I Might As Well Quit This Lousy Wizard Profession

Chapter 104 - 104 097 The Flavor of Life

?Chapter 104: 097 The Flavor of Life Chapter 104: 097 The Flavor of Life Up until now, Lin An had come across two types of witchcraft, one was direct spellcasting, and the other was ritual magic.

Ritual magic seemed to have a low threshold; as long as you knew the steps, casting it wasn’t difficult.

However, direct spellcasting seemed to emphasize inner strength more and had a greater impact on the wizard’s own heart.

Witchcraft…

It seemed to be the reason why wizards turned into Sorcerer Zombies.

At the same time, releasing witchcraft also seemed to be the process by which wizards became powerful.

Privately noting these things, Lin An took his smartphone and went out to gather the various materials needed for the ritual magic.

The list of materials needed for the witchcraft ceremony of “Little Quilt No Love” left by Chen Xinmi had many things related to occult studies, which were hard to find on the market.

But the two things taught by the male wizard Xiao Susu were as common as could be.

Soon he returned home carrying big and small bags.

He bought transparent paper boxes and ink; as someone working in the internet industry, he knew some things even more than the male wizard Xiao Susu.

For instance, downloading a mask pattern would leave traces in the software, making it too easy for others to trace back to him.

Lin An found a mask template in the face-pinching software, casually operated it a few times, then clicked export to check the format and already understood the data he needed.

He placed the transparent paper on the hallway dressing mirror, and suddenly a clown face came close, pressing hard against it.

“Hahaha…” the clown face bobble-head shook and laughed maniacally, “Give me back my witchcraft!”

Lin An watched him with a smile, “No, you are mistaken, it should be your memories, emotions, traces of life… and so on, all these things.”

The clown face bobble-head was stunned for a moment, staring blankly at him, “What do you mean?”

“You are left with only your spiritual essence now, ‘Dizzy’ sorcery isn’t that important to you anymore, right?” Lin An held a small saucer full of ink, dipped a new brush in it, and with the aid of spiritual essence entered a better painting state, smoothly tracing the outline of the mask on the transparent paper with his brushwork.

“But ‘Dizzy’ sorcery encapsulates the memories, emotions, and traces of life that your spirit nurtured this witchcraft with… and so on, all those things.”

“Now that I have taken your witchcraft, you have also lost these, right.”

The clown face bobble-head looked at Lin An in disbelief.

Lin An stepped back, compared the size of the mask on the clown face bobble-head’s face, nodded, then moved closer to continue painting.

“All these powers of the spirit, eroded and fused by spiritual energy, thus have the possibility of crossing dimensions to enter the Spirit Realm.”

“These fusions are referred to as spiritual essence.”

“The behavior of spiritual essence within the Spirit Realm, when conveyed to the real world, becomes a super dimensional force.”

The clown face bobble-head opened his mouth, mumbling, “How does a newcomer like you know so much…”

Lin An shrugged, “Because that’s what Witch-hunting Knights are like.”

“Tsk~”

“That’s right, the Witch Hunter Knights initially branched off from wizards too.”

Lin An applied the ink carefully, so focused, his brushstrokes gliding over the transparent paper on the mirror opposite the clown face, “Based on these analyses I’ve made, I’d really like to say…”

He stopped the brush, looked seriously at the clown face bobble-head, “Seeking the power of the spirit should not lead to extremes, I know those who go to extremes are always better than others, more charismatic, whether in the Supernatural World or the world of ordinary people.”

“But, you know…”

“Such people, they don’t really seem human anymore, do they? Like someone with a mental disorder? Like a madman?”

“Extremes are indeed a force of life, but restraint and moderation are also a power of the spirit.”

Lin An smiled faintly, “I knew an old man who spent his life abiding by his principles of conduct, even if it made him mediocre, but that is the flavor of life.”

“The flavor of life?” the clown face bobble-head watched him blankly.

“Yes.” Lin An’s wrist gently swayed, his brush finely detailing the patterns on the mask, “A flavor… how to put it… that you wizards and Witch Hunter Knights long for but can never reach.”

At this, he chuckled lightly, “It’s a bit like emperors who feel lonely at the top, or rich businessmen in their large empty mansions feeling hollow inside, who stroll among the common folk and, seeing an ordinary couple pushing a stroller and laughing together, feel a longing in their hearts.”

“That’s the flavor of life, which you have all lost.”

“The flavor of life?” the clown face bobble-head murmured again.

Lin An smiled faintly, his thoughts drifting to the memories contained within the clown face bobble-head’s ‘Dizzy’ sorcery.

As a child, this person was raised by a single mother who vented all her grievances on him and only resembled a mother when she was drunk.

So after dropping out of school and starting to work, he bought his mother liquor every day, keeping her perpetually drunk and in a ‘motherly’ state. Eventually, the mother died, and the person came to suffer from severe alcohol dependency.

