I, the wizard, the foolish Buddha

Drops of sweat trickled down his legs, and Roland suddenly opened his eyes.

“Huff… ha… ha…”

Like a person about to drown in water, he suddenly surfaced. He gasped for breath, his chest heaving like a broken bellows.

His face was as pale as paper, his pupils dilated, and he stared blankly at himself in the mirror not far away, before finally regaining his senses after a long, long time.

“I didn’t turn into a butterfly.”

Roland found himself drenched in sweat, which had a salty, fishy smell.

After steadying his breathing, Roland circulated the magic power in his body, and a look of surprise appeared in his eyes.

“I stepped through that door… the first door of truth!”

If Roland’s magic power before was like a dense fog about to rain, now it was like a heavy rain had fallen, turning into a pool of water.

Crackling sounds came as a powerful arc of electricity flashed on Roland’s fingers. If the arc of electricity during his apprenticeship was a burst of sparks, then the current arc was a high-voltage arc. Its damage was probably no less than a Level 1 Chain Lightning.

Because the density of his magic power had undergone a qualitative leap, the damage of the arc of electricity had increased astonishingly.

He wondered how powerful Chain Lightning was now.

Roland vaguely felt that something was wrong.

With the current power of the arc of electricity, it would be very dangerous to play with it between his fingers as he had done before.

Although this magic was released using his own magic power, and he would have extremely high resistance to it, it should still hurt if it hit his fingers. But just now, he only felt his fingertips flicked and felt no pain.

It was as if there was a layer of ‘gloves’ on his hand that shielded the magic power.

At this moment, Roland felt uncomfortable on his ear and reached out to tear off a piece of seaweed.

“No wonder my body has the salty, fishy smell of the sea.”

He felt a little itchy on his face, scratched it, and then tore off a thick layer of seaweed.

Looking again, his hands were also covered with a thick layer of seaweed skin.

Wait, this isn’t seaweed, this is pupal skin?

Roland looked down at his whole body and found that his coat was covered with a thick layer of golden ‘flesh’, and there were many colorful feathers inside the ‘flesh’.

Oh, so it’s not seaweed, nor is it pupal skin, and it’s not even that he’s molting.

This is the amber gem that he had put on his body!

He cast a Peel Skin spell on himself, and under his skillful manipulation, the layer of gemstone skin covering his body was peeled off.

Looking at the shriveled humanoid ‘leather’ in front of him, Roland was stunned for a moment. He was shocked to find that this ‘leather’ was a perfect likeness of himself.

[Shriveled Roland + 1]

Roland’s mind stirred, and the ‘leather’ gradually filled up, turning into another person at a speed visible to the naked eye.

After silently chanting a spell, this leather turned into Roland’s appearance.

It was wearing Roland’s magic robe, dressed exactly like Roland. Roland used his mind to control this person to make some movements, which were slightly stiff.

Apart from lacking a bit of灵气, this person was Roland.

Roland thought to himself: ‘My clone is a ‘clay’, it can not only transform into my appearance, but also turn me into a Divine Bird if I put it on! Let me try!’

Before Roland could act, a shadow appeared out of thin air and pounced on the clone. Then the clone Roland’s eyes became agile.

Crack, crack, crack. Like a puppet, it looked around, then its eyes fell on Roland, revealing a hint of playfulness.

Roland was slightly stunned.

“Leona?”

Crack, crack, crack. The clone mechanically walked around the hall, as if responding to Roland’s call.

Immediately afterward, Leona actually controlled Roland’s clone, turning it into a thumb-sized mermaid, flying to Roland’s side, and calling out with a giggle.

Roland: “???”

How could his clone transform into this appearance?

Or was he hallucinating?

Roland grabbed his hair, feeling unwell all over.

Roland could understand the reason why Leona could control his clone.

She was originally his creation, possessing a trace of his soul. Now that she had advanced together with him, the relationship between the two had become even closer.

In a sense, Leona was a special magic puppet of Roland, a magic puppet with Roland’s abilities and self-awareness.

Therefore, she could possess his clone. And once she possessed his clone, she could even use his curios and magic!

But why could she control his clone and turn it into a little mermaid?

“No, this doesn’t make sense! My clone doesn’t have such abilities, and I haven’t added such runes!”

Just then, the ‘little mermaid’ suddenly turned into a butterfly.

A thunderclap flashed in Roland’s mind, and he was enlightened.

“That’s right… that’s right! I have such abilities!”

“My clone is a butterfly! I can turn into anything!”

