Chapter 24: You Are Not Worthy!

It was evident that although the Witch Queen had promised Stewart his freedom, she had secretly played tricks, scheming to turn him into her shadow and thus make herself even more powerful. Though her skills were lacking, after sacrificing a demon, she succeeded nonetheless.

Louis gave her a score of 61—she knew to think outside the box, which was barely a passing grade.

Now, Stewart could become Louis’ shadow, granting Louis all his power as an additional layer. Even in ordinary times, ten percent of Stewart’s strength belonged to Louis.

Louis found his own strength had increased by 0.38, his dexterity by 1.8, and his magic by 0.8. He drew a gold coin from his pocket and tested his newfound dexterity. The coin danced nimbly between his two hands, as if pirouetting across his ten fingers.

‘But it seems I don’t really need dexterity. When I cast spells, I have no need for precise gestures, nor must I mind the rhythm of waving a wand. I’m not much interested in potions or alchemy either.’

[But a competent warrior...]

Before the narrator in the storybook could finish, Louis closed the ephemeral book before his eyes.

Seeing Stewart still standing there, staring blankly, Louis snapped his fingers. Instantly, Stewart transformed into his nightmare form, still bewildered.

Louis vaulted onto the fiery warhorse in a single leap, graceful as a seasoned warrior, and began weaving through the Dreamspire—few court knights could mount so deftly.

It seemed Stewart could ignore all terrain. He could even fly.

By accident, man and horse burst into the student lounge at the top of the tower. The Dreamspire belonged to Yordle Academy, but luckily, today was a holiday.

So only a beautiful ghostly lady was there, chin in hand, lost in thought. In that moment, a nightmare knight wreathed in flames burst up through the floor before her.

Both parties stared at each other in mutual astonishment for a long moment. Then, the beautiful ghost simply lay down on the couch and began to snore.

[Miss Orphinie has not slept in over five centuries. Ahem, a good rest will do her some good.]

“You can even make ghosts sleep?”

[Boss, even trees and grass can dream,] bragged the nightmare.

Louis glanced at the newly learned “Nightmare Curse lv1” in his character profile and made a mental note of Stewart’s words.

After a while, Louis went to an empty classroom, treating Stewart like a puppet and practicing his skills at string manipulation.

“By the way, what were you saying earlier?” Louis asked as he played, intending to listen to a story while practicing. “Go ahead, tell me what you know—you can speak freely now.”

Stewart shuddered.

Was this his master’s first test?

But what did he want to hear?

Why did he look so eager for gossip?

Stewart thought for a moment, and said, [My lord, I suspect you joined in the last two years. There are some taboos in the academy, and some matters in the Black Prison. These are things you should know. Let me begin with the conflicts among the Sacred Oak wizards, and the history between the black and white wizards...]

Stewart dared not slack off and spoke of what he thought were explosive secrets. Yet as Louis listened, the corners of his mouth began to twitch.

It was all petty trivialities.

But the evil spirit seemed convinced these trifles were of great importance.

Wizards, too, seemed to think so...

Or perhaps, the infighting and entanglements among these wizards truly resembled children playing house! And apparently, in everyone’s eyes, to kill a person or to master a few forbidden, deadly curses was to become an unspeakably evil Dark Lord or mysterious figure.

[No one knows who they are, except me,] Stewart said mysteriously. [Because she was my previous master—Osyclis’ mother.]

“???”

“Osyclis’ mother?!” Louis blinked hard.

[That’s right,] Stewart intoned mysteriously. [She was the first Dark Lord, and the founder of the Hermetic Order.]

“The Hermetic Order? What was her aim?”

[My lord, the Sacred Oak wizards are the most powerful wizards in this world, and their strength comes from a mysterious wizard who wandered here from another realm centuries ago.]

[He was called ‘Anthony,’ styled himself the ‘Traveler of the Star Realm,’ and left behind certain knowledge. Alas, no one could understand it, and those who did were filled with terror.]

[Just a portion of that knowledge drove the Sacred Oak wizards to panic… They believed it would upend the world itself!]

[In the end, the Ministry of Magic passed a resolution, and the Sacred Oak wizards classified these as “forbidden sciences,” then destroyed them.]

[Her Majesty ‘Francesca’ was deeply disappointed in the acts of the Sacred Oak wizards. Thus, the Hermetic Order was born.]

[Her Majesty believed that knowledge had not been destroyed, and she succeeded in finding it...]

[It’s hard to imagine, but Her Majesty found only a fragment of a book Anthony left behind—named something like “Modern Something Theory I,” a most peculiar title. Yet it made Her Majesty Francesca invincible!]

[A revolution began... Had Her Majesty found the complete book back then, the world would no longer be as it is now...]

Stewart seemed a little downcast.

[Now, Her Majesty Francesca has vanished along with the dissolution of the Hermetic Order. No one knows her other identity.]

[And no one knows that the current Witch Queen, ‘Delphinia,’ is her student! Yes, my lord, Her Majesty Francesca was another teacher to Delphinia!]

