บท 31: Swimming Upstream
บรรณาธิการ: Nyoi-Bo Studio
After hearing the way Antonya spoke, Zhao Xu slowly realized that everything that happened earlier might not have been as simple as he thought.
He quickly recounted everything he saw earlier, from how the demons had morphed themselves in a female wizard to seduce him all the way to how he had kept himself calm and persevered in chanting incantations.
"PFFT!"
Zhao Xu was interrupted by Antonya's incredulous laugh.
"Let me just start by saying that you'd better make sure that nobody else ever hears you say the things you just said for the rest of your life, otherwise, even if you become a Legendary Wizard in the future, nobody will ever let you forget this. HAHA…" Antonya didn't hold herself back and just burst out laughing.
"Hey hey hey. Players have the right to be egotistical too ok," complained Zhao Xu.
"Firstly, without any spell slots, there's no use in chanting those incantations at all. If you run into demons in the future, what you should do is immediately make a run for it regardless of the situation, and not sit there and chant useless incantations."
Zhao Xu was immediately terribly embarrassed. So those incantations were just helpful in convincing himself.
"But despite not coming into contact with any information on demons, your first reaction was actually to make sure you didn't get kissed by a demon. That's pretty sharp of you."
Zhao Xu could only treat these words as a compliment so that he wouldn't be so utterly embarrassed.
"But the place you were at earlier. Was there a huge round dish right at the top like those mechanical watches?"
After Antonya asked him this question in return, Zhao Xu fell into deep thought. His attention at the time was all on that female wizard.
The intense impact of seeing all this for the first time caused an image to flash across Zhao Xu's brain and he immediately kept away the light in his eyes.
"That's right. It wasn't the sky or stars, but a round dish. It looked like it was carved with some markings like a watch, but I don't remember the rest clearly."
Antonya nearly rubbed her forehead when she heard what he said.
She just moved her arms in a particular gesture as she started chanting incantations.
Zhao Xu's eyes widened as he stared straight at her.
This was the first time Antonya was casting a spell so clearly in front of him.
The last time, she had cast a Level 9 spell like Wish without any sound or movement, so he couldn't tell at all.
So now that she was casting something with such seriousness, could it be a legendary spell?
Zhao Xu silently counted six seconds in his heart, and finally, a mysterious ball of light appeared on Antonya's fingertips.
The ball of light on her fingertips gently fell to the ground and turned into floating dust.
The surface of the obelisk floor split apart like a pile of Lego blocks that had been kicked. Zhao Xu's heart skipped a beat. He didn't bother to learn the Level 1 spell, Feather Fall, because he didn't think that he would be unlucky enough to fall from a great height.
Fly was a Level 3 arcane spell, so it wasn't something that he could come into contact with right now.
The worst part was that Antonya was still insistent on casting her spell and didn't care about what he was thinking about at all.
But, just a millisecond later:
Zhao Xu realized that he was still standing where he was, as if an invisible piece of glass was holding him up.
The floor continued to transform as it broke open, then reformed. Even his surroundings broke apart and then regrouped again differently.
After going through half a month of being taught by Antonya, Zhao Xu had already figured out that Antonya was casting an illusionary spell of sorts.
She wasn't just blasting this place to pieces.
The effect of the illusionary spell slowly began to take shape.
Zhao Xu's mouth immediately fell open. The scene before him was exactly what he saw earlier on the throne. There were countless books stacked into the sky on layers and layers of shelves that reached the ceiling as well as many staircases leading up to each shelf.
As for the huge disk on top, Zhao Xu looked carefully this time and realized that this was a map of Arthur's 27 planes.
The Heroic Domains of Ysgard, the Gray Waste of Hadis, and even the Windswept Depths of Pandemonium were all on this large disk.
It symbolized how this universe worked.
Then suddenly, it was as if the dreamscape had shattered. The illusionary scene around him couldn't hold together anymore and fell apart into many pieces.
It was like a terrible haze being washed away by the heavy rains at the end of summer.
The spell was over, and Antonya stood where the female wizard was as she looked at him.
Zhao Xu had figured out by now that whatever happened to him earlier wasn't some sort of test.
That female wizard he saw wasn't some demon trying to disguise itself either.
The expression on Zhao Xu's face was now rather serious and grim.
"That was a Level 5 spell, Mirage Arcane. Looks like it's done a good job of recreating the scene you saw just now, and it's exactly what you went through earlier."
Zhao Xu nodded to confirm what she said.
"So…the lady who appeared was…?" Zhao Xu's tone of voice was much more polite now.
He started getting worried about whether he might suddenly be struck by lightning for being blasphemous.
"The Legendary Wizard, Miss Sisylvana."
Zhao Xu was stunned. He had guessed as much.
Sisylvana was the goddess of magic and knowledge.
But why was her title at this moment still only Legendary Wizard?
Wasn't she supposed to be a deity?
"That throne you sat on was created by the king of arcane magic, and he used a huge amount of resources from various ancient arcane empires. The seat you saw earlier was only one section of its entire body. More than 80% of its body is actually buried beneath the stage, and that's where the main part of the mythal spells are hidden."
"So the mithral you saw on stage earlier was only the cheapest part of its outer material. Those who are suitable to become a wizard will be able to activate the arcane magic within it by sitting on it, and gather spell slots from this process."
"On top of that, those who have a special gift often display a unique sort of supernatural ability after sitting on it. We use these things to make arrangements for each person's research and direction for leveling up in the future."
When she reached this point, Antonya paused for a moment. She looked deeply at Zhao Xu and tried to see if she could see anything different from his expression.
"You have Action Points, so you will be different from the rest of the ordinary folk who were seated below the stage."
"I have Action Points too, so when I sat on that throne, all the wizards present automatically recovered one spell slot, including all the apprentices."
"So today, I made you go up on stage because I wanted you to go through the same experience as I did and to make this batch of wizard apprentices bow to you and become your disciples and followers in the future."
Zhao Xu didn't expect that to be the reason behind everything she did.
He didn't even have time to gasp when Antonya mentioned that she also had Action Points.
"But do you know what happened after you sat down on the throne?"
"What?"
"You disappeared."
Zhao Xu went into a daze for a moment. He quickly pinched himself hard on the thigh and forced himself to calm down again.
"You mean I went missing? But I didn't feel myself go through any form of teleportation."
"It wasn't teleportation. You went through the river of time and returned to the time before the third generation of Sisylvana became a goddess. You saw her in The Final Scroll's Palace of Truth.
"She walked over to you because she was naturally curious about someone who could go against the stream of the river of time and go back to the past. She wasn't some demon who wanted to kiss you, alright? You'd better forget that you even thought about this, otherwise, you can forget about ever becoming a Cleric.
"So now, I'm curious. So having Action Points isn't actually the most special thing about you. So, what is?"
Antonya's words were filled with smiles as she looked at him.
Zhao Xu looked straight back at her.
The reason was very simple. It was that he had been reborn.
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