Chapter 2936
The years-long "ascension" was about to end.
The Professor would truly break free from the cocoon and take flight, heading somewhere far broader.
This should have been cause for celebration, but Zheng Qing could not bring himself to be happy. Because it meant the Professor was truly leaving. And most likely, leaving never to return.
In a sense, this departure was no different from death.
It was only that when people spoke of him in the future, they would say, Oh, that was the Wizarding World's first being to surpass the Ancient Ones—just as later generations reminisced about their predecessors, delighting in tales of his exploits, marveling at his greatness, reducing the meaning of his existence to a few scattered words that would gradually fade amid the world's vibrant life force.
"You should learn to hide your thoughts."
The Professor looked at the young wizard with a subtle expression, raised a finger, and tapped Zheng Qing's head. "To wizards, death is not the loss of life, but stepping outside time. Besides, I am merely leaving, not truly dying. And you have died once yourself. Don't you know death is not so frightening? Like some of the views on Black Magic we were just discussing, in the earliest age, people did not actually fear death. Death, like love and courage, was born in humanity's early consciousness—equally new and full of the unknown.
"We treated the concept of 'death' with the same passion and curiosity with which we lit the first torch or wrote the first rune. Those tales of 'valuing loyalty over life and death' in classical heroism were the peak of that passion.
"Only gradually, as people learned more, as their desires grew greater and more complicated, they became less and less able to face such pure concepts.