The Traveling Wizard of Worlds

In a boundless world, August floated peacefully, his hands clasped behind his head.

This was his Mental World, vastly different from the first time he entered it.

The floating clouds were much denser now; August knew this was a result of his continuous accumulation, indicating his spiritual cultivation had deepened. When the Mental World was almost entirely filled with such clouds, it would mean he could begin to assault the threshold of a Formal Mage, provided he had enough Magical Power.

Sleeping for a mage was not much different from meditating; both allowed for cultivating the Apprentice's Universal Meditation Technique. However, formal meditation was more effective, while sleeping was slightly less so.

Of course, sleep was indispensable. While meditation could restore mental fatigue, it couldn't eliminate psychological fatigue. At such times, a good night's sleep was necessary to alleviate the exhaustion brought on by prolonged learning under immense pressure.

Sometimes, August would enter his mental space while sleeping, but at those times, he had no consciousness and simply floated peacefully in that tranquil space.

"This guy sure has good luck." Black mist seeped through the door crack, converged, and took on a human form.

He glanced around August's living room, seemingly able to see clearly even in the dark: "When I was an apprentice, I never got such good treatment!"

Indignantly, he picked up the teapot from the coffee table and, not caring if it was hot or cold, drank it all in one gulp.

"Why were you born with a legacy, while I had to kneel and willingly accept experiments just to come into contact with a mage?"

"Why did you meet a mage willing to guide you, while I could only suffer under that old man's rule?"

"Why does the organization you joined care so much about apprentices, while I had to desperately fight for a tiny resource?"

With each sentence he uttered, the ferocity on his face intensified, as if August were responsible for his current state.

Moonlight streamed in through the kitchen window, revealing the shadow's appearance in the light.

He was bald; his scalp was covered in hideous stitched wounds. Even more terrifying, his eyelids had been cut off, and his lips were missing, exposing his pale, decaying teeth. His nose was reduced to two holes, giving him the appearance of a bloody skeleton.

A normal person seeing this at night would probably die of fright, but he seemed quite pleased with his look. He muttered to himself in front of the living room mirror: "Why does it look asymmetrical?"

It turned out that the wounds on his head were symmetrical, but there was a fresh, bone-deep gash on the right side of his forehead, from which blood flowed freely.

"Damn Mercury Serpent, has the effect of the [Marking Blade] not worn off yet?"

[Marking Blade] was a Formal Mage's spell that left a magical mark at a specific point, causing magical blades to continuously cut the target until the mage's magical power dissipated. It was typically used for processing hard-to-cut materials, but it could also be used to torture people.

The Marking Blade on the shadow's head was clearly more advanced; he couldn't remove it, and as if to torment him, it regenerated on his forehead every so often, not harming his life but constantly slicing his scalp.

The shadow's eyes hardened, and he began to search the living room, then quickly moved to the kitchen to search.

A short while later, he reappeared in front of the mirror with a small knife. Following the wound on the right side, without blinking (of course, he couldn't), he made a similar cut at the corresponding point on the left side.

"This looks much prettier!" He admired his masterpiece; two hideous wounds gaped on his forehead, exposing the skull beneath.

He seemed to feel no pain. After dropping the knife, he let out some strange chuckles and rushed upstairs.

He didn't go directly to August's bedroom but went to the study and began rummaging through it.

He first saw the manuscript on the desk, picked it up, and looked at it. He possessed dark vision, so the surroundings were no different from daylight for him.

"Hehehe! Quite the player!" He clicked his tongue, commenting on the novel methods in August's story.

"But from today on, your body will be mine!" He revealed his terrifying plan. "I hope your body isn't too weakened by this."

*God help him!* August had never had contact with women since his transmigration. Perhaps he would have had such thoughts before receiving the legacy, but since then, he became obsessed with learning and couldn't break free. What pleasure did women hold compared to learning?

The shadow judged August to be a wizard apprentice obsessed with women, and his disdain grew even stronger.

He had no idea that August was a transmigrator from an information-explosion world, where veteran internet drivers sped without looking at the speedometer. Influenced by this, August's theoretical knowledge was naturally incredibly rich, far surpassing the natives of this world.

However, the shadow didn't know this. In his eyes, only those who had undergone trials of blood and death were true mages. The Mercury Serpent apprentices were too well protected and simply weren't qualified to embark on a mage's path.

He then rummaged through the bookshelves, found nothing, and returned to the desk to inspect it again.

"Here!" He discovered the table's hidden drawer, opened it, and took out its contents.

First was August's insect egg: "What is this?"

He didn't recognize it, but that didn't stop him from taking it.

Then, he opened August's ancestral notes and, after reading for a while, gnashed his teeth.

"This guy, he could learn a spell like Magic Cut as an apprentice?"

He remembered how he almost risked his life for a single spell as an apprentice. A guy with such an innate legacy made his eyes red with jealousy.

"You must die today!" He put down the book, and in his heart, he instantly condemned August to death.

Like a ghost, he transformed into black smoke and floated into the bedroom through the crack in the door. After transforming back into human form, he sneered at August, who was sleeping soundly in bed.

"Good body, but tomorrow it will be mine!" The ghost's sneer, combined with his skeletal face, would absolutely terrify a normal person.

Meanwhile, August's consciousness was still leisurely wandering in his Mental World, completely unaware of the Mage who had arrived at his side to kill him.

"I'll be merciful and let you die in your sleep! No pain..." He bared his lipless mouth, sharp teeth like a shark's.

He leaned close to August, and a stream of black gas poured out of his mouth, coiling over August's head to form a constantly churning black ball, from which a skeletal face repeatedly protruded, terrifyingly.

After spewing the black smoke, the shadow's body immediately collapsed to the floor like a dead person, showing no signs of life.

"I'm here! Give me your body!"