The Witch's Legend

Four days later, in the morning, Lynn received a message from the Magic Association: Barton wanted him to come over.

Lynn's spirits lifted at once. Sure enough, after exchanging pleasantries with the old man for a while, he obtained the spellbook for [Day and Night Obscurity].

It was a thin parchment notebook of only a few pages. On the cover, in neat handwriting, were written the words "Day and Night Obscurity."

This is a good deal cruder than the spellbooks I've seen before... Lynn silently grumbled.

But the important thing about a spellbook was still its contents. The book's appearance and the material of its pages were more like some sort of ritual, a medium for recording spirituality.

"Once you've learned it properly, remember to come find me again. I'll conduct your Initiate Mage assessment," old Barton said with a smile.

Lynn thanked him sincerely, bade the old man farewell, and the moment he returned to his room at the Iris Inn, he impatiently took out the spellbook and began studying it.

At first glance, the first few pages of the "Day and Night Obscurity" spellbook held nothing special. They merely recorded some of old Barton's experiences and insights regarding learning and using this spell.

But Lynn read them with extreme seriousness.

"Day and Night Obscurity" was a second-ring mental spell that could cause the target's perception of light to become confused, preventing them from properly identifying the weather or the time.

Spells of this type had fairly high requirements for the learner's mental strength. If it was insufficient, then even if one forced oneself to learn the knowledge, spellcasting would still often fail.

Lynn read that Barton had once used "Day and Night Obscurity" in a battle that took place at night to successfully control an Ogre, making it mistakenly believe that the sky was bright and that it had been struck by sunlight—whereupon it actually petrified.

This was the weakness of Demonic Beasts like Ogres. Like vampires, they feared sunlight, but unlike vampires, they would only turn into indestructible stone statues under sunlight, then revive once more after night fell.

"The difficulty lies in the fact that Ogres generally do not possess enough intelligence to be affected by mental spells, so I had no choice but to trick them into drinking Wisdom potions in advance..."

You can even do that? Lynn could not help sighing inwardly, feeling that the ways magic could be applied were far more flexible than he had imagined.

When he turned to the next page, the upright, aged handwriting on the parchment suddenly became distorted and difficult to distinguish.

At the same time, Lynn's spirituality was stirred as well. He only felt that the things recorded on the page were filled with mystery, drawing him in deeply.

This is the true knowledge concerning the second-ring spell "Day and Night Obscurity"... Lynn understood immediately.

Because of the groundwork laid by the earlier content, he already had a preliminary understanding of "Day and Night Obscurity," so reading it was not as strenuous as he had expected.

Only when he raised his head again had the sky already darkened.

Only then did Lynn realize that he had been sitting at his desk for the entire day, even forgetting to eat lunch.

His stomach had long since been growling with hunger. He quickly went downstairs and made do with a few bites. Feeling the fatigue in his mind, he did not continue studying through the night.

Continuing to learn magic now would be terribly ineffective. Besides, what if he got absorbed again and his body could not take it?

There were real cases of people being deeply drawn in while researching magical knowledge, unable to extricate themselves, and suddenly dropping dead alone at their desks!

Lynn overcame the curiosity and thirst for knowledge filling his head, forced himself to go out for an hour's walk, then washed up and rested after returning.

It was still early. He casually grabbed an idle book from the desk that he had not really read yet, treating it as a balance between work and rest to pass the time.

Compendium of Witch Legends?

With a strange expression, Lynn opened the book with its flamboyant cover design, suspecting there might be some odd content inside.

Sure enough, just as he expected, although the contents of the book were varied and all over the place, the descriptions were extremely explicit.

Lynn tugged at the corners of his mouth and read a few pieces. Their contents were nothing more than slightly horror-tinged erotic plots like "a scantily dressed, sexy beauty knocks on the door late at night; after a night of pleasure, the man's entire body festers, and he dies mysteriously."

One piece seemed somewhat interesting. Its contents were roughly—

A nameless witch hollowed out a mountain peak and built it into a stone pot, using the life of the entire mountain to brew a magical potion.

She ordered a young child of another race to watch over the pot, but while she slept, the child could not resist temptation and dipped a finger into a drop of the potion.

Then, almost unconsciously, he placed his finger into his mouth. In an instant, all the knowledge in the world, all its Wisdom, all its inspiration, poured into his mind.

The story came to an abrupt end, with no continuation.

Yet Lynn was inexplicably very interested, especially in that miraculous potion. It was practically just like the legendary "panacea"!

He continued flipping back and discovered that the story's style suddenly changed again, becoming a solemn narrative.

Looks like this book really did excerpt articles from different authors. It's just that the compiler's preferences are extremely obvious...

Faced with this article, which differed greatly from the content of the rest of the book, Lynn read a little more seriously.

This article was very long. Its main subject was a witch named "Ariadne." The book called her "the incarnation of fancy" and "the mistress of dreams."

According to legend, she was born from people's earliest dreams. She had a lively personality and liked to often appear in people's dreams, chatting and playing with them, listening to their troubles, often using the power of dreams to help them solve problems, and even teaching ancient magical knowledge.

Ancient magical knowledge? Lynn sat up a little straighter. The moment this was mentioned, his energy immediately returned.

"Ariadne does not answer anyone's summons. She acts purely according to her interests, and is one of the most active and friendly among the many witches. However, in recent years, rumors concerning her have nearly vanished without a trace.

This author also only heard by chance that her disappearance seems to be related to that mysterious founder of the True Blue Tower..."

Lynn blinked, then read that sentence again uncertainly.

That's not right... His brows knitted tightly. Can something like this just be written casually in a book for the public?

This was secret gossip concerning the great figures of the Blue Tower. Even if it was not true, did they not care at all about something that affected the Blue Tower's reputation?

But he quickly thought that, given the vulgarity of this book, it probably was not some "popular book" that could be found everywhere...

Because the original owner had been short on money, he had always had the habit of buying books from secondhand bookstores. This book was one he had bought not long ago together with several magic books.

Thinking of this, Lynn did not dwell on it too much. He only silently memorized the story he had just read.

Whether it was true or false, things like that were still far too distant from him as he was now.

After reading a few more erotic little stories, Lynn's mind gradually went blank. He was just about ready to stop here for today when the fingers turning the page suddenly froze.

He noticed there was something strange about this sheet. It was thicker, as if two pages had been stuck together.

The parchment did not let light through. Carefully, he found the seam and tore the two pages apart bit by bit.

Then his eyes flew wide.

Between the torn brown pages, there was actually a full layer of dark red, so thick it looked ready to drip!

When he sniffed carefully, he could still smell a faint rusty scent.

Lynn was so frightened that he snapped the book shut and threw it to a corner of the table.

But the image he had glimpsed in that instant had already been clearly branded into his mind.

Out of inertia, his brain was still automatically interpreting what he had just seen.

Soon, he arrived at the answer. It was layer upon layer of handwriting, no telling how many times it had been smeared on in fresh blood, and what the handwriting outlined was all the same word—

"Eliora, Eliora, Eliora, Eliora..."