This Is Not a Good System

Dago was like someone who had slept soundly for a thousand years, finally waking from his dream. He rubbed his bleary eyes.

He quickly walked outside, only to realize that the sun was already close to setting, casting its final afterglow.

At that moment, he felt as though he had been brought back to life.

Dago's first reaction was to hurry up and cook. Otherwise, once it got completely dark, cooking by candlelight would be far too miserable.

Besides, his stomach felt empty, and hunger had left him lightheaded.

He went to the pile of odds and ends, took out the small iron pot, washed it, then scooped two ladles of grain from the rice jar and poured them in. After adding water and rinsing it, he placed the pot over the fireplace to simmer.

While the rice cooked, he used cured meat and wild vegetables to make another pot of meat and vegetable soup. Before long, Dago carried the rice and soup to the table and began eating.

The simple meal tasted like a feast of mountains and seas. In no time, he had cleaned every last bit from the bowls.

After eating his fill and cleaning up the dishes, night had fully fallen.

Dago used flint to light the candle standing on the shelter's table. Its dim yellow glow illuminated the entire shelter.

He pushed open the rickety wooden door and slowly stepped outside.

He found the moonlight on the ground unusually bright. Looking up, he saw two moons hanging high in the night sky.

One was a bright white moon, and the other was a silver-white moon.

The bright white moon was roughly the same size as the moon from his previous life, while the Silver Moon was only about one-sixth its size.

Besides its size, there was another difference: it gave off a faint glow of its own, adding a trace of light to the pitch-black night sky.

Within the Wizard Alliance, the Silver Moon held an extremely lofty status. Even those giant wizard organizations that were like gods willingly called it the Origin Moon.

That was because it was the mother of all supernatural things in the world, while also sheltering and blessing wizards.

Dago shook his head, throwing away the fragment of memory that had suddenly surfaced in his mind and returning to reality.

As far as the eye could see, the dark forest resembled an abyss. Though the moonlight was bright, the towering trees still blocked most of it.

A light breeze blew past, and countless shadows writhed like monsters waiting to devour someone. Dago shuddered all over in fright and hurried back into the tiny shelter.

The candle flame on the wooden table flickered, giving him an endless sense of safety.

He walked to a stone wall in the shelter, removed a loose stone, and revealed a hollow in the wall.

After rummaging around inside the hollow, Dago felt a box. He took it out and held it in his hands.

He blew the dirt off the box, then walked over to the wooden table and sat down.

By the candlelight, he opened the box and saw a copy of the Universal Wizard Meditation Method lying inside.

This was the most valuable treasure left behind by the former owner of this body. This book represented the first step on the path of wizards.

Many of those gathered in Aina Town had come with dreams of becoming wizards, just like him. Naturally, like him, they were also unfortunate people being harvested like leeks.

Ainak Wizard Academy's admission requirements were simple: either you possessed peerless talent, or you had just a tiny bit of money.

As for those without talent or money, well, sorry. They could suffer in town first. If they managed to make something of themselves before turning eighteen, they could enter the academy.

At Ainak Wizard Academy, the path of wizards was a business. Unfortunately, the former owner of this body had neither talent nor money.

Dago opened the worn Universal Wizard Meditation Method and began reading it carefully.

Only after two-thirds of the candle had burned away did he finish. He closed the book, shut his eyes, and slowly pondered its essence in his heart.

Spiritual power was the core of a wizard's power system, and meditation methods were the main means of obtaining spiritual power.

What was spiritual power?

First, one had to believe that the human soul existed. Once one believed in the existence of one's own soul, then there had to be a realm where souls existed: the Spirit World.

"Spiritual power" was the outer manifestation of the "soul," while the Mental Space was the outermost layer of the Spirit World.

The Mental Space was like a "small bubble" floating at the outermost edge of the Spirit World. Energy from the Spirit World seeped into the "bubble," forming the mist that drifted through the Mental Space.

After opening one's own Mental Space, a Mental Core would form. It was where spiritual power was refined and stored, as well as the dwelling place of the soul.

Once the Mental Core was lost, one would either suffer soul death or become a mindless idiot.

In truth, every conscious soul had the possibility of opening a Mental Space.

It was simply that most people lacked the so-called wizard aptitude. Once they reached eighteen, they would no longer have any chance of opening their own Mental Space.

"Relax your body, clear your thoughts, and focus your will on a single point."

Dago followed the steps described in the book one by one.

The world fell silent for an instant. His vision suddenly went dark, as though he had abruptly fallen from the sky into the deep sea, with icy seawater surging toward him from every direction.

The seawater tightly dragged at Dago, this uninvited guest who had wandered into the deep sea, trying to trap him here forever.

Cold!

Despair!

He could no longer tell whether this was reality or illusion. It felt as though he were truly in the deep sea.

He felt himself sinking bit by bit, his consciousness gradually slowing as his soul merged into the sea.

Just as Dago's soul was about to completely dissolve into the abyssal sea—

Suddenly, an invincible force erupted from the depths of Dago's soul, and his consciousness instantly cleared.

Countless points of light abruptly emerged from the depths of his soul, circling and dancing around it without pause. They wrapped around his soul and turned into a crimson-gold sphere of light.

