Chapter 450: Wizard (Two in One)

"Wizards, witchcraft..."

Yan Jing looked at the timid-looking blond youth in front of him, feeling an inexplicable sense of familiarity.

Had they met somewhere before?

He found that hard to believe. With his current eidetic memory, forgetting something was simply impossible.

Moreover, he was certain he had never interacted with anyone from a witchcraft system.

[Role Introduction: Your soul was almost lost in the endless abyss. Although a certain existence ultimately salvaged it, it still lost its most important part.]

[A shattered soul struggles to bloom into a satisfactory flower. Fortunately, the one watering it possesses enough patience and time.]

[Of course, there are not many chances left.]

[Note: there really are not many chances left.]

[This role retains all its memories. However, please note that this role's long-cherished wish will not be easily fulfilled.]

[Also note that, unlike the previous role, this role does not know what his own long-cherished wish actually is.]

Yan Jing read through the role introduction. Although most of the description was cryptic, he could still discern a few unusual details.

First, the phrase "not many chances left" was repeated twice.

What did "chances" mean here? Did taking over this role come with a time limit?

Furthermore, just like Mao Si, this role came with the warning that its "long-cherished wish will not be easily fulfilled." But because Mao Si had retained his memories, Yan Jing knew right from the start of the takeover that his wish was to "change the lower levels of the Heavenly Kingdom."

This time, however, the system explicitly noted that the youth before him hadn't even known his own long-cherished wish before his death.

Yan Jing looked at the youth's bewildered eyes in the character portrait and nodded.

It fit the character profile.

Before he could initiate the takeover, another system prompt popped up.

[As your True Soul begins to return, the Tier of your other identities will now gradually increase alongside the Tier of your original identity.]

[However, this requires a certain amount of time. Please choose the most suitable paths for them to ensure they do not hold you back.]

Yan Jing froze.

Didn't this mean his other identities could also gain new abilities?

Although his original body could still use only one ability from those identities, when he switched to them...

Would he be able to use two complete sets of new abilities simultaneously?

Take the identity of Yi Ji. If he advanced to the Sixth Tier, in theory, he would possess six brand-new abilities from the Fear Pathway.

Moreover...

If several identities appeared in the same place at the same time, just like that incident with Chen Xiaojing in the Heavenly Kingdom...

Yan Jing's eyes settled into calmness as he officially initiated the role takeover.

[The journey into the Inner World is about to begin. The reward mechanisms for this journey are:]

[1. Find the murderer who killed this role. The reward is...]

[2. Fulfill the long-cherished wish of this role. The reward is...]

[3. Because this role is of Good quality, the 'Safety Officer' option is unlocked. The Safety Officer holds an initial favorable impression of you...]

[Have a pleasant journey.]

[Loading role...]

A long-absent wave of dizziness washed over him. When Yan Jing opened his eyes, the first thing he saw were countless cold, vertical iron bars.

Looking through the bars, he saw the scenery outside constantly shifting.

Unusually towering trees, dense bushes, swarms of mosquitoes filling the sky—the sweltering, humid air invaded his lungs.

With every breath, he felt a sharp pain in his lungs, as if a scorching fire were burning inside.

The environment here was too harsh; this "corrupted" body could hardly endure it.

Even the red welts left by mosquito bites were nearly impossible for him to heal.

Right now, he was inside a massive iron cage resting on a wooden plank supported by four wheels. Three steeds were huffing and puffing as they dragged the cage forward.

Iron-shod hooves struck the mud, splashing up bursts of muck.

Atop the horses sat three figures draped in Black Robes, their faces obscured.

Wizards.

Yan Jing made this judgment as he began receiving the youth's memories.

This was an ancient Pathway named Wizard.

Originally, this Pathway spanned all the major Domains in the Inner World. This was simply because their philosophy held that any living creature who pursued power and recognized equivalent exchange could be called a Wizard, and all "knowledge" in the world that could be understood and learned could be defined as "witchcraft."

This incredibly low cultivation threshold and all-encompassing philosophy spread like a virus, "infecting" one Domain after another.

It even left a profound mark on the histories of many Domains.

What was even more terrifying was the extreme adaptability of the Wizard Pathway.

For instance, when a Wizard reached a continent of the ancient Great Desolation Bloodline, they could deconstruct the power within the Bloodline, transforming into the Bloodline Wizard Pathway.

When a Wizard reached cybernetic Domains like the Heavenly Kingdom, they could deconstruct Mechanization prosthetics and biological agents to evolve into the Cybernetic Wizard and Biological Wizard Pathways.

Therefore, during the peak era of the Wizards, the pinnacle of the Wizard Pathway boasted multiple Deities simultaneously.

They were collectively known as the Wizard Progenitors.

Unfortunately, the good times did not last.

This invasion into other Pathways eventually provoked a united resistance from the other Deities. Ultimately, a war known as the "Anti-Witch" campaign erupted, and every single Wizard Progenitor was killed.

This Pathway approached its end.

It wasn't until the descent of the Source of Mutation, when several Pathways gradually decayed, that the Wizards finally welcomed a revival.

