Good Deeds Bring Good Fortune, Spell: Magic Thorn Art

The river wind carried the sewer's distinctive stench as it howled over the old embankment.

The carriage jolted along the uneven cobblestone road, its wheels letting out teeth-grinding creaks.

Tylen did not urge the horse on. He simply let the old mare plod lazily along the riverbank without direction for twenty minutes.

A deathly silence filled the carriage.

At last, Old Jack's hoarse voice shattered the suffocating quiet.

"Little Ma... I'm sorry."

Tylen pulled on the reins and looked back.

He saw that Old Jack seemed to have been drained of all life in an instant.

His already hunched back had bent even farther, like a fully drawn bow. His wrinkled face bore an ashen, defeated look.

If Jack had previously been a camel struggling to survive, then now, the final straw had fallen.

"I won't sell her."

There was little life in Old Jack's cloudy eyes, only a stubborn, deathlike stillness.

"That bit of money... can't save my life, and it can't fill that hole."

"I... still can't let Linda go."

He stretched out his rough, cracked fingers and gently caressed the old woman's face, as tenderly as though she were merely asleep.

"At least... let her leave cleanly and with dignity."

Tylen silently watched the scene.

As a rational Wizard apprentice, he should have been calculating the time cost and losses of this trip.

To a Soul-type Wizard, a corpse was merely expendable material that had lost its soul.

But as a person—or rather, as someone who still retained the moral bottom line of his previous life—he could not be so cold and heartless.

"Alright."

Tylen did not try to persuade him further, nor did he mention the so-called ransom money he had paid in advance.

He merely nodded calmly, flicked his wrist, and snapped the reins through the air with a crisp crack.

"Hold on tight. We're going home."

Inside the dilapidated wooden shack on Old Mine Street, the air was thick with mildew and the rot of old timber.

Old Jack struggled to carry his dead wife back to the only wooden bed.

The sheets were old and bleached from washing, but they had been laid out neatly.

One old man alive, one old woman dead—they lay in that cramped space like they belonged to two different worlds.

At that moment, poverty, hunger, and illness seemed to have been shut outside by the ramshackle little house.

Tylen stood at the doorway without entering, unwilling to disturb this final peace.

"Little Ma, catch."

Old Jack suddenly dragged a dust-covered wicker chest out from beneath the bed. After rummaging through it for a while, he tossed over a square bundle wrapped in layers of oil paper.

"This was left behind by Little Jack... that useless brat."

When he mentioned his dead son, there was no hatred left in Old Jack's voice, only endless exhaustion.

"There are a few books inside. I can't make sense of them either."

"I originally wanted to keep them as a memento, but now... I'll probably be going to see the two of them soon. There's no use keeping them."

"I can't repay today's kindness with these old bones."

"You're a Wizard's student. Maybe these things will be useful to you."

Tylen accepted the bundle.

It felt heavy in his hands and carried the old, musty scent unique to paper.

"Is there anything else you need me to do?" Tylen asked.

Old Jack shook his head. With his back to the door, he tightly held the cold corpse, as though it were the only warmth left in this world.

"Close the door behind you."

Tylen fell silent for two seconds, then softly said, "Take care."

Then he gently shut the creaking wooden door, sealing that world slowly approaching its end behind him.

After leaving Old Mine Street, Tylen did not return directly to the Cain Wizard Tower.

Since he was already out, he could not return with an empty carriage if possible.

It was a habit left over from working sales in his previous life—never make a wasted trip.

He skillfully drove the carriage through the border between the dock district and the slums.

"Hey, Old Tom!"

Tylen tossed a cheap cigarette to a dock foreman. He suppressed the sadness in his heart and wore a suitably familiar smile.

"Anything good float up from the river lately? Or did some unlucky bastard get crushed to death under cargo crates?"

"Oh, it's Brother Little Ma." Old Tom greedily inhaled the scent of tobacco and chuckled.

"Nothing today. Those overseers have been strict lately, so everyone's being careful."

"Alright. Save anything good for me. Same rules as always, cash on delivery."

