Spirit Awakening

"Miss White Bone, do you understand math?" Su Ming asked suddenly, recalling the details of his earlier conversation with the woman.

"Of course."

"What's two to the third power, minus one, multiplied by three, then divided by seven?"

"One-third. I'm a scholar, and I'm quite good at math," the woman said. "But you can't stump me that way. Mind synchronization transmits the answer along with the question."

"Good." Su Ming continued, "Prove that for any positive real numbers x and y, the sum of x to the power of y and y to the power of x is greater than one."

"Huh-"

The mental link broke, and the bone spear floating in the air dispersed with it.

Su Ming had gone to university, where advanced mathematics had tormented him countless times. He wasn't sure whether the concepts of Taylor series and calculus could be transmitted accurately, though, so he chose an exponential equation instead.

It seemed to have worked!

White Bone had already deliberately wasted quite a bit of time, and before long, Su Ming's paralysis wore off. He hurriedly lit the scraps of cloth with his lighter and threw them out, while Galio wailed what were clearly curses.

Orange flames rose, illuminating everything in the hall.

Su Ming switched off the flashlight and sat down, somewhat wearily, to watch Galio's cremation. White Bone had gone incredibly easy on him, giving him countless hints both subtle and overt before he had made it this far. He didn't want things to go wrong now.

Come to think of it, it was quite cold here, roughly like late autumn on Earth, and Su Ming was wearing only a jacket. He held his hands out toward the fire to warm his chilled fingertips.

Then he saw his hand being grabbed.

It was a pitch-black ghost. That familiar look in its eyes made him think of Galio!

Sure enough, in another world, not, one, single, thing, could let a person rest easy!

Su Ming dodged backward, only to find that the ghost had vanished and a black halo had already wrapped around his hand.

"A curse? Poison?" Su Ming had no idea what was happening. Suddenly, his head felt like it exploded, and he fell to his knees. Information poured continuously into his mind-not too little, but not too much either, just enough for him to handle without passing out.

"Spirit Awakening Technique?" As the information poured in, he began to understand what was happening-or rather, he became even more confused!

Galio, a dark-element saint magus, had sacrificed all his magical knowledge and magic power to awaken Su Ming! Somehow, Su Ming had become a novice necromancer and even gained a little basic knowledge.

The Muggle from Earth was utterly bewildered. Was this old man actually a pretty nice guy?

Through his newly acquired spiritual perception, Su Ming saw Galio's soul breaking apart bit by bit, filled with endless resentment. He was even more confused. Was this some special custom or fetish in another world?

Galio's soul dissipated completely, and a six-pointed star emitting a soft, dark glow broke free from his soul and floated in the air, giving off an obscure, indistinct light.

Judging by the knowledge he had just received, it was a manifested dark-element rune of a very high rank, but he didn't know exactly what it was.

"Don't touch it!" White Bone's somewhat anxious thoughts reached him as mind synchronization resumed. "That's a White Bone Mark. Stay away from it!"

Su Ming could clearly sense that the synchronization on her end was very unstable this time, with faint static in it. "Welcome back, Miss White Bone! Are you not feeling well?"

"Thanks to you, I've only just barely recovered." White Bone was still shaken. "Whatever you do, don't ever do that again. Are people in your world all math and science monsters?"

Mind synchronization was a dangerous thing, binding both parties together to a certain extent.

"Our cultures simply developed in different directions. If you worked through a magic formula, you could probably make me pass out just as easily."

"But that thing of yours... all right." White Bone paused to recover. "Nice work. It was a pleasure working with you!"

Su Ming had been paying attention to White Bone's hints all along. Even when she had openly switched sides, he had understood the openings she deliberately gave him.

So he had knocked her offline with a dose of higher algebra, buying enough time for the rest of the Dark Edict to run out.

"If I had the chance, I'd really like to talk more. The advanced mathematics you showed me has given me considerable inspiration for my research into magic formulas," White Bone said. "Guest from another world, unfortunately, there's no time. I'll be dead in a few days. Whether you choose to keep living in this world or try to return to your own, you'll have to do it on your own."

Although he understood every word, Su Ming had to work hard to digest what White Bone was telling him.

"First, let me briefly explain the current situation." White Bone continued without waiting for his response. "The mage Galio and I are both trapped here. Our enemies have surrounded us with an entire temple legion. They can crush us whenever they please."

She opened a window in the bone wall. In the night, he could see a vast expanse of scattered firelight surrounding them in the distance. "Those are them."

"..." Su Ming felt as though he had just escaped a wolf's den, only to find the area outside full of tigers.

"Our earlier resistance failed, and Galio was gravely injured. Nearly all his subordinates were killed or wounded. So Galio decided to use his remaining magical materials to construct the legendary Plane Transfer Magic Array as a last gamble. I never expected us to actually succeed!"

"Us?" Su Ming noticed her choice of words. "Weren't you hostile to him all along, trying to escape his control?"

"This is a legendary magic array. Why would I pass up a free research opportunity?" White Bone the scholar said matter-of-factly. "Besides, no one in history had ever successfully built this array. We were missing most of the materials and made all sorts of haphazard omissions and substitutions. I was just as baffled when it suddenly activated." The woman sighed regretfully once more. "I really wish I had time to study it properly!"

"You're a very accomplished scholar, aren't you?" Su Ming suggested. "Can't you surrender to the enemy?"

"No chance. You know what a pagan is, right?" White Bone replied. "Uh, no, that's not quite right either. To the Temple of Light, I'd probably count as an evil heretic."

There might still be room for negotiation with pagans, but there was truly no hope for heretics. Throughout Earth's history, disputes between heretics had always been the bloodiest.

"Besides, Galio more or less deserves what's coming to him, and I... am much the same, I suppose." White Bone manifested several balls of light that floated beside Su Ming. "Go to the center of the hall now. I'll explain how the Plane Transfer Magic Array is constructed, and there's a pile of related information I need to pass on to you. Most of the array's materials have been destroyed, but you can take what remains. If you want to reproduce it and return to your own world, you'll have to find a way to gather the rest yourself."

Su Ming swallowed. He had a feeling that what she was about to teach him would be no less complicated than a "guide to building a lithography machine," starting from scratch.

"We need to make the most of our time. Learn as much as you can manage over the next few days," White Bone urged. "We also need to leave enough time for you to escape at the end."

"Aren't you escaping too?" Su Ming asked, puzzled.