70: SEA OF GLASS

After recovering in the hospital, devastated by her betrayal of and theft from the scholarly scholar, but haunted by inconsistencies in the poisoning plot, the intelligent reader realizes that the scholar uses a fake fabrial and possesses her own innate soulcaster power and confesses to the scholar about her own abilities and the strange realm she visited. Following a harrowing journey to a peculiar place, through an emotional confrontation, she pledges her service and begins learning about the scholar's secret research into the creatures and forbidden history.

I attempted suicide attempt, recovers in the hospital, plagued by guilt over betraying and stealing from the scholar and confusion over how she survived the poisoning despite taking the bread. She notices through her sketches that the scholar's actions—smelling the jam, consuming the bread—seem deliberate attempts to neutralize poison rather than normal eating. This realization leads her to conclude that the scholar possesses innate soulcasting abilities and was using a fake fabrial all along. Late at night, despite warnings, she makes her way to the scholar's study at the palace to confront her. She reveals her deduction about the fake fabrial and produces a sketch of the strange realm she visited—a place with a dark sky, floating flames, and a sea of glass beads. The scholar is shocked. After initial denial, when challenged to prove the realm's reality, she uses a simple truth about being a murderer (having killed her father) to establish a connection with the strange creatures inhabiting that realm. She is pulled into the realm called