An Luo’s rapid panting hit Meieruita’s neck like a scorching midday gale in summer, bringing an unbearable irritability.
Especially when he lifted his head, fresh tear tracks still on his face, and looked over with a dazed, bewildered expression.
In that instant, Meieruita’s teeth chattered. It took nearly all his strength to appear calm and composed.
Originally, he had planned to continue researching his unfinished witchcraft after it ended, but once it truly concluded, he fled the dormitory in disarray.
His hands shook as he locked the door, nearly dropping the key to the floor.
Even now, this strange bodily reaction hadn’t subsided. His hands, exposed beyond his sleeve robes, trembled nonstop, and his teeth chattered uncontrollably no matter how he tried to stop it, as if his body had been temporarily seized by another will.
Meieruita wandered the long, dark corridor like a wandering ghost, his face pale and his expression distraught.
An old veteran apprentice approached from the opposite direction. He had been a Junior Apprentice for over thirty years, no longer worrying about survival, but forever unable to advance to Mid-Level Apprentice. Thus, he and his little clique made it their mission to sabotage talented newcomers.
Recently, they had mostly excluded Meieruita from their targets, but he had always suspected Meieruita of deliberately hiding his abilities.
He had long wanted an opportunity to test Meieruita and force him to reveal his true colors.
However, before he could even start, Meieruita’s appearance dispelled his doubts.
Whatever had happened, Meieruita—who usually hid his face under his hood—had no mind for disguise this time. His face was fully exposed: deathly pale, eyes wandering, body radiating an unmistakable panic.
His fingers, peeking from the black Wizard Apprentice robes, trembled incessantly. As they passed each other, the veteran apprentice clearly heard the “chatter-chatter” of chattering teeth.
It was as if he had encountered something incomprehensible and utterly terrifying.
Meieruita drifted past him like a lost soul, looking worse off than some destitute Lower Layer apprentices who scraped by on Junior tasks.
Any lingering suspicion in the veteran apprentice’s heart vanished completely.
Nothing on the Wizard Tower’s first floor could terrify someone into such a state. Meieruita’s current appearance reminded him of those who couldn’t afford the Wizard registration fee.
It was a profound, visceral fear that no disguise could fake.
He stood in place and slowly exhaled.
It seemed Meieruita was no longer a threat. They should focus all their efforts on blocking Evans.
“Makes sense,” he muttered to himself. Once a conclusion formed, the mind naturally sought evidence from past clues to support it. “If he were truly so talented, why would he obey that former master who harmed him without question?”
At seventeen, with such a lowly background, if Meieruita had outstanding talent and power, he couldn’t possibly refrain from retaliating against Lan Lian or showing off his prowess.
Even if he was cunning and wanted to hide, he wouldn’t spare Lan Lian, who had oppressed and tried to kill him.
Yet Meieruita remained obscure and never acted against Lan Lian, proving he lacked the ability.
With that thought, the veteran apprentice dismissed Meieruita from his mind.
This guy was no longer worth worrying about.
But soon, recalling Evans’ smug expression soured his mood again.
He absolutely wouldn’t let Evans advance to Mid-Level Apprentice.
That bastard wouldn’t get to climb over them!
Meieruita noticed the nearby veteran apprentice but had no spare attention for pretense this time.
By the time he reached the Task Reception Area, he had mostly regained control.
His voice was even colder than usual: “The Ice Jade Flower Bud task.”
He needed to calm down properly.
Perhaps a cold environment would help him think.
When An Luo woke, it was already afternoon.
He lay in bed, the dormitory quiet—Meieruita hadn’t returned yet.
One question troubled him: why hadn’t Meieruita taken the chance to probe the plot and Chinese runes in his mind?
That didn’t make sense.
No matter how he looked at it, something was off.
Had Meieruita agreed to teach him Magic Power sensing out of pure goodwill, doing a good deed for free?
Impossible!
An Luo pondered seriously and concluded it must be that “soft approach.”
As the author, An Luo naturally harbored wariness toward Meieruita, and Meieruita knew it. So he kept showing friendliness to lower An Luo’s guard.
First, suppressing the Curse earlier, now refraining from invading his mind.
He looked every bit the mild, kindhearted protagonist!
A meme An Luo had seen suddenly popped into his head:
“He’s changed for the better now, doesn’t kill anymore. Look, he didn’t kill me just now on the way over.”
