The room was quickly filled with the sound of students scampering out of the room as quickly as they could.

  Merlin sat in his chair and watched as Elore blew smoke rings into the air before exhaling a cloud of smoke that quickly took the form of a small dragon. Her little smoke dragon flew through each smoke ring before dissipating into the air.

  At that moment, the doors closed and the only two people in the room was Merlin and the instructor.

  "Well, since you've decided to stick around, I'll take it that you're interested in meeting this teacher," She said before extinguishing her pipe. "Follow me."

  Merlin hopped up out of his chair and made his way down several steps and rows of seats before reaching the stage.

  Upon climbing the small set of stairs onto the stage, and making his way over to the teacher who was waiting for him, he found that he was quite a bit shorter than her.

  He was previously looking at her from a high angle, and while she did seem rather tall from a distance, he didn't expect that she would be a head taller than him, even without the heels she was currently wearing.

  Elore gave Merlin a small smile before making her way to a door hidden behind the stage.

  Merlin followed her while taking a glance at his stream once more, only to internally sigh in disappointment at his viewer's behaviour.

  Elore led Merlin through the room behind the stage and into another door that led into a hallway. She made sure that he was following her before she started moving again, quickly navigating the building and leading Merlin down a flight of stairs.

  Merlin tried to memorise the path they were taking until Elore suddenly stopped in front of a door.

  "And here we are," Elore said before tapping her pipe on the door.

  A few moments later, Merlin heard the sound of paper being rustled before the clicking sound of a door lock.

  Elore took a step back moments before the door quickly swung open, and a woman with messy blonde hair, large round glasses and dark bags under her eyes stuck her head out of the room.

  "What do you want?" She crankily asked Elore with a tired tone in her voice.

  It seemed as though this person had either not slept for a very long time or was just rudely woken up from her attempt to sleep. Either way, she didn't seem happy.

  "I'm here to introduce you to a new student," Elore said in a bright and chipper tone, it was clear that she was trying to annoy the angry teacher, perhaps she was just using Merlin as a reason for doing so?

  "They asked me about the ruins in this city, and I thought you were the perfect person to talk to," Elore said, raising her voice before turning to Merlin, "Meet Dalai, you two are likely going to be the best of friends."

  Elore said that moments before scampering off, leaving Merlin with the very angry looking Dalai.

  'Woooow, that was petty.' Merlin thought to himself.

  Dalai turned to look at him, the dark bags on her face emphasised her bright green eyes, they almost seemed to be faintly glowing.

  "Are you actually interested in the ruins of this city, or is she just making a fool out of me?" Dalai muttered.

  "Probably both," Merlin said, "I am interested in the ruins, but I haven't been able to find much information about them…… Actually, I'm most interested in the door frame near the rangers guild, the one that glows during a full moon."

  Dalai's eyes lit up as Merlin muttered those words, and as a smile grew on her face, a notification appeared before Merlin.

  「You have completed the quest, "Archaeology Club.", rewards have been delivered.」


  "You truly do understand!" She remarked, her previous cranky attitude was suddenly nowhere to be seen. "Although, I've got a theory that it's not actually a door frame, but serves as some kind of——"

  "portal to another dimension." Both Merlin and Dalai spoke at the same time, causing Dalai's grin to widen even further.

  "Sorry, I didn't get your name," Dalai said, reaching her hand out for a handshake, although her hand was barely peeking out from her oversized robe.

  "It's Merlin, nice to meet you," Merlin said while shaking her hand.

  "Merlin huh? What a wonderful name for a wizard." Dalai said before disappearing into her room. "Come in, I want to show you something,"

  Merlin followed her in but found that he was wading through scraps of loose paper that had fallen onto the floor.

  "Don't worry about damaging those, they're all garbage theories," She said while running towards a table that had a chunk of rock floating above it.

  "Here, take a look at this," she said, pointing to a large sheet of paper spread over the desk and the floating rock. "I traced out the text above that door frame, and this piece of rock is part of a destroyed statue in the abandoned temple in Acacesium."

  "I had requested some students go out and retrieve a piece when I read a report from the rangers guild about what happened during their raid." She said, "It detailed that all the statues had been destroyed, and since it's a major sin to destroy the statue of a deity yourself, I figured it'd be okay to take a piece of one that was already destroyed."

  "And look at this, the statues used to stand on podiums that had their names engraved in them, some of the letters used in this name match the letters used on the door frame." She said, pointing at the engravings on the rock.

  Merlin quickly glanced at his chat when he noticed highlighted text.

