Endless Studies, Endless Chores

If a composite rune were merely the overlapping projections of two different runes, there would be countless ways to solve it. Fortunately, Thor re-read Introduction to Rune Construction and discovered basic conditional constraints he had previously overlooked.

With these constraints in place, Thor finally determined the three-dimensional structural diagram of the composite rune.

The planes where the two runes resided overlapped in three-dimensional space, and since they were equal in size, the mana allocated to them should, in fact, be equal as well.

If he were to allocate mana based on the proportions visible to the naked eye, failure would be inevitable.

Thor held up the three-dimensional diagram he had just drawn with both hands, closed his eyes, and began to trace it within his mental space.

About an hour later, he snapped his eyes open, his face full of excitement.

"Yes! I did it!"

A wave of exhaustion followed, nearly causing Thor to collapse to the floor.

Had the construction of a single composite rune really consumed all of his mana?

Then how was he supposed to cast a 0-rank spell?

Panic welled up inside Thor; could it be that his mana talent wasn't even enough to support the simplest of spells?

"Calm down, calm down. It's my first time constructing a composite rune; I probably didn't use the mana efficiently, and a lot of it was wasted."

Unfortunately, with his mana depleted, he couldn't attempt a second construction immediately and had to take out his crystal ball to begin meditation.

"Sss!"

The bright candlelight roused Thor from his meditation.

He turned his head to look. "Work's here."

Having one's studies interrupted was a painful thing, but who else but this job was the cornerstone for changing his own destiny?

The conveyor belt hummed, and a new Corpse appeared before Thor's eyes, passing through the tassels.

To alleviate his fear and stress, Thor chose to refer to these corpses as guests, much like someone humming a tune while walking home alone late at night.

"Hmm, this guest died quite miserably."

It was less of a corpse and more of a pile of minced meat, so shattered that bone fragments were mixed in with the bits of flesh and viscera.

It was held in a large piece of leather with upturned edges; otherwise, it would have spilled everywhere.

Thor selected a pair of tongs from the array of tools behind him.

He looked closely and saw that the minced meat was densely covered in tiny sparkles. They were very faint, and one could tell at a glance that they weren't of much value; it wouldn't matter even if they were thrown away.

Enduring his discomfort, Thor leaned over and carefully sifted through them.

However, to his surprise, those sparkling fragments weren't debris from the corpse, but rather some fine, tiny powders.

Thor switched to a smaller pair of tweezers and picked out a few larger pieces of the white powder.

Amidst the flesh and blood, they had managed to retain their original color without being stained red.

He spent time collecting a small handful, his lower back aching by the time he finished.

Thor kept a little bit for himself, wrapped the rest in kraft paper, and placed it into a small box on the long table behind him.

As for the remains of the corpse, Thor gathered the leather underneath with his hands, dumped everything into the large bin at the bottom, and closed the lid.

The bin seemed to have the effect of isolating odors, and the smell of blood in the room immediately dropped by several degrees.

The candle on the delivery port remained bright.

There was still work to do.

Thor pulled the lever and watched as the conveyor belt delivered the next guest to him.

This guest was a little girl, who looked to be no more than five or six years old.

Thor turned his head away, unable to bear it.

How could there be such a young girl in the Wizard Tower?

He had never heard of any wizard getting married and having children here.

Unfortunately, death was always impartial; it would not spare anyone just because people felt pity in their hearts.

Thor let out a long breath, straightened his head and his attitude, and used semi-immersive meditation to continue observing the corpse.

"No, she isn't a little girl."

Upon closer observation, Thor made another discovery.

"The teeth and the skeleton don't look like those of a child."

Thanks to the knowledge from the book Corpse, Thor had developed some ability to distinguish such things.

"It should be some apprentice who, due to the influence of some spell, had their appearance turned into that of a child, but their internal organs and skeleton are still those of an adult."

