Chapter 1543: Chapter 1541: Five Spells
Richard thought for a moment and replied to Abel, "To be honest, I very much agree with your spell theory and do not deny that you might be on a correct path. If there were no unexpected events, I might have walked the same path as you, without your calling.
But aside from my agreement, I also have some objections. While you might be on a correct path, it doesn’t mean you can safely and smoothly reach the end. According to your explanation, the fundamental rule of this world is the spell, which you can influence with the correct spell.
However, where there is influence, there is both good and bad. If it causes a very bad effect, it might directly break the path you’re walking, as evidenced by the disasters happening in this plane. So, continuing to test spells as you are doing now is not without a significant likelihood of failure."
"Then what do you suggest?" Abel asked.
"Me...?" Richard shook his head. "For now, I also don’t know what to do. After all, this is about the ultimate truth of the world. At most, I can tell you, while the path you’re on is correct, it’s not the most correct one, nor is it the path I would willingly walk down."
"So are you going to stay and help me or not?" Abel asked.
"I can stay, and I can help you," Richard answered, then with a change in tone, "but I won’t stay too long. Someday, when I’ve thought of a certain outcome, I’ll leave to find what I believe is the safest road."
"Leaving is your freedom, I won’t oppose it, as long as you’re willing to stay for now," Abel sighed with relief. "That way, at least I can temporarily share some of my workload. Do you know how many untested spells have been accumulated up to now, and do you know how many parts of ’Autai’s Brain’ have operational risks?"
"Well..." Richard looked at Abel, examining his face, suddenly feeling as if he’d boarded a pirate ship.
...
Indeed, boarded a pirate ship.
Soon enough, Richard confirmed his suspicion.
He really didn’t know how many untested spells had accumulated, nor did he know how many parts of ’Autai’s Brain’ had operational risks—unclear at the start of helping Abel share the workload, unclear after a month, and still unclear after three months.
There really were too many.
It wasn’t until six months of helping Abel share the workload, exhausting all the power of his many clones, that he managed to calculate and deal with all the stored-up work.
Abel, with some guilt, expressed that he really hadn’t expected it to be so much, and thanked Richard for his hard work.
Richard’s face was calm, but inside, he somewhat wanted to tap Abel on the head to vent his frustration—as Abel seemed much more ruthless than the bald-headed Sharye before him.
Still, as the saying goes—since I’m here anyway, already helping, I can only continue to help.
Besides, during these six months, it wasn’t just a one-sided effort. Through various discussions with Abel and the experimentation with numerous spells, he delved deeper into thoughts about the truth of the world, and a notion began brewing quietly in his mind.
Once that idea fully matured and the concept was perfect, he would leave... With this thought, he threw himself back into busyness.
...
In a flash, another six months passed.
A year after arriving at the Autai Plane.
Inside Autai’s Brain.
The sound of footsteps echoed as Richard walked to the suddenly malfunctioning 138th area of Autai’s Brain, quickly identifying the source of the fault—a rod-shaped crystal with surface cracks.
Already familiar with handling such failures, he waved a hand to remove the damaged crystal and replaced it with a new one.
Holding the broken crystal, Richard started to walk out, intending to find Abel to repair the crystal for use as a spare part—though theoretically, he could do the work himself and faster, considering Abel had no tasks other than experimenting with spell combinations recently, he thought it better to let Abel adjust a little.
This could be interpreted as not letting the other party get too bored, or rather, not letting them get too relaxed—depending on the perspective, but Richard felt he came from the former perspective.
He had barely taken a few steps when he seemed to discover something, abruptly stopping, his gaze falling on the broken, rod-shaped crystal in his hand.
Following the crystal’s crack inwards, he saw that unlike the others, this rod-shaped crystal wasn’t solid, but contained a cavity with something inside.
Richard frowned and the next moment, placed a finger on the crystal’s surface, gently flicking it.
"Crack!"
The crystal broke in two, and from within the cavity fell a scroll.
The scroll looked very small, about a chopstick in length and a finger in thickness.
Curious, Richard opened the scroll, and after just a few glances, his expression underwent a seismic change, with rare shock appearing in his eyes.
"This scroll..." Richard couldn’t help but speak.
...
A moment later.
Inside Autai’s Brain.
Abel appeared beside Richard, looking at the scroll in Richard’s hand, his shock even greater than Richard’s, exclaiming louder, "This scroll!"
"This scroll was truly found inside the crystal?" Abel asked Richard with some disbelief, looking somewhat distraught.
"How else?" Richard retorted.
"Fine, fine, let’s assume the scroll was indeed found inside the crystal, then the content on it..." Abel frowned deeply, shaking his head vigorously afterward, "No, I need to look at it again. Only after looking again can I believe it."
With that, Abel looked at the scroll again.
On the scroll, the content was actually very simple, with just five main lines, which were five spells, and three of the spells had small annotations below them.
Looking closely.
The first spell, with a very strange composition, contained multiple obscure language characters, and was very difficult to pronounce—hard to read correctly without practice.
Notably, this line of spell had been violently crossed out with a blood-red line, as if indicating it was abolished.
Below this spell, the annotation read: Experimented, Destruction Curse—Silent Annihilation White Light emerging from the edge, erasing all things over a large area.
Then the second line spell, similar in composition to the first line spell, but with fewer obscure language characters and slightly shorter in length.
This spell, too, had been violently crossed out with a blood-red line.
Annotated below as: Experimented, Judgement Curse—Silent Annihilation White Light emerging from the center, erasing all things in a small area.
Next was the third line spell, hugely different in composition from the previous two, with only a handful of obscure language characters, but almost the combined length of the first two spells.
This spell also did not avoid being crossed out with a blood-red line, with a small annotation below: Experimented, Panic Curse—small-range random destruction of things, random erasure of life form structures.
Afterward, the fourth and fifth spells, shorter in length, composed almost entirely of obscure language characters, hadn’t been crossed out in blood-red, nor did they have annotations.
Looking at the blank space below these two spells, one couldn’t help but imagine.
At this point, Abel, looking at the scroll, stared fixedly at the scroll’s content and didn’t speak for a long time.
Half a minute later, he let out a breath and, disregarding his image, sat down on the ground. Raising a hand to cover his bald head, he made a sound akin to agony, the expression on his face appearing somewhat chaotic and... fearful.
...
