I Might As Well Quit This Lousy Wizard Profession

Chapter 170 - 170 161 Self-Hide and Attracting Attention (Asking for

?Chapter 170: 161 ‘Self-Hide’ and ‘Attracting Attention’ (Asking for Monthly Votes) Chapter 170: 161 ‘Self-Hide’ and ‘Attracting Attention’ (Asking for Monthly Votes) Lin An and the young boss arrived at the slaughterhouse, feeling a sense of festive harvest.

One after another, rather upscale-looking sorcerer zombies were pushed into the warehouse, unlike the previous batch, these sorcerer zombies gave off…

A sense of extreme terror.

Lin An stared dumbfounded at these sorcerer zombies, his brow slightly furrowing as he could feel that extreme distortion of a spirit will after being eroded by dark witchcraft.

The Witch Hunter Knights’ Furnace precisely refines emotions such as sentiment, obsession, longing, and so on from the corpses of sorcerer zombies, but are these extremely twisted things really suitable?

Unfamiliar with the Furnace, he wanted to say something but didn’t know where to begin.

Besides the corpses of the sorcerer zombies, three more trees appeared in the yard of the slaughterhouse.

A gigantic banyan tree that shaded the sky, a three-meter-high camellia tree, and a ten-meter-tall kapok tree.

Doctor Zhang, Zhuang, the witch-hunting knight in a long coat, and a plump witch-hunting knight, were all gathered around discussing animatedly.

“This ability to create duplicates is freaking awesome, I reckon ‘Kapok’ plans to turn all the members within ‘Crazy Male Witch’s Tree Hole’ into his own clones!” Zhuang said with his arms crossed and his head tilted back, clicking his tongue in amazement.

“Kapok…” Doctor Zhang looked at that kapok tree and exclaimed in awe, “It’s just a clone of the banyan tree, no wonder we could never catch him.”

As Lin An and the young boss approached, Zhuang clapped a hand on Lin An’s shoulder.

“Kid, you’re lucky; you nearly became ‘Kapok’s’ victim!”

His expression was full of a ‘that was close’ kind of astonishment, and he consoled Lin An with a hint of emotion, “But no worries, Kapok the male witch, the Eye Wraith, the Crazy Male Witch’s Tree Hole, three birds with one stone! The elders have sorted it all out for you!”

“From now on you can relax, alright.”

“Must feel like a load off your shoulders, not having to be undercover, right? Hahaha, you don’t have to say – I know.”

Lin An laughed and nodded, agreeing casually, though his gaze could not stop drifting to the three trees in front of him.

Plus the ‘pine tree’ that Original Liu became as a sorcerer zombie, there were only a total of four trees.

And what about the ‘papaya tree’? (142)
But he didn’t know how to bring that up.

The male witch Kapok moved about under the alias ‘kapok tree’, and if it hadn’t been for Lin An’s ‘Sky-Scanning Eyes’ leading him to the banyan tree, he would never have easily discovered that the witch’s true body was the banyan tree.

If he mentioned the papaya tree now, he would struggle to provide a reasonable explanation.

Certainly not that he could glimpse spirituality.

To say that when a wizard becomes a sorcerer zombie, it is their spirit influenced by the Spirit World Aura that takes over the body and is triggered by the Aura to remember every emotion capable of stimulating the soul from their life, ultimately warping their spirit. So had he long known what a wizard would look like if transformed into a sorcerer zombie?

Claim he knew all along that Original Liu’s spiritual essence was a banyan tree with four clones being the pine tree, camellia tree, kapok tree, and papaya tree?

No, Lin An didn’t want to expose any of his secrets in the slightest.

He could only make a somewhat bold guess—Original Liu, the rank six, using an alias to hide among the crowds, took the chance to slip away.

After all, were he in the same situation, he might do the same.

The tail secreting itself away from the gecko’s body, leaving the torso for hunters, creating the illusion of death.

That way, one could once again dive into the shadows undetected.

If, as he suspected…

It was good as long as he hadn’t been noticed.

Lin An heaved a silent sigh of relief.

Sometimes he felt that maybe he truly was a wizard sent undercover to infiltrate the Witch Hunter Knights; otherwise, why would he feel relieved?

Indeed, as an undercover agent, his loyalties were far too unreliable.

Original Liu can’t die now!

He needed to stir up trouble, to give himself a chance to be legitimately sent to the wizard community under the guise of being undercover, thus concealing his own identity as a wizard.

The slaughterhouse was especially busy today, and both Lin An and the young boss were called over to help.

In the end, the young boss stayed in the freezer to continue practicing his basics, while Lin An went to the tanning pool to continue working on his set of sorcerer zombie leather.

Professor Cao seemed particularly busy, stopping by to give a few instructions before hurrying away again.

In this corner of the Sorcerer (Witch) Slaughterhouse, only Lin An was left alone.

He silently looked down at the wrinkled passion fruit leather in the sink, his mind cluttered with thoughts of recent events, ultimately just silently exhaling.

There were far too many things he couldn’t intervene in.

All of this was because he wasn’t strong enough.

It was the same reason why he constantly worried about his identity as a wizard being exposed—it was all because he was not powerful enough.

Otherwise, even if discovered, what would it matter? With the strength of a ‘Kapok’ male witch like Original Liu, he could comfortably live under the nose of the Antler Witch Hunter Knights.