After bidding the foreman farewell, Tylen stopped beside the public washbasins and chatted with several women whose hands were covered in soap suds about the recent influenza and typhoid outbreaks.

In the end, he traded one piece of low-quality brown sugar to several wild children darting through an alley and got news that a stray dog had just died in the next street over.

"Looks like my luck isn't great today."

Tylen sat on the carriage shaft, watching the shimmering Heavenly Luck River as he let out a long breath.

Though he had gained nothing, he was not anxious.

This seemingly useless socializing was actually weaving a net.

In this information-starved underclass, these people were his eyes and ears.

As long as he maintained these connections, whenever a corpse appeared, he would always be the first to know.

By the time he returned to the basement of the Cain Wizard Tower, it was already two in the afternoon.

The candles still flickered in the cold Morgue.

Tylen settled the carriage, washed his hands, and sat before the workbench covered in knife marks. Then he took out the bundle Old Jack had given him.

"Hopefully it's not some dirty little book."

Tylen sighed self-mockingly as he untied the string around the oil-paper wrapping.

Inside were two yellowed notebooks and a dark blue hardcover book.

He opened the two notebooks first.

Rune Basics Lecture Notes, Mana Sensing Insights...

The handwriting was messy, and the notes themselves were even more of a jumble.

For example, when the instructor said, "Mental Power should flow like spilled mercury," Little Jack had written, "Your brain needs to think like mercury."

"No wonder he couldn't pass."

Tylen shook his head.

"With comprehension like that, he might as well forget about learning to ride a bicycle."

The second notebook was a diary.

Tylen quickly flipped through it. It was filled with a low-level apprentice's complaints, fantasies, dirty thoughts about a female apprentice, and finally, despair after falling into debt with loan sharks.

There was nothing of value.

Tylen casually tossed the diary aside and turned his gaze to the final blue book.

There were no words on the cover, only a faint silver scratch.

He opened to the first page.

Tylen's previously casual expression vanished as his pupils suddenly contracted.

Dense rune diagrams, complicated analyses of Mana circuits, and a Mana configuration in the center of the page, sharp as thorns.

"This is..."

Tylen drew in a breath and rapidly flipped through the rest.

With the thirtyfold boost to his thinking speed granted by the Slacker Saint Body, those obscure words and diagrams were instantly broken apart and reconstructed in his mind.

Three minutes later, he closed the book, disbelief and delight shining in his eyes.

"A spell?!"

"This is actually a skill book that records a formal spell!"

In this Wizard world, where knowledge was strictly monopolized, every spell had a clearly defined value.

Even the lowest-level Lesser Fireball could sell for more than a thousand Purple Gold Coins on the black market.

And Little Jack, a loser who could not even pass the apprentice assessment, had been hiding something this valuable?

"Magic Thorn Art..."

Tylen looked at the cover and softly read out its name.

This was not the kind of elemental magic that could summon wind and rain. It was an extremely obscure, even unconventional, support-type spell.

Its effect was simple: consume one point of Mana to attach a high-frequency vibrating Mana blade to the surface of a weapon.

The book described it as: "Grant ordinary iron the Sharpness to tear through steel, eliminating the friction that hinders penetration."

"Isn't this just a high-frequency particle vibration blade?"

Tylen instantly understood the physics behind it.

Through the high-frequency vibration of Mana, it drastically reduced the coefficient of friction at the contact surface, thereby achieving an effect like slicing through iron as though it were mud.

"No wonder Little Jack couldn't learn it."

Tylen looked at the complicated vibration-frequency formulas in the book and gave a rational assessment.

"This thing demands extremely precise Magic Control. With his terrible fundamentals, practicing for a lifetime would still be pointless."

"Daily task: Complete two sessions of spell skill practice."

"Perfect. I'll use you for practice."

Tylen closed his eyes and adjusted his breathing.

With the Slacker Saint Body's enhancement, his consciousness sank into his Spirit Sea. The contents of the blue book flowed like a stream of data, frantically pouring into his Memory Palace.

Analyzing models, simulating circuits, adjusting frequencies, correcting errors...

