Cicia’s final reflection suddenly quickened Angel’s heartbeat.
Angel thought of Jon.
If Jon had such a crystal ball with him, seemingly filled with a thick aura of death but truly teeming with life within, would he be able to escape his impending doom?
Thinking of this, Angel couldn’t resist asking: "Miss Cicia, are you certain this crystal ball can help the dying evade death?"
Cicia glanced at Angel: "It can, but its limit isn’t high; it’s useful for ordinary people or low- to mid-level apprentices. At higher power levels, it no longer holds much value... Why? Do you have someone you wish to protect?"
Angel: "Yes, an ordinary person who wandered here from the Otherworld."
Angel didn’t mind revealing Jon’s "Otherworld" origin, as wizards hearing this wouldn’t think Jon came from another universe; saying he’s an ordinary person was just a general label, much like labeling abyssal beings, they wouldn’t truly consider Jon a "human," so Angel didn’t bother hiding it.
Cicia, with her vast reservoir of knowledge, immediately grasped the situation upon hearing Angel’s words: "World Will’s erosion?"
Angel nodded.
Cicia: "How advanced is the erosion? If only just begun, finding a way to give him transcendent qualities, leading him down the transcendent path, could evade erosion to a degree."
Angel: "...He’s at death’s door, currently only preserved through an ice coffin."
Cicia frowned slightly: "Has it reached such a stage? If you wished to protect him, why hadn’t you done something earlier?"
Angel: "He was my mentor who enlightened me, we grew up together. By the time he was already skin and bones, I encountered a passing Guide. At that time, my age..."
Upon hearing Angel about to mention age, Cicia quickly interrupted, "I understand, you don’t have to continue. So you met him very early, when you were still an ordinary person, and you didn’t know what was happening or how to save him, right?"
Angel nodded, "Now, is this Crystal Ball still useful to him?"
Cicia pondered for a moment, "It probably isn’t of much use. Initially, when he didn’t have the scent of death, carrying this might have helped. But now the scent of death has penetrated his bones, and he’s opposing the World Will, so with the limits of this Crystal Ball, it’s no longer useful to him."
Although he had anticipated this to some extent, Angel still looked a bit disappointed upon hearing Cicia’s response.
"Do you still want to hear about this Crystal Ball? Or would you like to know about the user of the Crystal Ball?"
Suppressing the gloom in his heart, Angel regained his calm, "Miss Cicia, please feel free to speak."
Cicia: "The significance of the Crystal Ball is not much to talk about. But the user of this Crystal Ball is rather interesting. I can sense that he both cannot bear to part with the Crystal Ball, yet is happy to abandon it; he fears his abilities but is also proud of them."
Angel: "I actually know about that. His abilities are inherited from the Black Earl’s bloodline, the Black Earl being the nose embedded in the stone slab."
"Is he also from the Noah Clan?"
Angel nodded, "Yes, the abilities in the Black Earl’s bloodline are almost all inherited by different descendants, and the Black Earl has created countless avatars around these descendants, supposedly for protection, but it’s inevitable that the descendants might overthink things."
Cicia: "In my experience, in the Wizards’ Realm, things that sound strange at first are generally nothing unusual. If there’s no anomaly, that’s when there might be something unusual."
"In contrast, for mortal families, this level of anomaly can understandably lead to conspiracy theories."
Angel: "Miss Cicia thinks that the Black Earl bears no malice toward his descendants?"
Cicia: "Of course, the Black Earl must have plans if he transfers his bloodline abilities to his descendants. But whether there’s malice involved is hard to say."
At this point, Cicia suddenly thought of something, retrieving the Crystal Ball again, "His abilities come from the Black Earl?"
Angel nodded, "This ability is called Death Sense; it is inherited from the Black Earl, and because it involves scent, the nose that follows Vay is that of the Black Earl."
Cicia: "I see..."
Supporting her chin, Cicia thought for a moment, then said to Angel: "This Crystal Ball has no use for the otherworldly life you want to save. But if the Black Earl also possesses the Death Sense ability and has a medium to release this ability, perhaps a similar Crystal Ball, then maybe his ’Crystal Ball’ could be useful to that otherworldly life you mentioned."
"But that’s just my speculation. Your mentor, who enlightened you, is already in a pre-death frozen state, so even if you had the Black Earl’s ’Crystal Ball,’ it might not bring him back to life."
Cicia’s words were like a shot of adrenaline for Angel. Having initially lost hope, Angel’s passion was rekindled: "Even if it can’t completely cure him, it shouldn’t do any harm, right?"
Cicia nodded: "For someone whose body is unharmed, even fake death scent would have an impact. But for someone already laden with the scent of death, it won’t be harmful, even if it’s not beneficial."
Having confirmed there would be no harm, Angel performed a solemn bow to Cicia: "Thank you for the information."