“I… I can perform the Seventy-Two Transformations?!”

[You have comprehended! Forbidden Transformation Art comprehension +3]

[You have comprehended! Magic Puppet Control comprehension +3]

[You have comprehended! Realm comprehension +2]

In his madness, the butterfly quickly grew larger and suddenly pounced on Roland, wrapping him up.

Immediately afterward, the clone, like clay, wrapped around Roland and gradually turned into a Divine Bird. Then, under Leona’s control, it flew out of the tower from the nearby ‘floor-to-ceiling window’.

In astonishment, the Divine Bird wrapped Roland and flew into the sky, towards the moon.

At this moment, Roland suddenly realized that the constellations in the sky were no longer what they were when he started advancing. The moon was a waning moon, not a full moon.

It turned out that, in his opinion, only a short time had passed—in his opinion, the little monster bird in the chrysalis had hatched in a moment.

But in reality, many days may have passed.

No wonder his magic power was so stable. Logically speaking, after just advancing, his magic power should not have all turned into ‘pool water’, but rather half water and half mist. His magic power would only stabilize after he stabilized his realm.

Considering the situation of his magic power, Roland guessed that a month and a half should have passed.

At this time, Roland discovered that Leona was flapping around in mid-air with him, but she didn’t fly very high.

Her movements were very mechanical. Although she was in the form of a bird, she made crackling puppet sounds. After flapping for a while, she clumsily fell to the ground.

‘Silly girl, don’t move!’

Roland regained control. Immediately afterward, the Divine Bird flew agilely, its figure as nimble as a butterfly, drawing a colorful afterimage in the air and flying towards the distant forest.

Like a rainbow!

The Divine Bird flew very far, as if Roland was trying to test the speed of this form. How should he put it, it was very average.

In this form, he was very agile, as agile as a butterfly, but he didn’t fly very fast, about the same speed as a raven.

Roland’s mind stirred, and he activated the ‘Flint’ curio. Immediately, the Seven-Colored Divine Bird burned like a phoenix, turning into a firebird.

It happily circled above the forest for a while, and then it turned into a streak of fire, flying away rapidly in the air.

Still not fast enough!

Suddenly, lightning crackled on the firebird’s body, and then, it appeared hundreds of meters away in the blink of an eye.

Roland was overjoyed, and he frantically released his magic power, flying in the sky for more than ten minutes using firelight, lightning, and other methods, before he felt slightly tired.

Roland secretly shook his head, and he came to a very embarrassing fact—he was not good at flying!

His speed was much faster than that of an apprentice, but it was not as fast as a slightly more powerful wizard.

If the Academy Cup were held now, and he, as the Black Abyss’s High Tower Wizard, followed the Black Abyss team, flying from the Black Abyss to the Forbidden Land, he was afraid that he would have to put in a lot of effort to keep up with the Serpent Tower’s ‘Wind Serpent Team’.

However, his clone was very good at fighting!

Although it wasn’t fast enough for long-distance flight, it was extremely agile, able to easily dodge other people’s magic in mid-air. If he borrowed the power of the curio and turned into a light of thunder and fire, the enemy would not be able to react.

Moreover, the Divine Bird’s eyes suddenly burned with a ball of fire. Immediately, ‘raging flames’ blazed behind it, and the terrifying flames followed its trajectory, forming a cloud of fire in the sky.

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It suddenly lowered its altitude, skimming over the treetops of the forest, and then the forest burst into flames!

“Gaa gaa gaa~~Gaa gaa gaa~~”

Raven-like laughter echoed in the night sky, like the Stygian Phoenix symbolizing death, igniting a large area of woodland.

Suddenly, this phoenix emitted a terrifying twilight, the surrounding sky was suddenly illuminated, and the trees burning on the ground slowly extinguished, swelled, rotted, and festered in the light.

The forest fire was extinguished, but the trees within a hundred meters slowly rotted into strange shapes.

After wreaking havoc for a moment, the eyes of this evil monster bird suddenly flickered slightly, turning into a light of thunder and fire and flying into the distance. Immediately afterward, several runes symbolizing concealment flashed on its body, and then it disappeared into thin air.

This was a dark swamp in the forest, filled with miasma and ghostly shadows.

This was already close to the Twilight Council’s territory, located between Straw Town and the ‘White Fang Society’ territory.

In the miasma, a sluggish figure was constantly waving a magic wand, chanting words.

