The thick stone walls of the Wizard Tower blocked out the afternoon sun. In the basement, only a few candles were still struggling to stay lit, casting wavering shadows.
After lunch, Tylen sat cross-legged in front of the scarred workbench, looking as focused as if he were dissecting a rare magical beast.
Tylen had just returned from the hypnotic recitation class in the first-floor lecture hall, but he didn't rush to practice his newly learned Weaving Runes.
You couldn't bite off more than you could chew.
Though his introduction to Runic Studies had shown him a much wider world, he knew exactly what his greatest shortcoming was right now: a lack of combat strength.
In this Wizard world, where the strong preyed on the weak, theoretical knowledge was certainly important. But when you were walking down a dark alley and someone came at your kidneys with a dagger, you couldn't exactly explain the "principles of spiritual resonance" to them.
What you needed was a knife, or... a hand sharper than one.
"Magic Thorn Art."
Tylen murmured the name under his breath.
Last night's failure hadn't discouraged him. If anything, it had stirred up the competitive spirit of the Slacker Saint Body.
Especially after Makley's explanation of "frequency resonance" and "three-dimensional weaving" that morning. It had been like a key, unlocking a door in Tylen's mind.
"My approach was wrong before."
Tylen looked at his left hand, its long fingers pale in the candlelight.
"I treated my palm like a flat surface when I tried to enchant it, but in reality, the hand is an extremely complex three-dimensional structure."
"Bones, muscles, skin—each layer has a different density and resonance frequency."
"To keep a blade of Mana stably attached, I have to build a three-dimensional, multilayered resonance model, just like weaving runes."
He took a deep breath.
With the Slacker Saint Body's boost, Tylen's mind began racing. His thought speed was thirty times faster, letting him simulate hundreds of possible Mana circuit paths in an instant.
"Adjust the frequency... resonate... stretch..."
He closed his eyes and sensed the warm flow of Mana within him.
He expended a bit of Mental Power, guiding Mana toward his left hand.
This time, he didn't rush to cover his whole hand. Instead, he tried to construct a three-dimensional mesh, wrapping around his palm like a glove.
"Magic Thorn Art!"
Buzz!
A faint hum sounded in the air.
Tylen's eyes snapped open.
He could clearly feel a transparent film, like flowing air, covering the surface of his palm.
It was a curious sensation, like wearing an invisible silk glove—smooth and cold, yet radiating a chilling sharpness.
However...
Pop.
After barely a second, the film burst like a bubble.
The Mana dissipated, and his palm returned to normal.
Though he'd failed, a delighted grin tugged at Tylen's lips.
A notification had appeared in his mind:
[Magic Thorn Art experience +50]
"Just as I thought!"
Tylen clenched his fist and punched the air.
"I really should listen to more lectures from master teachers! Yesterday, when I was figuring it out on my own, I only gained 20 experience per attempt at thirty times the speed. With theory to guide me today, my efficiency more than doubled!"
That was the power of knowledge.
In this world, knowledge wasn't merely power. It was a genuine experience multiplier.
Tylen didn't stop. He immediately reviewed what he'd just done.
"Why did it break?"
"Because the Mana supply was insufficient."
"My total Mana is now 4.5, but my Mana Control is only 1:1, which is pretty average. I can try pushing it further now."
In his previous attempts, he'd used one point of Mental Power to control one point of Mana.
That "small pipe" of supply naturally couldn't sustain the cost of a three-dimensional structure.
"Then... I'll double it!"
Tylen's gaze sharpened.
He gathered his Mental Power again.
This time, he was bolder. He used one point of Mental Power to forcibly draw two points of Mana toward his left hand.
For an ordinary apprentice, this would have been extremely dangerous. The slightest mistake could cause Mana backlash, leaving him dazed and confused for a day—or even several.
But now he had the Slacker Saint Body. He would recover quickly, and that was the trump card that gave him the nerve to try this!
With Tylen's thoughts and efficiency running thirty times faster, the Mana obediently interwove according to his intent. The process went much more smoothly than he'd expected.
"Looks like I'll have to make more extreme attempts from now on!"
"Three-dimensional weaving... dual resonance..."
Bzz—
This time, the transparent film grew thicker, and even gave off a faint blue glow.
Its sharpness was far more pronounced. Tylen even felt that he could slice off the corner of the table with the slightest touch.
One second... two seconds...
Pop.
The film shattered again.
[Magic Thorn Art experience +65]
[Congratulations! Magic Thorn Art leveled up to Lv.2 (57/200)]
He'd leveled up!
As the skill improved, Tylen felt instinctive memories about fine Mana control rise in his mind. The main change was a 20% increase in Magic Thorn Art's sharpness.
But he wasn't satisfied.
"Still not stable enough."
Tylen frowned at his palm.
"Two seconds isn't enough time in a real fight. And covering the whole palm costs too much Mana. The structure is too complicated, too."
As he scratched his head, he unconsciously formed his hand into the shape of a classic hand blade.
Suddenly, he froze.
A flash of inspiration shot through his mind.
"Wait... why am I covering my whole palm?"
"It's not like I'm trying to master Iron Palm, or catch bullets."
"I need to attack! To cut!"
Tylen stared at the hypothenar eminence—the outer edge of his palm.
"What if I only strengthen this part?"
"Like the edge of a knife. I only need to sharpen this line!"
Narrow the area, concentrate the power.