Cicia: "I initially thought you didn’t understand what etiquette meant. It seems, however, you do understand."
Cicia’s tone bore a hint of teasing, but Angel did not respond. Although he felt he was speaking sincerely, it seemed Cicia always thought he was being contentious, so he remained silent.
"There’s nothing more to say about this Crystal Ball, let’s move on to the next item." With a gentle toss, Cicia threw the Crystal Ball into the Dark Mist, while a crumpled piece of parchment floated down from the air, landing in Cicia’s hands.
Cicia: "This parchment... how should I put it?"
"A small accident started an ordinary man’s path to transcendence. But because of this small accident, he wasted decades."
"If you ask me, just one word: foolish."
Angel silently remarked in his heart: It seems you’ve already used this word to describe Kaier.
"This parchment carried Kaier’s obsession. Aside from the obsession, does this parchment have any value?"
Cicia: "You could say that. However, I’ve sensed some things about the original owner, which are quite interesting. Would you like to hear about it?"
"The original owner of the parchment? Who are they?" Angel asked instinctively but immediately regretted asking.
Before he could take it back, Cicia glanced at Angel, "How would I know who? I can only sense the connotation of the parchment and a little memory and emotion, but can’t directly see past events."
"Moreover, this parchment is only a few hundred years old. Do you think I’d know someone from ten thousand years ago?"
Angel: It seems my intelligence has gone offline... No, it’s my mouth that’s faster than my mind.
"Ahem, let’s talk about the original owner, shall we?" Angel awkwardly changed the topic.
"I think that ’foolish’ also applies to you." Cicia scoffed before beginning, "Before discussing the original owner, I want to ask, is the formula on the parchment a Space Series energy formula?"
Angel nodded: "It’s a variation of the Bazel Biphasic Formula."
"Bazel Biphasic Formula?" The ancient relic from a thousand years ago looked puzzled.
Angel created an illusion to simulate a line of the original form of the Bazel Biphasic Formula: "This is the original form, a formula created by the Twisted Great Wizard Bazel a thousand years ago..."
Angel spoke fervently, but Cicia was filled with confusion. Having once been a wizard from the prophecy system, her understanding of Space Series knowledge was limited, not to mention how space knowledge had developed over the years, with old formulas being overturned or revamped. It would be surprising if Cicia could understand.
After a while, Angel stopped, and Cicia weakly asked, "You study the Space Series too?"
Angel: "A bit of study."
"...Alright." Suppressing her discomfort, Cicia praised, "I didn’t expect you to know so much at your young age..."
Angel: "It’s all thanks to the pioneers; I’m just picking up their scraps."
Fearing Angel would go on about "I’m not yet twenty, so I need to work harder and babble on..." Cicia swiftly steered the topic back on track.
"The reason I asked about the formula on the parchment being a Space Series energy formula is because the original owner of this parchment wasn’t from the Space Series." Cicia continued, "The original owner was a Food Wizard."
"A Food Wizard?" Angel had only heard from Kaier that he discovered the relic of a White Wizard, but didn’t expect that White Wizard to be a Food Wizard?
Then again, are there Black Food Wizards? In the Northern Territory Wizard World, where the tradition of sacrificing demons exists, a Black Food Wizard might appear, but in the Southern Domain, Food Wizards are practically always White Wizards.
"Why would a Food Wizard research Bazel’s Biphasic Formula? Was it out of curiosity?" Angel wondered.
"If it was purely curiosity, then this story wouldn’t be interesting." Cicia explained, "That Food Wizard consumed some kind of hallucinogenic food and was suddenly inspired, becoming inflated with the belief they knew everything and could do anything, randomly picking up a book and starting to derive the formula inside."
Angel: "And then?"
Cicia: "The next day, when the hallucination wore off, they saw the variation they had derived, remembered last night’s events, and felt embarrassed. So they slipped it into a book, out of sight, out of mind."
"Later on, the Food Wizard left, forgetting about that book, and even more so about that piece of parchment. Fast forward to the present, and you get your teammate Kaier’s story."
Having heard the whole story, Angel wasn’t showing it, but inside he was filled with astonishment.
No one would have thought Kaier’s parchment had such an unexpected, ridiculous backstory.
If Kaier knew that the Transformation Technique he’d been studying for decades was just random graffiti from a Food Wizard "junkie" on a high, he’d probably be so stifled he’d spit blood on the spot...
Nonetheless, although Kaier had spent decades doing futile work, at least it set him on the path of the wizard, and through this variation, he learned a lot about the Space Series.
From this perspective, the Food Wizard also deserves some credit.
A few centuries ago, a junkie’s fantasy laid the foundation for a Space Series successor centuries later.
What can I say? This too is a rather wonderful encounter.