Chapter 1 Spells
The dark and cramped room was equipped with two wooden beds, a wooden table that might fall apart at any time, two wooden chairs that were still intact, and a stove that was full of dust and stains, so that there was only a narrow aisle in the whole room that could just fit a foot.
A faint ray of light shines through the small transom on the south wall of the room.
Through the light, the dust floating in the air is like a helpless mayfly, floating around freely.
In the flickering light, a thin young man could be seen lying on one of the slightly damp wooden beds in the room.
Whether it was in the past life or in this life, the young man named "Gaode" was looking at this small dusty room with the faint light, smelling the vague smell of mold in the air.
There was deathly silence all around.
This place is less like a residence and more like a claustrophobic cell.
"You mean I've been unconscious for almost a day?" Gothe finally spoke and asked the boy who should be called his "roommate".
"I thought you were dead, you scared me to death!" The young man who answered was extremely thin.
Gothe is already considered thin, but he is much thinner than Gothe. He looks malnourished and is as small as a child of eight or nine years old.
Of course, Gothe knew that he was thirteen years old.
I am also the same age.
Although in his world, he could only be regarded as a child at this age.
But here, the age of thirteen is already treated as an adult.
Why did "I" stay in a "coma" for almost a day?
More precisely, how "oneself" died.
It should be precisely because of "myself"'s death that he finally found his home.
Very simple inference.
Unfortunately, Gothe could not remember the story of "his" death at all. He even had no impression of where he was, what his current situation was, or the name of the roommate in front of him.
But fortunately, it’s not that he can’t remember anything. His previous life still left some memories for him.
Some things that are really important in Gaode's opinion are clearly engraved in his mind and can't be removed.
Perhaps for "himself", the memory of this place is too painful a memory, so when the bird occupied the magpie's nest, it was not inherited to him.
In Gothe's view, this might be a good thing - if he really inherited all the memories of his predecessor, then who is he?
Is it the predecessor, itself, or a new personality that is a fusion of the two?
He does not want his personality to change.
The disadvantage is that now he urgently needs to understand his situation.
Luckily, he didn't need to try too hard to test. The roommate named Amy had already started talking with lingering fear, and he didn't even need to ask questions.
"I knew there would be a day like this. Although Gothe is the only one among us who can independently prepare the primary spider poison potion, in the eyes of Master Seda, this is nothing at all."
Speaking of this, Amy glanced at the expressionless Gothe, as if she was afraid that he would not Yue, murmured: "I mean, we are called apprentices, but everyone knows that Master Seda doesn't treat us as human beings at all. We are just his humanoid test mice and free servants."
"So, Master Seda doesn't care at all about our abilities."
Hearing this, Gothe could probably guess how he became "coma".
Keywords: test medicine.
Amy was still chattering, and it could be seen that Gothe's previous coma really frightened him and he needed to talk to relieve this negative emotion.
"I'm telling you, I've checked your breath before. It's obvious that you're not breathing at all, and you can't hear your heartbeat. It can be said that you're dead as hell, but you're still waking up like this. If you hadn't been able to talk to me properly now, I would have suspected that you were no longer a human being, but an undead!"
Amy slapped her thigh, feeling very excited about her roommate's resurrection from the dead.
In such a place, his companions are his spiritual support.
And if Gothe dies, it will probably be his turn to test the medicine soon.
"Could it be that the potion refined by Master Seda was successful?" Amy guessed.
Thinking of this possibility, he became even more excited.
Because if it really succeeds, Master Seda will be overjoyed, and they will definitely have a good life.
In addition, maybe they are no longer needed to test the medicine?
After all, the potion has been successfully refined.
Gaode is not as optimistic as Amy.
He knows the truth.
The potion refined by the Seda mage that Amy was talking about was not successful.
————It should be said that he successfully sent away Amy's good roommate.
Gaode rubbed his temples, which were still a little painful, to concentrate and organize his thoughts.
As a student of the Mathematics Department of Peking University, one of the top universities in China, he was working on his graduation thesis in the school library all night long. He felt too sleepy, so he lay down on the table and took a nap.
When I woke up, there was already thick smoke and red color everywhere.
It was the boundless tongue of fire, licking at him, leaving him no room to struggle.
Once a fire breaks out in a place like a library, it will be difficult to stop.
Hence, Gaode’s ending is also doomed.
