Ainak Wizard Academy

At noon, the blazing sun hung high in the sky, and its pure white light beat down mercilessly upon the endless Emerald Forest.

It was too vast, resembling a breathing deity that nurtured all things.

Bringing the view closer, beside a small lake in some corner of the Emerald Forest, a teenager lying under a large tree like a corpse abruptly sat straight up. Damn it, he was raising a corpse.

He appeared to be seventeen or eighteen years old, with black hair, blue eyes, fair skin, and a thin build.

Beside him lay a scattered glass jar with a trace of light purple liquid remaining inside.

Suddenly, he thrust his hands hard against the ground, sprawled on the grass, and retched frantically.

After a long while, he finally recovered, rolled over, and lay flat on the grass.

...Anyway... I seem to have... time-traveled.

He muttered intermittently in a low voice. It was not Chinese, but it was a language and script that he could both hear and speak.

Afterward, he fiercely slapped his face twice. The burning, fiery pain told him that this was no dream.

His current mood was extremely nervous and panicked. He even thought about dialing the emergency number to ask the police uncles for help.

In his past life, he had merely been an ordinary corporate drone. He didn't smoke or drink alcohol, and he only vaguely remembered that the last flash of a memory was... a big truck.

Anyway, the point was that he had indeed time-traveled.

There was an extra section of life memories in his brain, along with this robe and this appearance... Even his body was no longer his original one!

He let out a sorrowful sigh. It was not a grievance filled with deep hatred, but rather the resentment of a disappointed person.

Every world ruthlessly rolls over every ordinary individual in this manner. Heaven and earth are ruthless, treating all things as straw dogs, nothing more!

What else could he do if he didn't accept this destiny of an easter egg? Should he go jump into the lake right now and gamble on whether he could time-travel back?

He advised himself not to be foolish and calmly accept this lifetime!

Dago Heka was the name of his predecessor, and also the name he was about to possess. It was the mark of his resumed life.

Enduring the intense throbbing in his head, he accepted the fragmented and chaotic memories of his predecessor.

After a long time, he controlled his trembling body, sat back up, picked up the glass jar on the ground, and stared dead at the medicinal liquid inside.

A bit of black matter still floated up and down within the residual light purple liquid.

This was the culprit that had caused his predecessor's sudden death—a bottle of inferior mental potion adulterated with unknown substances.

Oh, right, this was a world possessing the supernatural, and its intensity was not small either, heavily influencing the trajectory of the world.

Dago Heka was born in a farming village in a remote town under the jurisdiction of the [Wizard Alliance], and his family had been ordinary farmers for generations.

At the age of sixteen, during a wizard census, he was found to have "low-grade wizard talent", and the local lord sent him to the distant Ainak Wizard Academy to learn how to become a wizard.

Ainak Wizard Academy was situated on a low peak within the Emerald Forest, and it was one of the countless small members within the [Wizard Alliance]. Its sphere of strength was pitifully small within the Wizarding Alliance.

Yet to ordinary people, the academy remained an insurmountable mountain.

The entire academy peak was under the protection of a massive rune shield. Tranquil and peaceful, it was a place that minor apprentice wizards like Dago dreamed of climbing.

At the foot of the mountain was Aina Town, established as an attachment to Ainak Wizard Academy, serving as an important material supply point for the academy.

The town was managed and protected by the academy's off-duty wizards, maintaining a relatively stable order.

As for Dago, he was one of the countless introductory apprentice wizards of the academy, belonging to the absolute lowest tier of the wizarding ecosystem.

According to his predecessor's memories, apprentice-level wizards were divided into three tiers, and the markers for each tier differed.

The primary task during the Tier-One Apprentice Wizard stage was to revolve around meditation method cultivation in order to sense the presence of mental power.

This represented the most fundamental existence of the entire wizarding ecosystem. Within the academy, a Tier-One Apprentice Wizard did not even possess the qualifications to reside on the mountain.

More importantly, a tier-one apprentice had to sense mental power and advance to the second-level apprentice stage no later than the age of eighteen.

Yet Dago was already seventeen and a half this year, and he had been stuck at the tier-one apprentice level for a full year and a half.

This was enough to show just how low his low-grade wizard talent truly was!

Sometimes he even suspected that capitalists had rigged him, pointlessly wasting so much money and time only to end up with a slightly more agile brain in return.

Therefore, over the final half-year, he had crazily and massively popped pills. He did not want to return to an ordinary life.

Just like people living in the darkness who caught sight of the light, who would ever want to return to the dark?

Over the past half-year, he exhausted a massive amount of his own savings until he was completely hollowed out, eventually reduced to drinking inferior potions just to practice his meditation method.

As the saying goes, those who frequently walk by the river will inevitably get their shoes wet.

In his memory, he had come to the large tree by the small lake today just like usual. After closing his eyes and drinking this bottle of magic potion carrying black matter, he began to sit in meditation.

However, what he never expected was that the black matter actually appeared within his mental space. Like cancer cells, they rapidly multiplied and spread across his predecessor's mental space.

Until they transformed into a pitch-black abyss that swallowed the soul consciousness of his predecessor within the mental space.

What on earth is this? What kind of world is this? Dropping dead without a word?

After reviewing the memories before his predecessor's soul was annihilated, cold sweat poured off him. This world was simply too dangerous!

He spent a long time using countless chicken soup for the soul from his past life to comfort his injured little heart before gradually calming down.

In the end, he planned to first avenge his predecessor—no, what was now also his own enemy: that black-hearted merchant in town who had harmed his predecessor to death.

Otherwise, many tier-one wizard apprentices like him would still fall into the trap and die without knowing how.

He walked slowly toward the shallow shore of the lake, casually pulling off his two deerskin boots and tossing them onto the grass on the side.