The sphere radiated boundless light, instantly vaporizing vast amounts of seawater into countless bubbles that floated upward. The sphere flew in the direction the bubbles rose, moving at astonishing speed like a meteor tearing through the night sky.

Before him was a black sea, with countless wisps of mental mist floating above it.

The black sea churned violently, suddenly raising terrifying waves that swept toward the sphere of light, trying to smash it back into the sea abyss.

Just as the towering waves were about to crash down, the sphere flashed again. Countless crimson-gold rays, like golden swords, blasted the waves into raindrops that filled the sky.

The sphere of light once more became a meteor traveling against the current, soaring up from the sea's surface.

After flying for an unknown length of time, the sphere slowly stopped. Dago's consciousness could not tell how high he had flown within the Mental Space, but he could feel that the black ocean still occupied the space below him, its towering waves coming without end.

Yet it could do nothing to the sphere of light, and the sphere could do nothing to the black sea.

The two sides could only remain deadlocked.

Dago could not be bothered with the black sea for now. He planned to follow the steps in the meditation book and first convert spiritual power.

Only with spiritual power could he control his Mental Space and figure out what the black sea was.

Gather his thoughts and cast aside distractions.

The sphere of light began to rotate slowly, becoming the Mental Core of the Mental Space. It drew in a large amount of nearby mental mist and refined it into spiritual power.

At that moment, Dago's soul was curled up in the center of the sphere. It was a hazy humanoid body speckled with starlight, without any distinct facial features.

After the mental mist was drawn into the sphere, it was continuously refined by the rotation. In the end, it became a drop of dark-blue liquid that entered the humanoid body's brow.

From that point on, Dago possessed spiritual power. In other words, he was already a Tier-One Apprentice Wizard and qualified to learn spells.

With a turn of his thoughts, Dago's consciousness withdrew from the Mental Space and returned to reality.

"What was that black ocean? Why did invincible power surge out when I was about to lose myself?"

Dago furrowed his brows and pondered with a grave expression.

Just then, a voice from the depths of his soul rang out.

"Ding!"

"Successfully bound to the host's soul."

"Detected that the host's soul is about to be annihilated. Initiating the first principle of Progress System self-preservation in the event of destruction!"

"The system self-preservation process has begun. All hope energy will be prioritized for the system self-preservation process!"

"System energy output has exceeded limits. Overload! Overload! The system is about to shut down and restart!"

"Core error detected: 3#￥#2. Core intelligence has fallen dormant and cannot be awakened!"

"Core error detected: ￥#￥#. Host guidance module missing and cannot be repaired!"

"System self-check initiated. Cannot awaken, cannot repair, cannot awaken, cannot repair..."

"System's nine-hundred-millionth restart. Time elapsed: ten thousand millionths of a second. Concept loaded successfully!"

The information carried by those "voices" from the depths of his soul was naturally understood and received by him.

While he was still dazed, a point of light the size of a grain of rice entered his vision, then split at light speed until it formed a screen of light.

[Welcome to the Progress System after its nine-hundred-millionth restart!]

Dago was completely stunned. He rubbed his eyes hard, but the screen before him did not move in the slightest.

"This is a direct takeoff. Most of the problems with the Mental Space can be explained now."

"The system got wrecked right at the start by the anomaly in the Mental Space. That's way too useless."

"Still, judging from the information I received, this system isn't a good system either. It's one trying to turn the tables on its master."

Dago was so ecstatic that he began dancing around and talking to himself.

After a long while, he finally suppressed the uncontrollable upward curve of his lips.

"Phew... For now, I should figure out roughly what this system does."

Dago steadied himself, exhaled a breath of stale air, calmed down, and began studying the system.

With the thought of [Hide], the screen disappeared.

With the thought of [Appear], the screen appeared again.

After repeating this several times, Dago learned that the screen was controlled by his thoughts.

After trying various commands, the screen showed no reaction at all and still displayed that same line of text.

Without a system-provided guiding sprite, he was utterly confused. He could only keep experimenting through trial and error, testing the system's functions with different thought commands.

However, after trying countless words from both his lives without getting even a fart out of it, Dago could only put the system aside for the time being.

The night was long, and he had no desire to sleep. He decided to strike while the iron was hot.

Dago turned his attention back to the Mental Space.

He entered the Mental Space again.

This time, the entry was incredibly smooth. He focused his mind, shifted a thought, and entered the Mental Space.

The black sea was still churning with towering waves, attempting to devour the sphere of light in the sky.

Dago chose to ignore the black sea. The sphere slowly rotated, refining mental mist into spiritual power and merging it into his soul.

But as more mental mist was refined, Dago noticed something wrong. He felt as though his soul was getting dizzy from spiritual power.

Helpless, he could only withdraw from the Mental Space.

In the blink of an eye, the screen before his eyes changed.

[Detected an improvable skill: Universal Wizard Meditation Method. Would you like to improve it?]

Dago was completely stunned. He swiftly chose yes with his consciousness.

[Universal Wizard Meditation Method (Beginner 1/100): Progress Value +1]

The characters on the screen jumped, instantly changing into a brand-new version. This time, Dago truly could not suppress his smile. Exhausted as he was, he had no desire to sleep at all.

He simply stayed up reading by candlelight, continuing to study the book and the system.

Only when he could no longer suppress his drowsiness did he finally choose to crawl into bed and fall into a deep sleep.