Preparing to Leave, Simulating Spells

East Blue, Shells Town.

"Alright, the wound has scabbed over. Watch your diet for the next few days, eat lighter food, keep regular hours, and you'll be fine in ten days or half a month."

An obscure East Blue branch did not have a dedicated military hospital. No one knew what those part-time military doctors had done before this. Other than not killing you outright, anything could happen.

So this was a clinic in Shells Town.

"Thanks, Doctor!"

Lowett sat up from the recliner, pulled on the shirt beside him, and fastened the buttons.

"You're welcome. I'm a doctor, after all."

Splash, splash...

After washing his hands clean in a basin of water, the middle-aged doctor pondered for a moment before walking to the medicine cabinet counter and beginning to prepare Lowett's prescription.

"You know..."

He suddenly spoke.

"Hm?"

Lowett froze for a moment.

"Pirate Kuro's steel cat claws are thicker than ordinary blades, and much narrower as well... So they wouldn't leave such smooth, neat wounds on a severed surface."

As soon as he finished speaking, the atmosphere in the small clinic abruptly turned grave.

The afternoon sunlight slanted through the doorway and fell upon the wall, dry and stifling.

Under the blazing sun, few pedestrians remained on the streets. They had all retreated indoors to escape the heat. Together with the seemingly tireless cicadas chirping in the trees by the roadside, the large town now appeared so... lifeless.

Yet the chill...

Continued to spread through this hospital room, which was separated only by a screen and should have been scorching hot.

Necromancy: Ghost Hand!

A blot of ink appeared on the floor behind the doctor. A pale skeletal arm, carrying an ominous aura, reached out from it and slowly grabbed toward his ankle.

The middle-aged doctor seemed entirely unaware of it and continued carefully selecting medicines.

"The boys at the branch haven't fought the Black Cat Pirates for the first time, and this old man hasn't... treated severed limbs for the first time either."

"These wounds... remind me of Colonel Skinner. His sword is fast, and he loves using severed limbs to rob pirates of their ability to resist, capturing them alive."

That was why Lowett disliked lying. One lie often required another to patch it up, and it never ended.

"You shouldn't have told me this."

The bone claw was already close. At this distance, unless one possessed the sinister movement speed of Hundred Schemes Kuro, there was no avoiding it.

As long as the bone claw scratched his skin, the poison and curse it carried would, like Komodo dragon saliva, continuously erode the prey's health and kill without a trace.

"Why didn't you report me?"

Monka did not know the truth. Lowett was absolutely certain of that. Soul fluctuations invisible to ordinary people were clearer than dawn to a Necromancer.

"There was no need!"

After finding a sheet of rough paper and wrapping up the medicine, the middle-aged doctor slowly tied the string and stopped moving.

"As long as a patient appears before me, I can't simply ignore them. Whether I tell them or not won't change anything... I'm a doctor, and you're a patient. That's all."

"So in your eyes now... I'm no longer a patient?"

Lowett bared his teeth and asked coldly.

To his surprise, the doctor nodded decisively.

"Yes."

"I've already cured you!"

Lowett was speechless.

"...So get out of this town, pirate!"

For the sake of reproduction, to carry on life, the summer cicadas continued chirping without a care for their lives.

The doctor did not turn around. He merely heard a sudden gust of wind beside his ears.

Flutter!

The broad Cape of Justice was caught by the gale and snapped loudly. He felt the weight in his hand vanish, and the prepared medicine disappeared.

When he looked up again, only one corner of the white coat remained by the doorway before quickly vanishing as well.

Huff...

Looking at the wall, whose reflected sunlight had become increasingly blinding, he let out a long sigh.

"Pirates, Marines... when will these days ever end?"

After saying that, the tension in his nerves loosened. In an instant, the middle-aged doctor's clothes were soaked through with cold sweat, and darkness clouded his vision.

That evening, when the family waiting for him to return home for dinner found that he had not arrived on time, they came to the clinic out of curiosity. There, they discovered the old man sitting in his chair, a smile on his lips, having passed away peacefully.

"Perhaps it was exhaustion catching up with him? Doctor Sheldon..."

"They said it was a sudden heart attack. A healer can't heal himself!"

"What a good man! He was perfectly fine just yesterday..."

That was how the neighbors discussed it.

"It's time to prepare for leaving!"

Deep in the forest, inside a hidden natural cave.

