A Genius First, Magic Lessons Later
After questioning everything he had brought with him, Xie Yu failed to find a more knowledgeable assistant.
It taught Xie Yu a lesson:
From now on, whenever he bought new clothes, he would have to ask whether they could read first.
Undeterred, Xie Yu looked over the furnishings in his inn room, hoping to find something he could easily approach or something interested in him.
[The lonely book (Dream Magic) (Affection 85) urged:]
[Hey, you've finished your bath. You should get back to reading me. You've only reached page 17, and there are still 290 pages left! Don't you want to become a dream mage? Don't forget your dream.]
"Don't rush me. I'll be there in a moment."
Xie Yu felt the desk, then the wall, crouched down to feel the carpet, and even had a brief conversation with the nightstand.
Unfortunately, either their Affection didn't rise anytime soon, or they couldn't read either... Fair enough. How could he expect a nightstand to read?
[I've already waited through a whole lot of moments. (Affection decreased to 80)]
The book was a little disappointed. It couldn't wait to return to the little hands of a human and enjoy the tenderness it hadn't felt in decades.
"All right, I'm coming." Xie Yu picked the book up again and began to read.
He wasn't particularly interested in Dream Magic, nor had he resolved to learn it. He was only browsing because the book said Dream Magic was related to Sealed Artifacts.
When Sealed Artifacts were contained, Dream Magic could grant peace and calm to volatile ones, giving them dreams in which to vent their rage. Although the magical community still debated whether Sealed Artifacts really dreamed like humans, and there was no record of a dream mage actually entering a Sealed Artifact's dream, Dream Magic worked in practice.
Xie Yu considered his own ability.
He felt that the field of Dream Magic still wasn't quite suited to his needs.
He was interested in the containment of dangerous Sealed Artifacts not because he actually wanted to contain them, but because he wanted to come into contact with more of them.
Xie Yu was confident in his ability. With the rise and fall of Affection to guide him, he could conquer Sealed Artifacts that ordinary people struggled to handle, such as 3-0771.
Learning Dream Magic to let Sealed Artifacts sleep peacefully obviously wouldn't help much with that process. Learning the field purely to get a containment job clearly wasn't worth it.
When choosing his own path, he cared only about how well it suited his ability and whether it would help him conquer his targets.
As for the mundane concerns ordinary people cared about, such as magical talent, elemental affinity, and interest, they no longer swayed Xie Yu at all.
[The lonely book (Dream Magic) (Affection increased to 100):]
[I want to tell you, don't turn my pages so gently. Harder, harder! Don't be gentle with me. No one's ever turned my pages like this before, and I want to try more different sensations...]
Seeing that its Affection was full, Xie Yu closed the book and put it back in the pile.
[Congratulations...]
"I'll take reward three. I have no interest at all in Collector Weile's secret, and the book's permanent Affection is no use either. I have to return it anyway."
Xie Yu spoke with practiced ease.
He had obtained his second [Friend of Books].
After abandoning the book, he looked at the [Gentle Fountain Pen] and the [Loyal Solid Wood Cane] and asked for their progress. "How's the reading going?"
The pen reported first:
[Since Xiao Yu is interested in Sealed Artifacts, I focused on the chapters about them. Void Magic is mainly applied to Sealed Artifacts through "isolation" magic, containing them by separating them from the outside world. It isolates the Sealed Artifact from any possible influence on the outside world, and can also be used for protection, keeping the outside world from spying on it or acting against it.]
[Also, the book says that Sealed Artifact containment teams must have a void mage, because Void Magic is also convenient for helping everyone escape.]
Isolation. Xie Yu's eyes lit up. That sounded good; it suited him if he wanted to spend time alone with a Sealed Artifact in secret.
Escaping and infiltrating both sounded like quite practical abilities.
He turned his gaze to the cane.
[Mr. Xie Yu, there were fewer chapters about Sealed Artifacts in the Earth and Rock Magic book, so after finishing them, I also browsed the chapters about Sealed Artifacts in the Water Element Magic book. I found that their principles were roughly the same. Both earth and rock and water use a vast quantity of their elements to "suppress" or "subdue" Sealed Artifacts. Their gentle, stable properties allow them to wrap up and conceal a Sealed Artifact without damaging it, then wait for it to submit and wear down its temper. The actual methods involve burying it in the deep sea or inside a mountain...]
