Chapter 3 – The Magician’s Note

Chapter 3- The Magician’s Note

Editor: Vivi

The surface of the notebook was very old and covered in dust, but the handwriting on it was very clear.

“The first lesson in the academy was not on magic or sorcery, but rather a reminder of enlightenment. Did this great magician spend so many spirit crystals to buy the perpetual sorcerer’s notes, which were used to record these naive and rudimentary knowledge of enlightenment?”

The first page was torn out and the contents were unknown. Starting from the second page, the magician named Selena complained about the absurdity of the academy, but she recorded an extremely complex sorcerer’s model right below the handwriting and wrote the term “Enlightenment Model” next to it, which was unmistakably true to life.

Arnold continued to read.

“To review the essentials of becoming a magician, the first step is to construct an Enlightenment Model in your mind. To deconstruct, split, and reassemble all the data in the model until it can instantly appear. The second step is to construct the magic within the Enlightenment Model, record the learned magic in the model, and constantly review it. The third step is to try to use it all. Be sure to try all of these under the supervision of the teacher!”

These were all words that Arnold could understand individually, but when connected together, the content was difficult to understand. The young man touched the writing on the notes, and forcefully memorized this paragraph.

Due to a large number of drugs with unknown effects, Arnold’s various traits from a young age had been weakened, but one thing that remained was his extraordinary retentive memory which helped him remember the diagram and passage.

“… A magic model is an answer composed of many formulas. To analyze a model, one needs to memorize countless known magic formulas, just like solving a problem. As the world’s enlightenment star, The Honorable Theresa Boyce, once said, ‘humans are what we are because of knowledge!’” 　　

“As long as magicians constantly acquire knowledge and transform it into formulas and models, we can exert great power. The secrets of the world await the magicians, as well as the great me! The world’s greatest and most honorable sorceress!”

This magician named “Selena” seemed to have a lively and confident personality. Arnold was somewhat influenced by her tone and couldn’t help but slightly pursed the corners of his lips, smiling silently.

The pages of the notes kept flipping, and a large amount of general knowledge of magic and some simple sorcery models entered his brain. Even if Arnold was a genius in both memory and comprehension, he could not fully understand such a vast and unknown amount of information in a short time. He just memorized it by rote and focused on reading the notes intently.

Selena’s writing became increasingly sloppy towards the end, and she had become too lazy to continue to write basic knowledge. Instead, after listening to several classes, she raised some unexpected questions:

Where does light come from? Where does light go?

Where is God and how can faith become strength?

Substance, matter! What are they?

How do thoughts exist? Why do they exist?

“Spirit” can convey information, but what is spirit?

The force used to write each line could almost leave marks on the surface of the paper. The sorcerer’s language carried a mysterious and treacherous power that made Arnold unconsciously indulge in it, as if there were a black-robed magician standing in front of him, looking directly at him and questioning things.

The more he read, the more Arnold became completely engrossed in it, and he felt as if the things she asked were revealed in front of him. It seemed as if a towering tsunami had erupted before him, and infinite light came from all directions. It seemed as if an elusive and inscrutable shadow was stirring everything in the world, as if all the world’s objects had been reduced to splinters and flying dust in the blink of an eye.

For an abandoned experimental subject that had never seen much of the world, and for a pitiful little monster that never saw the sun more than once a year, it was tantamount to replacing the confusion in his mind with questions and knocking on the door of mysteries with the book.

As Arnold read each word slowly, his gaze gradually shifted downwards and he stopped at the last question:

What is the end of knowing? Is it omniscience or omnipotence? Is God both omniscient and omnipotent?! The God of Light, is it possible?！

Our end can be compared to God.

The ink dried up and the pen pierced the paper.

He stared blankly at the few words in front of him, and for a moment, he almost believed that Selena was the greatest magician of the entire century. He had never heard of such an argument, and the questions that broke through the boundaries of his thoughts made it difficult for Arnold to breathe.