Although he knew it was unfair to the woman before him, Thor's constricted heart felt a slight sense of relief.

He quickly finished processing the body and sent the remains into the large bin below.

The light on the delivery port remained bright.

"Sigh, still more work..."

The third guest must have gone through a battle, as their body bore many marks from blades and axes, and their skull had been pierced through, revealing the black conveyor belt beneath.

After finishing his work, Thor looked up.

The lights were still on.

Why were there still more?

He suddenly looked up at the time and realized it was already 6:30.

Half an hour was nowhere near enough for him to carefully examine an entire corpse.

However, he had already submitted enough materials for the day, so he could just deal with this last guest perfunctorily.

The final guest appeared along with the rumbling sound of the conveyor belt.

It was a plump woman.

She had likely died from some kind of curse, as her body was covered in dense, gaping fissures.

Not a single drop of blood flowed from these fissures.

Thor used his meditation technique to observe them and was shocked to see countless translucent tongues protruding from the openings.

These tongues, like baby birds waiting for their mother to feed them, all turned in unison, swaying their soft bodies toward Thor.

Thor extended his tweezers, and the tongues turned to follow them, seemingly waiting to be fed.

Thor felt goosebumps break out all over his body.

Regardless of what those tongues were, he did not want to touch them with his hands.

Moreover, the corpse before him was quite intact; it seemed the apprentices responsible for the first two stages of the process hadn't touched her much either.

Thor turned around, intending to grab a longer pair of tongs, but his eyes landed on the bit of white crystal he had pocketed earlier.

He picked one up with his tweezers and moved it back over the fissures of the female corpse.

This time, the small, transparent tongues near the tweezers actually retracted into the fissures, as if they feared the crystals.

Furthermore, after the translucent tongues retreated, sparkling points appeared within the fissures.

"This crystal... could it have the power to repel the uncanny?"

Thor pulled back the tweezers, and the tongues immediately popped back out.

Thor simply dropped the tiny crystal, which was smaller than a grain of rice, into the fissure.

"Sss!"

Accompanied by a faint sizzling sound, a puff of green smoke rose from the fissure.

Thor quickly stepped back two paces, holding his breath.

Fortunately, the smoke dissipated quickly, and the Hardcover Book showed no reaction.

He waited for a moment, returned to the corpse, cut open the fissure that no longer had a tongue, and rummaged through it.

The original small crystal had completely turned to powder; it seemed it was useless now.

Thor, however, extracted a small tumor from where the sparkle had been.

"If I can get a tumor by destroying one tongue with a crystal, then of course I choose... the crystals!"

Thor turned back and opened the box where he had just stored the crystals. By the time he closed the lid again, the small pouch of crystals in the box had been replaced by a solitary little tumor.

The candlelight on the conveyor platform finally dimmed.

Thor tidied up his things and looked up to find it was already 7:30.

Do not linger in the East Tower after eight o'clock.

He hurriedly grabbed the book and papers from the table and rushed out of the Corpse Room with his head down.

"Hm?"

A figure blocked Thor's path, and the two nearly collided.

However, the person in front stepped back early, causing Thor to stumble into empty air.

"Sorry!" Thor apologized and immediately wanted to leave, but after taking two steps, he stopped and turned back.

"Are you the senior apprentice in charge of the first Corpse Room?"

The person Thor had almost bumped into had come from deep within the corridor.

His hair was graying, though his skin was surprisingly free of wrinkles.

His eyelids were drooping, giving him a half-asleep, half-awake appearance.

"Mm." The other party seemed to have a good temper, or perhaps just no desire to interact with others; he let out a low hum and started to walk past Thor.

"Hm?"

The listless level-two apprentice, as he passed Thor, caught a glimpse of the diagram in Thor's hand.

"Hm..."

He extended his index finger, pointing at Thor's right hand.

Thor looked down and saw what he was clutching in his palm—the 3D Coordinate Composite Rune Diagram.