Chapter 3: Magic and the Alchemist

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Chapter 3: Magic and the Alchemist

Fortunately, the voice had forgotten many things, but it still remembered its own name. The skeleton was his true form. His name was Ben, and he was the loyal retainer of a great necromancer.

Pinecone Tower looked old and run-down, but there was far more to it than met the eye. Charlie’s death awakened the sleeping Ben. Ben exhausted half his soul fire to summon the squirrel, then used pinecones to wake Charlie, but the effort had drained him badly. It took several days of rest before he was finally able to show himself tonight.

As for why Ben was now scattered into pieces like this, that was another story, one that even he could barely remember.

In any case, his skull was hidden in the chimney, while the rest of his body was scattered throughout Pinecone Tower. The one knocking on the door outside was his right hand, which had been serving as a decorative wall lamp in the hallway.

Ji Bai opened the door. Seeing the skeletal hand, he looked thoughtfully toward the floors above.

“You said your master was also an alchemist?” He turned back to Ben.

“Yes. The fourth and fifth floors are her study and alchemy laboratory. Most of my body is up there.” The skull didn’t need to open its mouth to speak. As long as one of his bones was present somewhere, it could produce his voice. But stripped of his air of mystery, there was nothing sinister or frightening about him anymore.

Ben was still the same kind-hearted Ben. With nothing but an empty skeleton for a body, he really wasn’t very complicated. Or perhaps he had simply slept for too long and was so happy to finally have someone to talk to that he practically told Ji Bai everything.

Of course, that was assuming he still remembered it.

Listening to him, Ji Bai suddenly found himself with a third option besides becoming a necromancer or following the Chapter Three: How to Slay a Dragon route. Become an alchemist.

Which raised the question.

“Does alchemy require magic?” he asked.

“Let me think…” Ben fell silent for a moment before answering. “I think my master once said that not every mage is an alchemist, but every alchemist is a mage, no matter how terrible their magic is.”

An answer that was hardly unexpected.

Even so, Charlie decided that his immediate priority was still to open the door leading to the fourth floor. Aside from the alchemy laboratory on the fifth floor, the fourth floor was also a study, and there might be some proper magic books in there.

“Do you have a key to the fourth floor?”

“The fourth floor doesn’t need a key.”

“Then why can’t I open it?”

“Because you don’t know magic.”

Ji Bai belatedly realized that this was a mage tower. And Ben’s completely natural tone, utterly devoid of any intention to mock him, was somehow the perfect mockery of his current situation.

He wanted a chicken, and Ben told him he first needed an egg.

Where did the chicken come from? It hatched from an egg.

Where did the egg come from? The chicken laid it.

Was there no way to cheat the system?

“Part of your body is in there. Can you help me open the door, Ben?”

“I can’t, because I don’t know magic either.”

Oh, for heaven’s sake. A talking, moving skeleton just told me he doesn’t know magic. Ji Bai thought.

Meanwhile, kind and honest Ben remembered something else and happily told Ji Bai that he remembered how to recite the Door-Opening Spell. All Ji Bai needed to be was the most ordinary magic apprentice.

He could teach him!

Touched, Ji Bai picked up the skull, placed it in the skeletal hand, and returned it to its rightful owner. “Thank you.”

Ben was deeply moved as well. This human had finally understood his goodwill. He had so, so many things he wanted to tell him, but when he saw Ji Bai turn and walk away, he hurriedly asked, “Where are you going?”

“Back to my room to rest.” Ji Bai was tired.

He hadn’t gotten any proper rest these past few days. On top of that, this body had only just died from excessive drinking, and his nerves had been wound tight throughout his struggle with Ben. Now that the tension had suddenly released, he had practically no strength left in his body, and his head still throbbed faintly.

Becoming a mage could wait until tomorrow.

But just after Ji Bai finished washing up and lay down in bed, that familiar voice sounded again. “Are you really not going to consider becoming a great necromancer? My master said that souls purified by burning are purer, you know.”

Ji Bai silently got out of bed and conducted a thorough search of the room. In the end, he found a bone disguised as a clothes rod inside the wardrobe. He took it down, opened the door, and threw it outside.

Tap, tap, tap…

The bone rolled down the stone steps of the hallway.

Ji Bai closed the door.

He pulled up the covers and peacefully closed his eyes.

His mind was actually a mess. He had expected to fall into the same state as the previous few days, exhausted in both body and mind yet unable to sleep no matter what. Instead, before long, he drifted into a dream.

Everything in the dream was strange and surreal. He seemed to have returned to his original world. Sitting by a window in his university library, he watched the mottled shadows of the trees outside and the sunlight filtering through the gaps between their leaves. Instinctively, he raised a hand to shield his eyes.

Specks of light shimmered between his fingers.

In the next instant, those specks of light transformed into tiny motes of magic elements drifting through the air. The scenery around him began to shift, like something seen after eating hallucinogenic mushrooms: dreamlike and hazy.

It was a strange, wonderful sensation. He felt almost weightless, a little dizzy, yet at some point it was as though he had fallen into warm water, enveloped by a sense of peace and warmth.

Gradually, his thoughts sank deeper and deeper…

Smack.

Ji Bai slowly opened his eyes and stared somewhat dazedly at the crystal chandelier above him. His hand instinctively went to his forehead. After finally getting a long, good night’s sleep, his body seemed to let out a relaxed sigh, and even his heartbeat had become much steadier.

There was just one question left: Who hit me this time?

A breeze brushed past his ear. He turned his head toward the half-open window and found himself staring into the eyes of a reddish-brown squirrel.

The squirrel stared at him with its round little eyes. Caught red-handed, its ears shot straight up. The next instant, it let out a sharp squeak, dropped the pinecone, and ran.