The wooden house was quiet, and the burning firewood made a slight cracking sound. The flames shone brightly in the dark.

He was so immersed that he forgot to react.

At this moment, the sound of heavy and steady footsteps echoed from the back and stopped behind Arnold.

However, the young man didn’t hear anything at all. His whole body and mind were still so focused on this tattered magician’s notebook, that he didn’t even realize who had come to his side. The tall knight, dressed in crimson armor and with bandages over his eyes, silently stopped behind him.

Within the knight’s shadow, a few soft little tentacles emerged, bouncing up from the darkness and spreading all the way over behind Arnold’s shoulder. They opened their eyes at the top of the tentacles and blinked over in a curious manner.

Soon afterwards, the knight raised his hand, and the little tentacles quickly sank back into the shadows.

Kaos tapped him on the shoulder.

The young man was still so enthralled that he hadn’t regained his senses yet. Arnold was stunned and his hand failed to grasp the notebook firmly. With the sound of the book hitting the floor, he stiffly turned around.

Even though he knew the other party couldn’t see what he was doing, a cold sweat broke out on his back, making his heart feel as if it would stop. Almost subconsciously, Arnold instinctively felt afraid of his “heretical thoughts” in the face of such a cold and oppressive knight.

No one could be unafraid in this situation, and Arnold even thought that the other man might know what he was doing. He was like a rabbit whose tail had been bitten by a lion, knowing struggling was futile, yet still instinctively retreating.

However, there was nothing but the shelf for storing items behind him, where could he retreat? He leaned back against the wooden frame, trying to speak, but no words would come out. Terrifying fear and nervousness made it difficult for him to say a word without any abnormalities.

Until he heard the blind knight speak.

“What were you doing?”

Arnold was blocked in front of the shelf by the heavy red armor in front of him, and the man who was so much taller than him. The knight’s battle-hardened palm pressed against the hilt of his sword, but it felt as if the sword was pressed against his thin spine, causing a nervous and tingling sensation.

“I’m… I’m organizing, organizing your loot, I… ” Arnold squeezed out a few words. He tried to muster his courage and raised his eyes to politely face the other person, but before he finished speaking, the other abruptly raised his arm.

It was over.

Feeling guilty, Arnold instinctively lowered his head and closed his eyes as he felt he was about to die. There was no way for him to escape at such a close distance. Two seconds later, the expected strangulation did not happen.

He slowly opened his eyes a bit and gradually raised them.

The knight caught a pottery jar that had fallen from the top of the shelf and steadied it beside him. If the knight did not catch it, the item would have fallen squarely on the top of his head.

Arnold took a small breath and didn’t know which outcome he should be grateful for first. He licked his dry lips and whispered, “Thank, thank you…”

The crimson-colored armor approached. The overlapping bandages covered the eyes, while the eyebrows, bridge of nose, and lips remained handsome and cold, indifferent to the point of no expression.

The only sound Arnold could hear was that of his breathing.

His spirit had been tense for too long, and his heart beat violently. Just as his nervousness peaked, his body was completely unable to support him, and his legs collapsed weakly against his will. He sat down on the ground all at once. As a result, the already unstable shelf also completely tilted and collapsed, with all the items placed on it falling amidst the confusion.

Only, none of it hit Arnold.

The knight was right above him, and his skulls, badges, and short sword scattered unevenly. They all collided with the blood-red armor and fell into the gap between the other man’s arms and the young man’s body.

The knight paused for a moment, silent as a statue, then held onto the wooden frame with one hand and steadily pushed it back.

The newly cleaned room was a complete mess.

Arnold heard him ask again.

“What were you doing?”

This time, the little monster who slowly returned to his senses finally thought of some fabricated words, and cautiously replied, “I’m looking at your… your spoils.”

The knight did not move.

“You are a brave and skilled knight.” Arnold racked his brains and continued, “the greatest, most devout and moral knight I have ever seen.”

Kaos looked at him in silence, without an expression on his face. Just as Arnold was panicking due to his guilty conscience, the other suddenly raised his eyebrows and laughed loudly.

