The further Edward flew toward the east, the more difficult it was. The entire eastern ocean was an enormous Grand Magic Zone. The intense concentration of mana not only made it difficult for an average mage to breathe and caused natural disasters like tsunamis, water tornadoes, thunderstorms, etc.

So, as he flew to his destination, Edward had to use Mana Zone to control the ambient mana in the surroundings and calm down these natural phenomena.

"It's a miracle Yami managed to survive the voyage from the east," muttered Edward as he flew. Based on how horrible the sea was, he could not imagine how a kid of fewer than ten years could survive in a small boat for days.

The only way to describe his survival was fate favored him; that's the only explanation that made sense. At the same time, Edward also understood why there had been no contact between the Eastern and Western Continent.

No ships or flying apparatus would work as a form of transportation connecting them. Even teleportation was useless as only an extremely powerful mage could survive the journey.

While thinking about these things, Edward began to build a space passage between the Western and Eastern Continent. He wanted to be able to open a portal back home and instantly return in case of an emergency.

So, he would create Relay Zones, places enchanted not to be affected by the Grand Magic Zone. That way, he could teleport to these places without resistance, and if he wanted to go back home, he only needed a few consecutive teleportation spells and returned in a few seconds.

At the same time, he would use a Detection Spell to see if he could find unknown ores deep in the ocean, and once he found some, he would dive down to get them and place them inside his pocket dimension so clone number 9 could test if they can be used to repair the World Gate.

After two hours of flight, Edward saw an island not far away, so he landed. He first noticed the abnormal number of mountain ranges in the distance, followed by the forest all around.

He then used a Life Detecting Spell before discovering something a few dozens of meters away from him.

"Interesting," he muttered before disappearing and reappearing. A small child less than 1.2 meters was walking with a boar at least six times his size on his right shoulder and a massive ax in his left hand.

The small child suddenly felt a shadow looming over him, so he slowly turned around, expecting to see a tall magical animal staring at him like prey.

However, what he saw made the pipe in his mouth fall to the ground as he stood gasping.

"Y-Y-You're a human."

"And you're a dwarf," replied Edward as he looked at this tiny little man and his long breaded red beard.

"Human," yelled the dwarf before dropping his lunch and weapons on the ground and running into the forest, screaming there was a human. A few minutes later, hundreds of dwarves showed up to surround Edward, looking at him like he was a valuable piece of art.

"It really is a human; I've never seen one before; he's so tall."

"Me too."

"Not me. I once saved a fisherman 300 years ago, so this is not my first time."

"I'm so envious."

"That's nothing. I heard Pappitson from the Golden Pick Village saved a human woman and eventually fell in love and married her."

"He's lucky, then."

"Maybe not. I heard he left the village."

Meanwhile, Edward was baffled by these dwarves' overenthusiasm for meeting humans. Then, one of them, who had a bronze headband on his head, walked toward him and said:

"My name is Duril Warmbrand, the chief of the Brown Bear Village. I'm sorry about their behavior; It is the first time a human has formally visited this island in a long time."

"My name is Edward Bones, the Clover Kingdom's Wizard King, and I don't mind."

"That's good. So, you're royalty?"

"Something similar. I'm more the military leader of the kingdom."

"That is is still a man of authority," replied Duril as he invented Edward back to his village. On his way, Edward noticed the village chief kept staring at the ring in his hand, but he did not say anything–at least, not yet.

Then, the dwarves had a large banquet to welcome him. All these dwarves were drunkards, so they drank alcohol like it was water: whether it was women, children, or the elderly, all of them were heavy drinkers.

Edward had to use mana to remove the alcohol from his system while enjoying the taste of the alcohol, which was incredibly delicious. Most of the wines were made from magical fruits, so the fruity taste suited his palate.

In the middle of this banquet, other dwarves from different villages came to join the party and to see the human. So, the feast became grander over time. Then, a fighting tournament began.