Drunk every day, feeling empty, with the whole world spinning around him.

“Life shouldn’t be lived like this.” Lin An looked at it seriously, “We can seek the wisdom of life, we can strive to create an environment for life, and we can use more tolerance and love to gradually change a person, if you are willing to give so much for the maternal love you long for.”

“And this, this is the flavor of an ordinary person’s life.”

“It’s not extreme, nor can the process bring pleasure, yet the resilience, breadth, and strength that life requires are powerful beyond the reach of those who casually venture into extremes.”

“That is the power of life, the power of the soul.”

“No!” The clown’s punching bag-like face burst open with a bang, morphing into the ‘Rabbit Mask Sorcerer,’ who looked at Lin An in the mirror with panic. “No, no, no, stop talking!”

Lin An looked at him sincerely. “It’s easy for a person to unleash the wildness and the beast within, but it’s much harder to restrain that wildness and beast. It requires more power of the soul, power of life.”

“Don’t you think so? Indulgence is much simpler than Restraining Self and Returning to Ritual. How could it show greater strength in the power of the soul?”

“No, don’t say anymore!” The ‘Rabbit Mask Sorcerer’ frantically smashed the mirror, emitting a terrible sound, and when that proved futile, he began to ram it with madness.

“Do you know? I’m an orphan, and how much I envy you for having a mother,” Lin An’s expression was so sincere. “Even if she’s not perfect, I have never yearned for perfection.”

“No!”

“No!!!”

It hit the mirror like a lunatic, staring wide-eyed at Lin An, “Give me alcohol, give me alcohol, if you give me some to drink, I’ll teach you all about the ‘Dizzy’ Sorcery, okay?”

“You really need it, right?”

“The spirit of that dark gold statue, where my witchcraft and spiritual energy are combined, you’ll meet your end with it someday!”

“I know how much you need this sorcery, it’s your way of escaping the Witch Hunter Knights!”

“Quick, give me alcohol, just pour it on the mirror, quick!”

“I’ll teach you~~~”

Lin An simply shook his head, put down the ink and brush, clapped his hands, and looked with satisfaction at the pattern drawn on the transparent paper, “Numb oneself? Escaping won’t solve anything, sweetheart.”

“No~” It banged angrily against the mirror, “You damn well stop talking!”

Lin An just shook his head in disagreement, with a look of contemplation.

“You’ve made your life into this mess, turned yourself into this figure, letting your Seven Emotions and Six Desires run wild like untamed horses, leaving their spirit increasingly uncontrollable, and in the end, the one destroyed will be you~”

The clown-face sorcerer lay gasping on the mirror, like a fish out of water in despair, staring intently at Lin An, “You’re just a freshly awakened Wizard, what do you know, you’re talking nonsense, right, it’s all nonsense!”

Lin An responded with a slight smile and turned to the kitchen, starting to tinker with the pastes for the ritual magic masks.

An ugly head rolled in front of the dressing mirror and made tsk, tsk, tsk sounds.

“He’s a devil! He’s simply a devil!” the Rabbit Mask Sorcerer said to the ugly head.

“No!” The ugly head smiled slightly, “He’s just a person who lives earnestly, that’s all.”

After a while, Lin An brought a bowl of the paste over to the mirror, aligned his eyes with the eye holes of the freshly drawn mask on the transparent paper, and began to apply the paste on the paper and his face.

“It’s cool and refreshing, feels quite nice~”

He remarked with appreciation.

The Rabbit Mask Sorcerer twisted his face, lying in the mirror, laughing and crying at Lin An, “Give me some alcohol please!”

“Give me some alcohol please!”

Lin An hummed a song, paying it no attention.

He isn’t usually the talkative type, but after today’s high-intensity focus in dealing with the young boss, Chen Xinmi, and Xiao Susu the Wizard, he felt the wildfire within him burning even brighter.

But interestingly, while anger manifested as joy, unlike the clown-face sorcerer’s manic laughter, he maintained a unique, subtle feeling of ‘inner happiness.’

That feeling was especially intriguing.

He suddenly liked being a Wizard quite a bit, as a Wizard’s ability to sense emotions seemed to allow him to appreciate the taste of being human even more.

That taste, of being alive.

Because he was a Wizard, he felt more like a person, instead of a miserable office drone, numb to life as if he were a working automaton.

After applying the paste, he placed the empty bowl aside, pinched a corner of the transparent paper, closed his eyes, and tore it off with a swift motion.

Upon opening his eyes again, the paste was gone from his face, replaced by a mask that seemed to have grown onto his skin.

Pure black, with faint traces of swirling, chaotic patterns.

“Ha~”

He let out a cheerful laugh, glanced at the Rabbit Mask Sorcerer in the mirror, and then at the unsightly head by his feet.

“Doesn’t seem too hard.”

“How is it?”

“Would you take a look for me, how does it look?”