Wizard's Will

Three days later.

Yes, three days had passed.

Anton sat on his Flying Broomstick, staring blankly at the sea.

The Old Wizard floated beside him, utterly helpless. "Three days of high-speed flying. If I were the one riding the broomstick, forget an island—I'd have made several round trips to France by now."

Anton silently watched the tides relentlessly crash against the beach, his face filled with worry.

"You're directionally challenged." The more the Old Wizard spoke, the angrier he became. "Do you know how hard it is for a ghost to keep up with your Flying Broomstick? Is this how you treat your Teacher?"

"Heh."

Anton sneered. "As if you aren't just as bad with directions. If you knew the way, you would have told me long ago!"

Silence. Wordless silence.

One old and one young, they sat dumbly listening to the waves in silence.

"Aren't you proud of all your life experience? Think of something. What are we supposed to do?"

The head in the Old Wizard's hand showed a trace of bitterness. "I seem to be gradually adapting to being a ghost. The extra benefits brought by the Rune Charm I researched before are gradually being erased."

Anton turned to him in astonishment. "What do you mean?"

"I'm becoming incapable of thinking, with only the instinct of memory left. In other words, if you showed me Potions knowledge I'd never seen before, I wouldn't be able to understand it, no matter how simple it was." The Old Wizard sighed.

"Memory is like an endless list. If I want to recall something, I have to search through that list bit by bit."

"My Apprentice, I can feel my will slowly fading away. In the end, all that will remain is a mass of memories."

Anton looked at him with a complicated expression.

Just imagining that feeling was despairing.

"The first lesson your Teacher gives you: don't try to be clever." The Old Wizard looked at Anton, his eyes filled with far too many emotions.

"I created the Eye of the Wizard potion, and through it, I saw another side of magic that no wizard in the world had ever seen."

"Based on that, I created the Rune Charm. It leaves a mark on the soul. Do you remember the magical mark that used to be on your wrist? The runes on it meant 'joy,' 'anger,' and 'sorrow.' Emotions and will are manifestations of the soul; they are the foundation of casting spells."

The Old Wizard supported his head with one hand and extended the other before him. His translucent fingers gently brushed at the sun in his field of vision.

"I touched upon the truth of magic."

"So, I prepared early for death. I made myself a shell to serve as a dwelling for my soul."

"What a pity..."

"Even if you hadn't destroyed it back then, my will would still have gradually been erased."

"So this is what a ghost is. Hahaha, so this is what a ghost is."

The Old Wizard turned to Anton. "A ghost is the trace life leaves upon this world, while my will is merely dust clinging to that trace. But the wind here is far, far too strong."

"If, when I died, I had been able to move forward and enter the world of the dead..."

He chuckled. "If I hadn't tried to be clever, perhaps I really would have entered a new life."

Anton descended from his Flying Broomstick and stood on the beach.

The subject was too heavy. It was as if he were watching a frail old man at the end of his life, utterly unable to do anything as he slowly, step by step, walked toward death.

It had nothing to do with his hatred for the Old Wizard or the inexplicably complicated feelings mixed within it. It was simply about death.

His heart felt awful.

"If one day my will completely dissipates, then I'll be a true ghost. And that ghost will no longer be me." The Old Wizard continued chattering beside him. "Before I completely fade away, I'll leave you and everyone I know behind, far away."

"I've always cared deeply about saving face. I don't want the people who know me to look at me then and think, 'He was a coward who didn't dare face death bravely, so he ended up like this.' I..."

"Enough!" Anton roared.

He stared coldly at the Old Wizard. "You really are a coward. I've seen fate, I've seen death, but I dare to fight against them. You, on the other hand, are merely waiting passively for death!"

"Do you know what I would do if I were you?" Anton's eyes blazed with fire. "I would do everything possible to survive. If the world wants to erase my will, then I'll find a way to fight it."

The Old Wizard merely sighed. "It's useless."

"Is it really useless?" Anton's gaze burned fiercely. "You used that Rune Charm of yours to create a shell for a ghost, something unprecedented. Because of it, you can still preserve your will now, can't you?"

The Old Wizard stared blankly at him. "So what?"

"Teach me. Teach me everything, without holding anything back. I'll study it. I'll use the Rune Charm to find a way to preserve your will, maybe even make you a new body." Anton looked at him earnestly.

The Old Wizard fell silent. He smiled bitterly. "You little bastard, as if I don't know you. You're the best liar around. You just want to learn my spells."