For an ordinary apprentice, this spell would take at least three days to barely get started with and half a month to master. But in Tylen's mind, it had been put into thirtyfold fast-forward.

One hour... two hours...

Two and a half hours later.

Tylen suddenly opened his eyes. He grabbed at the air with his right hand, and the Bone-Cleaving Knife he normally used to process corpses fell into his palm.

"Magic Thorn Art."

With a low murmur, a faint yet pure strand of Mana flowed through his arm and into the knife's handle.

Bzz—

There was no blinding light, nor any violent sound.

A nearly invisible layer of transparent ripples suddenly covered the somewhat chipped blade of the Bone-Cleaving Knife.

Tylen raised the knife and gently blew on it.

Before the airflow came within an inch of the blade, it was cleanly cut apart by an invisible force.

"This level of Sharpness..."

Tylen's gaze sharpened as he turned toward a corpse behind him.

It was a burly mercenary, with arms thicker than an ordinary person's thighs, knotted muscles, and hard bones.

Tylen did not build up any force. He simply thrust the Bone-Cleaving Knife forward as lightly as if cutting butter.

Pfft.

There was no resistance.

He did not even feel the blade entering flesh.

The ordinary Bone-Cleaving Knife silently pierced through the mercenary's thick forearm, cleanly severing both the ulna and radius inside.

Only after the entire blade had sunk in did a thin line of blood seep from the wound.

"Hiss—"

Tylen sucked in a breath as he pulled out the knife and looked at the bone's cut surface, smooth as a mirror.

"This friction... is practically zero."

"If I used this in combat, this knife could easily pierce leather armor and even chainmail."

"And if I used it for work..."

Tylen looked around at the corpses filling the room, a flash of fervor appearing in his eyes.

"Processing one corpse used to take half an hour. Now? One minute!"

This was not a killing technique at all. It was clearly a god-tier skill for workers!

With this, his work efficiency would undergo another qualitative leap!

Tylen did not stop and immediately began further testing.

He found all kinds of materials: wood, sheet iron, and stone.

Half an hour later, a test report formed in his mind:

Duration: Each enhancement could last five minutes.

Consumption: One point of Mana.

Applicable range: Any pointed or sharp object, including scalpels, daggers, and even dinner knives.

"Perfect."

Tylen dispersed the Mana and nodded with satisfaction as he looked at the still completely undamaged Bone-Cleaving Knife in his hand.

Just then, the familiar notification window flashed across his retina.

[Daily Task Completed: Perform two magic skill practices]

[Experience Gained: 300]

[Congratulations! Grand Monthly Card has reached Lv. 1]

The Grand Monthly Card's experience had directly reached 900.

Tylen immediately meditated once. His Mental Power rose from 3.2 to 3.3, while the 2 points of Mental Power he had just used practicing magic were instantly fully restored!

"So that's how it is. The Slacker Saint Body can't affect the lunar phases, but it can affect meditation's recovery efficiency!"

"Normally, at my current level, one meditation cycle can only restore 1 point of Mental Power. I never expected it to restore me completely!"

"As expected, there are surprises everywhere for the strong!"

As Tylen marveled, he also completed the day's meditation task and gained another 300 experience.

Accompanied by a pleasant sound effect, the level icon that had remained gray finally lit up.

Tylen eagerly tapped to claim it.

Rustle—

A pile of enviable items instantly appeared in his void backpack.

[Obtained: Apprentice's Experience Book x4]

[Obtained: Wizard Experience Book x1]

[Obtained: Primary Alchemy Material Selection Pack x5]

Looking at the experience books emitting a faint glimmer, Tylen licked his somewhat chapped lips.

"Good deeds are rewarded. The ancients truly did not deceive me."

If he had not helped Old Jack, he would never have obtained Magic Thorn Art. Without a skill, he could not fully complete the daily tasks every day, and he would not have been able to level up the monthly card so quickly.

It was a perfect closed loop.

"Then now..."

Tylen took out a [Wizard Experience Book], which contained a full 1,000 points of universal experience, and used it directly!