Let Me Show You What Real Witchcraft Is

Sid slowly loosened his grip on Brown's fist. He didn't answer the question, but instead asked, "Do you still remember why I had you kill Thor?"

Brown felt as if his entire body were burning; the excitement left him no room to think clearly.

"Because that brat Thor offended you."

"Then why didn't I just kill him myself?"

This time, Brown hesitated. "Because servants are the property of the Tower Master?"

"Is that all you can think of? You useless thing."

Sid barked an angry rebuke and turned to leave.

Brown knew the opportunity was fleeting, so he hurriedly blurted out the wild thoughts he had been harboring.

"Because, because you cannot kill him with your own hands, my lord."

Sid finally stopped and turned around, wearing a look of satisfaction.

"You... guessed it?"

Brown felt as if his whole body were bubbling over.

He wondered, if he passed this test, would he become Lord Sid's exclusive servant?

And then, over time, perhaps he could embark on the path to becoming a wizard.

"I guessed a little, my lord."

"Tell me what you guessed. Let me see if you are worth continuing to use." Sid crossed his arms.

Brown broke into a delighted smile. "When I asked if you wanted me to drag Thor to the tenth floor so you could finish him off yourself, you whispered, 'If I could do it myself, would I need you?'"

"Hmm, anything else?"

"You told me that after Thor died, I should keep an eye out for a red Hardcover Book on him or in the places he frequented. If I saw it, I wasn't to let anyone touch it or discover it."

Brown swallowed hard. His mouth felt incredibly dry, and he desperately wanted a drink, but how could he spare the thought for water now?

"My lord, you wanted to kill Thor just to find that Hardcover Book, didn't you?"

Brown licked his lips. His mouth was too dry, and his tongue wasn't moist enough, causing his lips to sting with a fiery pain.

"...You are truly clever." Sid sighed, then asked in a gentle tone, "Do you want to witness the charm of wizardry?"

Brown answered with immediate fervor: "I do, my lord. I want to more than anything; I dream of it every night."

Sid's lips curled slightly upward.

"Then look down."

Brown hesitated and lowered his head, his pupils shrinking to pinpricks.

His body was smoking.

Flames licked out from several charred, hollow openings, lapping at his skin and his clothes.

Brown's brain went rigid; he couldn't comprehend what was happening.

He raised his head, wanting to beg Sid for help.

Instead, a fist made of white bone appeared before his eyes.

"Crack!"

Thor sent Brown's nasal bone into his occipital lobe with a single punch.

He straightened up, watching as tongues of fire surged out from Brown's throat.

Rank 0 Wizardry, Demoralizing Gaze.

Wizardry Tool, Phantom Sound Pupil.

Rank 0 Wizardry, Scorching Breath.

Thor panted. Good, he had drained his mana completely.

So much so that he had to rely on a physical attack at the end to silence Brown's wailing.

He shook his left hand, flicking off the flesh and blood clinging to the bone, and turned to look at his left shoulder.

"Hardcover Book? Diary? Will you detach once I die?"

The Hardcover Book ignored Thor, hovering quietly by his left shoulder as if watching a show.

Watching the flames gradually grow, Thor reached out and plucked the Little Fragrant Bead from the fire before the flames could lick Brown's fingertips.

"This thing must have been given to him by Sid; it didn't trigger a lethal reaction. However, it seems to be sealing an Organ-Devouring Beetle inside."

Thor sniffed the Little Fragrant Bead again.

"The outer layer is a type of wax; it smells like Corpse-Wrapping Wax."

Corpse-Wrapping Wax had a slight ability to suppress ghosts and monsters. But its effectiveness only lasted for about three months. Once the three-month shelf life expired, the Corpse-Wrapping Wax would melt on its own.

By then, the beetle inside would crawl out, burrow into the body of the nearest person, and devour their internal organs until it burst.

Thor flicked his index finger, letting the Little Fragrant Bead on its black string dance at his fingertip, before finally tossing it into the flames.

The tongue of flame melted the Little Fragrant Bead, reducing the beetle to ash before it could regain consciousness.

This was the first time Thor had killed someone, and to his regret, he felt no unease whatsoever.

