Chapter Seventy-Two: Promotion to Third Rank Itch!!!
An unbearable itch!!!
"Damn it! I actually have to enter a deep meditative state under this kind of influence and reforge my
Leylin's face flushed crimson. Gritting his teeth, he fought back the overwhelming urge to scratch and shut his eyes.
Because of the intense physical sensations, it took Leylin several times longer than usual to fully enter a meditative state.
In a hazy void, Leylin seemed to have arrived somewhere.
Everything around him was shrouded in gray mist, with only scattered lights hanging in midair like stars, lending a faint glow to the place.
Leylin looked up. Twenty-four strange runes floated in the air above, pulsing with a pale luminescence as they formed a circle.
These were the Will Runes he had painstakingly constructed over the past several years.
Each Will Rune was assembled from numerous intricate structures, and crafting every single one demanded an enormous amount of time and energy. It had taken Leylin over a year of meditation to finally manifest all of them.
"The Second-rank Apprentice's Will Runes aren't fully consolidated yet. Advancing to Third-rank means integrating all the Will Runes on the foundation of the Second-rank, and reinforcing the Sea of Consciousness!"
Leylin was deeply curious about this state.
Here, he existed purely as a form of consciousness. The Sea of Consciousness didn't reside in any physical location within his body — even observing himself with the Chip's atomic-level microscope, he couldn't find any trace of it.
"The cultivation of a
Leylin exclaimed inwardly in awe. At that moment, the always-tranquil Sea of Consciousness underwent a sudden change.
A layer of orange-yellow light continuously suffused the gray mist, and before long, the entire Sea of Consciousness had transformed into a brilliant orange-yellow.
"The Activity Potion is taking effect! It's a potion that only acts on the body — I know the formula completely — yet it can influence the Sea of Consciousness. How miraculous..."
Leylin’s sigh of amazement was still fading when the orange-yellow light surged straight up into the sky, as if it wanted to dye the twenty-four Will Runes the same hue as well.
Boom!!!
The Will Runes glowed, resisting the invasive light, and a tremendous impact struck. Leylin’s vision went black, and he nearly passed out.
"Suppress them!" Leylin quickly used the tether of his Spiritual Power to suppress the Will Runes' resistance.
Snap!!!
Against the Will Runes he had constructed himself, Leylin’s control was extraordinary. After a few seconds, all twenty-four Will Runes ceased their struggle, coated in a layer of orange-yellow.
Under the light’s pervasion, many mysterious patterns suddenly appeared upon the Will Runes.
The patterns spread continuously, eventually covering the entire surface of the runes.
Boom!!! The twenty-four Will Runes drew together, combining to form a far more massive sigil.
Around the edges of Leylin’s Sea of Consciousness, many of the same patterns also manifested. With these patterns in place, the Sea of Consciousness became even more crystalline and transparent, seemingly growing far more solid.
Once the reinforcement was complete, as if receiving some silent command, the orange-yellow light rapidly withdrew, vanishing entirely from the Sea of Consciousness in an instant.
The colossal, strange sigil radiated a soft glow, and Leylin’s consciousness was instantly expelled.
"Where is this?"
Leylin’s vision swam, and he suddenly found himself in a bizarre location, surrounded by complete darkness, utterly devoid of light.
He tried to reach out his hand, but he had absolutely no "concept" of a hand, as if he had never possessed one.
He simply drifted in the void, with no sense of time passing and no ability to move.
For Leylin, in this space, a single minute felt as though a dozen years had slipped by.
This sensation was enough to drive a normal person to the brink of madness.
Leylin felt a flicker of agitation himself: "Wasn’t I in the process of advancing to Third-rank Apprentice? How did I suddenly arrive here? How much time has passed?"
Suddenly, a flash of insight sparked in Leylin’s mind: "Chip!"
"Beep!" A pale blue light projected in front of Leylin's eyes. Although it couldn't illuminate the darkness, it made him feel much better.
"Abnormal state detected in the host's consciousness. Under current conditions, the host's advancement to Third-rank Apprentice will fail in 5 minutes and 23 seconds! In 13 hours and 45 minutes, the host's various organs will begin to deteriorate, resulting in death! Shall magical power be mobilised to dispel the abnormal state? Yes/No?"
