It had to be said that the content of this folk tale book was far more exciting than the Knight Novel, with bizarre imagination and twists and turns in the plot. Of course, if there had been a pure version, An Luo would have given it an even higher rating.
He immersed himself in the stories, oblivious to the world around him, so he didn’t notice Meieruita’s approach.
It wasn’t until An Luo let out a long sigh and decided to end his reading session for now that he realized Meieruita had been standing beside him at some point.
An Luo: “……!”
“You……you……” He couldn’t even speak properly and nearly bit his tongue. “When……did you……uh, get here?”
Meieruita answered calmly, “When you were reading that story about the mermaid and the sailor.”
An Luo: “…………”
It was over!
Sigh, his social life……was done for……
An awkward silence fell over the scene.
An Luo stiffened like a stone statue. At that moment, he wished he could crawl into a hole in the ground.
Meieruita looked at An Luo’s face, which had instantly turned bright red, and said calmly, “Is there a problem?”
His composure helped An Luo calm down a bit. An Luo hemmed and hawed for a long time before stumbling through an excuse: “I was just curious.”
“I understand,” Meieruita nodded. “There’s nothing particularly curious about this sort of thing.”
An Luo was still in a state of extreme embarrassment and didn’t dare look at Meieruita directly. He also failed to notice the fleeting emotion in Meieruita’s eyes.
He heard Meieruita say, “I’ve seen this sort of thing often since I was very young. Some people would bring their lovers into the servants’ communal rooms without any regard for others.”
“It happened almost every few days, and it was very noisy.”
Meieruita frowned. “Others would choose the wilderness.”
Like beasts in heat, devoid of any human intelligence.
“In addition, the manor lords—both male and female—would occasionally select some servants to bring into their rooms.”
An Luo was dumbfounded. “Ah……there’s that too?”
I didn’t write that!
He quickly clarified, “I didn’t write stuff like that!”
Meieruita didn’t seem to care.
Soon, An Luo thought of a question. “Did the lady of the house ever……”
After all, Meieruita’s looks were top-notch. There was no reason he would be overlooked……
Damn it, Meieruita was still just a kid!
He had only just come of age!
“No,” Meieruita said. “This sort of thing isn’t interesting, and I didn’t want to waste time on it. With a little disguise, no one would notice me.”
An Luo looked into Meieruita’s calm, unruffled eyes and suddenly remembered that this was an auto-complete world.
When writing the novel, he hadn’t given Meieruita a girlfriend or any romantic subplots purely because he couldn’t write them, so he scrapped it and went with no CP.
But why didn’t the real-world Meieruita take the initiative to find someone?
Many wizards had partners.
Even without partners, they wouldn’t refuse simple pleasures.
Yet Meieruita remained celibate throughout.
To An Luo, there was no special reason—it was just because he hadn’t written it. But from Meieruita’s own perspective?
Besides his distrust and insecurity toward others, there was clearly another important reason.
Had he seen too much and found it disgusting?
Right after that, An Luo heard Meieruita say, “If you’re curious about this, you can come ask me.”
An Luo nearly bit his tongue off. “Wha……what?”
He didn’t want to overreact, but this was really explosive!
Meieruita’s tone remained as calm and even as ever. “I don’t want you seeking out any partners or pleasure in the Wizard Tower. Female wizard apprentices are no different from male ones in essence. You can’t look down on them with mundane prejudices—they’re equally dangerous.”
The wizard world differed from the mundane one; there was no such thing as male strength overpowering female weakness. Strength ruled above all, regardless of whether one was male, female, or neither. Whoever had the sharper mind and mastered more knowledge came out on top.
This was a world of pure intellect, so innate physical differences meant nothing.
Underestimating female wizard apprentices with mundane views would only lead to a miserable death.
“I can provide you with some theoretical knowledge.”
“This kind of low-level physical pleasure isn’t worth indulging in. If you insist on experiencing it……”
Meieruita frowned, as if the words to follow displeased him. “……then after the Wizard Tower business is done, you can find someone. I’ll stand by to ensure your safety.”
But the thought clearly repulsed him. The mere idea made Meieruita feel a lump in his throat.
“No.” His expression turned cold. “I take back what I said earlier.”
“It’s nothing more than a neural reflex at best. If you have needs, I can brew a potion for you that achieves the same effect.”
An Luo: “……”
His toes curled so hard they could have dug out a three-bedroom apartment.
He said dryly, “Uh……that……I’m not planning to find anyone……”
He had no idea how things had turned out like this. It was mortifying. “Can we drop this topic, please?”
Really, the more it went on, the weirder it felt.
He cleared his throat and changed the subject. “Did you come find me for something?”
Meieruita’s gray-green eyes fixed on An Luo. After a moment, he said, “The Apprentice Exam will begin soon.”
He continued flatly, “I want more detailed information on those veteran apprentices and Evans.”
