The Wizard's Pursuit of Truth

A fist-sized badge, glowing with a dark light, floated beside a massive Yin Wood tree. A Soul-Devouring Snake hissed at the uninvited guest, warily baring its fangs. Its pure black, scaly body refracted the light, and corrosive liquid dripped from it to the ground, sending up faint wisps of green smoke.

Wang Ya walked straight towards the Dark Badge. He reached out a pale hand, and his Dark Wizard Mark also began to emit a faint glow, the two drawn to each other.

A whistling sound cut through the air. A deeper, darker shadow stirred a light breeze as its sharp claws pierced three inches into the massive Soul-Devouring Snake. The snake tried to struggle, raising its head to bite, but a black, fleshy tendril grew from the tip of one of Harak’s feathers and plunged into its body.

As the Extraordinary Trait, Infectious Deep Touch, took effect, a layer of gray markings spread out from the wound, gradually covering the Soul-Devouring Snake’s entire body. On a microscopic level, the Harak Phage had already completely invaded the depths of the snake’s cellular genes, where it infected, replicated, and began to transform them.

The Dark Badge transformed into a stream of information and flowed into his palm.

[Current Dark Badge Count: 12]

’Not too many, but not too few, considering it hasn’t been long.’

The infected Soul-Devouring Snake, now covered in strange gray markings, slithered deep into the Yin Wood Forest and vanished from sight.

Harak’s Infectious Deep Touch ability wasn’t limited to its own direct actions. An infected creature could be controlled and used to attack and infect even more creatures.

And unlike Gundas’ Dog, it didn’t completely devour and replace the host’s flesh and blood cells. It was more of a symbiosis, an orderly control. The infected host could continue to grow and strengthen itself by absorbing Particle Energy or other food.

If Wang Ya chose not to do anything with the infected host, the Harak Phage would instead become a source of power for it, granting it a limited ability to grow stronger through consumption.

Of course, there was a limit. Without undergoing fusion with the Infinite Genome, the host’s own genetic lineage had its ceiling. If it continued to consume, its will and spirit would eventually be lost, and it would become a mere flesh-and-blood vessel for the Bacteriophage, driven only by the instinct to devour.

This was actually more beneficial for Harak, who could turn the host into food at any time and absorb it into its own body.

By devouring them, Harak could raise its own potential and complete its genetic fragments.

Harak flew down and landed on his shoulder. A strange light flickered in Wang Ya’s eyes. Only he himself knew the true purpose behind this action.

The Consciousness Brand allowed him to share Harak’s perspective and exert a degree of control over the phage-infected hosts.

The more creatures that were infected, the more power and eyes he would have. No Dark Badge would be able to hide, and he could even detect the tracks of other Wizards in advance.

The Heaven-Filling Fire Secret Realm had its advantages, as it could enhance the might of Fire Elemental Particle Energy Witchcraft.

The Erosion Forest also had its benefits. It was convenient for Harak to unleash its abilities, making it an alternative home turf—one that was, in some ways, even more advantageous than Heaven-Filling Fire.

Fire Elves themselves weren’t creatures of flesh and blood, but beings of energy. Harak couldn’t affect them.

Wang Ya had said he had no intention of being a hunter. That was a lie.

However, there was little point in hunting down weak Wizard Freshmen.

If he was going to be a hunter, he would be the hunter of hunters—the strongest hunter of them all.

Other hunters carried far more Dark Badges than ordinary Wizard Freshmen.

Wang Ya had already left the rather damp and muddy Dense Forest Zone. He could see many Extraordinary Creatures and ordinary animals, all unique to the Secret Realm, zipping back and forth through the dense woods. Due to environmental constraints, they couldn’t grow very large, excelling instead in Speed and Perception Ability—a clear result of natural evolution.

Suddenly, Wang Ya stopped. A subtle expression on his face, he looked toward a certain direction in the Yin Wood Forest...

A creature that was a cross between a lizard and a snake, capable of changing color, flicked its tongue, gathering pheromones from the air as it lay perched on a Yin Wood tree.

Not far away, a figure in a black Wizard Robe was moving with hurried steps. His face was pale, and he looked to have suffered a significant injury. He kept looking back over his shoulder, as if something was chasing him.

DRIP!

Blood dripped from his dangling fingertips to the ground, its pungent scent not only attracting the entity chasing him from behind, but also drawing in all the Extraordinary Creatures lurking in the surrounding Yin Wood Forest.

’Why is my luck so terrible?’ Harlech Qiuji cursed inwardly. He was a Wizard of the Wizard Family Alliance and, more than that, a member of the direct lineage of the Qiuji Clan—one of the Ten Great Wizard Clans.

’Compared to my outstanding older brother, ’Dante’, I’m undoubtedly much weaker, considered only second-tier among the Wizard Clan freshmen.’

’Getting separated from my brother Dante upon entering the Erosion Forest was one thing, but then I had to run into that freak from the Shebel Clan.’

’The man is a lunatic, killing indiscriminately without any reason. He has no interest in Dark Badges; it’s as if he’s deliberately wandering around killing freshmen, striking without any warning.’

”Riley Shebel, I’ll remember this,” Harlech muttered, clutching his nearly severed arm and quickening his pace. ’I have to find a safe place as soon as possible. I need to speed up my metabolism and cellular consumption to heal this wound.’

’Fortunately, no vital organs were damaged. I’m a rather special type of Elemental Wizard; while I cultivate Elemental Witchcraft, I also use related Wizardry Means to strengthen my physique.’