Chapter 138: 74. The Trap of Knowledge
Fisher was reeking of alcohol, but his mind was still somewhat clear. He rubbed his shoulders and instructed a servant in the staff housing to prepare some hot water for him to bathe. He still had to take off his dirty clothes and hand them over to the laundry staff.
Saint Nali University provided numerous benefits for its faculty and staff, including free laundry and room cleaning services, which were quite valuable for students. Most students had to wash their own clothes.
He didn’t let the servant into his room because Carlo was still there, and it would be bad if she got exposed.
However, when he pushed the door open, he saw the wide-open window and a slightly out-of-breath Carlo. A ginger cat, whose origin was unknown, was squatting on Fisher’s desk, licking its paws, looking adorable.
“Meow~”
Fisher glanced at Carlo and then at the window and the cat, and asked, “Did you go outside?”
“A cat jumped in from outside just now and then tried to run out again, so I sneakily touched it,” Carlo replied, pouting as she sat on Fisher’s bed. It was evening now, and she had loosened her servant’s outfit a bit, revealing her body wrapped in bandages underneath.
To prevent her softness from being too prominent in the servant’s clothes, she wrapped two layers of bandages, but even so, her curves were still evident.
“You ran out recklessly; what if you encounter an official from Nali and get caught? I would deny ever having seen you.”
Fisher took off his suit jacket and folded it neatly, then started to take off his waistcoat, adding, “By the way, you’re sleeping on the floor tonight, and I’m sleeping on the bed.”
This guy…
Carlo bit her lip, but recalling the strong man she encountered while chasing the cat down earlier, she hesitated for a second or two before saying, “I didn’t meet any strange people, so don’t worry.”
“Let’s hope so.”
A servant knocked on the door from outside. After Carlo hid, Fisher left the room to retrieve a wooden tub filled with hot water and handed over his dirty clothes, nodding after getting confirmation that they would be returned tomorrow, before returning to wash up.
Carlo forced her expression to look natural. She spread her blanket on the floor, then hugged the little cat and lay on the bed. Closing her eyes, for some reason, the image of that half-naked man she had seen earlier suddenly appeared in her mind.
But soon, she tossed that thought aside; she had to force herself to sleep because the sound of that annoying man washing up was still in the room.
The next day, Fisher didn’t do anything else but took out his previous thesis to review. As he thought, he made some notes in the notebook beside him.
Carlo lay on the floor playing with the cat. For some reason, she seemed to have a knack for attracting cats. The ginger cat from Saint Nali University was particularly attached to her, staying in Fisher’s room and occasionally meowing.
By the afternoon, when he was almost ready, Fisher rubbed his forehead and, with nothing else to do, prepared to engrave some magic onto his staff. He had used the Spindler a lot before, but now that he had the Fluid Sword, it seemed he could use this weapon as a replacement for the Spindler, as it was quite flexible.
Fisher took out the black hilt and went to the top floor of the staff dormitory to practice. He found this thing remarkably easy to use; it only required intention to change the shape of the sword body, making it sharp or more fluid.
What would happen if engravings were made on it?
Just as Fisher had this thought, he suddenly frowned when he activated the magical circuit in his body.
At that moment, he discovered that the end of the magical circuit on his arm had started to grow again, causing his magical circuit to deform in another direction.
Magical circuits can be trained to be thicker, but Fisher had never heard of magical circuits being able to deform.
A biological magical circuit has only one shape, yet his magical circuit was starting to change shape, which also meant that it was slowly diverging from being human and undergoing a qualitative change.
Could it be that after his body became stronger than a human’s, his soul began to adapt to the body? This doesn’t make sense, because so far, while Fisher’s physical abilities far surpassed humans, he was still a human, without scales, wings, or a tail.
So why was his soul undergoing this kind of change?
Fisher tried to use some magic and found that both his magical power and capacity vastly exceeded his previous self. He even felt no fatigue when engraving spells. This seemed more like an improvement?
Caught in confusion, Fisher wanted to ask Renee, as she, being a sorceress, was very sensitive to magical power. But when he took out the photo, he discovered that the Lark had vanished without him noticing.
He remembered that Renee had mentioned she wouldn’t be reachable for a while; she had some matters to attend to.
It seemed he could only rely on himself for now.
Fisher sat back down and carefully recalled when his magical circuit began to change. His magical circuit had always been normal; otherwise, Renee surely would have noticed while being around him. It must have happened after Renee left.
Had anything special happened during that time?
It was merely encountering Eil for magic supplementation, going out for a stroll with Jasmine, and reading the Soul Supplement Handbook to gain knowledge about the essence of the soul.
