Wizarding Era

Awaken!

A sinister magic swamp.

The fog is thick and heavy.

Even during the day, the vibrant sunlight cannot penetrate the low-hanging clouds and gloomy mist, allowing not a hint of warmth from the human world to be felt here.

Scattered everywhere are filthy, foul-smelling puddles, not deep but teeming with peculiar creatures. Whenever strangers intrude, this silent, desolate place instantly transforms into a paradise for bloodthirsty, necrophiliac beings: vampire vines, carrion crows, swamp crocodiles, and grotesque hags resembling withered corpses—all terrifying entities that most people would rather avoid.

Yet, in the heart of this unwelcoming swamp stands a towering, hundred-meter-tall stone tower.

It is a structure made entirely of solid, dense Qinghui stones. As night falls, the entire tower emits a cold, quiet luminescence, particularly favored by wandering spirits and vengeful souls.

Perhaps due to a lack of necessary maintenance, the base of the tower is entangled with demonic vines adorned with metallic thorns. Ordinary people caught in these vines would be drained of their blood within moments, becoming just another set of bleached bones at the roots of the vines.

As twilight descends, candles are lit inside the tower.

The dim candlelight seeping through narrow windows brings no warmth; instead, it sends a shiver down one's spine.

Grimm, who had just celebrated his 15th birthday, sits at a worn wooden table, a thick tome on arcane lore spread before him as he diligently copies its contents. Despite having been in this new world for two years, the discomfort in his soul still causes him occasional headaches.

During a moment of mental haziness, scenes and events from Earth flash before his eyes, causing his quill to pause and leave a large inkblot on the simple parchment.

Damnation, another failure!

Grimm frowns, clenching his fists tightly, wanting to shout out in anger. But after enduring for what seems like an eternity, he finally suppresses his rage.

This is no longer Earth but a high-magic world dominated by wizards and monsters. The difficult adaptation process has nearly driven Li Xun mad. Fortunately, the fragmented memories retained by this body allowed him to acquire basic language and writing skills, otherwise, the strange grammar, pronunciation, and uniquely shaped script of this world would have tormented him endlessly.

Still, the intermittent headaches continue to plague him.

In this world, he dares not reveal his true identity and must struggle to survive under the guise of Grimm in the wizard’s tower.

Though being an apprentice to Master Anderson is an enviable position for many, only those living within the tower know that it is not an honor but the most terrible t*****e and punishment.

As apprentices, their primary duties include meticulously attending to Master Anderson’s daily needs, cleaning alchemical experiment equipment, maintaining the tower’s cleanliness, tending to mutated flora and fauna outside the tower, and... and serving as subjects for Master Anderson’s experiments.

Such incidents are rare, but when shipments of slaves or prisoners arrive late, leaving Master Anderson without experimental subjects, he might command an apprentice to temporarily fill that role.

Mary from Ante County was "fortunate" last month to become Master Anderson’s alchemical experiment collaborator. Though she survived the experiment, her body was severely "contaminated," undergoing horrific mutations. Since then, she has cloaked herself in a heavy robe and stayed confined in her room, seldom emerging.

Many apprentices whisper that Mary might already be dead in her room.

But Grimm knows better.

Every night, he hears her muffled cries of pain and the terrifying sounds of sharp claws scraping against the rock walls. Thus, every night, he secretly leaves food outside her door.

Despite his precarious existence, Grimm’s innate compassion drives him to do what little good he can.

Today, however, the timing of his splitting headache couldn't be worse, coinciding with his need to copy texts. It's especially frustrating to waste a sheet of parchment.

Don't underestimate a crumpled piece of parchment; its base value is 2 silver coins. In this magical world, the most commonly used currency is the Wizard Gold Coin. One gold coin can be exchanged for 10 silver coins, and one silver coin for 10 copper coins, while 5 copper coins can sustain a commoner’s basic needs for a day.

So when calculated, even a seemingly ordinary parchment represents a considerable sum for the common folk. Yet here, it is merely trash discarded by wizard apprentices.

Nothing in the wizard’s tower is free.

Daily sustenance and the costs of arcane studies must be earned by Grimm himself. The sole means of earning money is venturing out of the tower to feed ferocious mutated beasts, tend eerie mutated plants, gather specified magical materials for the wizards, and clean dangerous alchemical zones within the tower.

While performing these tasks, they wear protective amulets crafted by the wizards to avoid triggering the surrounding magical traps. However, in this mystical world, no job is entirely safe. Every month or two, several unfortunate apprentices either get swallowed by the mutated flora and fauna or mysteriously die from exposure to magical radiation while cleaning.

Thus, relatively safer and more leisurely jobs within the tower are monopolized by senior apprentices. Weaker apprentices must choose more dangerous tasks to earn the money and knowledge points needed to continue their magical studies.

Money is used to purchase biological necessities, while knowledge points are a value system established by the wizards for acquiring knowledge. Every book in the tower's library is priced with knowledge points, and borrowing books is only possible with points, not money.

Apprentices must earn knowledge points to borrow books for short periods. This time is never sufficient for them to fully grasp all the knowledge in the books, so most develop the habit of copying texts.

Each borrowed tome must be copied as quickly as possible to retain the necessary knowledge for future study. This requires ink and parchment, which are not free but must be purchased with money.

Of course, if an apprentice comes from a wealthy family, they can exchange large sums of money for knowledge points at a conversion rate of 1 knowledge point = 100 gold coins.

For instance, the "Compendium of Mutated Creatures" Grimm borrowed today requires 3 knowledge points and can only be borrowed for half a day. Given Grimm’s copying speed, he estimates needing to borrow it at least three times to complete transcribing it fully.

This totals 9 knowledge points, requiring Grimm to venture out of the tower for two consecutive weeks to earn.

Therefore, the onset of his headache, wasting a parchment is not what angers him; what truly enrages him is the wasted two hours of copy time—the main reason for his fury!

As Grimm struggles to suppress this anger, preventing it from affecting his subsequent copying tasks, a familiar "beep" suddenly sounds in his mind.

"Beep, bioenergy has reached the standard. Biological auxiliary chip number ZXJ9521 starting up…"

Grimm exclaims in surprise.

"Biological auxiliary chip!"

In the harsh early days following his transmigration, he had fantasized countless times about becoming a powerful figure wielding divine artifacts in a foreign world—defeating all foes beneath one meter tall, striking fear into any who dared challenge him in the morgue...

Unfortunately, this integrated chip had brought nothing but intermittent headaches until now—it finally activates!

After the noisy startup sequence, a pleasant, neutral female voice echoes in Grimm’s mind.

"Host detected, data modeling in progress… please wait…"

Hmm, it can even quantify the current physique? That’s indeed something worth looking forward to!

After all, this is a high-magic world where elemental particles—a miraculous substance permeating the planar space—are ubiquitous. These elemental particles are divided into fundamental types such as earth, fire, water, wind, light, and dark based on affinity levels.

Wizards usually exhibit varying degrees of affinity for these fundamental elements, leading to the formation of numerous factions. And it is precisely because the power system here is completely different from what he knows that normalizing and quantifying this knowledge becomes a significant challenge for Li Xun.