Chapter 79 – A Little Accident
Chapter 79 – A Little Accident
Bilan felt like she had fallen into a fiery pit—the most terrifying part being that this pit was both scorching hot and bottomless!
When the young girl arrived before the White Tower after her long, hopeful journey seeking knowledge and guidance, her mentor’s welcoming gift turned out to be an exhaustively packed “labor schedule.” After being sent to a small room for quite some time, Bilan still felt dazed. This workload… did that mage think she was some kind of golem? (You guessed right.)
Even now, Bilan’s heart was filled with a hundred thousand incredulous thoughts: she couldn’t believe the Formal Mage was so young, couldn’t believe the Formal Mage was so terrifying, couldn’t believe her new room contained absolutely nothing except a single bed…
Although she had long heard rumors about mentors who treated their apprentices like slaves, with many perverse acts and even experimental treatments forced upon unfortunate apprentices, Bilan never imagined she would one day become one of these “unfortunate apprentices” (Bilan had already labeled Punk as a perverted mage…). Completely unprepared, her mind now felt utterly hollow!
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After giving Bilan her orders, Punk didn’t pause his research. He continued studying the Parchment while waiting for the Little Girl to bring the new experimental “materials.” Though he faintly sensed he might have overlooked something, Punk—fully focused on searching his memories for knowledge about souls—had no time to bother with such trivial matters!
The mind of a Formal Mage possessed computational speed no less than that of a supercomputer. For Punk, with the System’s assistance, his thinking speed far exceeded ordinary human imagination. The ability to construct incredibly complex Formal-Level spell models in less than a second allowed him to process vast amounts of thought in extremely short timeframes!
Now, Punk was expanding his train of thought, attempting to bypass mental blind spots and explore new experimental directions through more divergent methods.
Once again picking up the worn Parchment… Literally speaking, the terms “stable” and “soul fragment” couldn’t coexist. A shattered soul didn’t mean it lost its reaction to the external world—it still retained fragmented consciousness and equally fragmented memories. Thus, when severed, it would inevitably experience pain. Driven mad by agony, the soul would desperately resist magical interference, ultimately resulting in the chaotic and unstable soul fragments Punk had produced earlier.
Overall, the excruciating pain endured when a soul was cut or extracted was the primary cause of its madness—particularly the former. The latter could potentially be endured by a few strong-willed creatures, but a soul subjected to fragmentation had its consciousness shattered; how could there be any “strong will” left to speak of?
So, approaching from another angle: soul fragments were essentially meant to create smaller souls. If one could achieve soul separation without cutting, wouldn’t that allow the pain-free soul to undergo division rationally?With a new line of thought, Punk soon felt numerous fresh ideas bubbling up in his mind!
How could a soul be split without causing unbearable pain?
Abandoning crude methods like “cutting” was undoubtedly necessary. Drawing on knowledge from his inherited memories, Punk quickly devised an experimental plan involving “Meltdown”!
The specific procedure involved artificially inducing the soul to develop multiple separate consciousnesses—what Earth would call multiple personalities—then using spells to gradually distance these consciousnesses from each other, slowly severing their connections until they split into multiple independent smaller souls!
Punk found this idea highly feasible and was already eager to begin experimenting! Most of the night had passed by now, and Punk had tidied up the Experiment Table, ready for the next round of tests.
But… why hadn’t that little girl Bilan brought the “materials” over yet?
Growing impatient in his eagerness to experiment, Punk casually used a simple Divination Spell…
“Holy… crap”!
Tossing a newly retrieved gem back onto the Experiment Table, Punk took several deep breaths to calm his irritation. Gently massaging his temples with pale fingers, he began to suspect whether this newly acquired apprentice assistant had been specially chosen by that little girl Lotalan just to cause him trouble.
The information revealed by the Divination Spell left Punk both headache-ridden and speechless. Now he truly understood what the legendary phrase “anything is possible” meant!
Several bold—no, perhaps more accurately described as highly survival-driven—slaves had actually “taken” (taken?) that little girl… and escaped!
Even after entering the Basement, seeing two empty iron cages, and discovering a hastily dug tunnel created by magic, Punk still found the entire situation utterly absurd.
