Diary of a Dead Wizard

Chapter 82: Knowledge? A Monster?

Fortunately, Monica eventually gave everyone a detailed explanation of how to perform semi-immersive meditation.

Even Saul, who had taught himself semi-immersive meditation, gained quite a bit of insight from it.

Previously, whenever he entered a semi-immersive state, it was always to observe contamination and abnormalities. But according to Monica's explanation, semi-immersive meditation was actually a temporary technique for stabilizing the mental body and quickly replenishing magic.

When Saul had encountered danger in Mentor Kaz’s lab, he’d used semi-immersive meditation to stabilize his mental body.

But afterward, he’d used it almost exclusively to detect mutated materials—so much so that he had nearly forgotten its original purpose.

Saul’s magic had increased significantly over the past three months. Now, even fully immersive meditation couldn’t quickly restore his entire magic reserve, let alone semi-immersive meditation.

However, the advantage of semi-immersive meditation was its quick startup. In a short time, it could actually restore more magic than full immersion.

Still, this kind of unaided meditation—without any auxiliary tools—wasn’t easy to master.

It required the apprentice to be highly familiar with their meditation diagram and skilled in manipulating their mental power.

If, every time they meditated, they simply followed the lines on the diagram, then the moment they put the book down, they would fall into the memory maze of “I think that’s how it went... or maybe not…”

Once most of the new apprentices started attempting semi-immersive meditation, Monica began wandering aimlessly through the classroom.

Occasionally, some older apprentices would ask questions.

Some she answered, and some she only smiled at without a word.

When Monica passed by, Saul raised his hand and asked a question too.

“Instructor Monica, are the meditation diagrams different for First Rank and Second Rank apprentices? Or do we have to learn a new diagram at each stage?”

“Second Rank apprentices have usually already learned a First Tier spell. Their mental bodies are strong enough to withstand more dangerous diagrams, so yes, they can switch,” Monica replied with her usual smile as she turned to Saul. “But once you reach Third Rank, you won’t need a meditation diagram anymore.”

“Won’t need it?” Saul was startled, but quickly caught on. “Because of the locator?”

Monica raised an eyebrow. “Seems like you really have learned a lot of advanced knowledge. That’s good—but also risky.”

She extended a finger and gently tapped Saul’s forehead.

Crack!

A small arc of lightning flashed.

Startled, Saul instinctively jumped back, but a sharp sting still hit his forehead.

“Learning too much knowledge beyond your current ability means you must be ready to bear the risks that come with it.”

With that, Monica clasped her hands behind her back and continued walking, leaving Saul alone, rubbing his forehead in contemplation.

Nearly every senior student and mentor had mentioned that in the pursuit of knowledge, a sorcerer would encounter unknown dangers.

At first, Saul thought it simply meant that the mind—or rather, the mental body—could become dizzy and collapse from the complexity of the knowledge.

But now, it seemed more than that.

It gave him the unsettling feeling that knowledge itself might be a kind of monster.

Unfortunately, there was no one to answer that question.

From the end of class, through lunch, and all the way to the second floor of the East Tower, Saul kept turning the idea over in his mind.

Then, just before entering the morgue, he ran into Mentor Kaz again.

“Mentor?” Saul was a bit surprised. Kaz usually didn’t show up this often.

He had been seeing his mentor quite a lot lately.

“As the top scorer in the test, you can choose a Companion Flower. I’ll take you there.” Kaz didn’t wait for a reply before turning and walking away.

Saul, confused, quickly followed.

He remembered Senior Rocky had mentioned the Companion Flower reward.

Because Lokai was the public leader of the Mutual Aid Society, Saul didn’t want much to do with him and hadn’t paid the reward much mind.

He didn’t expect Kaz himself to personally escort him to pick the flower.

As he followed the mentor, Saul fished The Basics Knowledge of All Things out of his bag and flipped to the botany section.

CompanionFlower: Can establish a bloodline connection with a living being, and dies after bearing fruit. Its fruit varies in type and effect, usually providing minor magic increases or mental stabilization.

Just a few lines of description were enough to stir Saul’s anticipation.

Increasing magic might become Saul’s lifelong pursuit.

Soon, he noticed that he and Kaz had turned down a passageway he had never seen before.

It seemed they had reached the fifth floor of the East Tower—a storage area not accessible to apprentices.

After they passed the main warehouse door, they continued on and turned down another corridor. As they went farther, the path began to slope downward.

They walked for quite a while.

Saul hastily stuffed the book back into his bag, peering curiously ahead.

The gray stone bricks gradually gathered dust, and the wall-mounted candles became sparser and older.

One lamp stand was even broken, drooping at an angle against the wall.

Such disrepair was unheard of in the tower.

In Saul’s mind, the tower was always tidy and orderly, maintained with great care.

He started wondering where exactly the Companion Flower was kept.

It was a plant, after all—most would grow in soil.

And arable land inside the tower was scarce... Could it be outside?

His heart began to race—equal parts excited and anxious.

Afraid he’d be disappointed in the end.

But this time, life did not let him down.

After descending for a while longer, Saul saw a large wooden door reinforced with metal, standing wide open.

No candles were lit nearby, yet the place wasn’t dark at all.

A gentle, brilliant light shone in from beyond the door, a stark contrast to the pale candlelight inside.

Kaz paused before the door and glanced back at Saul, who was craning his neck to see past him.

“Calm down. Don’t act like some clueless monkey,” he said.

Saul immediately shrank back.

But his eyes were still sparkling with excitement.

“Mentor, are we going outside the tower?”

“Don’t make a fuss. Once you reach Second Rank, there’ll be plenty of chances to go out. Right now, we keep you inside to stop the outside world from distracting you from your studies.”

Kaz glared at Saul. He always had a feeling this little apprentice might embarrass him someday.

As they approached the gate, Saul recalled a terrifying scene.

One he had seen in Mentor Rum’s illusion: scorched earth, bubbling mud, scattered corpses, and black, tentacled horrors...

Could that be what lay beneath the tower? A hellish realm?

Kaz had already disappeared beyond the doorway.

Saul took a deep breath and stepped through.

Even if terrifying—it still called to him.

But then...

A gentle breeze brushed across his face, carrying the moist scent of grass.

Beyond the gate was a flat expanse of land.

No black sludge. Just pale yellow soil.

Beneath his feet lay a specially constructed path, branching out in all directions for easy travel.

Above him was a clear blue sky. In the distance, green mountains and dense forests—no sudden shift into hellscape.

Not far down the path was a garden enclosed by a simple wooden fence. A small wooden hut stood at its entrance, with someone vaguely visible inside.

From outside the fence, Saul could see the garden’s many flowers swaying in the wind. They seemed a bit messy, not deliberately arranged.

Then came the sound of hoofbeats and wheels.

Saul turned to see a two-person carriage speeding down another path.

That road approached the tower from a different direction.

The carriage quickly disappeared behind the tower's high walls.

“That’s the vehicle entrance,” Kaz explained casually, seeing Saul staring.

Saul nodded and shifted his gaze around.

The Wizard’s Tower stood alone in a desolate field, with only the faint shadows of villages far in the distance. Perhaps the locals had been deliberately driven away.

Though sparsely populated, the area wasn’t as terrifying as the illusion. Just a little lonely.

Saul couldn’t help but wonder, Was that vision I saw back then—was Rum trying to scare me? Or... was it my own imagination?

(End of Chapter)