Fisher’s expression changed slightly, and he quickly took out the Soul Supplement Handbook from his arms.
The current effect of the Soul Supplement Handbook had only trained Fisher’s magical power; it was absolutely impossible for it to change the shape of his magical power unless Jahl Uzz had ill intentions towards the person in possession of the handbook, leaving behind traps in the text that would change the reader’s magical circuit upon reading the content.
But this also didn’t make much sense, because Fisher now felt his magical circuit was improving towards a higher level. So what exactly caused the improvement of his magical circuit?
As Fisher contemplated, he suddenly recalled how captivated he was while reading the knowledge from the supplement handbook. He had been completely oblivious to his surroundings, even feeling no discomfort when his magical power was drained. If it weren’t for the Supplement Handbook for Sub-Humans helping him escape that predicament, he would have been quickly drained by the soul knowledge it involved or led astray by that knowledge.
Fisher suddenly considered a possibility: Could it be that the knowledge recorded in it had transformed his magical circuit?
He found it hard to believe and couldn’t conceive how such ethereal concepts and knowledge could change his tangible self.
The ancient-looking Soul Supplement Handbook remained silent, but Fisher felt as if he was getting to know this handbook anew. He had only read two chapters of its contents, and his soul had already begun to change—what would happen if he continued reading?
If the Soul Supplement Handbook possesses such properties, what about the other handbooks?
Why doesn’t the Supplement Handbook for Sub-Humans have such properties?
Fisher suddenly realized that the benefits bestowed upon him by the Supplement Handbook for Sub-Humans had always been unexpectedly granted to him, and that the knowledge from which he gained benefits was always something he summarized himself. Yet, compared to the taboo-like knowledge recorded in the Soul Supplement Handbook, didn’t his own handbook mostly document the physiological and social characteristics of Subhumans?
Can that even be considered taboo or advanced knowledge? Or is it that the operational mechanism of the Supplement Handbook for Sub-Humans differs from the other handbooks?
Fisher looked at the large amounts of recorded knowledge about Subhumans in the Supplement Handbook, reviewed it carefully, but found that aside from recalling the appearances of several beautiful Subhumans, nothing else happened.
When he opened the Soul Supplement Handbook again to review the previously recorded knowledge about souls, he found himself immersed once more, wanting to flip to the next chapter to read Jahl Uzz’s content. Thankfully, this time he was cautious; even without the reminder from the Supplement Handbook for Sub-Humans, he didn’t turn to the next chapter.
It now appeared that the content recorded in the Soul Supplement Handbook did indeed have a particularly alluring manner toward him.
If the knowledge about souls lured him in, would presenting the theory of the source of magical souls in his thesis cause changes in the magical circuits of the readers? The fact that so many people have read his thesis without uttering a word implies that such phenomena haven’t occurred.
While reading the knowledge on the Soul Supplement Handbook again and re-reviewing the records on the properties of souls recorded by Jahl Uzz, Fisher gradually immersed himself in the world of knowledge once more, and soon his mind began to drift just like when he read last time.
What he didn’t even notice was that during his reading, as he ingested knowledge about the properties of souls, a flood of information regarding applications and techniques concerning the properties of souls surged into his mind.
Soul engraving, soul grafting, soul amalgamation, soul demons, spirit realms, world echoes, soul elevation, God of souls.
An enormous amount of knowledge flooded into his mind in an instant while Fisher still thought it was his own generated associations, not realizing that the text in the Soul Supplement Handbook seemed to have a subtle connection with this world, as a large amount of indistinct knowledge poured into Fisher’s brain from the void, immersing him in an ocean of information.
His magical circuit began to brighten again, and with a flurry of associations, it soon began to twist and deform. However, in the next second, the Supplement Handbook for Sub-Humans in Fisher’s arms emitted a deadly high temperature; a stream of invisible golden light separated that knowledge from the void, and in the next moment, Fisher awakened from that bizarre state.
He looked at his almost dried-up magical circuit with cold sweat all over. This time, his magical circuit had begun to deform again.
But Fisher soon realized something. The knowledge he had seen just now was not some natural associations but knowledge that seemed to have been stolen from somewhere. Those “stolen” insights surged into his brain in an instant, guiding the knowledge-thirsty Fisher’s thoughts.
Fisher was drenched in cold sweat. He turned to look around, the noon sun at Saint Nali was just right. This world was as calm and beautiful as usual, as if everything that happened a moment ago was just an illusion.
Please vote, tip, and support; it is very important to me.
Thank you very much for your support!
(End of this chapter)