Under the scrutiny of multiple Formal-Level Divination Spells, the sequence of events unfolded before Punk’s eyes as clearly as if it were a novel.
The whole incident, viewed purely from its progression, seemed almost comical—like a third-rate fairy tale?
Several slaves, who could strictly be evaluated as brave but reckless, wanted to escape the clutches of the evil mage and pursue freedom. They even intended to expose the “evil mage’s” true nature to the townspeople. Trapped by their cages, they appeared to have no choice but to await their fate as “materials” destined for a gruesome death. But today, a tremendous opportunity fell into their laps.
The evil mage’s newly acquired apprentice came to take several “companions” as “materials.” This apprentice, more beautiful than an angel, lacked the powerful spells of the evil mage. So, a group of freedom-craving “warriors,” led by a “courageous and resourceful” Hero, kidnapped the careless, unprepared beautiful apprentice. Then, using a few sharp stones, they coerced (coerced?) her into using magic to dig an escape tunnel and flee to freedom.Indeed, it was such an absurd story. Even without using divination spells, Punk knew that the main reason the entire prison break succeeded was because he had been too engrossed in his experiments. His crude warning system lacked internal monitoring functions, allowing these rats to dig a tunnel from the inside without his timely detection.
The minor reason was that the naively idiotic girl, Bilan, had intended to help these “pitiable” slaves escape under the guise of being “taken hostage.”
As for the slaves’ full-of-holes, foolishly laughable escape plan… Punk bluntly stated it was a joke from start to finish! They probably never considered how powerful an official mage’s divination spells could be.
Waving his hand to fill in the small tunnel, Punk shook his head with a bitter smile. It seemed his caution was still insufficient—once immersed in experiments, he forgot many things that shouldn’t have been overlooked. This “mistake” was a timely lesson; he must never repeat such an error in the future!
Fortunately, this was just a rash, doomed escape attempt by a bunch of fools. For Punk, recapturing these panicked rats was as easy as brewing an Apprentice-Level potion.
“Perfect timing to test how smoothly Flesh Golem – No. 1 operates using these seemingly ‘somewhat brave and clever’ fellows!”
Calmly, Punk turned and walked out of the basement. He realized that in this tranquil semi-reclusive life, there was no need to schedule his research so tightly. A little “entertainment” might actually help inspire new ideas!
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Note: The naive apprentice won’t die too soon. She and Dichiduo will meet their end in a great tragedy caused by Punk himself, which will be detailed in later chapters. She will also cause some minor accidents, truly teaching Punk the lesson that “one must not underestimate the influence of the weak—even the smallest butterfly can stir up a storm.” Currently, Punk is somewhat overconfident. These three “minor accidents” caused by the apprentice will make Punk realize anew: he cannot control everything, and no matter how powerful he is, he must remain cautious!
This first accident was due to his lack of caution, which he has already recognized. The next two minor accidents will result from his disdain for servants and contempt for the weak, though Punk hasn’t realized this yet!
These common flaws often seen in major bosses will be recognized and corrected by Punk during the events in Doleiz City!
I believe this better suits the growth journey of a powerful mage. Punk is still in a phase of rapid development and will have some shortcomings, but he can promptly identify and correct them!
The reason Punk temporarily spares her is quite logical: The Dillon Kingdom, unlike the internally chaotic Kamos Kingdom, is a nation of good and lawful alignment. Punk’s previous actions—such as opening an Abyss portal and conducting bloody experiments on slaves—have already raised suspicions of him being evil-aligned. If the apprentice were killed just one day after arriving at the White Tower, the misunderstanding of Punk’s evil alignment would be confirmed, which would be highly unfavorable for his subsequent plans. The specific reasons for this will be elaborated in later chapters.
(End of Chapter)
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I ofcourse understand that the premise of the novel is an “evil” protagonist, but the amount of tragedy and so called psychopathic behaviour, especially the unnecessary incidents is a bit too much even for me. especially the way the author has repeatedly told us through notes how Bilan will face a terrible end orchestrated by Punk, which almost makes me believe the author has a fetish for this… personally more a fan of a different protagonist archetype, but the biggest issue isnt even that, its the overall writing around it that makes it feel more “edgy” rather than good depth and development. Hopefully it gets better as the story progresses.