What exactly was different?
Law had no way of knowing.
The sound of the flute transformed into patches of flowers, grass, and trees, replacing the previously barren rock surface.
At the central stone table, the ancient human rested his hands naturally on the surface. In front of his palms was a book he had materialized.
The book's cover had a crisscrossing grid pattern, and within the grid was a string of oddly shaped symbols, arranged irregularly up and down.
Law silently watched the ancient human, and the ancient human silently watched the book he had materialized on the table.
This eerie silence lasted for about ten minutes without ending.
If it weren't for the butterflies dancing above the flowers, one might have had the illusion that time had stopped.
Law, perhaps out of sheer boredom, silently counted the time.
He counted all the way to eleven minutes and six seconds before the ancient human finally reacted. He extended his right hand and slowly opened the book.
At the same time, an anomaly occurred.
The ancient human had only opened the first page, and the flowers, grass, and trees conjured by the flute turned into an ink-like liquid, all being absorbed into the open page. The butterflies were not spared as well.
Law's expression changed slightly. He took a few steps forward and looked down at the page opened by the ancient human.
The white page did not contain the expected images, but row after row of unknown symbols, crooked and rather awkward to look at. His first impression was… musical score.
Although it lacked aesthetic beauty, it did indeed resemble a musical score.
This impression may have also been due to the ancient human having just played a flute melody, creating a certain degree of suggestion.
Law shifted his gaze from the book page to the ancient human beside him, feeling an urge to lift that hood, though he couldn't do it, he could only think about it.
"First, he plays some kind of melody, materializing ordinary flowers, grass, and trees, then absorbs them into the book's pages?"
"And this book is the prototype of the Mender?"
Law saw clearly that this was a new book, with a high possibility of having been materialized by the ancient human recently.
The memory continued.
The ancient human slowly turned to the second page, which was blank.
Then, turning his hand, he conjured another peculiar instrument, a three-stringed one resembling a bow, and performed right there.
Silently, the wind and clouds suddenly changed. Within moments, heavy rain and thunder arrived.
Boom...!
A lightning bolt as thick as a bucket flashed down before Law's eyes.
Gale-force winds carried the torrential rain, pulling up dense curtains of water.
Law could not hear the sounds, nor was he affected by this harsh climate.
As for the ancient human...
He remained seated calmly. The wind and rain could not touch him, couldn't even lift the hem of his robe, let alone the book on the stone table.
Moments later, he wiped his hand over the page. The raging storm, like the flowers, grass, and trees before, turned into ink-like liquids, clustered and drilled into the second page, then transformed into a series of incomprehensible symbolic scores.
If compared to the first page's score, although Law couldn't understand them, he could identify differences between the two.
The symbols in the first page's score were somewhat softer in their strokes, while the symbols in the second page's score had strokes like swords.
Subsequently, the ancient human conjured many more instruments.
An instrument that strung up round beads, somewhat like an abacus, materialized a crystalline, snow-like landscape.
A thin iron sheet hung with twenty-one nail rings, with seven fine strings attached inside, materialized a scene of mountains of corpses, seas of blood, and broken blades and swords.
An instrument with a shaft winding like a cane, hung with diamond-shaped copper pieces, materialized the solemn and murderous momentum of a wolf pack hunting a lion.
Multiple instruments corresponded to multiple landscapes.
Ultimately, these landscapes all turned into the eerie musical notes on the book pages.
Law memorized every page's musical score in his head. Using the musical score of the Dark Sonata as a reference, he could not yet see any connection between them.
As an observer, he watched the ancient human conjure eighteen kinds of instruments never seen before, then perform various landscapes of unclear artistic conception one by one.
Until the silent black and white memory projection ended, Law returned to the White Smoke Font space.
To be honest, after experiencing that memory orb, Law was half-dazed.
He felt that the book was the prototype of the Mender, but he had no concrete evidence to prove his guess.
He knew nothing about the instruments the ancient human had conjured, nor did he find any similarities to the Dark Sonata from the multiple musical scores.
Furthermore, after seeing those strange instruments, he increasingly doubted the origin of the Dark Sonata.
After all, the Dark Sonata was played on modern instruments like the violin or piano, which had absolutely nothing to do with the instruments conjured by the ancient human.
As such, Law found it difficult to connect the Dark Sonata to the ancient humans.
Perhaps, as rumored, the Dark Sonata was created by the Devil King, which might have nothing to do with the ancient humans.
In the absence of crucial information, thinking about it solely was a waste of time.
Law opened the third memory orb.
He didn't know how much time it would take to open these memory orbs, but he had to open them one by one.
Compared to the black memory orbs that required experiencing them firsthand as an observer, Law preferred the white memory orbs that directly infused images and information.
Anyway, after that half-dazed experience, Law decided to finish all the white memory orbs first before tackling the black ones.
The third white memory orb was opened. Again, light tore through the darkness, followed by the scene of images and text switching.
Within less than a minute, the information contained in the memory orb was directly infused into Law's mind.
Law did not pause. He opened the fourth, the fifth one after another...
More and more information about the ancient humans, the Menders, and various strange existences was successively transmitted into Law's mind.
The more he opened, the more surprised Law became.
He suddenly realized that most of the memories contained within the many orbs were unrelated to the Mender who controlled life, death, and the soul.
However, these memories from other Menders were produced by the Mender who controlled life, death, and the soul.
'Could it be that memories could be shared among Menders? Or did they possess some kind of connection unaffected by distance?'
As Law wondered, he continued opening the memory orbs without stopping.
It wasn't until he opened the thirtieth orb that his head suddenly throbbed with pain, which also alerted him, causing him to stop opening more.
Enduring the headache, Law withdrew from the White Smoke Font space.
Opening his eyes, the first thing he saw was Nique's hesitant and doubtful face.
"Law, are you okay?"
"I'm fine."
Law was startled. Only then did he realize he was drenched in sweat, feeling nauseous and wanting to vomit.
He couldn't remember how long it had been since he last felt this way.
But, compared to pain tolerance training, this was nothing.
Despite the nausea and severe pain, Law still managed to organize the information obtained from opening the memory orbs.
'Doublethink...'
Law lowered his head slightly, then suddenly looked at Chucu, who was being teased by Ging.
Regarding the ancient humans and the Menders, he had finally obtained a part of the truth.