[Compared to her own daughter, Her Majesty Francesca believed Delphinia was better suited to inherit everything... Osyclis was far too innocent.]

[In the end, Delphinia inherited all of the Dark Lord’s legacy, and all of Her Majesty Francesca’s as well—including that book!]

[That was the magic tome of the great Anthony—he was a Dawn Wizard, from a place called the ‘Sanctuary of Dawn.’ The Dawn Wizards... they could cast spells without incantations! Their words became reality! Like gods! Even a mere apprentice could strike fear into demon gods...]

As Stewart spoke, a vague memory in Louis’ mind gradually became clear—his experiences studying in the Forbidden Sanctuary.

Dawn Wizards were the Forbidden Wizards. The name had been changed three hundred years after the founding of the Forbidden Sanctuary, and had persisted for sixty million years. Thus, none knew that the Dawn Wizards were those very godlike Forbidden Wizards.

Truly godlike—if magical civilizations could be ranked, this world would be about 0.6, while the Forbidden Sanctuary at its peak once reached Level 3 civilization.

Of course, perhaps no one now knew these things, for the Forbidden Sanctuary had long vanished—every civilization has its lifespan, and this sanctuary had influenced many worlds. Mr. Anthony had been the previous “Traveler of the Star Realm,” and had come to this world to spread magic.

And Louis himself was the Traveler of the Star Realm in this era—strictly speaking, he was Anthony’s disciple, the only one yet to be lost to the dust of history.

The last Forbidden Wizard in the world...

[He left behind a book, called the “Travel Diary.” The book is wondrous—rumored to connect shards of time and space across many worlds, and its bearer can use it to reach the Sanctuary of Dawn...]

[This book was once opened by Her Majesty Delphinia, but to her shock, there were no words in it!]

[Later, somehow Delphinia triggered the book, and a passage appeared—a set of three questions.]

[One was about astronomy—well, all wizards study the stars, so its answer was simple: “center.”]

[One concerned religious philosophy. Wizards care little for religion, those people are all tricksters. But since the question was asked, she answered anyway, out of common sense—the answer was Sun God and Moon God.]

[But the strangest was the third question—the book told the Witch Queen that the first two could be wrong, as it had already adjusted the difficulty to her knowledge level. So as long as she solved the last, she could still be admitted to the Sanctuary of Dawn—though with her intellect, she might not graduate past junior high.]

[Still, the Witch Queen was thrilled—she didn’t know what “junior high” meant, but her foster mother had mentioned it—graduates become the greatest wizards in the world!]

[The last question was a math problem... a math problem! The book was toying with her!]

[What does accounting have to do with magic? Delphinia was no accountant, she was the Witch Queen! She disdained to answer—so scribbled something at random. Ahem, it really was a tough one; we asked several accountants, and I reckon it was wrong.]

[After that, the book self-destructed, leaving only a message—You are unworthy!]

Louis scratched his face—he’d seen these three questions himself. They were a bit odd, but not in the questions, rather in the first line—“To prevent my travel diary from accidentally being taken by a monkey, please answer a few simple questions.”

The first was to describe “the position of the ground you stand upon in the universe,” with three choices: “center” and “near the sun”—heliocentrism and geocentrism, respectively.

The third was a fill-in-the-blank.

Naturally, it was “Milky Way—Orion Arm—Solar System.” But Louis hadn’t filled it in, or written anything—at the time, he thought it was a book for children. Who, upon finding a child’s magical travel storybook, would start filling out answers?

But out of boredom, after reading the question, Louis grew curious and googled it—of course, it was a long answer beginning with the Laniakea Supercluster.

The second question wasn’t philosophy, but “Briefly explain the source of stellar energy.”

Naturally, nuclear fusion—not Sun God and Moon God.

Louis didn’t answer that either, but the storybook left a slightly different impression—it wasn’t for preschoolers, but for elementary students.

Preschoolers reading an elementary school book would need parental supervision.

As for the third question—it changed Louis’ opinion entirely.

It was a hard one.

It asked how to turn a perfectly closed sphere inside out.

But Louis knew it was a mathematical problem involving four-dimensional space.

His field wasn’t math or physics, but he found such things intriguing.

He remembered seeing a similar video on Bilibili during a late-night surfing session, so he watched it again, used the book as scratch paper, and jotted down his train of thought. He also recorded some interesting mathematical formulas, intending to post them on social media to show off.

Then he tossed the book aside—never turning another page. It was only days ago, bored out of his mind, that he picked it up again and read the magical tales.

And thus, he was forcibly dragged into this world.

Judging by the storybook’s style, it probably already counted his contemplation of the first and second answers as his attempt, so when he got to the third page, the third question was made so much tougher.

As for the Witch Queen, her questions were probably dumbed down twice, and at the end she might have faced a junior high geometry problem, or a grade school algebra application, or even a multiplication table. Just to see if the diary had fallen into a monkey’s hands...

How I despise you!