The Wizard's Pursuit of Truth

Inside the laboratory, Jones’s corpse lay on the dissection table. It still retained a preliminary level of bodily activity; the skin and flesh were remarkably fresh.

Wang Ya was dressed in a white Experimental Wizard Robe, its cuffs and pant legs tightly bound. The protection on his Face Armor continuously secreted the refreshing pheromones of ’Dark Night Rosemary’.

A dead host had no value for variable-based experiments, but that didn’t mean it was useless. Dissecting it and observing its internal condition might reveal some special information.

Wang Ya recalled a line from a biography he had read in the Library. An Old Wizard once said: ”I do not understand what love is, but if you have not placed her upon a dissection table, observed and understood her every part, how can you say you love her...”

He shook his head, banishing the strange thought from his mind.

A normal human body held no secrets for him; he even remembered the path of every single nerve with perfect clarity.

Wang Ya started by opening the thoracic cavity. Holding the Wizard Dissection Knife in his right hand, he easily sliced through the skin, then cut the thoracic membrane within.

The changes inside the chest cavity, however, were beyond his expectations.

It was empty. The major organs were gone, and even the ribs were riddled with countless black holes. Bizarre, tiny flesh buds continuously darted in and out of the openings.

Perhaps because they were exposed to the air and had sensed Wang Ya’s presence, the flesh buds all straightened up in unison, aiming directly at him.

When Wang Ya shifted his body, the flesh buds shifted with him. When he touched them with a finger, they displayed even greater activity, attempting to latch on and entwine themselves around it.

He also let some of the flesh buds touch his palm. He could clearly feel them acting like tiny insects, using mouthparts too small to be seen with the naked eye to begin gnawing at his protective glove, trying to burrow into his flesh.

They had a very clear carnivorous desire. Perhaps Jones’s body had been devoured from the inside out by these tiny flesh buds.

These were the remnants left behind by the parasitic Gundas’ Dog.

After completing the dissection, Wang Ya discovered densely packed flesh buds inside the vertebrae. Some had reduced activity and had fallen dormant, while others were still squirming feebly.

He collected these flesh buds, placed them in a cultivation container, and affixed a label that read ’Test Subject No. 1’.

The flesh he had taken from Harak was in another cultivation container. Compared to the bud tissue, it was still within a relatively normal range, showing no exaggerated proliferative properties. Its cells spontaneously absorbed the nutrient solution, turning a grayish-black color.

’I can start my research on the ’Source of Life’ and ’Core of Death’ with these flesh buds for now. Later, I can use a living Gundas’ Dog.’

’I’ll see if the bud tissue, separated from its host, maintains the same activity, and what its proliferative properties will ultimately evolve into.’

’Will it grow into a new Gundas’ Dog, be killed by Harak’s Extraordinary Bloodline, or will the two merge to become a new product?’

From what Wang Ya understood of Biological Cultivation, any Extraordinary Bloodline implant required testing for rejection reactions beforehand.

This was a similar principle at play.

It was equivalent to treating these flesh buds as an alternative type of Extraordinary Bloodline.

Whether this could actually be implemented and executed remained to be verified.

Subjects No. 1 and No. 2 continuously absorbed the nutrient solution. The process of reaching a suitable level of activity for experimentation would take about eight hours.

Wang Ya changed out of his Experimental Wizard Robe. After cleaning and disinfecting himself, he put on a black Wizard Robe and walked out of the laboratory.

「In the study.」

[Hint: Analysis of the first Wizard Rune of the ’Vast Sea Meditation Method - Advanced Chapter’ is in progress. Estimated time: 15 days.]

Wang Ya rubbed the bridge of his nose. Both of his analysis targets were already occupied: the first was analyzing the Middle-tier Witchcraft from the Inheritance Witch Book, and the second was the progress on his Meditation Method.

Fortunately, the time required was decreasing, and he had already collected information from about half of the books available for viewing on the second floor of the Dark Library.

Holding a feather pen, Wang Ya wrote down the insights and ideas he had gained from Gusai Wizard in a record book.

He also noted down his thoughts on his future Wizard Path, which came after observing Wizard Yi Si’s battle in the Battlefield.

The key point was still the manifestation of the illusory and the real, corresponding to the physical body and Extraordinary Spiritual Power. ’Balance probably isn’t just about the equivalence of two numerical values—the physical and the spiritual.’

’Otherwise, the numerical gap between the two aspects for the many Extreme Wizard Apprentices I’ve seen wouldn’t be so large.’

’But it doesn’t matter. The products of the Evil God have these characteristics, and I have more than a dozen of them, as well as a heart of flesh and blood suspected to be the Evil God’s main body... Researching a higher-echelon existence yields useful experience that points the way forward.’

’Of course, if I were to replace the Evil God’s Heart with an Official Wizard, and the Gundas’ Dog with a Level 3 Wizard Apprentice or an Extreme Wizard Apprentice, the results of the dissection would be even more outstanding. I would hardly have to worry about my future path being shrouded in confusion anymore.’

’An Elemental Wizard would be best—a perfect professional match!!’

The autumn wind outside the window rustled the pages of the book on his desk. The densely packed script gradually began to dry, setting permanently onto the paper.

Wang Ya also set down his feather pen. Perhaps in the near future, this record book would bear his name, Wang Ya Harak, and become his wizarding inheritance.

...

「Two days later.」

Wang Ya walked through the wilderness encampment in the Free Zone. The Wizard buildings of the Dark Land Headquarters were gone, replaced by massive tents that had sprung up from the ground. Most of the figures coming and going were Wild Wizards, all dressed in strange and peculiar outfits.