Ji Bai sat up in bed and found the pinecone lying beside his pillow. He fell silent. It was early in the morning, and his brain wasn’t quite functioning yet. Why had it thrown another pinecone at him?

Had he somehow died again without realizing it?

“Ben?” Ji Bai called. As expected, Ben answered, “I’m here.”

I knew it. You definitely still have bones hidden in my room.

“What’s going on? Why did the squirrel come again?” Ji Bai asked.

“I don’t know either…” Ben gave an awkward laugh, his voice growing increasingly sheepish. It wasn’t until Ji Bai found another bone hidden under the bed that he finally confessed.

Having controlled the squirrel to throw pinecones, Ben had essentially given it a soul command. The squirrel itself had never gained intelligence; it was simply following the command and repeating the same action.

The squirrel hadn’t come to bother him these past few days only because the window had been firmly shut, while Ben had been too drained to spare the energy needed to erase the command.

“So, from now on, whenever it sees me lying there with my eyes closed, it’s going to throw a pinecone at me, right?” Ji Bai asked, rubbing the spot where he had been hit.

“Ahahahaha…” Ben let out another string of tinkling laughter to hide his embarrassment.

Ji Bai could only sigh helplessly. What could he do? He was a Muggle who couldn’t even use magic.

He walked over to the window and carefully inspected it, discovering that the latch had come loose. It only needed a little repair. He asked Ben where the tools were, but received no answer.

“Aye…” Ben seemed to notice the book sitting on the dressing table and murmured, “Aye… I think I remember that name.”

Something stirred in Ji Bai’s mind. “You know him?”

“Aye is a big bad guy!” Ben suddenly went into a panic, his voice rising a full octave. “Every time he came here, he’d play tricks on me. He told me I was a little skeleton and that burying myself in the ground would make me grow taller. Then he even tried to dye my head with rainbow flowers! How do you have a book he wrote?!”

Ji Bai immediately had an idea. “This is a magic book I bought. I’m planning to teach myself from it and become a magic apprentice.”

“No! You can’t!”

That only made Ji Bai more tempted.

“You said this Aye person has been to Pinecone Tower? He’s your master’s friend? And he’s a proper mage?” Ji Bai pressed.

“I don’t care! No! No! Absolutely not!” Ben seemed to remember something else and worked himself into a furious state. The bone bounced wildly on the table.

The next second, one sentence from Ji Bai made the bone freeze instantly.

“But you’ve even forgotten who your master is, yet you still remember his name. He must actually be very impressive, right? You said he came here every time, which means he came here many times. Was he very close to your master?”

Silence. Silence, and more silence.

Silence filled Pinecone Tower.

After a long while, the bone quietly rolled off the table, past Ji Bai’s feet, and all the way under the bed. It stopped there and didn’t move.

He looked like he was about to break.

Ji Bai looked at the book, and a line came to mind: “When the mountains and rivers seem to leave no way forward, a village appears amid the willow trees and flowers.”

It was still impossible to know how much of Charlie’s talent could recover, and the result might be far from ideal. This book looked unreliable, arrogant, and absurd, but perhaps that was exactly why it suited him. So why not give it a try?

In other words, he might as well treat a dead horse as though it were alive. Having already died once, Ji Bai had little left to fear.

Before officially beginning his studies, however, he needed to get himself into good condition first.

Ji Bai washed up first, then changed into Charlie’s usual white cotton shirt and brown trousers. He fastened a leather belt around his waist and tied back his hair with a linen hair tie. He had only been wearing these clothes for a few days, but the routine had already become second nature.

Breakfast could be simple. He cooked some oats in milk, added honey, and made a bowl of honeyed milk porridge. Then he fried a strip of bacon and a sunny-side-up egg and used the leftover white bread and vegetables from yesterday to make a sandwich. Simple, healthy, and conducive to a long life.

The skull and his right hand were still in the kitchen. Watching Ji Bai work methodically, Ben finally couldn’t hold himself back. “He may be very powerful, but he’s an arrogant maniac. His methods aren’t suitable for most people. Learning from him is dangerous.”

Ji Bai didn’t doubt Ben’s goodwill. He simply focused on what he was doing and answered without looking up, “For me, every step I take in this world is dangerous.”

Ben didn’t quite understand.

Ji Bai finished breakfast, carried the tray to the table, and looked at the skull sitting opposite him. Politely, he asked, “Want some?”

“I don’t need to eat.”

“That’s a shame.”

Ji Bai picked up a silver spoon and took a mouthful of the porridge. Its sweet flavor made the corners of his mouth curl upward. He then picked up his knife and fork and cut off a piece of the sandwich.

Hmm, it tasted pretty good, too.

Ben thought he was a very strange person.

He was talking about how dangerous everything was, yet he still had the mood to eat. The longer Ben watched, the more he found himself craving food, even beginning to wonder what food tasted like. Unfortunately, he couldn’t remember anymore.

The strange person finished breakfast and returned to that accursed book.

The Magic Guide

Chapter One: Become a Mage in One Hundred Days.

The first page of Chapter One described the most basic meditation method.

Those with magic talent could faintly sense the existence of magic elements when concentrating, or even in their dreams. But if they wanted to truly gather those magic elements into magic in their own hands and make use of them, they first needed to learn meditation.

Meditation was the bridge to the mysterious world.

Ji Bai took a deep breath and made his decision.

Transmigrating to another world and accepting an entirely new identity was something the old Ji Bai had never imagined, much less something he could easily accept in a short time. But he knew that once he stepped onto the path of becoming a mage, there would be no turning back.

From today onward, he was Charlie Blaze.

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