Swith his identity effortlessly and return to a normal life.

Now, as his emotions from the previous occasion had been digested, and the ‘vow’ that came with those emotions had been fulfilled, Lin An had indeed gained enough ability to protect himself and escape.

But now he was no longer satisfied with just that.

He was still weak, no longer content with the status quo, he had always longed for a better life, and the ability ‘to protect himself and escape’ was far from enough!

Strength!

He needed greater strength!

Such a craving for power was not an unattainable fantasy—it was “I want to become the most awesome existence.”

It was a very clear measure of reality.

Lin An was someone who was easily contented; he had never felt that such an aspect of himself was a flaw, at least he found it easy to experience happiness.

Yet, such a mindset extended into the supernatural world also meant that he didn’t ascend rapidly in leaps and bounds.

But rather, he progressed one step at a time.

The power he yearned for was not about overpowering the Antler Witch-Hunting Knight Order, Chen Xinmi, or Mr. Liu with witchcraft, but about having the ability to say no to these people.

From avoidance to outright refusal, that was the state he hoped to achieve.

In his own contemplative path to wizardry, being a wizard wasn’t about ‘I reckon and then just do,’ he maintained enough respect and restraint towards the power of emotions, knowing that having a thought or desire required action.

Afterward, he believed that under the influence of intangible forces, everything he longed for would soon be delivered right before him.

A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.

Lin An looked down again at the Sorcerer Zombie’s skin that had been cut off and tossed into the sink, considering the wrinkled passion fruit-like thing before him, and fell into deep thought.

How could he gain strength as quickly as possible?

Invoking the spiritual nature to assist the brain’s cognitive processes, Lin An contemplated with a thoughtful raise of his eyebrows.

Without a doubt, armor crafting was the sole path to become a Witch-hunting Knight; at least, that was the path he had taken while learning from Mr. Cao.

But perhaps, he could control the form it took!

Steer the process towards a realm with which he was familiar.

Upon thinking of material like skin, Lin An’s mind instantly conjured the image of the green skin imbued with the life force of the Multi-Handed Frog.

Full of wrinkles, it bore the sense of helplessness of being bound by fate, yet also contained the resilience and strength of life.

He had studied that piece of green skin for far too long—so long that it started to lose association with the ‘Multi-Handed Frog’s spiritual essence’ and became more of an embodiment of his various realizations.

Streaks of orange-red light spread across his hands as if his arm veins had been injected with some sort of radioactive substance, looking quite terrifying.

Lin An dipped his hands into the liquid of the sink, and instantly, the surface started to boil, a heavy mist diffusing into the air.

Gently kneading the skin material, the rhythm of the tanning skill surged forth with a guiding cadence; the greyish-brown color of the material before his eyes did not change but its texture slowly altered bit by bit.

If the young boss were here, he would be absolutely astonished.

Because the green skin portrait was also something he was familiar with.

But he was destined not to know anymore.

The secretive inclinations of Lin An’s heart influenced the effect of the tanning skill; as the piece of wrinkled passion fruit skin started to reveal the patterns of the green skin portrait, it began to hide itself once more.

Its surface started to develop a layer of crystalline, hard luster, making the entire skin material look like a flashy piece, full of a starry, glittering texture.

This!

It was also a part of the power of the heart.

Internal struggles, desires, feelings of powerlessness, and characteristics of self-concealment naturally burst forth with ‘engulfing attention’ as a heart power.

It was a balance as well as a gambit of one’s internal powers.

It was like the struggle between ‘suppressed numbness’ and ‘pursuit of thrills.’
Professor Cao, evidently very concerned about Lin An, came by the corner after a little while and specifically stopped to check on his student’s progress.

“Is this method I researched really that amazing?” Mr. Cao was baffled; he admitted he was particularly proud of having adapted the Breathing Skill Furnace method of the Witch Hunter Knights into a way suitable for wizards.

That showcased the brightest moment of his intellectual prowess.

But all these were still just ‘theory’—Lu Jiao was never short of wild theories, of which not many turned out to be practical.

Even the ‘Chive garden’s self-sufficient furnace enhancement’ invention by the exceedingly talented Lu Tingyu, which proposed using a wizard’s own emotions as nourishment for their personal furnace, seemed potent and feasible yet ultimately failed.

Could his method actually succeed?

So smoothly that it was almost unbelievable!

But the speed at which Lin An learned the flaying skill, the speed at which he learned the tanning skill, was so rapid it far surpassed his expectations.

It was all proof of how correct his theory was.

His increasingly dull mind struggled to come up with better methods, making the results Lin An currently exhibited all the more gratifying to him.

Mr. Cao smiled as he looked down at the material in the sink, pointing at Lin An, “Young people like cool stuff, turning the armor material into this gem-like sheen; you’ll definitely be the one to draw the most fire when you wear it out.”

Lin An stood quietly on the side, smiling sheepishly, appearing very well-behaved.

Mr. Cao didn’t seem to feel that the ‘pearly and attention-grabbing’ appearance held an inherent trait of ‘self-concealment.’
That made sense, as this method of sensing the rhythm of spiritual nature was more inclined towards wizards.

Mr. Cao wasn’t a wizard, and he had also gradually lost the ability of a normal person to savor the nuances of the spirit.