In front of him was floating a human skin book. Under the power of the book and the spell, many bony hands in the swamp were pulling at the corpses in the mud.

Here, it seemed, a battle had taken place, claiming many lives – both civilians and apprentices.

After their deaths, the corpses twitched violently before slowly crawling towards the shadowy figure, lunging at him.

Many evil spirits were also swarming towards him.

The night wind blew, thinning the miasma slightly, and the starlight illuminated the wizard's body.

It was a grotesquely swollen, gigantic amalgamation. A huge mouth gaped in his thick abdomen, and the corpses and evil spirits were burrowing into it.

The massive maw on his abdomen resembled the mouthparts of a worm, filled with countless teeth. It chewed up and swallowed the corpses and evil spirits, and with each consumption, the body would sprout new limbs, growing larger and larger.

Moments later, a bizarre corpse surfaced in the swamp, its hair exceptionally long, like seaweed. It appeared to be a heavily injured Rank 4 Swamp Banshee.

It had been slumbering deep within the swamp, but the wizard's efforts had finally unearthed it.

The wizard emitted three strange laughs, impatiently manipulating the bone hands to drag the Swamp Banshee's body over.

Just then, the several grotesque eyeballs on the wizard's head twitched slightly, his expression turning peculiar as he looked towards the treetops not far away.

A bizarre, swollen figure stood silently on those branches.

It seemed to have been observing for quite some time, unnoticed by the wizard!

As if sensing the wizard's gaze, the strange 'person' tilted its head like a bird, curiously studying the wizard.

The wizard's face stiffened slightly. That wasn't a person at all; it was a repulsive and bizarre giant bird.

At first glance, the bird seemed incredibly sacred, like a phoenix.

But a second look was deeply unsettling.

Its body wasn't covered in feathers, but rather scales resembling those of venomous snakes or some other creature. These scales were multi-colored, like vibrant, poisonous mushrooms, creating a sense of profound unease.

The colorful scales formed patterns of eyes, large and small, all over its body.

Upon closer inspection, the phoenix-like plumes on its head could bend like tentacles!

Were those plumes really feathers?

Weren't those more like the colorful antennae on a moth's head?!

This bizarre amalgamation was even more unsettling than the wizard.

The wizard was purely repulsive, but this bird was both sacred and grotesque, utterly twisted.

Its expression was remarkably human, standing there quietly, resembling a human moth—yet it had a beak!

"Disgusting thing!"

The swollen wizard cursed three times, then asked three times: "Which tower are you from?"

It seemed he mistook the bird for one of his own.

No wonder, such a twisted thing could only be a Twilight Wizard.

It must be the latest creation of some Tower Master, or perhaps a newly promoted Instructor.

He didn't know what kind of bird it was, but it was probably related to death omens, likely another twisted creation related to Heraka, that mad god.

As the swollen wizard spoke, he quickened his pace, trying to devour the banshee as quickly as possible.

It seemed this wizard didn't want to clash with that repulsive creature.

There was an unwritten rule in the Twilight Council: those who look strange might not be easy to provoke, but they are certainly troublesome.

Hearing the wizard's question, the bird tilted its head curiously. Then, it opened its beak and responded with a bolt of golden lightning.

Rumble, rumble!

The sky lit up, turning the swollen wizard into a bright lightbulb. The water around him even exploded, creating a large spray due to the high voltage.

Lightning leaped across his body, releasing many high-voltage arcs with each jump.

In an instant, the lightning jumped ten times, dozens of golden arcs carrying high voltage spread wildly, igniting anything they touched into golden flames.

Within a radius of thirty meters, everything was covered in lightning and fire in the blink of an eye.

Moments later, the thunder and fire dissipated, and the swollen wizard's bloated flesh had been blasted away by the constant lightning strikes, leaving only a gigantic and grotesque skeleton. The skeleton was burning, looking like a charred, burning tree.

A gust of wind swept through, scattering the ashes. The strange bird landed, transforming into a tall, handsome young wizard. He looked less than twenty, but was probably twenty-two or twenty-three.

"So it's just three Advanced Apprentices. I thought it was a formal wizard."

The young wizard examined the deformed corpse.

The roots of this bone tree were human legs, and the branches were arms. Counting them, it had three spines, disgustingly dead.

A look of displeasure appeared on the young wizard's face.

This disgusting thing dared to call *him* disgusting?

"You call the sacred phoenix disgusting?"

"You don't even recognize a phoenix?"

"Idiot!"

Poor Roland, he hadn't even looked in the mirror yet.