  ┌───────────────────

  [MOD] Quinntessential: Hey look, @Atlas, they made you as an NPC.

  [MOD] Atlas: Shut up.

  └───────────────────

  "Unfortunately, I don't know which god this text is referring to, so I'm no closer to mapping out the language or translating the text on the door frame." She said, "So I'm thinking that I'll likely have to visit the temple myself, rather than send people out to collect samples for me."

  "The only issue with that is that I'm not very well suited for combat, so it isn't safe for me to enter the wilderness alone." She said, "You mentioned the rangers guild earlier, would it be safe to assume that you're the same Merlin mentioned in the rangers guild report?"

  "Yeah, I was there," Merlin said.

  "I knew it. Well, I'd like to put a request in," She said, "Would you be willing to guide me to the abandoned temple near Acacesium?"

  ┌───────────────────

  [Hidden Uncommon Quest]

  Revisiting the Acacesium temple.

  An archaeologist within the wizard college is researching the ruins of Megalopolis. She has discovered that the shattered statues in the abandoned temple near the frontier town of Acacesium may hold secrets that could help her with her research.

  Safely guide Dalai to the temple near Acacesium and back.

  ? Reward: 500 Wizard EXP, 200 Wizard Points, ???

  ? Failure: ???

  └───────────────────

  "Absolutely," Merlin said, accepting the quest immediately.

  "Wonderful!" Dalai said, "I'd like to set out immediately if that's alright with you?"

  Merlin nodded in response, which caused her to scamper around grabbing a few materials and stuffing them into a bag.

  "Give me a moment to get ready," She said while grabbing a staff that was slightly taller than she was.

  While Dalai continued searching for items, Merlin swapped his equipment out. Replacing his staff with Ghostsaw's blade and the wolf's fang.

  After Dalai finished getting ready, she led Merlin out of the building.

  "Oh, by the way. I'm an earth mage who focuses on defence in a fight," She explained as she scampered out onto the street, "so I'll support you as best as I can if we run into any trouble."

  "Alright, sounds good," Merlin said while tapping his daggers, "I'm a front liner of sorts, so I'll be fighting in melee range."

  The two made their way to the gate leading into the wilderness, and after greeting the guards who were standing by, they made their way through the gate and onto the path to Acacesium.

  "Give me a moment please," Dalai said before taking a few steps off the path and kneeling on the grass. She began chanting while rotating her staff, and a few moments later the ground began to gently rumble.

  Rocks and dirt began floating into the air before suddenly being compressed into small hardened shapes, those shapes were then crushed against others until the form of two horse-like creatures took shape.

  With the tap of her staff, both horse golems seemed to suddenly spring to life.

  "Earth golems?" Merlin asked.

  "Yes, they'll cut our travel time down tremendously," She said, "You didn't plan on walking there, did you? We'd also have to worry about carrying stuff back."

  Merlin didn't say anything in response, he just hopped up on one of the golems after Dalai had signalled for him to do so.

  Chapter https://updatenovel.com/book/new/Restarting-From-Genesis_4158/Revisiting-the-Acacesium-Temple_3116903.html: Revisiting the Acacesium Temple

  With the wave of her hand, Dalai had caused the two horse-like earth golems to start marching forward.

  "I would recommend holding on," Dalai said while tightening her grip on the earthen beast.

  Merlin took her advice to heart and did the same, and a few moments later the horses started picking up speed.

  The benefit to travelling on golems rather than living creatures was that golems could travel great distances with consistency, they didn't run out of stamina or faint from overexertion, they were essentially just machines that utilised mana as fuel.

  It seemed as though Dalai had utilised quite a bit of mana to manipulate both these golems, as they were now running at speeds much faster than what most horses could ever do.

  While the scenery was flying past his vision, Merlin glanced at his chat, seeing what was going on there.

  ┌───────────────────

  [User]……

  [User] Queen106: Can players learn this spell?

  [System] Make sure to follow the channel so you're always notified when I start streaming!

  [User]……

  [User] Brian_Simmons_3867: It seems pretty overpowered, who knows?

  [User]……

  [System] Type !rules in chat for a list of the channel's rules, and !disc for a link to our community server!

  └───────────────────

  Merlin continued to read chat while partially paying attention to his surroundings, and roughly twenty minutes in, he received a red alert box indicating that his playtime was going to come to an end relatively soon.

  ┌───────────────────

  [Message from the devs!]

  Group one, there is only one hour left for today's session, you will receive another notification when it's time to log out.

  If you do not leave by that time you will be forcibly disconnected, please make sure you're in a safe location when you log out.