Rolling up the hem and sleeves of his robe, he stepped step by step into the lake water before him.

The icy-cool lake water washed over his ankles, gradually wrapping around his shins.

Dago bent down, scooped up some water, and splashed it on his face. Instantly, he felt comfortable, and his entire body relaxed.

On the shimmering surface of the water, the reflection of a teenager with handsome facial features swayed and shifted—black hair, sword-like eyebrows, blue eyes...

Only, his azure pupils lacked any luster, his skin was dull and devoid of light, his face was slightly bloated, and two dark circles were exceptionally prominent, giving his whole person the aura of a hollowed-out playboy.

It really wastes this good appearance. If I looked like this in my past life and became a gigolo, I would have gotten rich long ago.

Dago said somewhat bitterly, but right after, he beamed with joy—now it all belonged to him.

He kicked the water surface, shattering the reflection before him, and turned sluggishly to walk toward the green grass on the bank.

He packed up the scattered sundries, preparing to return to the "home" in his predecessor's memories.

His predecessor had originally lived in a rented room in the town's civilian district. After frantically pouring his money into advancing, he became so poor he couldn't even afford the rent, forcing him to move out of the rental and end up living on the streets.

Finally, an old hunter named Roland took pity on him and gifted him a sanctuary in the forest outside the town to live in.

Dago planned to temporarily stay at the sanctuary and strive to advance to a Second-Level Apprentice Wizard as soon as possible.

His predecessor, who already had little social life, had completely entered a life of secluded solitude.

Following the path leading to the sanctuary in his predecessor's memories, he twisted and turned through the quiet, dense forest until he finally stopped in front of a slope covered with withered leaves and rotting branches.

This was a small stone-piled hut built against the slope and hidden beneath withered branches.

This was his predecessor's current home, and it would be his home from now on.

Glancing at the tightly shut wooden door, Dago still felt a greater or lesser sense of safety in his heart.

Dago fumbled out the brass key from his cloth pouch and opened this wooden door whose symbolic meaning far outweighed its practical utility.

Walking inside, the small cabin was muggy and humid, and a faint wisp of smoke lingered in the air where some insect-repelling grass was still smoldering by the stone-piled fireplace.

Insect-repelling grass was common vegetation in the wild forest and an absolutely indispensable resource for wilderness survival.

The smoke produced by smoldering them could drive away most insects and beasts in the forest.

The light inside the house was dim, and the roof was covered with thick tree trunks. The overall space was not large, measuring only about seven or eight square meters.

Inside were merely some simple living utensils: a small wooden bed, a table with chairs and stools, a rice vat, a water vat...

Basically, that was all there was to it, extremely crude.

Dago went over to the water vat, scooped a ladle of water with a wooden scoop, sat down on the stool, and gulped down several large mouthfuls into his mouth.

He didn't dare drink the water from the small lake. In the wild, parasite infections were the most dangerous thing.

On the wooden table, there was still some blackened, hardened bread left uneaten by his predecessor.

Dago didn't care about anything else; he grabbed the black bread and began eating it in large bites.

At a time like this, he couldn't care about table manners. The black bread injected a trace of vitality into this withered body.

Deep within his mind, a faint, lingering pain still transmitted outward, as if it were going to tear his entire head apart.

His predecessor's soul annihilation combined with countless fragments of memories rushing into his mind.

This caused his brain to be a complete mess, and he could only massage his temples, trying to chase part of the pain out of his head.

Runes, Wizard Alliance, Ainak Wizard Academy, Bloodline Origin, Era of Change... These miscellaneous memories darted chaotically through his brain.

The most important thing at present was to deal with the bunch of information that had suddenly appeared in his brain—adapting to his new identity, his family, and the layout and direction of the town and forest.

As for Ainak Wizard Academy, sorry, but his predecessor hadn't even truly set foot through its gates.

For tier-one wizard apprentices like his predecessor who lacked both talent and money, the academy considered them a waste of space even if they recruited them.

The meditation method he currently practiced was just mass-market garbage like the Universal Wizard Meditation Method bought in town, and even that had cost a considerable amount of money.

A pure sucker!

In the eyes of Ainak Wizard Academy, these tier-one apprentice wizards were like harvested leeks; one crop was cut down and another grew in its place.

Under the high-sounding pretext: the path lies beneath your feet, and only apprentice wizards who independently cultivate mental power are worthy of entering the academy for advanced studies.

To put it bluntly, the academy only accepted wealthy and talented apprentice wizards.

Second-level apprentice wizards were the first hurdle to stepping into the wizarding world.

They would obtain registration and certification from the [Wizard Alliance], allowing them to learn spells and thus pry open a corner of the wizarding world's door.

The [Wizard Alliance] had a mandatory rule: those who failed to advance to a Second-Level Wizard Apprentice before the age of eighteen would never be registered and certified for the rest of their lives.

Is this the reason why you fought with your life to try and enter the ranks of Second-Level Wizard Apprentices within half a year?

Dago sighed sorrowfully.

This was the deepest obsession left behind by his predecessor in his mind: he must embark on the path of a wizard, and he must advance to a Second-Level Wizard Apprentice within half a year.

"Alright, I agree to this, and I'll exhaust every possible method to reach level two within half a year!"

Dago silently vowed in his heart.

Suddenly, he felt the pain in his head lessen quite a bit.

Dago's expression shifted; it seemed that the lingering resentment left behind by his predecessor had finally dissipated!

"Looks like I'm really being forced into this now. Even if I can't, I have to."

Dago's complexion relaxed somewhat, but the emotional roller coaster, combined with the dark and stuffy atmosphere of the small wooden cabin, suddenly made him feel drowsy.

He walked straight over to the wooden bed, too lazy to even take off his clothes, and collapsed directly upon it, falling into a deep sleep.