That sounded far too stupid, Xie Yu thought.
The top figures who held the titles of Sage and Saint actually used such primitive methods to deal with Sealed Artifacts.
[Sealed Artifact 3-0771 has never experienced any of this. It is afraid, and it thinks of you again, grateful that you haven't done those things to it.]
[It wonders whether, if it disobeyed and showed even a little naughtiness, you would use those methods on it.]
[Its fear has miraculously faded. At the thought of you punishing it personally, it feels it could accept that... It even looks forward to it a little... It wants to try defying you just a bit.]
Perhaps he needed to find a famous doctor to give Sealed Artifact 3-0771 a proper examination.
Xie Yu could hardly bear to read what this fellow was thinking anymore. Whenever he did, he had to keep his expression taut to stop himself from looking incredulous.
"Void sounds like the best fit for me. What do you think?" he asked, looking at the Fate-Substitution Talisman Doll.
[Sealed Artifact 3-0771 is actually a little disappointed. It has yet to experience what "subjugation" feels like.]
[But its rational side regains the upper hand, and it says:]
[Indeed, this field suits you very well, Master. I've heard the teachers at the Forest Magic Academy mention that Void Magic also has applications such as "theft" and "storage." It is a practical type of magic, but it is hard to get started in and hard to master. It is more difficult to learn than many kinds of natural elemental magic, and it is known alongside the fields of fate and life as one of the three toughest subjects in low-tier magic.]
"Perhaps I can start by studying the void field seriously." Xie Yu picked up the book.
[The lonely book (void field) feels the warmth of your hand (Affection increased to 50):]
[At last, is it my turn? I forgive you for neglecting me earlier.]
Then, after asking the [Pen], the [Cane], and [Sealed Artifact 3-0771] what they wanted to read next, he took out several more books from different fields and spread them open on the table.
He opened the preface of "Void Magic: From Apprentice to Sage..." and once again encountered content similar to what he had read at the Kaiming Clinic.
Almost every book in the series stressed that a mage should choose a single field, recommending that mages devote themselves to one field of study. The reasons given were also consistent: it would help them advance to the middle and high tiers.
But nearly all magic academies now used mixed instruction. When training people in magic circle drawing and potion brewing, they did not stress specializing in a single elemental field. They even skipped over elemental distinctions entirely and taught applications directly, encouraging polymaths and generalists.
Yet the books stated with conviction that focusing on one field was beneficial for the future.
Perhaps the books were outdated, and the problem they described had already been solved.
Or perhaps, for some reason, ordinary mages were no longer encouraged to aim for higher levels in the current era.
Xie Yu set these distracting thoughts aside for the moment and immersed himself in reading.
He turned the pages until he reached the first spell.
The book's introduction was quite simple and straightforward, explaining clearly and simply the magic that the general textbooks for pre-apprentice education portrayed as mysterious and unfathomable.
The process of casting a spell from an incantation was divided into two parts: "mental" and "physical."
The physical part consisted of movements, speaking the incantation aloud, and the mage expending their own spirituality.
The mental part involved imagining power moving through one's body, imagining invisible spirituality flowing from one's neck and shoulders to the fingertips and shrinking to a single point. Different spells had different mental components. Some required imagining spirituality circling inside one's eyes; others required imagining it being thrown from the back of one's head by the mind and growing larger. Every spell had its own unique mental trajectory.
No wonder ordinary people got no results from reciting incantations. They lacked the mental trajectory.
A few brief sentences answered many of Xie Yu's earlier questions about magic.
Practicing incantations meant not only saying the words quickly, but also moving one's thoughts quickly enough to follow their rhythm... When mental visualization and physical reality became one, magic would manifest.
"O intangible void, I touch and twist you."
Xie Yu reached out and followed the steps in the book exactly, imagining the power at his fingertip shrinking to a minuscule point as he gently pressed forward.
The world answered the incantation.
Though there was nothing but empty air, he felt a viscous resistance. When he pressed harder, ripples spread as though across the surface of water. But unlike water, once its shape changed, the Void Twist could remain stable for a short while.
[A palm-sized patch of Void Twist (Affection 0):]
[Oh dear, I'm about to dissipate.]
Xie Yu hadn't expected words to flash past so suddenly. He had just tried to get a clear look when his beginner's ability to sustain the magic reached its limit.
That wondrous patch of Void Twist dissipated.