To My Disciple, Angel

As time passed, Angel's daily life remained unchanged, but compared to the dejection of a few days ago, his spirits had recovered considerably.

During his days of solving problems, Angel discovered something very strange—

The Bauhinia seemed to be circling within a small area.

Not long ago, Angel spotted the red reef he had first seen half a month earlier. Today, he saw it again. This was already the fourth time in nearly half a month that he had seen this uniquely shaped reef.

For that very reason, Angel concluded that the Bauhinia did not seem to intend to leave the Devil Sea, but was merely circling nearby.

Angel had once tried to speak with the ship's navigator, but the man hemmed and hawed, unwilling to give any response.

Clearly, the navigator knew that the Bauhinia was circling in place. Yet since he was unwilling to say more, one could infer that some great figure might be directing this strange behavior from behind the scenes. He could not say—or rather, he did not dare say.

Who could command the Bauhinia's helm? Without question, only a transcendent—Lord Wizard.

After guessing this, Angel did not press the matter further. No matter what Lord Wizard intended to do, how could a mere mortal like him stop it? Besides, in the vast, boundless Devil Sea, he could only rely on the Bauhinia to survive. Whatever decision Lord Wizard made, he could only obey.

He did not like this feeling of helplessness, yet he had no choice but to submit to it. He only hoped that one day, he would possess the strength to protect himself and no longer place the weight of his life in another's hands.

Today was the 167th day since Angel had left Gelu Town, and also the final day of his problem-solving.

Angel solemnly opened the red-lacquered wooden box in his luggage. Inside lay a square crystal tablet no larger than a matchbox, thin as a cicada's wing

.

This crystal tablet did not originate from this world, but had been brought from Earth by Jon.

On Earth, this crystal tablet had merely been the carrier for a holographic communication device, manufactured in the form of a wristwatch and distributed around the world. The smart watch's strap had long since been damaged over the years, so Jon had simply torn it off and thrown it away, leaving only this intact core tablet.

Angel closed his room door and skillfully pressed the slight protrusion in the tablet's lower-right corner—the power button.

A rudimentary holographic screen projection, along with a row of holographic keys, appeared out of thin air before him.

A line of Chinese characters was currently displayed on the screen:

[Screen locked. You must answer the question set by the administrator to unlock it.]

[Question 100: Recalibrate the holographic spectrum below using Seidel's Five Aberrations, then use the Vigenère Square to decipher the final password according to the arrangement of the spectrum:]

Question 100—this was the final question Jon had assigned to Angel.

Before boarding the ship, whenever he used the tablet, he had done so furtively, memorizing the questions before shutting it off. Only after boarding, when he had a private space of his own, did he become bolder.

Each time he solved a problem, the next question automatically appeared. Angel had worked through the questions Jon left behind across various disciplines: chemistry, physics, medicine, mathematics, and even philosophy. Although this world's physical constants differed slightly from Earth's, the questions Jon had left were all basic applications, so Angel had been able to handle them.

Today, he would solve the final riddle—

After spending an entire afternoon, Angel suddenly froze when he arranged the answer to the final question.

"."

This was a string of numbers that outsiders would never understand, but Angel did.

The Golden Sparrow Empire's calendar: Golden Sparrow Calendar Year 937, the first day of the Month of Frozen Soil—December 1.

This day was Angel's birthday.

"Is this the final answer?" With doubt in his heart, Angel entered the number into the answer field on the screen.

Once the number had been entered, light and shadows shifted, followed by a line of system text.

[Answer entered correctly. Screen unlocked. The administrator may reset the login password in the system.]

As the words vanished, a clean desktop image of grasslands appeared before Angel. In the upper-right corner of the desktop were two icons: one folder, and one text document titled "To Angel."

Although Angel had heard Jon explain how to operate this kind of smart watch, this was still the first time he had operated one himself. With a little curiosity and a little anticipation, Angel reached out and gently touched the document icon.

The next second, an electronic letter lay quietly before Angel.

"To my disciple, Angel:

"I wonder how long these hundred questions held you up? I also wonder where you are now, so far away?

"Many times, I felt that you made things too difficult for yourself. There was no need to fight so hard for an old bag of bones like me

.

"I once said that my homeland was an ancient civilization with five thousand years of history. Of course, compared with this world's history, it cannot be called 'ancient.' In a country neighboring my homeland, there was another nation with a long history. A poet from that country, a man who turned life itself into philosophy, once said: 'The sky bears no trace of wings, yet I have flown through it.'

"My whole life—I was born on Earth and died on an alien planet. It was quite a splendid life. I saw two skies, though in different times and spaces, both equally blue. It is only a pity for my ill-fated wife and child. What they thought would merely be a scientific expedition separated by a few days... sigh... who could have imagined that once I left, we would never meet again.

"Still, looking at it another way, my wife and my daughter are also traces that I once existed beneath Earth's sky.

"And you, my disciple Angel, are the trace I left beneath the sky of this other world. For you have not only inherited Huaxia's culture, but will also ignite the flame of Earth's civilization in this world.

"Come to think of it, the traces left by this 'bird' of mine are truly extraordinary. They have crossed not only time and space, but even the quadrants of the universe. Other people transmigrate and rise against all odds, slapping faces left and right; my transmigration, however, is for spreading the gospel of civilization. Hahaha, though I may die a little earlier than those novel protagonists, haven't I lived on a higher plane than all of you?

"Speaking of the world of wizards, I am truly fascinated by it. I thought this world was as dull as Earth, but who would have thought it concealed such a mysterious corner? Still, I probably do not have the fortune to glimpse this transcendent fragment, do I?

"What a pity.

"Yet although I cannot glimpse it, you can. So I hope that you—my disciple Angel—can walk the wizarding world to its very limits. Like every scholar devoted to their discipline, make concepts your singularity and use knowledge to ignite a new universe.

"The previous hundred questions have ended, so here is the new question I give you: complete a thesis that fully embodies the true essence of the wizarding world. Are you willing?

"The reason I wrote you this letter is not only for what I said just now. More than that, I want to tell you to make good use of the knowledge I taught you. Though some physical constants in this world are incorrect, for a scholar, results are certainly important, but the thought process used to calculate them is equally important. I have already taught you the method of thought; I hope you can find a path that suits you.

"Oh, and if I have not guessed wrong, you should be at sea now.

"There is little entertainment at sea. I stored some things in this smart chip, which count as my final gift to you. I hope you will like them.

"Jon."

After reading this electronic letter, Angel remained silent for a long time.

He closed his eyes and clenched his fists, an inexplicable ache rising within him. He did not know what feelings Jon had carried when he left this letter behind, but he could sense the tender, lingering love behind every word.

As Angel recalled the years he had spent with his mentor, he could not help falling into a daze.

Only when night had reached its deepest hour did he come back to himself.

He sighed. He did not know whom he mourned in his heart, nor what he was sighing for.

Recalling the operating methods his mentor had once explained, Angel carefully saved the electronic letter. To be safe, he even created a new document and copied it over once.

Only then did he close the electronic letter.

With a trace of melancholy and an inexplicable sense of anticipation, he opened the only folder on the desktop.