But even so, the Wizards still failed to return to their former peak.

Many Domains held a zero-tolerance attitude toward cultivators of the Wizard Pathway; the moment they were discovered, they would be immediately wiped out.

Furthermore, the Wizards' deconstruction of knowledge required time, which became the main reason they failed to grow back to power.

Now, the Wizard Pathway had only two branches:

One was the Traditional Wizard.

These Wizards specialized in witchcraft derived from the Pathway's most fundamental logic. Relying primarily on elemental witchcraft, they used their own bloodlines as catalysts to deconstruct Weird Energy into witchcraft factors, reconstructing the witchcraft within their bloodlines to cast spells.

The other type of Wizard was the Bloodline Wizard.

Their control over witchcraft was much weaker. Relying mainly on their own Bloodlines and supplemented by flesh witchcraft, they deconstructed Weird Energy into witchcraft factors and combined them with Bloodline factors to strengthen their physical bodies.

The most outward manifestation of this was the witchcraft runes drawn on their bodies.

Aside from a vast Domain known as the Wizard Continent, these two types of Wizards now only existed in scattered, sparse numbers within the Great Prison.

This knowledge was merely the tip of the iceberg in the youth's memories.

Just as the system had stated, the youth possessed unimaginable witchcraft talent and could understand any "knowledge."

The most basic knowledge of witchcraft seemed engraved into his very bloodline, present since birth.

It was a pity that, restricted by numerous other factors, he had only reached the Third Tier.

As for his memories over the years, Yan Jing only browsed through them roughly; he didn't have time for a close inspection.

The volume of memories this time was simply too massive!

Yan Jing was just glad that his spirit and consciousness had improved alongside his Tier. Otherwise, he might have been instantly crushed and swallowed by the memories.

He found it hard to imagine how the youth had managed to survive all these years at his current Tier.

At the Third Tier, he should have died from the pain long ago.

I have to secure this identity this time, Yan Jing murmured to himself.

It wasn't solely because the Wizard Pathway was powerful.

He had glimpsed a massive, lengthy Transcendent history within the youth's memories. Although it only concerned the Wizard Pathway, he could still glean the developmental processes of many other Pathways from it.

With the growth of his Tier, he increasingly felt on a subconscious level that this kind of Transcendent knowledge was vital and would be of great benefit in the future.

He pressed his head as close to the iron cage as possible and looked left and right, discovering long lines of people both ahead of and behind his cage.

This iron cage was treated like a treasure, surrounded by the crowd as they traveled through the dense forest.

Yan Jing hadn't forgotten that his main objective this time was to enter the vanguard team. Thus, he began searching through the youth's final memories before death to understand their current situation.

"Huff, puff, huff—puff—snort—"

About half an hour later, the convoy slowly came to a halt upon reaching a relatively open clearing.

"Rest where you are."

The speaker was the rider on the middle horse of the three pulling Yan Jing's cage. Though the voice was very rough, it clearly belonged to a woman.

Following her order, the entire team stopped.

She glanced back at Yan Jing. When she noticed him lying motionless on the floor, her body gave an involuntary shudder.

She immediately dismounted and sprinted straight to Yan Jing's cage, slapping the iron bars. "Hey! Hey, hey!!!"

She seemed extremely anxious about Yan Jing's survival. Her muscular arms reached out from beneath her cloak, slapping the bars so hard they slightly bent.

Seeing that Yan Jing remained still, she grew even more frantic and yelled, "Wuercha!!! Wuercha!!! Bring the key!!!"

"Coming."

The rider on the right-hand horse also realized the gravity of the situation. He promptly dismounted and ran over, his hands trembling as he produced a key and unlocked the cage door.

Before he could pull the iron door wide, the woman shoved him aside. She barged into the cage, strode up to Yan Jing, and forcefully rolled him over.

Seeing no energy fluctuations around Yan Jing's body, she panicked and reached out to check his breathing.

Upon feeling a faint trace of breath, she immediately began searching his body.

Soon, she spotted the Dagger lodged in Yan Jing's waist. Her eyes instantly turned red.

She extended her hands. Her rune-covered hands trembled, and an energy remarkably similar to Weird Energy flowed from her fingertips as she murmured, "Great Healing Wizard Progenitor, I hope you can hear my call and grant me the knowledge to heal the one before me..."

As her words fell, a beam of white light poured from her fingertips and surged into Yan Jing's body.

Soon, Yan Jing's body shuddered. He slowly exhaled a breath of foul air, seemingly stepping back from the gates of death.

"Wuercha!!! Get the witch doctor!!!" the woman yelled, looking back.

But before the man behind her could take more than a few steps, the woman's pupils shrank. She felt a terrifying power surge around Yan Jing on the ground—an evil, berserk force that seemed intent on devouring everything around it.

Before she could react, Yan Jing snapped his eyes open. His scarlet gaze startled her into another shudder.

"What's wrong with you?!"

The woman retreated a few steps and asked tentatively.

Yan Jing opened his mouth. As if trying to accustom himself to vocalizing, a phlegm-filled, rattling sound tore from his throat.

"Hurgh... urgh..."