Wasn't this just the principle of pressure from the physics he'd studied in his previous life? The smaller the area bearing the force, the greater the pressure!
"Let's try it!"
Tylen glanced at his status panel. He had just one point of Mental Power left.
He would have to risk everything.
"Magic Thorn Art—Partial Enhancement!"
Boom!
His last point of Mental Power burned away, driving two points of Mana toward the hypothenar eminence of his left hand.
This time, he didn't need to construct a complicated three-dimensional model of the whole palm. He only needed to compress and oscillate the Mana at high density along this narrow edge.
Buzz!
A clear, crisp ring sounded.
Tylen's pupils dilated.
A transparent blade, only a few millimeters thick but extraordinarily solid, had formed along the outer edge of his left palm.
It was no longer an unstable bubble. It was like a real crystal blade made of Mana, fitting perfectly against his skin.
It didn't tremble or break apart.
It simply hovered there, radiating a bone-chilling cold.
[Magic Thorn Art experience +70]
"I did it!"
Tylen's heart pounded.
He turned toward the corpse of the middle-aged man still lying on the workbench, waiting to be processed.
It was the body of a strong dockworker who'd died of a brain hemorrhage after drinking too much. His arm muscles were knotted, and his bones were thick.
"Let's see how sharp this is."
Tylen drew a deep breath, raised his left hand high, brought his fingers together, and held his palm rigid.
At that moment, his hand was no longer just flesh and blood. It was a battle-ax poised to strike.
"Cut!"
He made no fancy movements—just a simple downward chop.
Thwack!
Crack!
The sound was dull and crisp.
There was no resistance like he'd expected, and no gruesome spray of blood and flesh.
Tylen's hand cut through the mercenary's rough skin and sinewy muscles as easily as a knife through a watermelon.
Then came the teeth-grating crack of bone breaking.
The ulna, thicker than an ordinary person's wrist, was cleanly severed by the high-frequency oscillation of the Mana blade!
The entire forearm fell with a dull thud.
Tylen drew his hand back and stared at his unharmed palm. It was smeared with blood, but its sharpness was undeniable!
"This..."
Tylen looked at the severed arm on the floor, then at his own hand, his eyes wide with disbelief.
"That's more powerful than an ordinary steel knife!"
"It's not as smooth as an enchanted alchemical weapon, but this is my bare hand!"
"That means that even if I'm disarmed, or can't carry a weapon, I'll still have the power to kill."
Tylen couldn't help laughing out loud.
"Anyone who tries to catch my blade barehanded will learn what it means for a hand to be harder than a blade."
"This hand looks completely ordinary, but when it matters, it can easily chop off someone's head."
A sense of security unlike anything he'd felt before welled up inside him.
In this perilous Wizard world, he was no longer a lowly apprentice anyone could slaughter at will. He was a hunter with a hidden blade in his hand.
"Phew..."
Tylen let out a long breath and dispelled the Mana around his hand.
A wave of exhaustion washed over him. His Mental Power was completely depleted.
But he didn't rest right away. He instinctively reached for the Meditation Essential Oil, only to realize that he'd already used up all ten bottles he'd won in the lottery.
"Too bad. I'm missing that five percent speed boost."
He sat cross-legged and closed his eyes.
With the Slacker Saint Body's help, his depleted Spirit Sea began to refill rapidly.
An hour later, Tylen opened his eyes, refreshed.
[Mental Power: 3.4 → 3.5]
It had gone up by another 0.1!
Being able to see himself grow stronger every day felt even better than watching stocks hit their daily limit in his previous life.
"All right. I've finished improving my strength. Time to get to work."
Tylen stood and stretched, then took out the piece of parchment his senior, Violet Star, had given him.
Even with the ability to protect himself, the key to getting ahead in the Wizard Tower was still sticking close to powerful people.
Violet Star, a beautiful senior with both power and connections, was the most powerful person he could rely on right now.
"Let's see what kind of corpses this young lady wants..."
Tylen unfolded the parchment and read it by candlelight.
But as soon as he saw the three lines written on it, his brows knitted into a deep frown.
Request List:
Pure Spirit: An infant under one year old who had died within the past 24 hours. (Note: Must be unbaptized and spiritually pure.)
Drug Overdose Body: An ordinary person who had died from taking too much alchemical medicine within the past 10 hours. (Note: The body must retain the complete residual effects of the drug.)
Withered Shell: Someone who had been possessed by an evil spirit and died after having their spirit completely drained. (Note: The corpse must be grayish-white, with no livor mortis.)
"..."
Tylen rubbed his throbbing temples and couldn't help complaining:
"This isn't a request for corpses. It's practically a wish list."
"Though the first two are tough, I might get lucky if I look around the Abandoned Infant Tower in the slums or the junkie dens in the black market."
"But the third one..."
Tylen stared at the words "previously possessed by an evil spirit," the corner of his mouth twitching.
Possession by an evil spirit was rare to begin with, and most people who were possessed went berserk and were burned to ashes by the guards.
Finding a corpse with "its spirituality exhausted but its body intact" was about as hard as finding a winning lottery ticket in a garbage heap.
"No wonder they're paying 2,000 Purple Gold Coins."
"Sure enough, this money isn't easy to earn."
Tylen sighed and put away the parchment.
It would be difficult, but he had to get it done.
This wasn't just a task—it was his chance to prove his loyalty and curry favor with that beautiful senior sister.
"Looks like tonight's destined to be a sleepless one."
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