Diary of a Dead Wizard-Chapter 477: Not Human

Hearing Beth take the initiative to respond for once, Pond sighed with a complex expression. “The situation in the western regions has been getting more and more complicated lately.”

Beth said nothing, silently stood up, and walked out. Her long wizard robe dragged across the floor without making a sound.

Behind her, Pond asked a little unwillingly, “Don’t you have any other plans? Even Nephret’s people entered the west not long ago.”

Beth didn’t pause for a second. She only left a soft sentence behind.

“Efficiency isn’t enough. Caugust still needs more people.”

Pond opened his mouth, but in the end, didn’t say a word.

…

After receiving the Evolution Diagram, Saul returned home and immediately began studying it.

Compared to the Erosion Diagram, the Evolution Diagram contained two additional elements—twisted light and a grotesque shadow.

The grotesque shadow was easy enough to understand; it most likely represented wraiths. But the twisted light was less clear.

Fortunately, Saul wasn’t working alone. The four awareness entities around him could all offer advice.

In the end, it was Agu, who had spent years guarding the library, who helped Saul find a book with the corresponding descriptions.

“Black shadow can be interpreted as a wraith. It can also be understood as aberration.” Saul held the book and read aloud, word by word.

Penny and Little Algae flanked him on either side, while Agu and Ann sat at his right and left. Morden and Herman watched through Saul’s vision via the diary.

“Twisted light is a kind of lure, but some wizards claim to have discovered an intelligent life form with autonomous awareness behind the light—although there’s currently no way to collect this light.”

This book simply analyzed some uncommon forms of life, but it was rare in that it included illustrations, which closely matched those in the Evolution Diagram.

Only the diagram itself contained more refined details, which aligned with the meditation diagram’s demand for extreme precision.

After several rounds of experimentation by everyone, they concluded that there was nothing wrong with the Evolution Diagram.

Smiling, Saul took out the cylinder-shaped Evolution Diagram and, imitating Shaya’s method, spread it out into a circular shape.

When the wooden panels unfolded, the pattern closest to Saul was once again that of the black shadow.

Saul, who was about to begin his meditation, suddenly paused.

Under everyone’s puzzled gazes, he rolled up the diagram, absently flipped it a few times in his hands, then opened it again on the table.

Still, the black shadow was closest to him.

Saul rolled it up again and let it roll a few times across the table before opening it.

Still, the black shadow.

Now, the others also realized something was off.

“Is the pattern nearest you always fixed when opening the Evolution Diagram?”

Saul rolled it up again and handed it to Ann. When Ann opened it, the shadow was also the one closest to her.

After thinking for a moment, Saul handed it to Little Algae.

Little Algae didn’t quite understand what was going on, but still followed Saul’s instructions and bit off the small ring at the top of the cylinder.

The diagram unfolded, and this time, the pattern closest to Little Algae was… a monster.

Herman sighed through the diary:

[I see. So, the pattern closest to the person who opens the diagram corresponds to their species.]

[Morden: Ahem!]

The room fell silent.

The only one still clueless, Little Algae, quietly nudged the Evolution Diagram back toward Saul.

Saul silently stared at the diagram in front of him.

When Little Algae nudged it over, the movement had spun some of the wooden panels. By the time it landed in front of Saul, the black shadow was once again the closest.

The silence deepened. Even Penny had gone quiet.

Then Saul slapped his knee and grinned to break the tension. “If it says I’m a wraith, then I’m a wraith. Doesn’t stop me from meditating.”

Seeing Saul so unfazed, the others finally relaxed.

What Saul didn’t tell them was that when he got the Erosion Diagram, the pattern closest to him had been the octopus monster.

All in all, the theme was: not human.

Despite the odd results, Saul felt that the Evolution Diagram was highly compatible with him after a few brave attempts.

His meditation efficiency saw a massive boost. And when he entered a semi-immersive meditation, he began to see strange new things beyond soul fragments.

Maybe because it was his first time using this new meditation method, the images were still blurry, but the world of soul fragments now appeared more vivid and three-dimensional amid crisscrossing light and shadow.

If the Erosion Diagram had merely cracked open a sliver of the door to a new world, the Evolution Diagram pushed it open a bit wider.

Wide enough that Saul could even stick a hand through and grab something.

And this was with him still not having fully mastered the Evolution Diagram. Once he became more familiar with it and completed the depiction within his mental realm, maybe he could push that door open even wider.

With the Evolution Diagram entering regular use, Saul moved on to his second line of research:

Soul Armament.

He now had five wraiths in his possession.

Caugust City was indeed “rich” in wraiths. But unlike ancient, powerful ones, the wraiths here were usually newly formed and quite weak.

The slightly stronger ones tended to get accidentally destroyed by Saul during battle.

Still, the weak ones were perfect for experimentation.

He treated them like dissecting corpses, attempting to break down the wraiths. He discarded the most polluted parts and picked out less-tainted, but already mutated, soul body fragments.

Like the centipede-like slender arms growing out from under John’s head.

From five weak wraiths, Saul only salvaged seven usable parts. After much picking and matching, he finally cobbled together several differently-shaped fragments into a scorpion-tail stinger.

He used a magical formation to stabilize the artificial soul body and prevent its energy from leaking. Then he began selecting the first test subject from his four awareness entities.

Even though he’d read a lot and conducted simulations beforehand, this was his first time performing soul body modification. Even attaching one soul body to another carried risks.

It was like giving a fully-limbed person an extra arm—and not just for show; this new arm needed to punch, too.

In other words, if things went poorly, he might end up crippling the original body.

Under such conditions, the first to volunteer came as a surprise—Morden.

But to Saul, it didn’t matter who stepped forward.

So Morden went up first.

However, the first experiment didn’t go well. Morden’s soul body fiercely rejected the scorpion-tail stinger. Before the real procedure even began, the two nearly started fighting.

After two failed attempts, Saul switched to the second volunteer—Ann.

And miraculously, the stinger that had shown intense rejection toward Morden cooperated peacefully with Ann.

Once Ann had adapted to the new soul body fragment, Saul began the formal attachment procedure.

Three days later, Ann was in the room commanding her new tail to repeatedly strike at Penny flying in the air.

Penny may have appeared to fly lazily, but she was actually extremely agile. Though Ann’s new tail, in its soul body state, was also quite nimble, she still couldn’t land a hit on Penny who hovered just above ground level.

What began as a training session slowly turned into a competition.

The spacious living room was now their battlefield, with Agu and Little Algae huddled in a corner watching.

Agu: “Tsk tsk tsk, women!”

Little Algae: “Tsk tsk tsk, tsk tsk tsk tsk…”

(End of this chapter)