  └───────────────────

  Merlin swiped the window away and turned his attention back towards Dalai, who seemed to be showing early signs of mana exhaustion.

  Merlin was somewhat impressed that she had held on for such a long time. It was clear that her mana pool was tremendous when compared to his own.

  The two arrived at the abandoned town of Acacesium a few minutes later. Both Merlin and Dalai unmounted the horses, which were then promptly unsummoned.

  Merlin watched as the two horse golems dissolved into piles of dirt beside him, and Dalai wiped the sweat from her brow with her oversized sleeve before drinking what appeared to be a mana potion.

  "My god. This place really is abandoned, huh?" Dalai said while looking around the town, "It's one thing reading about it in a mission report, but it's something completely different when you see it first hand……"

  Dalai spent a few minutes silently wandering around the abandoned town. She began exploring the houses, taking a look at the state they were left in and ended up accidentally scaring a family of foxes when she wandered into a room that was occupied by the creatures.

  Although it seemed as though Dalai was even more frightened than the fox mother, as she had stumbled backwards and knocked several pieces of cutlery off the kitchen table, causing the foxes to run out of the house.

  "Oh, no. I'm sorry little foxes……" Dalai muttered as she watched the foxes leap out of a window and disappear. "……I didn't mean to scare you."

  Dalai's slowly waddled out of the building with her head held low, it seemed that exploring the village was putting a damper on her mood.

  "Well, instead of getting depressed. How about we pay a visit to our actual destination?" Merlin said while pointing to the large temple in the distance. "That runic text isn't going to decode itself."

  Dalai nodded and followed Merlin as he made his way up the hill towards the temple.

  Merlin cautiously took a look inside the building first, but there didn't seem to be anything within it that immediately caught his attention or set off any red flags.

  The two walked into the temple, where they were greeted with rows of shattered statues.

  "Oh wow, this place has seen better days," Dalai quipped while skipping towards what seemed to be the base of a statue, there was a partial nameplate on the base, the other half of which seemed to have been shattered into tiny stone fragments that laid at Dalai's feet.

  "A couple of these letters match up, I wonder whose name it was." She muttered before hovering her hand above the pile of shattered statue fragments.

  After muttering a brief incantation, the stone shards began floating into the air, coming to a stop while hovering over the palm of Dalai's hand.

  The stone shards seemed to be clashing together, slowly reforming into the state they held before being destroyed.

  It took a few moments, but the other half of the nameplate had actually been fixed, and with another incantation, was slowly attaching itself to the base, forming what they both believed to be the name of a god in ancient Arcadian.

  "Right…… I still can't read it," Dalai muttered while sketching down the runes. "We'll have to build the statues so I can figure out which god is connected to which name."

  Dalai pointed out that a set of feet were attached to the base, and that they just had to build the statue up with puzzle pieces that fit,

  Both Merlin and Dalai had started picking up chunks of the statue, with Dalai focusing on repairing anything she could.

  "That won't fit, that's clearly a woman's thigh and that's the torso of a man," Dalai started pointing out mistakes as the two tried figuring out which body part fit the specific statue they were trying to repair.

  It was at the moment that Merlin had picked up what seemed to be a handful of stone grapes that he realised which god they were in the process of building.

  "Dionysus. This text means Dionysus," he said while handing Dalai the stone grapes.

  "Well, I figure out those letters, but there isn't much else I can get from this." She said while attaching the grapes to the statue.

  Before they continued, Merlin pointed out the statue that he remembered Callisto getting angry at last time, the one that had a shattered stone bow in front of it.

  "There's Artemis," Merlin said while pointing towards the statue base.

  Dalai started repairing what little damage the nameplate had taken, but she eventually fixed it and started filling out more runes in her book.

  "Very well, I'll take your word for it for now," Dalai said before moving on to the next one.

  The two spent the next ten or so minutes piecing together various statues until the identity of the god or goddess could be confirmed. After being confirmed, their names were added to the list and then they would move on to the next statue.

  This continued several times until they came across a statue in much better condition than some of the others. This one seemed rather odd, as the base of the statue clearly showcased six feet, all facing away from each other.

  Merlin saw various heads, torsos and legs scattered about the temple floor, it was clear to see which god this was, just based on the statue's base.

  "This is clearly……" Merlin muttered to himself before Dalai had walked over to him with the shattered upper torso of a goddess that was carrying a torch. "Yeah, that's clearly Hecate."

  Once again Dalai had repaired the nametag and started filling in runes when her eyes suddenly lit up with excitement.