Mournful Gaze and Phantom Sound Pupil did not possess the ability to pry into the thoughts of others.

However, judging by the fragmented words Brown had uttered while trapped in his fearful hallucination, this guy before him was, in all likelihood, not human.

The flames from Scorching Breath could not grow into a raging inferno; after burning for a short time, they extinguished on their own.

Thor looked down at the person who had once bullied him and pushed him toward death several times, now reduced to a lump of charred remains.

He stepped over the Corpse of Brown.

The morning sun could not penetrate the thick stone walls of the Wizard Tower.

Inside the tower, morning and dusk could only be distinguished by the brightness of the candlesticks.

The candle flames within the Gorsa Wizard Tower burned eternally, though it was unknown what their fuel was actually made of.

A group of people gathered on the ramp between the sixth and seventh floors of the West Tower, whispering and discussing the charred Corpse wedged in the middle of the path.

The steward arrived in a hurry with several servants.

While bowing and apologizing to the apprentice lords, he directed the male servants to clean it up immediately.

Sid was walking down the ramp, and seeing his path blocked again, he frowned in displeasure.

"Have none of you ever seen a dead person? Clear the way."

The level-two apprentice had lost his temper, and the level-one apprentices scattered like birds and beasts.

Sid walked past the male servants who were too terrified to move on the ground, ignored the bowing steward, and finally caught a glimpse of the Corpse on the floor out of the corner of his eye.

His footsteps faltered.

The Corpse was unrecognizable, but the scent on it was from the Corpse-Wrapping Wax he had made himself.

Was the dead man Brown?

Sid did not care that his former lackey had lost his life.

In any case, Brown would have either died from the oddities within the tower or eventually from the beetles devouring his body.

Sid continued downward nonchalantly, while someone slowly walked upward toward him.

Thor raised his head and flashed a smile at the approaching Sid.

"Good morning, senior."

Sid's footsteps came to a halt as he watched Thor turn at the sixth floor and enter the corridor.

He looked back at the charred Corpse, his eyelid twitching violently.

When he looked back again, the expression on Sid's face had turned terrifyingly gloomy.

He felt a sense of insolent provocation.

Did a rat from the trash heap dare to bare its teeth at him now?

There was just one thing Sid could not figure out.

Wasn't Thor a major in dark attribute elements? How could he use a fire attribute spell?

A few days later.

Thor sat at his self-made laboratory bench in the Corpse Room, organizing his recent study notes.

Wizard Body Modification was important, but the accumulation of basic knowledge could not be neglected either.

Thor had now mastered three 0-rank spells.

If others knew this, their jaws would likely drop to the floor.

Currently, only Keli had a vague understanding of Thor's learning progress—which was also the reason Keli was forced to have such heavy dark circles under her eyes.

But even Keli, a genius known to all outsiders, could currently only cast one 0-rank spell, Flash Spell, and it was the kind with no direct lethality.

This was mainly because Keli's mastery of complex runes was not as thorough as Thor's.

Now, Thor was about to begin learning his fourth 0-rank spell.

If it were any other apprentice, they generally would not attempt to learn so many spells.

The normal process was to first master one, then practice it for a long time to form muscle and conscious memory, before attempting the next spell.

This was because learning multiple spells simultaneously easily led to rune confusion.

Especially with complex runes; one careless mistake could lead to mixing up two runes that were extremely similar but actually completely different.

And the smallest price for getting a rune wrong was damage to one's mental power, resulting in a headache for several days.

That was the kind of pain that made it impossible to even read a book.

What was even more terrifying was that failing to construct a spell model within the mental body while casting could even trigger a spell backlash.

In the most severe cases, the backlash could even be fatal.

What made Thor slightly better than the others was that while they memorized maps, distances, and angles, he memorized coordinates.

He memorized coordinates.

The more advanced method would have been to memorize formulas, but unfortunately, he didn't know how.

Thank you all for your support and votes; the bugs have been squashed.

If you have any opinions regarding the plot settings, feel free to bring them up. I will read them through with a heavy heart and strive to make improvements, but please bear with me if some things cannot be fixed, haha.