Lowett stitched Colonel Skinner's right hand onto the body of a Zombie Puppet, then had it stand and walk a few steps to adapt to its new limb.

For ordinary Spell Apprentices, ten-odd days were enough to roughly understand a basic rune at best. Runes were merely visualized spell patterns developed by mages to educate their disciples, a shortcut by nature. Forget about increasing Mental Power.

From a "Spell Apprentice" recognizing magic to a "Mage Apprentice" mastering magic, ordinary people had more than a decade to travel, which was why mages were anxious as well.

But for Lowett, who bore the title of "Black Count," the learning process could be skipped entirely.

Ten-odd days were enough for him to cross the process that others needed more than ten years of accumulated knowledge to complete and arrive at the true ocean of magic.

He himself possessed the knowledge reserves and casting ability of the Number One Under the Ten Saints. He was merely limited by the state of his soul, which imposed an upper limit on what he could exert.

Working for others was impossible.

As the price of concealing his identity, this Navy Ensign had rank but no real position, no avenue for advancement, and even his range of movement was fixed.

So leaving was inevitable.

The doctor's words had merely reminded him to accelerate his preparations.

"A pirate?"

"I thought the biggest difficulty at the start would be this severed arm. I never expected identity to be the most troublesome thing."

Lowett lowered his gaze and laughed at himself.

"Fine, then!"

Once Necromancy was exposed, he only had two choices anyway...

"For now, I can only use spells with Half-Star Mana without burden. My mental capacity has barely reached the threshold of an Elementary Mage... So I can't force my way through. I need to borrow the situation and wait for an opportunity."

As he controlled the puppets to slaughter one another like clumsy bears to confirm their combat standards, Lowett closed his eyes and pondered.

"Twenty-seven undead working with spells means few people in East Blue can threaten me. But the battlefield is an unfamiliar ocean, and without mobility, I can only take hits passively... What should I do?"

Have the undead build a ship deep in the forest?

How stupid would that be!

"As expected, I still have to rely on Branch 153's warship."

"Let me see..."

As he spoke, Ron separated the undead that were fighting enthusiastically, held his breath, and drew his thoughts back into his Soul Sea.

"Soul Sea" was merely a term. Through magical means, mages transformed their consciousness worlds into illusory spaces that could be explored.

It was not a sea that contained souls, nor did it even count as something that truly existed.

Different Spell Schools had different names for the Soul Sea. After all, the sectarian prejudices between mage schools... heh heh!

Rumble!

When the world before him brightened once more, Lowett had arrived in a vast universe.

Fragments of broken "mirrors" drifted everywhere in the pitch-black world. Amid apocalyptic lightning, they reflected Lowett's pale face.

Those were Lowett's original souls...

In the spacetime storm, his soul had been torn into thousands of pieces, awaiting dissolution.

Fortunately, his compatibility with this body was extremely high. Before his main consciousness dispersed, he had been dragged out.

As for piecing all these soul fragments back together... honestly, Lowett had never encountered such a situation and did not know how much he could recover.

At the center of this dreamlike world, which had no up or down, left or right, time or space, floated a bright sphere of light. That was the quantified display of Lowett's Mental Power.

The same principle as a car's fuel gauge.

At his peak, this sphere of light had once been as large as the entire world, illuminating it brilliantly and boundlessly!

Now, only this head-sized scrap remained, dim and dull.

"Begin simulation. Calculate every usable Half-Star and One-Star spell!"

Lowett skillfully placed his hand on the sphere of light and emptied his mind.

Why were mages called monsters whose minds transcended their bodies?

The mind in question was not "Mental Power," but their "self-perception."

To mages, as long as there was a need, not only their bodies but even their souls were tools that could be used!

Just like how Lowett was using his magical knowledge to conduct simulated calculations in the Soul Sea.

Mages were rigorous and calm. In pursuit of the far shore of truth, they would stop at nothing, reaching a degree of cruelty, coldness, and inhumanity.

In truth, mages had long ceased considering themselves human.

In theory, once a soul evolved to the level of an Official Mage, it truly had nothing to do with "humans."

This was an evolution of life form!

"Mage" was the name of a separate race.

That was why Necromancy appeared dark and evil to ordinary people, but among mages, Necromancers were no different from cooks or butchers...

Well, of course, that was not exactly a flattering comparison.

Several thousand-year wars had dragged countless people into the mess. The reason Necromancers had not become universally reviled was still because... they were good at fighting.