"Yes!" Leylin could no longer feel any magical power in his body, but the Chip could still mobilise it. This filled him with elation.
"Host authority obtained. Mobilising magical power to dispel abnormal state…" As the Chip's mechanical voice rang out, a strange fluctuation suddenly appeared in the dark space.
Leylin's vision brightened. He opened his eyes and found himself still in the secret chamber — barely any time had passed at all.
"So there can be unexpected complications even when advancing to Third-rank Apprentice!"
Leylin's expression was grave. His progress had been too rapid, and much of his knowledge came from the library, supplemented by the Chip's simulations and deductions.
There were many situations that arose during the breakthrough to Third-rank Apprentice that he simply didn't know about.
"Normally, when Second-rank Apprentices are advancing, their mentors provide them with specialised guidance… What a pity! Mentor Guofate could never have guessed that I'd be facing a breakthrough this quickly!"
Leylin harboured secrets and would never dare speak the full truth. In Guofate's eyes, he was still a Second-rank Apprentice who had only just advanced — why would he have mentioned any of the precautions for advancing to Third-rank Apprentice?
The books in the library were mostly generic fare, with many things described in deliberately vague terms. Even with the Chip to filter out false information and run simulations, Leylin couldn't obtain complete data.
This left him completely without countermeasures for any unexpected events during advancement.
"Fortunately, I had the Chip this time, or I would have been done for! The path of a Wizard is truly filled with danger!"
Leylin shuddered at the thought.
But this also confirmed his earlier suspicion — the Chip had indeed undergone some unknown change when it crossed through time and space alongside him, becoming directly linked to his soul.
Because of that, even when his soul was in an abnormal state and utterly isolated, he could still mobilise the Chip to dispel the influence from outside.
"So the hard part of advancing to Third-rank Apprentice isn't combining the Will Rune or reinforcing the Sea of Consciousness — it's the dark space that comes afterwards!"
Leylin suddenly understood a great deal. This kind of information was exactly what the various mentors and academies kept closely guarded. Countless wandering Wizard Apprentices had perished precisely because of this.
"Beep! The host's Spiritual Power has undergone a change, increased in vitality. The host has advanced to Third-rank Apprentice! Spiritual Power is undergoing a leap…" The Chip's notification sounded once more.
Immediately after, Leylin felt the world spin before his eyes as his Spiritual Power surged upward at a breakneck pace.
7.2 7.3 7.5 ……
9.7 His Spiritual Power kept climbing like a rocket, rising steadily until the data jumped to 10.1! And there it finally stabilised.
"My head is killing me!!!"
The sudden surge of Spiritual Power was more than Leylin's current body could handle. He felt a sting at the tip of his nose, and when he reached up to touch it, he found two streams of blood trickling down!
"Spiritual Power increased too fast — the body can't keep up!"
Leylin let out a bitter laugh, but his expression quickly shifted as cracks and pops erupted all over his body. At the same time, searing pain radiated from every part of him.
The muscles on Leylin's face twisted into a grimace as he collapsed onto the ground, his body curled up like an overcooked shrimp.
"Damn it! Damn it! The activity potion's duration has expired — the backlash has begun!!!"
Leylin roared: "Chip! Begin coordinating with my magical power to purge the residual activity potion!"
A layer of grey-black light suddenly materialised over his body, enveloping him entirely. As the light pulsed and flickered, thick black-yellow pus began seeping out through the pores across Leylin's skin, carrying a rancid stench.
After more than ten minutes, Leylin struggled to his feet, fished a crimson potion from the bundle beside him, and swallowed it. Only then did his complexion improve somewhat.
By now, his entire body was drenched in sweat and pus, reeking of sour filth — as if he had just been fished out of a sewer.
Leylin tried to stand upright. His face was deathly pale, his legs weak, and his eye sockets had sunk deeply, as though he had been gravely ill for a long time.
Pushing open the door to the secret chamber, Leylin gave the bell beside it a shake.
Ding-a-ling!!!
The clear, piercing chime carried far in an instant.
"Young Master! You..." A few minutes later,
"I'm fine! Take me to the bath! I want to have a good soak!"
"Should I send for the apothecary and a physician?"
"No!"
……
Half an hour later, Leylin lay in a marble-lined pool. Warm water flowed over his body, carrying away all the grime.