An Owl's Rise

Evelyn's days quickly passed by as she learned the langue of this world, so that she could read the books Mason had left for her.

It had already been eighty days since she had come to find the gift her brother had left to her, and she had made a great deal of progress.

She had recently achieved a rudimentary understanding of this world's langue, and could now read and understand about ninety percent of what was written in the books that had been left for her.

Of course, she could not read very fast and quite often had to reference the langue guidebook, but at least now she had the minimum understanding needed to get through the books and obtain the knowledge held within them.

Still, the question was which one to start with first.

She had skimmed through the first couple of pages of each of the seventeen books that she had here, in part as practice and in order to understand what was held within each book.

'I suppose I really should start with this one.'

Picking up her brother's diary, Evelyn felt a sense of trepidation about reading it.

All she had left of her brother was in this book, and once she read it, she would know exactly what happened to him.

A part of her really wanted to leave this a mystery in hopes that she could believe that maybe her brother had a great life that was devoid of any hardship.

Nevertheless, she knew she needed to read what was within this book and opened it up to the first page.

The start of the dairy was pretty much entirely in the langue they knew back from Earth.

It detailed how Mason had been born into a highly prestigious family in a place called Ultak Empire.

Apparently, they were one of five major clans in this empire and inferior only to the imperial family.

Reading this Evelyn felt a bit envious, since it seemed that Mason got just about as good a start as he could have.

He was born to a rich and powerful family and never had to worry about much of anything.

Not to mention he apparently had the best teachers for learning magic and was considered a prodigy.

However, while the first thirty or so pages just detailed his early life, when he reached twenty-seven and developed the magic to peer into fate, his goals shifted as he tried to find Evelyn.

It seemed that he thought she might be in this world as well and wanted to find her if he could.

Unfortunately, all he found was that she did not exist in this world yet and was destined to die a violent death.

After that his writing became a bit more fanatical, talking about he was going to do something save her.

The entries at this point became a lot more sparse and shorter as he only updated it about once every year giving progress updates.

Yet this was when Evelyn realized something weird. She was about two thirds of the way through the diary now and going by the dates her brother should have been somewhere around seventy years old.

But the man she saw in the recording looked around thirty and the diary was not even near the end yet, which is probably when he would have made this place.

'He has not really addressed the magic in this world in detail, but is it possible that there is a way for people to prolong their lives? Or do humans just live longer in this world?'

Continuing on she finally got to the point where he figured out that if she obtained the heavenly flame that was his family's greatest treasure, her fate was no longer guaranteed to end in death.

Unfortunately, other than that, he was not certain what would happen since her fate became very obscured, but at least it meant she had a chance.

The next entry after this one was by far the longest gap being about five years, and it detailed how he was successful in stealing the flame from his family.

He had prepared years for it and finally he got his hands on the heavenly flame and made a run for it.

Naturally his family was enraged and sent all manner of experts after him, but he barely managed to avoid or beat them back by looking into his own fate.

Quickly Evelyn shot through the next few pages that told of how Mason avoided his family while collecting more supplies to leave for her.

Then finally she came to the last few pages where he arrived at this abandoned ruin far from his home.

He had been continuously divining his own and Evelyn's fate, and his magic had pointed him here, to practically the edge of the world.

This was the place he had found where she was eventually going to end up and find the resources he had left for her.

The next few entries went over how he used earth magic to dig this place out, and what kind of things he thought might be good to leave for Evelyn.

Sadly, he did not have all the time in the world to stick around here or eventually he would be found out.

Finally, Evelyn made it to the last entry which was far different from the rest, which were just accounts of Mason's life or what actions he had been taking.

This entry unlike the others, was a direct letter to Evelyn.

'Hey there Evie, I guess you finally made it to the end of my diary. When I just finished reading through it, I realized that I did not leave you much useful information. Though really when I first wrote it, I was not planning on leaving it to you, so I suppose that is to be expected. Anyway, back to what I really wanted to say. This world is a dangerous place full of beasts and monsters you probably cannot imagine, and magic that can be wielded in many forms. I just wanted to tell you to be careful and to never get full of yourself even if you get strong. There is always someone more powerful than you in this world, and for every magic there is a counter, so never be conceited. I have taken my fair share of losses by thinking myself above others and only gotten out alive by the skin of my teeth. Now on the next page I left a recommendation for what order you should read the other books in. Of course, if you already know something feel free to skip over it, I just left everything I could for you here. Oh, and in the cabinet to the far right of the room I left a catalog of all of the items I left you, along with descriptions. This is the last thing I am going to be able to leave to you, but good luck. I pray for you success and happiness this time.

Sincerely, Your Older Brother Mason.

P.S. I nearly forgot to mention what that first room was about. As I said in the recording that is a decoy in case someone else finds this place first. That storage amulet just contains a few kinds of rare items in it, and in the message, I ask whoever found it to get revenge against my family for me in return for the amulet and its contents. You do not need to worry about this, as I do not really hold any sort of grudge against my family. Even though it is likely that one of their agents will kill me in the future.

Okay, now this really is the last thing I will write, or I will be at this forever.

Take care Evelyn, I love you.'