The dwarves summoned their Grimoires and began to fight. Upon closer observation, Edward noticed they had more mana than humans but not as much as elves.

Their body was naturally strong and had high physical and magical resistance. Fire was the main attribute the majority of them had, occupying 90% of the population.

Moreover, they primarily relied on magical artifacts to fight and boost their strengths.

Edward sat on a slightly elevated podium, allowing him to observe the fighting tournament. Around him were the different chiefs of the island, who were drinking and commenting on the battles while also chatting with Edward.

He squinted his eyes as he noticed something. The magical artifacts of these dwarves were 50-70% similar to the ancient magical artifact he took from Lucius.

As such, he concluded that the dwarves were probably responsible for most of the world's magical artifacts in ancient times. And once they hid in this place, humans had no choice but to develop their own magical artifacts.

"How about it, Edward? Do you want to fight? Since you are the head of the military, you should be very powerful?" asked one of the chiefs.

"Why not?" he replied before his Grimoire floated in front of him.

Gasp!

They all look at it him incredulously.

"The Origin Grimoire!" said Duril as he looked at the 6-leaf.

"Is he the Sage's Successor?" asked the Golden Pick Chief.

"No, it seemed to be missing something. Look at it closer," said the Luscious Tree Chieftess. So, they all focused on Edward's Grimoire for a moment before Duril said: "Come with me; I'll show you something."

Edward followed the chiefs to a mountain a few dozen miles away, where there was the entrance to a cave. After entering, he saw a statue of a middle-aged man wearing a crown and holding a Grimoire.

What was unique to that statue was the Grimoire. On the cover, it had four symbols: a 6-leaf Clover, a golden diamond, a heart with a queen inside, and a spade with a king inside.

"Who is this?" asked Edward.

"The Wizard Sage, Alan. He is the creator of Grimoires and the hero who saved the world."

"Can you give me more detail?" asked Edward.

"We don't know much," said Duril, "but according to our records, an enormous war once enveloped the entire world. The war was catastrophic, almost destroying the world."

"Indeed. The records even said the world used to be one big piece of land where many races lived together. However, in the middle of the war, the land was divided into five continents. And by the end of the war, three of these continents were destroyed, and many races like dragons, merfolk, orcs, etc., became extinct," added the Golden Pick Chief.

'Are they referring to the Devil-Angel War?' thought Edward without interrupting them.

"As the war was about to destroy the world, a human named Alan suddenly appeared out of nowhere to save the world. After that, he was called the Wizard Sage and memorialized throughout history," added the Luscious Tree Chieftess.

"How exactly did he save the world?" asked Edward.

"Of course, with Grimoires. Most races were treated as slaves in ancient times because of the small amount of magic power they possessed; this was more evident for humans with the lowest status," replied Duril.

"Not only had humans had small Mana Pools, but they also could not use Advanced Spells, so their situation was terrible."

"Then, everything changed when the Wizard Sage created Grimoires. He was not selfish and shared his creation with all the weak races before creating a coalition of different races."

"Finally, we work together to end the war and save the world."

"Do you know who the war was against? Or for what reason it started?" asked Edward.

"Most of the records have been lost, mistranslated, or destroyed over time, so not much information from that era remains," explained Duril. "But we do know it was a battle between 'two beings of extreme evil and extreme virtue.'"

Edward nodded as he confirmed that the Wizard Sage was probably the one who ended the Devil-Angel War. Additionally, he might be why these two races are now stuck in another dimension and unable to enter or interfere in the material world easily.

However, he is still confused about how "God" is related to all of this and the overall role of the Universal Will. So, he pondered a moment to come up with a few possibilities.

Then, he focused on the statue since he noticed it was not a normal one.

________

AN: I feel like I should give a disclaimer. The entire Elysium Plot, Wizard Sage, and Origin Grimoire are not part of the Black Clover manga or anime. I created them based on the lore of the story.