Ever since Tilis learned about the existence of the "Door," she became convinced that Luo Wei had left this world.
For years, she traveled across the entire world, from the Northern Continent to the Southern Continent, from ice fields to deserts, from mountains to archipelagos... Her footsteps even reached the rarely visited "Death Waters" of the Storm Sea.
However, no matter where she looked, she couldn't find even the slightest trace of him. It was as if Luo Wei had vanished into thin air.
Such a thing shouldn't be possible, especially under the complex intelligence network that the Magic Concealment Society had maintained for thousands of years. Finding someone should have been the easiest thing...
Unless they were dead, after all, the dead cannot be found.
But that was impossible. It wasn't that she didn't believe Luo Wei could die, but rather...
On that final day, at that final moment, she had witnessed him slowly disappear with her own eyes.
So when she learned about the "Door" from her teacher, Tilis was overjoyed.
The "Door" could transcend both time and space!
Besides this current world, other worlds existed too!
Luo Wei must not be in this world right now; he might have even returned to his original world!
Yes, Tilis had always believed that Luo Wei didn't belong to this world.
This suspicion had existed for a long time, because he would often produce things that were beyond her comprehension.
Take the suppression of "Backlash" for instance. Even the Magic Concealment Society was at a loss, and all their treatments could barely make a difference. Yet Luo Wei could casually create astonishing products just by tinkering at his alchemy table.
How old was he? Yet he had mastered such terrifyingly advanced knowledge that was far beyond her understanding?
Moreover, Luo Wei's identity was strange; he was extremely mysterious.
After Luo Wei disappeared, when Tilis traced back to investigate his family, she was shocked to discover that there was no such thing as the "Edlin" family.
While such a family name did exist in Saint Callen, what confused her was that no one had actually met Luo Wei's supposed "parents." His family, his clan, seemed to exist merely as an abstract "concept."
The whole thing became more and more puzzling.
Upon further reflection, his occasionally strange behavior, the thoughts and concepts he sometimes revealed in his speech, were all out of place in this world. Sometimes she couldn't even keep up with his thinking.
For example, his view on Gould's "Magical Industry" was quite positive.
She only learned after becoming vice president that Gould was originally a member of the Magic Concealment Society, her teacher's junior brother, who was expelled from the organization due to differences in ideology...
So when she learned about the "Door," she became certain that Luo Wei truly didn't belong here.
And she very much yearned for the world where Luo Wei came from.
A world that could produce such an interesting person as Luo Wei must be equally interesting...
He maintained a positive attitude toward everything around him, he was always so optimistic, so his homeland...
Must be a paradise-like world, infinitely better than this awful place, with no wars, no scheming between people, no supernatural beings who go mad for no reason...
She yearned for such a world, a beautiful new world.
Therefore, she had to try at least once, no matter what.
Her dream was to live with Luo Wei in such a beautiful world, living happily and ordinarily for the rest of their lives.
No matter the cost!
Because she had nothing left - her teacher was dead, and Luo Wei was... gone.
So she had nothing left to lose.
Tilis looked at her teacher's shattered corpse, took a deep breath, and courageously opened the great door.
She stepped halfway through.
In that instant, she felt it again...
That cold gaze, like a hunter watching its prey.
It would endlessly hunt down any ignorant person who dared to traverse time and space, kill them alive, and finally tear them apart.
It wasn't literally a "hound," but her teacher's description was incredibly apt.
Tilis closed the door.
It wasn't that she was afraid.
As a magic researcher, she would always make thorough preparations for every experiment.
If she took this step now, she would end up just like her teacher.
So she needed to wait patiently.
She needed a plan.
How could she avoid being killed by the hound?
Or to simplify the concept: how could she avoid being killed at all?
Then, she thought of a secret project within the Society.
"The Soul Project."
If she killed her physical body and separated her spiritual form, could she avoid death?
This idea indeed seemed feasible, but unfortunately, the spiritual form wouldn't exist independently for long after leaving the physical body - it would quickly dissipate into nothingness.
She even recalled... a ghost story that Luo Wei had once told her.
But she hadn't understood the meaning behind that "ghost" story then, just as Luo Wei had later said.
"It seems there are no ghosts here, which is good."
It appeared that this time, she would become the "ghost" from Luo Wei's story...
Soon, Tilis immersed herself in this research.
She didn't know how she got through those days. Through endless failures, her spirit was numb, like a walking corpse.
Fortunately, whenever she remembered Luo Wei, her heart would find momentary peace and hope.
This became her habit.
Under her obsessive, determined, nearly insane will, the Soul Project finally succeeded.
In the vast sea of ancient scrolls, she found a black magic spell that could rebuild a physical body. Although the side effects were severe and would make daily life problematic, she didn't care.
As long as she could go to Luo Wei's world and live with him, that was enough.
So Tilis killed herself.
In the weeks following the successful research, due to body incompatibility, she went through several "Tilis" bodies.
The previous bodies had almost all turned into rotting, stinking corpses due to rejection reactions, and she buried them in the garden behind the research facility.
She used alchemy to shape her bones and black magic to grow her flesh - this was almost a miracle of life magic, something only deities in ancient myths could achieve.
But Tilis did it.
That day, she laughed happily, laughed madly.
She no longer feared death.
Because she was already dead - what was there to fear about being killed?
She could now open that door and search for Luo Wei.