…
Those who study mathematics are mostly rational and do not believe in metaphysics.
But the fact that is stronger than iron tells Gaode that the body is no longer his own, and it is impossible to rejuvenate.
The extremely metaphysical thing of time travel did happen to him.
With Amy's constant chatter and his own questions from time to time, in just half a day, Gothe had already figured out his current situation.
A street beggar with no father or mother, he was taken as an apprentice by Master Seda and brought back to this medicine garden. He took care of herbs, prepared potions, beat hands and tested medicines on human bodies for Master Seda.
In the entire medicine garden, except Master Seda, everyone else has the same apprenticeship status as Gothe and Amy.
The number of apprentices has remained around ten all year round.
However, it is dynamic stability.
Because every once in a while, Master Seda will take away an apprentice to conduct human testing for his newly refined medicine.
No one knows what kind of potion Master Seda wants to refine. They only know that he has always failed and never succeeded.
And every time it fails, the apprentice who tried the medicine will die on the spot, and there is absolutely no chance of survival.
Whenever the number of apprentices in the medicine garden falls below five, Master Seda will go out and bring back a group of about five new apprentices to keep the number of apprentices stable.
As for the origins of the apprentices, most of them were fatherless and motherless beggars like Gaode.
"Why don't you try to escape?" Gothe asked Amy thoughtfully, sorting out the messy thoughts in his mind.
"You are stupid!" Amy shouted in surprise: "Have you forgotten, Master Seda has branded [Tracking Mark] on us. No matter where we run, he will be able to track us. If we don't run, we can survive. If we dare to run away, we will die immediately!"
If time travel is metaphysics, then this world is the metaphysics within metaphysics.
This is a world where magic exists.
Yes.
Spells.
The magic in this world is by no means the superstitious means of drawing talismans and chanting incantations used by alchemists, but the true art of magical change, a kind of power that can change things and reality in unscientific ways.
The tracking mark in Amy's mouth is a type of spell.
· A top student who received compulsory education should have scorned this mysterious power that only exists in novels, movies and TV shows.
The deep-rooted concept cannot be broken by Amy with just a few words.
The reason why Gothe accepted the concept of magic so easily is also very simple.
He licked his dead skinned lips and looked at the stove not far away.
Without any movement from Gothe, the earthen pot that was originally hanging on the stove moved sideways out of thin air, until it moved over the wooden table that could fall apart at any time, and then tilted slightly, and the scalding hot water flowed directly into the cup placed on the table.
Then the earthen pot fell smoothly on the table, but the cup filled with hot water levitated and moved in front of Gothe at a steady speed.
Gaode reached out his hand, took the cup, and took a sip to moisten his throat that was dry due to being in a coma for a day.
Afterwards, he let go directly, but the cup did not fall. As if there was no gravity, it just hung in the air and moved back to the table at the same steady speed just now.
Gothe did not move during the entire process except for glancing at the stove. The same was true for Amy. There was no third person in the room.
It was as if there was an invisible third party or an invisible hand that completed this uncomplicated action and poured a glass of water for Gothe.
If this were placed in Gothe's original world, it would definitely be an extremely terrifying thing.
But the two people in the room looked normal at this time, as if they were used to this extremely weird supernatural event.
—Gaode seemed calm on the surface, but in fact, he was already in a turmoil.
The previous body left him no memory of life, but it left behind all the knowledge he had, including language, all knowledge of the world, and most importantly, knowledge about spells and preparation of potions.
No matter where you are, knowledge is the most precious thing.
Hence why Gaode was extremely lucky that his predecessor had left him something truly important.
The method he just used was one of the only tricks his predecessor had mastered.
Hand of the Mage (Transformation Department, Level 0):
A floating ghost hand appears within the casting distance and will continue to exist until the spell ends or the spell is actively dismissed.
If the ghost hand is more than 30 feet (10 meters) away, or if mage hand is cast again, the existing ghost hand disappears.
The mage's hand can perform simple actions, such as manipulating an object, opening an unlocked door or container, or pouring the contents of a vial, but it cannot carry objects exceeding 10 pounds (approximately 4.5 kilograms) or activate spell items.
To a mage, it was just a trivial trick, but it gave Gothe an indescribable shock:
"The hand of a mage."
"It is not even considered magic, it can only be called a trick."
"This is a world of real power and truth"
"The power of magic, the truth of magic, is."
"Magic!"
(End of this chapter)