  "Merlin, Merlin, Merlin," Dalai shouted for Merlin to come and look at what she had found, it was as if her previous moment of sadness was but a mere illusion.

  When Merlin peered over her shoulder at what she had found, he noticed it immediately.

  "One of the words in the door frame, the entire word is just Hecate's name?" He muttered out loud, causing several things to click in his mind in that instant.

  "Wait, then that means……" He muttered to himself once more, "Doesn't she?……"

  "We worship her today as mostly the goddess of magic, but back in the day it seems she was much more popular for her other domains," Dalai said while jotting down notes, "The goddess of crossroads, who was also affiliated with the moon. But most of all, she was renowned as a goddess of the underworld and of the dead."

  "A guardian who guides the dead to the afterlife with a torch in hand," Dalai muttered, "Although since necromancy is a taboo topic, that part of her is rarely ever mentioned."

  "Then is it a portal to the spirit realm?" Merlin muttered, realising what had happened. "A door without a key……"

  Dalai's ears seemed to perk up at that last line, but before she could say anything Merlin continued talking to himself.

  "But the key, in this case, would be your soul……" Merlin continued, "But then why didn't it allow the dagger or the goblin soul? Why is the portal blocked?"

  「The quest "A door without a key." has been updated.」


  Chapter https://updatenovel.com/book/new/Restarting-From-Genesis_4158/Uncovering-Ghostsaw-s-Secrets_3138859.html: Uncovering Ghostsaws Secrets

  Merlin immediately checked his quest information, and while immediately scrolling past the wall of text he was already familiar with, he saw a couple of extra lines added to the bottom.

  ┌───────────────────

  [Hidden Mythical Quest]

  A door without a key.

  Within Megalopolis stands several ruins from an ancient civilisation……

  During a full moon, a strange spectral film seems to fill the space within the door frame, and for some unexplained reason, souls and anything related to them are unable to pass through the door frame, whether that be souls themselves or even soul-infused equipment.

  It seems as though this door frame has some connection with the goddess Hecate and the spirit realm. Her name is clearly written on the stone frame in what you believe to be ancient Arcadian. What is the purpose of the door frame, and why is it blocked off?

  Figure out a way of opening the mysterious door frame.

  ? Reward: ???

  └───────────────────

  'So…… It's a portal to the spirit realm, of which Hecate has some sort of domain over…… Right.' Merlin thought to himself, 'So it's likely that my interest in the door frame is the reason why she has suddenly taken interest in me, and why she requested me for help.'

  'There is a very large likelihood that this has something to do with whatever had cut off Hecate's connection with the temple and the prayers of her worshippers.' Merlin thought.

  'She suddenly returned after I messed around with the rift.' He thought to himself, 'Something must be preventing her from interacting with the world. But that shouldn't be possible, she's a boundary diety.'

  'There are too many holes in that idea…… What sort of barrier could stop a boundary god but be slightly inconvenienced by some serial killer's dagger?' Merlin shook his head, 'Unless the blade is a little more special than I originally thought…… But that's doubtful.'

  "Dalai, as an earth mage, you have a spell for identifying the material components of a piece of equipment, right?" Merlin turned and asked Dalai, who was busy repairing another statue.

  "I can…… Yes." She said while finishing a repair, "Is this important?"

  "It's relevant," Merlin said while pulling the Ghostsaw blade out of its sheath, "I would like to see what materials this blade is made from."

  Dalai reached out to take the blade from Merlin's hands, but it seemed the sudden drop in temperature from merely getting close to the blade had caused her to retract her hand in surprise.

  "It's a little cold to the touch, don't worry," Merlin reassured her while handing the weapon to her once more.

  "While I do this, you'll run around collecting statue parts to be reassembled, right?" Dalai asked.

  "Of course," Merlin responded.

  Dalai had picked up the blade properly this time and sat down with it in her lap. When she began chanting and focusing her magic on the blade, it slowly began to hover slightly in the air.

  Merlin let her do her thing while he started picking up chunks of rubble.

  Several minutes went by, but the results of Dalai's investigation had come in.

  "So? How is it?" Merlin asked.

  "It's a special blade……" Dalai said while handing the blade back as quickly as she could, "First of all, it's clearly infused with the soul of a ghost."

  "But not only is it infused with the soul of a ghost, but the blade also seems to have quite the strong affinity for the infused soul," She explained, "You see, it turns out that one-fifth of the blade is refined soul steel, which is why it has such a strong bond with the infused soul, any undead soul would."