The reaction was a bit sluggish.

Arnold immediately let go of his fear, and came up with an explanation: Lord Kaos liked others to praise him for his piety and his knightly virtues.

He breathed a sigh of relief.

“Are you injured?” The other man asked.

Arnold shook his head slightly, then responded hastily and uttered, “No. Please don’t worry.”

Disregarding the other’s “Please don’t worry”, Kaos leaned down and reached out his hand, his fingers resting on the only spot where the young man had just been hit — the lower part of his calf.

The magician’s black robe was lifted, and the lace that adorned the trouser legs were rolled up to reveal the area where he had been hit.

The bruise had turned purple, and the surrounding area was red. The visual impact of this injury was even worse when seen on this fair and white body that was as delicate as a canary.

However, Kaos couldn’t see any of it. The knight’s fingers were rough but very warm and reliable. He gently covered the wound and tried to rub it, immediately hearing Arnold’s slightly suppressed gasp.

He remained silent for a moment and asked, “Is it serious?”

Arnold bit his lower lip and softly replied, “It’s okay, I’m not hurt.”

He thought he had hid it well.

The knight stood up without saying a word, then reached out and wrapped his arm around his waist with the other hand. With a slight lift, he picked up the little monster, and the hand that had just pressed the sword coincidentally pressed against his spine.

Just like a young deer being held down by its horns, a fearful cat being pinched by its neck, or a silly rabbit being picked up by its ears, Arnold, who was already weak in his legs, seemed to have all his strength suppressed. He couldn’t even conceive of a struggle. He only felt that the hand behind him, although touching him lightly, was like another cage.

He leaned against the red armor and nervously whispered, “Sir Knight…”

“Don’t lie.”

He was slightly stunned.

“Just be pious in your treatment of the gods and do not lie.”

These words could be understood in two ways, either “treat the gods with piety”, or “serve the gods with piety”.

Naturally assuming it was the latter, Arnold nodded with difficulty. He thought that the other person couldn’t hear him, and whispered in his ear, “I know.”

From a vantage point out of his sight, a group of curious and active tentacles rushed out of the shadow at the feet of the “knight”, with an eye growing from the top. One eye blinked at Arnold and quietly retreated back into the shadows.

The kind-hearted, great, and moral knight took the young man to the chair, dug out a small bottle full of yellow liquid from the old wooden box, and poured it into warm water. He then soaked a towel made of animal fur in the basin.

Arnold gradually felt that just sitting there and watching the other person busy himself was inappropriate. Just now, he had made a mess of the wooden house and even looked through the sorcerer’s notes that belonged to the other. Feeling both confused and guilty, he stared at the ground dejectedly.

Until the other man’s hand lifted his ankle.

The towel was applied to the wound, and his palm was also pressed on top of the towel.

He had never been treated like this before, and he felt that something was wrong. It was as if there were ten million ants crawling through his skin, making it difficult to sit still and do nothing.

Fortunately, Kaos finally spoke.

“Repeat what you said earlier.”

Arnold blinked and slowly said, “You are the greatest, most devout, and moral knight I have ever seen…”

The knight smiled again, as if he found it very interesting.

Arnold didn’t understand the other person’s amusement, but silently muttered a few words in his heart, feeling that the knight was too easy to coax. But just as he had gotten out of one predicament, he abruptly recalled another.

His legs, when encountering excessive warmth, had a significantly higher chance of turning into a tail.

Arnold moved his gaze and looked at the other person’s hand on the hot towel. He was already struggling with life to the point where he couldn’t contain his grievances. He moved his leg slightly in aggravation, but it was immediately grabbed. The other man’s hand could easily wrap around the lower part of his calf.

The knight rebuked him coldly, “Don’t move.”

… suddenly became even more distressed.

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T/L Note: Thank you for reading! Decided to make some edits on terms, and will make the changes on the previous chapters as well. Hope to see you in chapter 4!