Chapter 74: An Example to Explain What a Locator Is |
Rum stretched out his hands toward the small window and began chanting an incantation.
With a bang, the black window slammed shut, and the room immediately dimmed by several degrees.
Then, the window began to extend and expand, growing until it covered the entire outer wall of the “room.”
Saul watched the transformation in front of him, momentarily forgetting to breathe.
It was like opening a surprise gift box—the black window slowly tilted outward.
Sunlight squeezed through the narrow crack, gradually widening, spilling in bit by bit, until it filled the whole room.
Saul found the sunlight a little blinding, yet he couldn’t bear to blink.
Standing beside him, Mentor Rum said, “Go ahead, take a look.”
Saul dragged his feet cautiously toward the window. The scenery outside gradually came into view.
Beneath the sky, dark mountain peaks stretched endlessly. Dense forests filled the valleys, reaching out toward the plains.
Scattered villages and winding paths dotted the mountains and woods. The nearer area was smooth wilderness, open and empty, with no humans or livestock in sight.
The world was peaceful, like a painting.
“Hello, new world,” Saul greeted it silently in his heart.
Suddenly, a sharp cry shattered the tranquility.
A black shadow flashed overhead, streaking into the distance.
Saul looked up and saw a massive bird flying at incredible speed, cutting through wind and clouds.
There even seemed to be a person standing atop the bird.
This sudden change jolted Saul back to his senses. He was reminded once again that what lay before him wasn’t a quiet countryside—it was a world of wizards and powerful forces beyond comprehension.
“Beautiful, isn’t it? Now take a closer look,” came Rum’s voice from behind.
Saul's gaze slowly shifted downward. The deep green fields faded into blotchy patches, turning to brownish-yellow earth, then to scorched yellow, and finally into an interwoven mess of pitch-black and mud.
Looking down, just a few dozen meters below, was a bubbling swamp.
Occasionally, bones or weeds would be churned up by the bubbles, only to be dragged back into the mire after a brief struggle.
Several broken corpses floated on the surface.
Some faced up, others down, and some with feet pointed skyward. They drifted slowly with the bubbling mud.
Suddenly, a black, mud-covered tentacle emerged silently, coiling around one of the corpses and slowly dragging it downward.
The corpse didn’t resist, simply sinking back into the muck.
As Saul watched the tentacle vanish, he felt a cold, slithering sensation brush across his skin—as if something reptilian had just touched him.
Where exactly was Gorsa’s wizard tower located? Why was there a swamp full of corpses and monsters beneath it?
The apprentices learning wizardly here—would they ultimately sink into the mire, or soar above the clouds?
The beauty and tranquility vanished. Doubts and fear crept into Saul’s heart.
Rum’s voice came again.
“Frightening, isn’t it? Look down at your feet.”
At those words, Saul looked down and his pupils shrank sharply.
At some point, he had stepped right to the edge of the black window.
Most of his right foot was already hanging off!
In the next second, he would’ve fallen—just another body floating in the swamp.
Snapping back to his senses, Saul jerked his foot back and stumbled backward repeatedly, retreating until his back slammed into the wall at the far end of the room.
Seeing Saul’s frightened expression, Rum let out a low chuckle.
He leaned forward, his bulk oozing toward Saul’s feet, warm and clammy.
He raised a hand and covered Saul’s eyes.
“Beauty and terror both tempt you to fall into the abyss. The locator is like the black window—it supports your mental form when you lose your way. But keep in mind, a locator can only delay your collapse. In the end, you must sort out your own consciousness to wake up.”
When Rum lowered his hand again, the room had returned to normal. The wall-sized window was once again a one-meter-square pane of black glass, tilted inward, letting in a narrow beam of light…
Saul had been truly shaken.
He wasn’t afraid of the distant mountains or soaring bird, nor even the corpses and bones in the swamp.
What frightened Saul most was that he still didn’t know how he had ended up stepping outside the window.
In his memory, he had merely moved closer to the window.
But this experience, combined with his earlier modification, gave Saul a deeper understanding of what a locator really was.
A locator helped wizards remain aware of their own existence, so they wouldn’t lose themselves in the known or unknown.
But its power had limits. If one blindly relied on a locator and failed to control their own desires, eventually they would exceed the protection it could offer—ending up as a pile of flesh, or worse, something unrecognizable.
Moreover, a locator was extremely private. If someone understood another person’s locator well enough, they could potentially grasp that person’s fatal weakness. For this reason, probing into someone’s locator was a taboo.
As Saul was still lost in these reflections, Rum murmured, “I personally explained half a lesson to you, even though you’re not my student. Let’s say that’s worth 10 credits.”
“Mentor, are you robbing me!?”
Saul’s mouth fell open in disbelief.
“Or you could work for me for ten days?”
Saul’s mouth promptly closed.
So this was what it was all about.
He thought back to the conversation between Kaz and Rum when Kaz first brought him here—they’d been discussing having Saul help out.
Since that was the case, Saul didn’t argue.
He just needed to set one thing straight.
“Mentor Rum, I’ve only been studying for three months. I don’t really know what I can do.”
At that, Rum glared at him. “Now you remember you’re a rookie? Look at the stunts you’ve been pulling—do those look like rookie mistakes to you?”
His belly swelled and pulsed like a toad.
“Go to the second lab on the fourteenth floor. Find Nick. Oh, and tell him to deal with the vengeful spirit attached to you.”
That was serious business!
Saul immediately stood at attention. “Thank you, Mentor Rum. I’ll head over right away!”
Wasting no time, he bowed respectfully and headed for the exit.
Just as his hand touched the curtain, Rum’s voice rang out again.
“Before you advance to a Second Rank apprentice, give it some serious thought. Choosing a main attribute that doesn’t suit you is a painful thing.”
Saul paused.
Rum’s words sounded… personal.
Could it be that Rum wasn’t satisfied with his current field of research?
Lifting the curtain, Saul stepped out and just before leaving, he turned to glance back into the room.
The lamps inside had been deliberately dimmed. Only a single shaft of light cut through.
Mentor Rum, like a mountain of flesh, sat alone in the shadows.
Everything seemed so indistinct.
The heavy curtain soon stilled, blocking Saul’s line of sight.
After leaving Rum’s room, Saul hurried toward the laboratory.
He had already felt that the nightmare issue couldn’t be delayed. If Mentor Rum hadn’t helped today, he would’ve gone to Senior Byron or someone else.
The good news was, from Rum’s perspective, the wraith wasn’t a big deal. He didn’t even bother dealing with it himself—just told an upperclassman to handle it.
“Hope this senior is easy to talk to,” Saul thought quietly.
He left Rum’s room and made his way down the ramp. The mentors’ floor was much quieter than the apprentices’ level.
The three Second Rank apprentices who had been waiting outside were nowhere to be seen.
Under the bright lamplight, the hallway felt cold and empty.
A strange thought suddenly popped into Saul’s mind.
This wizard tower had trapped the servants and the apprentices—had it also trapped others?
Was the only truly free person the tower’s master, Gorsa, whom Saul had once mockingly nicknamed “Big Pink”?
When Saul saw the tower master earlier, the man had been completely wrapped in a reddish-brown cloak. Even the small part of his chin that was exposed was covered in pink silk bandages, just like always.
Was someone like that… really free?
(End of Chapter)
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