We researchers are the best fighters!

Righteously indignant.jpg

In short, mages were a group of people detached from ordinary folk, each with their own systems, happily isolating themselves within their own circles.

Back to the point. The enhancement of powerful Mental Power gave mages' minds computational limits far beyond human imagination. The human brain was comparable to a computer, but that kind of speed was often more than the brains of mages, who neglected physical training, could bear.

Furthermore, calculating certain high-mana spells required finding the sole viable solution among hundreds of millions, or even hundreds of millions of millions of possibilities. A few brains would not be enough.

Thus, liches who abandoned their flesh and thought with their souls emerged.

Freed from the limitations of the flesh, the stronger their Mental Power, the faster their calculations. In theory, there was no upper limit!

However, the disadvantages of becoming a lich were far too obvious, and the Mage World was not peaceful.

So some began trying to use their own souls as calculation tools. From then on, the Soul Sea changed from something used purely to inspect one's soul state into mages' favorite private research room.

In this state, free from the shackles of the flesh, mages could achieve calculation speeds comparable to liches. After leaving the state, they could continue enjoying the security brought by a physical body. It was practically perfect.

Limited by the state of his soul, Lowett naturally could not achieve his former level. But Half-Star and One-Star spells posed no difficulty to him, and his calculations were extremely fast.

In a simulated state that placed no burden on his brain whatsoever, one spell after another was swiftly listed by Lowett as he murmured them one by one.

"Reanimation Summon: Bone March, Necro-realm Summon: Bone Armor... Bone Evolution: Bone Fang Sword, Bone Magic: Bone Dissolution... Soul Magic: Vengeful Spirit Creation... Curse Magic: Pain Amplification, Acid Rain Prefix: Acidic Liquid Spell, Curse Plague Series: Carrion Black Crow... Mm, there are unexpectedly many gains!"

Lowett chuckled.

After becoming the "Black Count," he had rarely used these low-level spells meant for apprentices to practice with. Opponents worthy of making him act did not need them at all.

With every gesture, he cast high-mana spells that ordinary people would consider miracles.

Now, forced by the state of his soul to review this preschool-level knowledge again, he found it strangely... amusing and absurd.

I actually used to think these spells were so difficult that I nearly broke my head over them, even cheating off notes?

Ah, how embarrassing!

But low mana did not mean those spells were useless. Take the Half-Star spell "Bone Dissolution," for example. Its casting range began at ten meters, and it could make the target's bones brittle through the protection of flesh, even dissolving them on the spot.

When dealing with experimental materials stubbornly resisting without wanting to take their lives, it was far more convenient than Soul Magic.

Suddenly, Lowett opened his eyes.

"I nearly forgot about this!"

Unlike Zombie Puppets, which could be stitched together at will, creating an arm for himself with high Soul Compatibility required the three-star Flesh Magic: Flesh Growth. Therefore, Lowett had not planned to review low-level Flesh Magic anytime soon.

If not for today's calculations, he would have nearly forgotten the spell that had allowed him to stand out from a group of Mage Apprentices and become a disciple of a descendant of the Musk Family.

"One-Star Flesh Magic: Scarlet Fury!"

As he softly spoke its name, a trace of nostalgia flashed through Lowett's eyes.

"This was the first magic I created..."

With that, he exited the Soul Sea and began chanting the incantation.

Hiss... hiss...

Eerie gusts of wind rose. His heart thudded violently, beating over two hundred times per minute, and Lowett's face instantly flushed an unnatural red.

But upon closer inspection, one would discover that the scarlet color did not come from accelerated blood flow. Instead, countless tiny droplets of blood seeped from his skin, refracting the light and dyeing it red.

The Zombie Puppets did not know what had happened. They only sensed the dangerous aura around their master abruptly surge, and immediately roared uneasily as they shuffled their feet.

They wanted to flee, but did not dare.

Take back what I said yesterday. The delivery only came out of CD today [manually coughing blood]!

I finally timed things right and released the book on Monday. I thought I could sign the contract, change its status, and get recommended smoothly on Friday. But first, the release time was wrong, so I had to wait until the next day for review. Then I didn't notify the editor in advance, so the contract was delayed another two days. Now the delivery is so slow too, this...

But speaking of which, Big Tree has been writing for two years and seems never to have succeeded even once, emmmm... Anyway, I've seen through the mortal world.

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