  'Ahh, that makes sense.' Merlin thought to himself. 'That's why it reacted so strongly to the portal in the first place.'

  Soul steel is a special material that could be used in all manner of crafting recipes. It's a metal that had been fused with necrotic energies to produce a material that implemented aspects of both. Ores of soul steel rarely form in areas with high undead activity, such as in a crypt, a dungeon full of undead or even within a necropolis.

  This ore could be mined by players for use in crafting, and it had quite a strong affinity with undead souls for the purposes of soul infusions. It was rather valuable for weapons in the early game, as it gave non-magical weapons the ability to damage certain ethereal creatures such as ghosts.

  "Other materials that make up the blade are mostly regular sword steel, but there are traces of cobalt and tungsten mixed in……" She continued, "But, the most concerning material in this blade is what I believe to be blood…… And lots of it."

  'Oh, dear……' Merlin thought to himself, 'How am I going to explain that.'

  "It's not even just that the weapon has been used to inflict several wounds in its lifetime…… But blood seems to have actually been used as a material during its creation……" She said with a tremor in her voice, "Where did you get such a cursed weapon?"

  "I received it from the corpse of a murderer who tried to take my life, but that's not the important part." Merlin said while trying to brush the whole blood thing away, "This blade is unable to pass through the mysterious door frame on a full moon…… It's as if there's a barrier in the way that blocks souls and soul-infused items from crossing."

  Dalai's previously worried face had partially lit up at the mention of the door frame, and especially a unique behaviour that she was previously unaware of. Although it seemed that a part of her was still worried about the blood, and now the mention of a murderer.

  "Alright, let's finish up here," Merlin said while sheathing his dagger. "We can continue this conversation on the way back to the city."

  Dalai nodded and quickly went back to restoring statues, although it seemed to just be enough to read the name tag and get an idea as to which god the name belonged to. And after a little while, it seemed that they were finally done.

  "Got everything you need?" Merlin asked.

  "Yes, let's go back," Dalai responded.

  As the two stepped out of the temple and made their way back to the abandoned village, Merlin started explaining what he knew about the door frame. But once he brought up the strange old man, that seemed to be the only thing that Dalai focused on, even when he had more things to talk about regarding the door frame, it was rather strange.

  Dalai had stopped the conversation briefly while she began chanting a spell, causing rocks and dirt to float into the air before compressing into the shape of two horse-like golems.

  The two got on a golem each and began riding them towards the city. For the first few moments, there was silence between them, but Dalai spoke first.

  "A door without a key," She said, "Did you hear this phrase from that old man?"

  Merlin looked at her with a curious gaze.

  "Yes, I did," He said, "Has the old man said the same to you?"

  Merlin naturally assumed that Dalai had encountered the old man at least once while researching the ruins. He seemed to be very interested in the same thing that both of them were interested in, so it was only natural that they would cross paths eventually.

  Even Merlin had met the man twice, and that was on both occasions that he visited the portal during a fool moon.

  "Yes," Dalai said, although it sounded like she was choking up slightly, "I've heard him say it once or twice."

  The atmosphere between the two had gotten strange for a moment, but it quickly recovered and Merlin had finally explained more about the door frame, his antics with the dagger and also mentioned his experience with Hecate at the temple.

  All of these points seemed to cause Dalai to go quiet as she thought to herself. It was likely that she would come to a conclusion similar to that of Merlin.

  as the two rode silently towards the city, now able to see that the wall was only a small distance away, a red alert box appeared before Merlin, informing him that he had five minutes to log out or be forcibly logged out.

  Merlin swiped the notification message away as the horse golems began slowing down. Moments later the golems had stopped near the wall, and once dismounted by their riders, dissolved back into a mound of earth.

  The two walked towards the gate, greeting the guards as they stepped into the city.

  「You have completed the quest, "Revisiting the Acacesium temple.", rewards have been delivered.」


  "Thank you, Merlin," Dalai said, "I'll be going back to my office to work on this translation. Feel free to pay me a visit at any time."

  With that, Dalai began walking away from Merlin who remained near the gate.

  "Take care," Merlin said before walking in another direction, he slipped into a more quiet location, where he told his stream that it was time to go. "Thanks for watching everyone, I'll hopefully see you all next week."

  He turned his stream off before uttering the command to log out.

  His body was quickly warped out of the game and into the black void, Merlin went through the many steps of logging out before the machine finally freed him.

  After escaping his capsule, Arthur made his way toward the briefing room and took a seat in his usual spot, greeting the developers who were finishing off their briefing notes before everyone woke up.