The fourth black page in the diary had originally been incomplete, but after adding the Wraith Hand and a small amount of Angela's soul energy, it had turned into a brand-new page. The consciousness within had also transford into a new personality—An.
However, this new personality had yet to fully stabilize. Most of the ti, An remained silent. Saul knew she was working hard to stabilize her sense of self, so he didn’t go out of his way to disturb her—for fear that the fusion would fail and she’d turn into a monstrous abomination.
Now, that lack of fusion had begun to show its flaws.
An’s mind was frequently flooded with inexplicable mories—so with clear origins, others just scattered fragnts.
She often had to deliberately ignore those mories, or risk spiraling into distortion and madness.
Fortunately, An resided within the diary. That alone allowed her to maintain a stable ntal state at all tis.
Otherwise, the brutal combination of three fragnted consciousnesses would have inevitably ended in catastrophic conflict and self-destruction.
“The fragntary wraith consciousness ca from the Bloodthorn Family's basent,” Saul thought. “And the diary also originated from there. That suggests the wraith’s background is far from ordinary. I should try to get An to recall more in the future—there may be deeper secrets hidden in this diary.”
Still, Saul had no plans to question her right now. He simply made a ntal note that An was familiar with the secret code of the Soul Devouring Flower, which hinted at past dealings with the Land Drifters.
Ordinary friends wouldn’t know such classified information.
Saul smiled lightly, feeling a weight lift from his heart.
Even though the insect within the Wizard Tower had yet to be found, simply knowing what kind of ntal cues they had planted in him gave Saul a clear defensive advantage for the future.
Sooner or later, he’d smoke the rat out.
“That’s enough for now. I’ll report what I found in the corpse and the data on the ntal energy fluctuations to my master. As for how much he can uncover from it… we’ll follow his lead.”
With all this evidence in hand, even soone as arrogant as Gorsa would surely tread more carefully.
Saul had grown under Gorsa’s subtle guidance and cultivation. Although the man’s teaching style leaned heavily toward hands-off laissez-faire, Saul still felt grateful to him.
If not for Gorsa, Saul probably wouldn’t even have had the opportunity to work in the corpse room—let alone undergo the life-altering transformation of his wizard body.
“The Wizard Tower must not fall. If sothing happens here, every apprentice might get dragged into the conspiracy aid at the master.”
Faces flashed through Saul’s mind—familiar and dear—along with all the experiences he’d had over the years within the tower.
“Cold and ruthless as this place is, it gave a foothold in this world.”
Saul walked over to his lab table, picked up the ssage pen, and sent a new note to his master Gorsa, despite having parted from him less than half a day ago.
Because this matter involved an unknown mastermind, Saul didn’t write anything specific—only that he hoped to et with his master again.
Such a ssage didn’t co off as urgent.
Saul prepared himself ntally for the possibility that it might be a while before he’d see Gorsa.
What he didn’t expect was that it would take half a month before he saw his new master again.
Until then, Saul told no one about what he had discovered and simply continued his daily life as an apprentice.
Only now, in addition to his work in the Second Storage Room, he had taken on a lofty new research project.
Who would’ve thought? A newly promoted Third Rank apprentice, participating in such a high-level experint—resurrection.
After a few days of contemplation, Saul quickly settled on his entry point for the research—sothing he was most familiar with: soul infusion. And the vessel for this infusion would be sothing else he knew well—the human body.
For that, he specifically submitted a request to ntor Rum for a Second Rank apprentice proficient in soul infusion to assist him. Upon hearing Saul’s idea, ntor Rum agreed without hesitation.
Best of all, Saul didn’t have to pay a single coin for anything related to the circular laboratory's experints.
The only problem was timing. The previous artificially created Second Rank apprentices were either dead or tied up with other experints. As for the newest artificial one—his soul had yet to fully synchronize with his body.
In soul infusion experints, if the soul and body are of different genders, the mismatch can help locate the soul more securely within the body—but it also leads to extre cognitive dissonance.
They had already conducted many experints like this. A few tis, the infusion had seemingly succeeded, only to fail at the last mont when the soul rejected the unfamiliar body and caused aberration.
That’s why, in later trials, ntor Rum would deliberately select apprentices whose ntal states had already deteriorated.
They were already so ssed up, a change in gender wasn’t sothing they’d bother fussing over.
But apprentices created under such conditions never lasted more than three years. Over ti, both the soul and the body would begin rejecting each other.
If forcibly kept together, the result would be soul collapse and bodily disintegration.
Even so, among the many resurrection experints, soul infusion remained the one with the highest success rate.
Thus, when Saul ca to Rum, he was offered abundant support. Rum even told Saul to co directly to him if any problem arose.
And that was when Saul witnessed, for the first ti, what it looked like when the mountain-sized ntor Rum smiled.
Friendly… and terrifying.
What stuck with Saul the most was that even Rum’s rolls of fat seed to be smiling.
He made a quick and polite exit and returned to the Second Storage Room to wait for the test subject—or rather, his assistant—to arrive.
The days that followed slipped into an eerie calm.
The mastermind behind the Soul Devouring Flower made no further moves, and Master Gorsa still hadn’t shown up. The assistant Saul requested would apparently still take a few days to arrive.
Work in the storage room remained pitifully scarce.
Senior Byron stopped by once, seemingly to check on Saul’s condition after advancing to Third Rank. He also shared his own experiences of studying after reaching Third Rank.
Mostly because Byron owed Saul academic credits again. He had nothing else of value to offer at the mont—Saul, being the Tower Master’s apprentice, was practically swimming in lab materials.
Although so of Byron’s insights didn’t suit Saul’s thods, they still served as useful references.
Byron's knowledge was detailed, especially on aspects overlooked by most ntors—particularly the path toward becoming a True Wizard.
Currently, Saul’s two master—one absent and one overly cautious—had left him completely in the dark about how a Third Rank apprentice might advance to True Wizard.
But Saul wasn’t too anxious about learning that yet. He had just reached Third Rank and had only just mastered his first Second Rank spell. Who knew how many years stood between him and advancent?
Although his locator was already installed, his own magic power, ntal strength, and knowledge base were all still lacking.
Those were all things that could only be refined over ti.
And unlike before, he could no longer rely on wizard body modifications to quickly boost his stats.
During the Soul Resin modification, he had already used materials that exceeded what a Second Rank apprentice should have been allowed to access. Now that he was Third Rank, the available materials were essentially the sa as before. In other words, Saul currently had no way to conduct a higher-grade wizard body modification than the one he’d already undergone.
And equal-grade modifications weren’t worth it—they hurt the body and burned through money.
(End of Chapter)
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