It had been a full month since they started school.
The new apprentices had gone a whole month without seeing sunlight from the outside world. Even Duke, the darkest-skinned of them all, was starting to turn deathly pale.
And Thor was even worse.
He spent his days studying and working with corpses. His face had turned as pale as a dead man's, and he had dark circles under his eyes.
He could pass for a ghost in the middle of the night without even putting on makeup.
He had skipped public lessons for three days in a row.
If they allowed people to sleep in the Corpse Room at night, he would have curled up in there and never come out.
But today, his research had ground to a halt, so he came out to look for some inspiration.
Green's Cognition of Wizard Body Modification recorded four or five approaches to body modification, but offered no specifics about what materials to use or how to carry out the process.
That was only to be expected. Knowledge like that couldn't be casually shared with others.
It was either someone's trump card or the legacy of some faction.
The book also said that even with a mature Wizard Body Modification approach, the risk of death was high.
And if he wanted to devise an entirely new method, he wouldn't see a glimmer of hope without claiming hundreds or thousands of lives.
The few Level 2 Apprentices Thor knew had certainly undergone Wizard Body Modification, but the one he was on the "best" terms with was Senior Mark.
When Thor arrived at the Laboratory, Senior Mark was inside, along with Angela. Duke was nowhere to be seen.
Angela saw Thor and gave him an awkward, tight-lipped smile.
Thor nodded in reply. To his surprise, Angela seemed startled. Her hands shook, and she nearly dropped the book she was holding.
They were barely on nodding terms, so Thor walked over to Senior Mark at the back of the Laboratory.
The latter seemed to be conducting an experiment—or perhaps cooking something. He casually tossed things into a crucible and stirred them with a wooden spatula.
Thor watched from three meters away for a while and could only marvel that, as someone who specialized in the Dark Attribute, Mark's ingredients all looked so sinister.
After adding the last clump of something that looked like hair or seaweed, Mark covered the crucible with a transparent glass lid and turned down the flame beneath it.
He glanced over and greeted Thor with a smile. "It's been a few days. You've made quite a bit of progress."
"Senior Mark." Thor stepped closer. "I have a few questions I'd like to ask you."
"Oh?" Mark casually pulled off his gloves and tossed them into the trash can by his feet. "Do you have a Magic Crystal?"
"Yes."
"What about?"
"Wizard Body..." Thor said only two words before stopping.
Mark paused. Then he looked over at Angela and said, "Angela, you can head back for today."
Angela didn't say a word. She grabbed her book and hurried out, closing the Laboratory door firmly behind her.
"You're really planning to undergo Wizard Body Modification? That's usually a field for Level 2 Apprentices."
"I went for an assessment. My Magic Power is only at 4 right now. If I don't undergo Wizard Body Modification, Mentor Kazi won't pass me at the assessment three months from now."
After a month of meditation, Thor's Magic Power had increased by only one joule. At that rate, it would take another six months to reach ten joules.
But he had only two months left.
"Hmm..." Mark rested his chin on his hand. "Since the mentor already assigned you work in the Corpse Room, he probably won't be so strict anymore."
"But the mentor never said he'd change the assessment requirements." Thor didn't want to gamble.
The Hardcover Book might warn him of impending death, but it usually only showed up to make its presence known when a life-or-death crisis was right in front of him.
If he ended up in a dead end where every choice led to death, the Hardcover Book would be no help, even if it appeared.
Just like the night Thor had nearly died in the Laboratory.
If Big Pink hadn't shown up, Thor would have had no way to escape death.
The process had been horrific, but it had taught Thor one thing.
Even in a desperate situation, there was still a chance of survival. That meant his own efforts mattered a great deal.
If Thor hadn't kept trying to save himself then, Big Pink might never have passed by in time.
"There are other ways to raise your Magic Power to ten joules."
"But, Senior..." Thor spread his hands. "I don't have that much money or enough credits. Most importantly, I don't have the time."
Mark rubbed his chin. "Looks like you've made up your mind. In that case..."
He held out a hand to Thor. "Two credits. No Magic Crystals."
The three credits he'd just gotten...
Thor let out a breath. "Deal. Should we go to the Registration Office first?"
Mark pulled his hand back. "If it were someone else, definitely. But since it's you, I can let you owe me for half an hour."
Half an hour?
So he was trading twenty days of hard labor for half an hour of knowledge.
Mark sat down. "I remember you once copied a book about Wizard Body Modification, so you should already have some understanding of it. What ideas do you have for modifying your own body?"
"The cheapest effective materials I have access to are corpse materials. So my plan is to extract the parts of those materials that can effectively improve my elemental perception and Magic Power."
Mark chuckled. "No wonder you're looking more and more like a dead man."
Then his tone grew more serious. He straightened up and said, "The fact that you were chosen to work in the Corpse Room means you're sensitive to Spirit Bodies. If you use corpse materials to modify yourself, do you know what might happen?"
Thor's eyes widened.
"You'll be much more likely to run into the paranormal, and those ghosts and monsters will be more than happy to come looking for you."
So he'd just be more likely to see ghosts?
"Are there many ghosts and monsters in the Wizard Tower?"
"Scared? Ha ha..." Seeing Thor hesitate, Mark laughed as he answered. "Not many, and most of them are restricted in some way. The ghosts and monsters in the Wizard Tower were mostly created by Wizards and high-ranking Wizard Apprentices using certain forms of Witchcraft. Even so, you could easily get tangled up in all sorts of trouble. Most ghosts are lonely. They desperately seek out ordinary people who can see and hear them, but aren't dangerous."
"I understand. As long as I get stronger, I'll be able to fight the ghosts and monsters." Thor raised his fist, the Bone Hand standing out starkly.
Mark wasn't impressed by the boy's small display of courage. He gave Thor one last warning.
"Always remain in awe, Thor. Fear comes from the unknown, and terror is born from the unknown. Only the unknown is endless."
After warning him, Mark didn't try to dissuade Thor any further. Instead, he began explaining which parts of corpse materials were suitable for Wizard Body Modification.
Since he couldn't tell Thor about existing Wizard Body Modification methods—Mark didn't know any others, and Thor couldn't afford them—he focused on warning him about things to watch out for. For example, which types of materials couldn't be used together without causing trouble, and which reactions during an experiment might signal a life-threatening danger.
Finally, Mark recommended two primary materials: skin and bones.
They were large and relatively easy to inscribe with Runes, which would help Thor control them and make them safer, too.
Thor was better off avoiding materials like brains and eyes. Without the strength of a Level 3 Apprentice, it was generally difficult to adapt to them.
"Take me, for example..." Mark raised his right hand. A slit opened in his palm, and a bright red tongue, over a meter long, emerged and stretched toward Thor's face, as if it wanted to lick him.
"I spent a fortune exchanging for a Wizard Body Modification formula with a high success rate from the Tower, then adapted it to my own constitution. And by then, I was already a Level 2 Apprentice."
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