Evans was the rising star now seen as a major threat by the veteran apprentices, walking a plotline that was originally meant for Meieruita in some sense.
There was no cruelty in Meieruita’s narrow eyes—only calm indifference. “I’ll handle them before the Apprentice Exam starts, in line with the ‘plot’ progression.”
It was indeed getting close.
Though every day in the Wizard Tower felt repetitive, boring, and endless to An Luo, time still marched forward.
Meieruita had built up his strength and was ready to engage with the plot proactively.
Unlike the passive, exposed role in An Luo’s original plot, this time he lurked in the shadows as a lethal blade.
Meieruita shared his plan with An Luo: “Their conflict isn’t heated enough yet. I’ll add some fuel to the fire.”
He meant to stir things up anonymously, escalate the tensions, and reap the benefits while they fought like clams and heron.
Meieruita’s experiments seemed to have wrapped up. He moved back into An Luo’s dormitory, almost exactly like a month ago. The only difference was that he went out several times a day at irregular intervals.
At the same time, An Luo finally obtained some genuine, pure recreational books.
Meieruita had gotten them for him.
The books An Luo had been reading before—with their bizarre contents—were “premium” items tailored for nobles and the wealthy. Books for commoners lacked such content.
An Luo knew this but wasn’t sure why.
“It was deliberate,” Meieruita explained to An Luo after understanding the background. “The lower-class commoners must contribute faith to the Church. They need to be ascetic, restrained, devout—ideally practicing austerities to save more money for offerings to the Church and nobles. They’re not allowed leisure, lest their minds wander, they spend too much, and the Church and nobles’ incomes drop.”
“Likewise, pious asceticism reduces the risk of riots.”
When commoners voluntarily abstained out of piety, yearning for heaven, they wouldn’t envy the nobles’ debauchery and harbor thoughts of unfairness.
Priests instilled a sense of superiority: “You pious commoners will ascend to paradise after death for eternal bliss without worry. As for those nobles……alas, may they not regret their choices when hellfire burns them.”
Thus, the commoners felt balanced.
Even starving, the thought that they were heaven-bound while gluttonous nobles went to hell brought special joy and satisfaction.
But nobles don’t need asceticism. Asceticism would give them time to think, which the Church doesn’t want. They just need to indulge, and such content corrupts the upper nobility, turning them into pleasure-addicted livestock that won’t challenge Church rule.
And the Church, of course, was under the wizards.
Big fish ate little fish, link by link.
An Luo: “……”
Dark. Too dark.
Everything was orchestrated perfectly.
An Luo thought the parts he’d written were already dark and twisted, but the world had auto-generated something even darker!
Some time later.
An Luo didn’t know exactly what Meieruita had done, but he could sense the conflict between Evans and the veteran apprentices growing sharper. Both sides gathered followers, and tensions rose among the Low-Level Wizard Apprentices.
They traded blows evenly, with neither gaining the upper hand.
An Luo didn’t need to guess—it was Meieruita’s doing.
Let them wear each other down, depleting strength and trump cards.
Both sides had gone berserk.
After casualties appeared on Evans’s side, Meieruita told An Luo to stay indoors lately to avoid getting caught in the crossfire.
“Soon,” his voice remained as calm and indifferent as ever. “These matters will end within a month.”
Sure enough, just as Meieruita predicted, everything wrapped up within a month.
A month later, An Luo noticed an eerie calm. Evans, the veteran apprentices, and their little cliques had vanished as if they’d never existed.
“The Wizard Lord personally intervened,” Pangzi, the Wizard Apprentice handling mail, whispered. “Fighting isn’t allowed in the tower—we’re all the Wizard Lord’s property. But Evans and those veteran apprentices went too far, drawing the Wizard Lord’s attention. All their past misdeeds were dug up.”
Pangzi shook his head. “They thought they could use the Wizard Lord to eliminate their rivals, but everyone connected to them was taken by the Wizard Lord as experimental subjects.”
The despairing, incredulous screams still echoed in Pangzi’s ears, sending chills down his spine.
Pangzi glanced at An Luo, a sense of camaraderie welling up unbidden. He figured he just liked An Luo’s vibe—good chemistry.
So he added a warning: “Be careful with that servant of yours.”
Unlike the fooled veteran apprentices, Pangzi had watched from the sidelines and vaguely sensed Meieruita was no ordinary person. But he stayed out of it—no need to point fingers and make enemies.
“Evans and the veterans knew limits at first and wouldn’t go overboard. But later, they went insane, throwing caution to the wind. I can’t say for sure it’s that Meieruita pulling strings, but I’m certain he’s involved.”
“You have a grudge with him, right? I advise you to stay away. He might act like a willing servant now, but I guarantee he’ll turn on you.”
An Luo: “……Thanks, got it.”
Meieruita was Meieruita after all—he’d directly used the Wizard Lord to achieve his goals!
Without the Wizard Lord noticing.
Too strong.