An Luo: “…”
Anyone else might have been fooled by Meieruita’s behavior, convinced he’d reformed—no killing, since he’d passed up two chances but still spared them.
But An Luo didn’t buy it.
Not out of stubbornness, but because he’d written the whole book and knew Meieruita’s true nature all too well.
This had to be the soft approach—no doubt.
Meieruita probably feared a forceful intrusion would provoke resistance, shattering the fragile false trust he’d built.
Plus, An Luo wasn’t from this world. Meieruita might worry that rushing it could cause some mishap, denying him what he wanted.
Why not play the long game when haste risked total failure? So he seized the chance to seem harmless.
First, the harsh demand for Soul Transmission, dropping An Luo’s expectations to rock bottom as he braced for a fight—then the sudden twist, revealing no malice.
That massive contrast was bound to skyrocket goodwill, right?
Classic ploy.
In Supreme Wizard, An Luo often had Meieruita use this tactic: lull others into dropping their guard completely, then strike fatally when undefended.
He’d written those scenes crystal clear!
Now, the roles were reversed—he was the one being played.
An Luo: “…”
How to put it? Complicated feelings.
He shook his head, fully awake now.
After sleeping, his head no longer throbbed. The method to sense Magic Power had seamlessly integrated into his mind, as if he’d learned it himself.
An Luo sat up eagerly to try. He closed his eyes, assumed the pose, and successfully sensed Magic Power!
Though he’d anticipated success, achieving it still thrilled him.
He immediately hurled a Fireball Spell at the extinguished campfire.
A fireball slightly larger than a fist whooshed out, igniting the pile.
Incredible!
He’d only Meditated briefly, so his Magic Power was low—one Fireball Spell depleted it entirely.
An Luo began Meditating again.
Once finished, he estimated his full mana bar could support about ten Fireball Spells.
Not bad, not bad.
He pulled the crumpled “Dispel Curse” paper from his pocket and tested inputting a bit of Magic Power. It required expending all his mana at once to activate.
No issue there, but should he dispel it now?
The runes An Luo wrote were basically Chinese—he could read and write them, but only he understood.
He’d generously given Meieruita many rune-covered papers before, but kept others hidden, like this “Dispel Curse” one.
A safeguard against the protagonist.
If he dispelled the Curse now, Meieruita would notice and grow warier, guarding against An Luo more.
That wasn’t what An Luo wanted. He planned to lull Meieruita into thinking the hypnosis had worked, then escape when Meieruita seized the Wizard Tower in five years.
With Magic Power mastered, his confidence soared.
He’d considered writing a “Break Contract” to void the Wizard Tower Contract and bolt, but decided against it.
An unexplained Contract breach would alert the Wizard at the top. If it piqued his interest and he pursued personally, that’d be disastrous.
Better to wait patiently for Meieruita to kill the Old Wizard.
Then, An Luo could “Hide,” “Burrow,” “Phase Through Walls,” and “Accelerate,” fleeing hundreds of li in one go—no problem.
Crucially, Meieruita couldn’t know about these tricks, or he’d prepare countermeasures, slashing escape odds.
Out of caution, An Luo had never deeply discussed Chinese with Meieruita. Now, he could start muddying his perceptions.
Chinese formed standalone characters or two-character words, but this world’s alphabetic script formed words from letter strings, like phonetic systems. If he convinced Meieruita Chinese worked the same—strings of “letters” into “words”—escape chances would rise.
He could only write two “letters,” though many carried meanings as a deliberate novel setting. In reality, he’d need a string of “letters” for a “word.”
Brilliant!
Thus, he couldn’t dispel directly now.
He’d pretend inability, then dispel all at once when fleeing.
But what if his Magic Power ran low?
An Luo thought and got an idea.
He went to the desk and painstakingly wrote “Replenish Magic.”
Testing it, he was a bit disappointed.
It didn’t auto-replenish as imagined. To use it for Magic Power, he had to charge it first, then draw out later.
Basically a power bank.
But… no big deal. Over five years, charging a little daily would stockpile plenty!
More than enough for escape!
From transmigration day to now, An Luo finally had real hope. His mood was incomparable.
A bright future felt close, within reach.
Dusk fell; night would come soon.
An Luo thought happily:
I’ll make a big meal to celebrate!