Anton sneered. "Do I need to? Once you completely become a real ghost, won't you be much easier to fool? As long as your memories remain, wouldn't it be even easier for me to learn?"

Only then did the Old Wizard's expression turn serious. Looking at the boy bathed in hazy white sunlight, he said with feeling, "You are a charismatic person."

"I wasn't before." Anton gazed toward the horizon. "Before, I was just such an ordinary corporate drone."

At last, the Old Wizard found the answer on that long list of memories.

"Owls. These magical creatures possess unique magic. You only need to give one an address, and it can fly there. Then you just ride your Flying Broomstick behind it."

Anton shook his head. "No. We can't even find a place to buy an Owl right now."

"The Knight Bus. Raise your wand when you run into trouble, and it'll appear before you with a bang."

Anton still shook his head. "Do you think I hadn't considered that? But we've already been flying for three days. Every day we fly adds another day of sunk cost. Asking me to find the Knight Bus now? I'm not willing to give up!"

"I've got it!"

The Old Wizard snapped his fingers, though no sound came out.

"A Self-Created Spell."

"???" Anton stared at the Old Wizard in shock. "That's way too absurd. Maybe I should just call the Knight Bus."

"No, no, no. This is a very interesting experiment. I've done it before."

"First, you need a Revealing Charm." The Old Wizard slowly corrected Anton's casting movements and pronunciation.

This spell was extremely simple. In less than a minute, Anton had cast it, without even needing any emotions or thoughts.

It was simply using a wand to draw a glowing arrow in the air.

"And then?"

"Dismiss it, then cast another one. This time, think of that address in your heart, then command this arrow to tell you which way to go."

Anton's mouth twitched. "Command the damn arrow to move on its own? I might as well command it to turn into Galleons."

"Why not?"

"???"

"Why can't you command it to turn into Galleons?"

"Heh, did becoming a ghost mess up your brain? Do you think you're a god?"

The Old Wizard's eyes were filled with wisdom. "Remember this: casting magic requires emotion, but that is only the surface. At its root, what it requires is a wizard's will."

"I dare say that even exceptionally skilled wizards might not be able to say such a thing."

"Remember this: Wizard is God."

"As a god, command your magic, command this world. Tell it, tell everything, to obey your orders and follow your demands."

Anton gave him a thumbs-up. "Now that's badass!"

The Old Wizard smiled. "Want to try?"

"I'll try it. What's there to be afraid of?"

And so, they remained on that beach for another three days. By the second-to-last day, Anton had finished all the food he carried with him.

Yet he still did not feel hungry. He simply kept waving his wand.

Until, at a certain moment, the glowing arrow in midair spun wildly once before stopping in the direction of eleven o'clock.

"Wahahahaha, I did it!" Anton jumped up and down in excitement.

"See? See?" The Old Wizard cackled beside him. Clearly sensing the process of life fading away, he watched someone carry on his research and suddenly felt that even after his death, he would not completely disappear from this world.

Even if that person was the little bastard who had killed him.

"You're practically a treasure trove!" Anton's astonished praise made him feel even more pleased with himself.

"Of course." The Old Wizard proudly puffed out his chest, despite having no head. "Little bastard, this lesson alone earns you the right to call me Teacher."

"You must remember this principle: Wizard is God. It is the foundation of all my research."

Anton could not have agreed more. It seemed like nothing more than casting a spell to make a glowing marker point on its own, but only after doing it could one feel that marvelous sense of control.

From the Harry Potter fanfiction novels he had read, most wizards in this world were still stuck at merely casting spells. Those capable of conducting research and developing their own theories were few and far between.

"If you weren't a Dark Wizard, your reputation definitely wouldn't be any lower than Snape's."

"Is that so?" the Old Wizard murmured. In the end, he snorted. "Though I despise that cold-blooded Teacher of mine, without him leading me onto the path of a Dark Wizard, I could never have achieved so much in Potions and spells."

"Little bastard, I know what you think of me. Cackle, cackle, cackle. That's because I had a bastard of a Teacher just like you."

Anton shrugged. "Right. If you were still alive, I'd still find a way to kill you."

"Cackle, cackle, cackle." The Old Wizard laughed so hard that the head in his hand shook. "How interesting."

"Then you'll be seeing my Teacher very soon."

"???" Anton stared at him in astonishment. "Wasn't your Teacher dead?"

The Old Wizard did not answer. He merely wore a mysterious smile. "Using the Fiendfyre Liquid I researched to kill me... Teacher is still as detestable as ever."