before he could step closer. The grip was firm, not aggressive, but full of warning. "Inside are scrolls of unknown origin that the principal brought back himself. I do not know their full nature, and I do not want to know without him present."
Noctis's gaze sharpened as the preservation aura beyond the ward drifted faintly through the sealed doorway. "Scrolls?"
"Yes."
"What kind?"
"The kind I just said I do not fully understand."
Noctis remained looking at the chamber, and Valdred's grip tightened slightly as if preventing a disaster from walking forward on two legs. The ward formations turned slowly across the stone, lighting both of their faces in pale layers of gold and red.
"I want to look," Noctis said.
Valdred immediately shook his head. "No."
"Just look."
"You and the word 'just' have already cost the academy too much tonight."
"I will not take anything."
Valdred stared at him with the exhaustion of someone who knew every future problem began with that exact sentence. "You promise not to take anything from this chamber?"
"I promise."
"You will not take a scroll, copy a scroll, hide a scroll, absorb a scroll, feed a scroll to your blood space, or claim the scroll willingly followed you?"
Noctis smiled faintly. "That last one sounds oddly specific."
"It is specific because I have known you long enough."
"I promise not to take anything."
Valdred stood there for several seconds longer while the ward hummed between them, then released Noctis's shoulder and activated the entrance seal with a reluctant motion of his hand. The layered formations parted slowly, and preservation air flowed outward with the dry scent of old paper, bamboo, silk, dust, and something faintly herbal that Noctis had not smelled since his former life.
He became still.
Valdred noticed the change but said nothing as they entered.
The chamber beyond was not arranged like the other sections of the vault. There were no floating western tomes, no jewel-inlaid pedestals, no demonic weapon racks. Shelves lined the walls in layered rows, and hundreds of scrolls rested inside preservation fields that glowed softly beneath the ceiling formations. Some scrolls were bamboo bound with faded cords. Others were silk or linen wrapped around jade rollers. Vertical calligraphy marked their outer surfaces, and the brushwork on several labels carried the unmistakable rhythm of eastern script rather than the angular magical lettering used throughout demon society.
Noctis walked slowly between the shelves while dust shifted in faint trails beneath his boots. The preservation formations overhead turned with quiet precision, keeping the scrolls untouched by age, and the longer he looked at the bamboo bindings, jade ends, linen wraps, and calligraphy labels, the more familiar the chamber became. These were not decorative imitations collected by a demon scholar fascinated by foreign culture. The storage methods, materials, script flow, and sealing marks belonged to cultivation civilization.
His fingers hovered near a scroll wrapped in pale linen, and Valdred immediately took half a step back while gathering defensive aura beneath the dim chamber light.
Noctis glanced at him. "You look nervous."
"I am standing in a chamber the principal sealed himself while you reach for unknown scrolls after promising not to take them," Valdred replied, his defensive aura thickening slightly around his shoulders. "Nervous is the correct reaction."
"I am only reading."
"That is usually how disasters begin."
Noctis carefully removed the scroll from its shelf and unfolded it beneath the preservation glow. Valdred braced himself, but no curse erupted, no hostile formation awakened, and no backlash spread from the ancient text. The chamber remained quiet except for the soft rotation of preservation arrays above them.
Valdred gradually lowered his aura.
Noctis did not move.
His eyes had locked onto the contents.
The scroll contained diagrams of energy circulation pathways drawn with precise meridian routes, demonic refinement points, foundation sequences, and spiritual tempering instructions written in terminology that made his breathing slow. His gaze moved line by line, and the familiarity deepened with every diagram. Western magic theory did not organize power this way. Demon spellcraft did not describe internal refinement through layered meridian circulation. This manual explained how to draw demonic energy through the body, refine it through structured internal pathways, temper the spiritual foundation, and circulate it back through the core in cycles that mirrored authentic cultivation methodology from his former world.
When his eyes reached the title written across the upper section, his fingers tightened around the linen.
Heavenly Demonic Arts.
Valdred watched his expression carefully, and the vice principal's earlier unease slowly returned.
Noctis continued reading beneath the chamber's quiet preservation glow while memories from his former life surfaced in fragments that were too clear to ignore. Sect manuals. Demonic cultivation branches. Internal refinement sequences. Meridian diagrams. Spiritual tempering stages. The structure before him was not inspired by cultivation; it was cultivation, recorded properly, methodically, and with enough sophistication that whoever created it had possessed genuine understanding.
Gaia's earlier words resurfaced inside his mind while he stood among the shelves. She had mentioned cultivation systems, especially when speaking of higher pathways that broke mortal limits and approached divine evolution. At the time, he had accepted the statement as part of this world's strange design, but holding the scroll made the meaning far more immediate. This world had not merely borrowed concepts from eastern cultivation and western fantasy. Somewhere within its history, those systems had physically intersected.
Noctis slowly lifted his gaze from the Heavenly Demonic Arts and looked across the chamber again. Hundreds of scrolls filled the shelves beneath preservation formations. If even a portion of them were genuine cultivation manuals, then the principal had encountered cultivation civilization in some form. He may have discovered a hidden inheritance, raided an ancient ruin, fought cultivators directly, or killed them and brought back their methods. Any of those possibilities changed the scale of what Noctis thought he understood about this world.
Valdred's discomfort grew the longer Noctis remained silent. He shifted his weight beneath the dim light and looked toward the open scroll as though it might bite him. "Noctis."
Noctis did not answer immediately.
Valdred's jaw tightened. "Noctis, remember what you promised."
The scroll remained open in Noctis's hands while the preservation formations turned slowly overhead. His expression had shifted from curiosity into unmistakable excitement, and Valdred seemed to recognize that expression as the same one that had emptied half a bloodline relic chamber.
Noctis finally turned toward him with the scroll still held carefully between his hands. "Vice Principal—"
"No."
"I haven't said anything."
"You were about to."
"These are cultivation methods."
"I do not care what they are."
"You should care."
"I care that the principal personally sealed them and told me they were dangerous."
"There are hundreds of them."
"And you promised not to take one."
Noctis glanced back toward the shelves while the chamber's preservation glow reflected across his face. "I will not take them."
Valdred did not relax.
"For now," Noctis added.
Valdred's eyes narrowed.
Noctis carefully rolled the Heavenly Demonic Arts scroll back into place and returned it to the shelf beneath the preservation seal. "But I need to speak with the principal."
Valdred stared at him for several seconds, then dragged one hand down his face while the ward formations around the chamber continued their patient rotation. "Of course you do."
Noctis gave one last look across the chamber of eastern scrolls before stepping back toward the entrance. The vault still owed him twelve treasures, but the greatest discovery in this section was something he could not take yet, and that made it more valuable than anything he had already stored.
Behind him, Valdred watched the shelves as though guarding the academy from a disaster that had merely agreed to wait.