Chapter 326: Chapter 323: Revolving Lantern
Once Sir Isaac located Rorschach, the scattered rainbow light abruptly transformed into Shaping Power attacks. Each color corresponded to a different attribute and was extremely piercing.
Rorschach could tell his opponent was a Great Mage from the fact that he could still cast spells freely, even within the magic field Rorschach himself controlled.
Instantly, Rorschach transformed the Mirror Flower Water Moon mist around him into fine ice crystals. He condensed and angled them perfectly, using refraction and reflection to disperse Sir Isaac’s rainbow attack.
"Interesting." The old man’s movements were slow, but in a single step, he summoned dozens of prisms. These transparent optical components materialized from thin air. They not only altered the light’s path but, thanks to Sir Isaac’s spell, also imbued the refracted rainbow beams with different types of damage.
A net of rainbow light appeared, leaving Rorschach and Caroline with no apparent escape. Caroline abandoned the Teleportation spell she had been preparing, attempting to use a short-range teleport to evade the Sir’s attack, which left no blind spots.
To their surprise, however, the Sir was also a Master of Space-Time Spells. He didn’t interfere with space directly. Instead, in a way neither Rorschach nor Caroline had ever encountered, he unleashed a wave of gravity. It lashed out like a whip, creating violent spatial fluctuations that interrupted Caroline’s teleportation.
Fortunately, Rorschach’s fusion was nearing completion. He had just crossed the threshold to become a Middle Level Mage. With a gentle wave of his hand, he smoothed out the spatial shockwaves, and the swarm of prisms surrounding them instantly shattered to pieces.
"Sir Isaac," Rorschach said, putting on what he considered his most self-righteous expression. "You’ve misunderstood. The source of this chaos is Mother Earth’s invasion of the Shadow Land, and it’s threatening Storm City itself! We are trying to prevent the disaster."
Sir Isaac didn’t believe Rorschach’s story. His immediate thought was to restrain the two suspects first and ask questions later. Liquid gold flowed from his sleeves, preparing to envelop them.
Gold was an excellent conductor of Magic Power. He would use the Golden Cage to section off an independent space, preventing the suspects from escaping with teleportation.
In the Sir’s eyes, these two young people were merely Middle Level Mages. They couldn’t possibly escape his grasp. ’The boy is a bit odd,’ he mused, ’but judging from our brief exchange, that’s all there is to him.’
At that very moment, however, Rorschach’s fusion was finally complete. The earlier portal between realms, the sudden invasion, and the old mage Isaac’s attack had all drained his energy, but his new, complete form had nevertheless been born.
In the final moment, the Soul Completion Potion gifted by the Wise Man revealed its true nature. A deluge of high-purity Magic Power and the knowledge of a Great Mage flooded into Rorschach’s body.
Spells, rituals, Magic Arrays, astrology, prayers... Among the vast trove of information, some may have been obsolete and some long-forgotten, but useful or not, it all began to frantically occupy Rorschach’s mind, like a massive folder being rapidly unzipped.
In that instant, a revolving lantern of memories began to spin.
In the ancient and distant Kingdom of Sand, Divine Spirits and mortals were locked in constant war, making life, which was already a struggle for survival, even more agonizing for the common people.
A young man from a tribe resolved to change it all. He possessed Magic Talent, earning the favor of a Priest and learning Divine Arts...
Unsatisfied with begging the Divine Spirits for power, the young man sought a way to create miracles through his own strength...
The scene shifted. The Wise Man, who had now become a Mage, was an honored guest of the King. This King was the child of a god, a Demigod.
The King was both a wise monarch and a tyrant. During his reign of more than a thousand years, the kingdom grew powerful enough to challenge the gods themselves. But after he died, people secretly spat on his coffin and threw stones at it. No one thanked him.
The King’s children were completely mortal, though they still possessed great power. They led their respective followers to carve up the territory and war with one another. It was the Wise Man who accompanied the King through his twilight years and ultimately collected his remains.
As dynasties rose and fell, the Wise Man felt lost. He studied and created Magic while simultaneously teaching his philosophies to his students, hoping his people could live better lives.
His disciples and the common folk wanted him to become their ruler, but he refused, fearing he would follow the same disastrous path as the Demigod King. He chose instead to guide people toward goodness, attempting to establish a positive faith that would unite his countrymen. The Wise Man believed that faith held a power that transcended governance.
He grew increasingly powerful and befriended a god named Thoth. Together, they researched and created Alchemy, a skill for transmuting matter.
Thoth died, but he wasn’t truly dead...
The Wise Man left the Land of Sand and traveled the continent, where he discovered that faith, too, could be exploited. In the Wise Man’s eyes, the continent’s humans were slaves to gods and other powerful races. He started to guide a human tribe...
’I can’t let this continue!’ Rorschach mentally halted the revolving lantern of memories. He had already obtained enough skills. He recompressed the remaining portion and sealed it off from his mind.
The Wise Man’s life had been exceptionally long. Even if he had no intention of taking over Rorschach’s body, the sheer length of his life far surpassed the combined total of Rorschach’s original life and his current one. If he continued, he feared his own sense of self would fall into chaos.
Sir Isaac suddenly felt the Magic Power in the air begin to boil. His own Magic almost spun out of control, forcing him to hastily retract it. The young man’s body erupted in a golden glow, his form gradually becoming indistinct. On his face, now wreathed in that same golden light, a deep blue expanse filled with twinkling specks of starlight spilled from his seven orifices, outlining his features.
Rorschach now looked just like an Elemental Creature.
Caroline and Sir Isaac were both shocked and suspicious. This was the outward sign of Rorschach experiencing the Wise Man’s memories. When he reined it all in, he returned to reality, to a Storm City being overrun by Mother Earth’s power.
Rorschach smiled apologetically. "Sir, allow me to prove that we are friends, not foes."
As he spoke, a spell descended over the entire city, similar to one the Wise Man had shown him. The orange-red sky suddenly cleared, revealing an azure blue that was almost never seen over Storm City.
Then, a sunshower began to fall. There were no clouds in the sky, yet countless raindrops drifted down. Sir Isaac held out his hand, and pea-sized raindrops gathered in his palm. They were actually glowing. They didn’t contain Magic Power, but Divinity.
By the Church’s standards, this was high-purity Holy Water.
"Are you from the Order Church?" The Sir was confused. In hundreds of years, this was the first time he’d ever seen a member of the Clergy in a Mage Robe. ’Have things on the continent gotten this wild?’ he wondered.
"It just appears similar," Rorschach said. He was certain this was a spell from the Wise Man’s memories, not a Divine Art. ’It’s simply a weather-calling spell with the concept of "Purification" added on top. It’s a far cry from the old Sir’s Legendary Spell, which can permanently change an entire region’s climate.’
Every tentacle struck by the purifying rain was heavily damaged. The toxic mist and airborne particulates were absorbed by the raindrops, preventing them from spreading and poisoning ordinary people. And all at once, Rorschach extinguished every fire across the city.
That was why he had chosen to strike at Mother Earth in the form of rain. Killing three birds with one stone.
But for every tentacle the rain dissolved, a new one grew in its place. It seemed the Shadow Land had been thoroughly corrupted by Mother Earth. Unless Storm City was severed from the Shadow Land, this catastrophe would never end.
Rorschach explained all this to Caroline. The Sir, having overheard, asked, "If we could sever Storm City from the earth in a literal sense, would that stop the Mother Goddess?"