The woman swallowed hard. Backing away inch by inch, she retreated completely out of the cage.

Just as she prepared to lock the cage again, Yan Jing suddenly spoke. His voice was deep and gruff, nothing like the youth's original tone, and it sent a chill through the woman's entire body. "Why are you doing this to me?!"

Yan Jing violently lunged at the cage, grabbing the iron bars and roaring, "Why are you doing this to me!!!"

The horror on the woman's face deepened, and she hastily locked the cage.

At that moment, the man finally brought the so-called witch doctor over.

It was an old man wearing a massive crown on his head.

A dazzling array of bone ornaments dangled from the massive crown, almost completely obscuring his face.

"Lord Wu Bu, what do you think is going on..."

The woman looked at the old man, grasping at him like a lifeline as she recounted how she had just found the Dagger plunged into Yan Jing's abdomen.

As she spoke, Yan Jing maintained his death grip on the cage beside them, staring coldly at the group and making her skin crawl.

The demeanor Yan Jing displayed right now was entirely different from that of the cowardly youth from before.

"Do you think... do you think he ran into some evil spirit in these woods..." the woman ventured.

After listening, the old man slowly swept his gaze over Yan Jing's body. Soon after, he made some sort of hand sign, placed his hand over his chest and forehead, and closed his eyes.

A few seconds later, he opened his eyes and said coldly, "He's just putting on an act."

"Rest assured, Lady Wu Qiu, the soul within this boy's body hasn't changed at all from before, nor are there any signs of damage or madness. I'm afraid he's simply suffered too much, so he cooked up this scheme in hopes of bluffing us."

"How ridiculous!"

Hearing this, the woman finally breathed a sigh of relief.

Looking at Yan Jing gripping the cage, a surge of anger suddenly washed over her. She charged right up to him, the two staring at each other through the bars. "Why do you still refuse to confess?!"

"Confess what?" Yan Jing's gaze was frigid, no longer as enraged as before.

"That woman is guilty!!!" Wu Qiu roared. She was so agitated that the hood of her cloak slipped from her head, revealing the dark, rune-covered face beneath.

"Tell us! As long as you speak, that Lord will let us go!!!"

Yan Jing's face remained as cold as ice.

Just as Wu Qiu had said, the reason this youth named Wen Xu was imprisoned here was because of a woman.

A woman who had raised him from childhood.

Wen Xu was born in the Wizard Continent and orphaned at a young age. It was that woman who brought him up and taught him witchcraft. Only after he came of age (adulthood on the Wizard Continent being 14) did she leave on her own.

Unexpectedly, just a few years after her departure, she was suddenly captured by the largest Wizard Alliance on the Wizard Continent. The reason was that she had stolen the knowledge of a Wizard Progenitor.

This was clearly a massive taboo.

The woman was quickly sent to the Great Prison.

But the problem lay in the fact that the evidence for her conviction was insufficient.

The current evidence was only enough to send her to the Great Prison; it was insufficient for the Great Prison to impose any coercive restrictions on her or sentence her to death.

For a group like the Wizards, who viewed faith with utmost importance, everything had to be done strictly by the rules. Otherwise, they believed they would invite punishment from the Wizard Progenitors.

Therefore, they desperately wanted to find more evidence of her guilt to prove that she was indeed guilty, and that her crimes warranted death.

This was when Wen Xu's usefulness became apparent.

He was swiftly apprehended by the alliance, slapped with a trumped-up charge, and thrown into the Great Prison in the hope that he would reveal the Wizard Progenitor knowledge she had once taught him.

Furthermore, the leader of the alliance devised a scheme: relying on these guilty Wizards within the Great Prison to use harsh methods to force Wen Xu to confess the woman's Sin Burden.

Of course, he didn't contact this group of "guilty sinners" directly. Instead, he engaged in an equivalent exchange with the supreme warden of the Great Prison, using him as a middleman to make contact and relay the plan.

This way, it wouldn't count as the Wizard Alliance using extrajudicial punishment in violation of the Wizard Progenitors' name.

Rather, it would be these already-guilty Wizards committing the Sin Burden.

Perhaps in his view, since this group of Wizards was already guilty, piling one sin on top of another didn't matter.

And as someone only a single step away from the Demigod Realm, after striking the deal, the warden naturally acted with lightning speed, immediately securing the woman and initiating the Great Prison's trial mechanism.

The trial date... was set for two months from now.

As long as Wen Xu was willing to state the woman's crimes on that day and present evidence that she had stolen from a Wizard Progenitor, she would be executed on the spot.

Next, he contacted these Wizards in the Great Prison, telling them that as long as they could make Wen Xu confess her crimes, he would improve their living conditions.

For this group of Wizards, who had languished at the absolute bottom of the Great Prison for years, this was naturally exactly what they wished for.

Thus...

They took Wen Xu and embarked on... a road of torture.

The main idea was to exploit the fact that Wen Xu took double damage, dragging him to various perilous locations to subject him to all kinds of torment.

After getting a preliminary grasp of the ins and outs of the situation, Yan Jing had already found a near-perfect solution.