magician in town

Chapter 667 Ancestral Gift (57)

"Didn't you take any painkillers?" the clownfish said casually.

He followed Du Zhengyi for a while, observing him closely. Even if Du Zhengyi could endure it, he wasn't made of steel, and his body would still have some conditioned reflexes to pain.

Du Zhengyi ignored him, becoming even more silent the rest of the way. The clownfish gave him time to process his pent-up emotions and regain his composure. But before long, the clownfish started talking again, as if by nature he shouldn't have remained silent.

"Qionglin is actually a sealed place as well. I mean, at least the mechanisms are similar, right? You can shut down this place, and you can shut down Qionglin as well."

No one answered him, but the clownfish could tell that Du Zhengyi was becoming more and more certain of the route, as if the deeper they went, the more familiar the area became to him.

“You know Qionglin very well, don’t you? But you’ve never thought of leaving Qionglin. That’s really strange. I’ll never understand why you’re completely unmoved when Qionglin killed your whole family.”

“I’ve told Roach many times that my parents weren’t killed by Qionglin.” Du Zheng glanced at the blurry shadow of the clownfish.

“That’s really strange. Even if your parents weren’t killed by Qionglin, the deceased Du Shi should have been your third uncle and second great-uncle, right? It’s impossible for a person to be completely indifferent to their relatives, especially someone like you who is both sentimental and loyal,” the clownfish said. Receiving no reply, he continued.

"Unless, they are both your family and not your family." The clownfish seemed to smile, gradually revealing a sense of confidence.

Du Zhengyi frowned, and a hint of coldness finally flashed across his face.

“You are the Guardian of Lonely Mountain, which means you are entangled with your duty. No, that’s not right, it should be that you are entangled with Lonely Mountain. Lonely Mountain doesn’t represent Qionglin; Lonely Mountain is much older than Qionglin, from a more ancient era, a more distant… a more distant place,” the clownfish said with a laugh. “Entanglement represents a contract that transcends time and space. But no contract in the world is one-sided. If A and B are entangled, then A must have already paid a price for B, and B will also pay a price for A in the future. If B doesn’t want to pay when the time comes, then Heaven will force B to pay in some form. Right? I think you once received some kind of favor from Lonely Mountain, a favor that requires you to make a sacrifice at some point in the future to repay Lonely Mountain. Of course, once you have paid off your debt, the entanglement will be untied.”

The clownfish coughed, seemingly a little embarrassed. "I used to have some misunderstandings about entanglement. I thought it was some kind of cooler bondage."

He walked a little further before continuing, “Furthermore, there’s no way for people to form true, ancient entanglements, like the one between you and Lonely Mountain. Medical entanglements, entanglements between parents and children, are merely magic derived by sorcerers imitating the actions of the progenitor sorcerer—specifically, perhaps sensory magic. This kind of magic is very energy-intensive, causing the magic in this world to constantly decrease, because perception requires magic to run periodically in the background. Each run consumes a huge amount of energy. Moreover, this connection can only be limited to the same world. It’s like a series of processes running in a computer, only on a higher physical dimension.”

“I think the entanglement between you and Lonely Mountain is a truly ancient entanglement that transcends time and space, something only the Primordial Mage’s computer could accomplish,” the clownfish concluded.

Du Zhengyi finally looked at him in surprise.

“The oldest entanglements can even span galaxies,” the clownfish said, “linking all the way to Orion.”

"Should you take your medicine?" Du Zhengyi asked.

“It seems you’re not as smart as I thought,” the clownfish said. “Your mage bloodline has sealed you away. Even though you’ve always been the closest to the truth, you’ve never been able to discover it. Mages are inherently arrogant, always believing they are the masters of this world. You don’t think that way, but you don’t care about humans, you don’t even care about your own kind. You only want to fulfill the contract you must complete, and in the end, you’re nothing more than an accomplice.” “Aren’t you arrogant?” Du Zhengyi suddenly asked. “I never waste words with high-level anti-mages, because whatever they say is meaningless, a complete waste of time. I’ve seen many high-level anti-mages; they are all kinds of people, all rare geniuses, all believing they bear a historical mission, all seeing themselves as saviors. Just like you now. Although Luo Qi is a bit more fanatical than some, he is never arrogant; what he despises most is saviors.”

"You also sensed Roach's obsession. If someone spends their entire life being rejected, abandoned, and constantly losing, they will always want to ask why, why the world is the way it is. When these things, these questions, accumulate to a critical point, quantitative change will naturally lead to qualitative change. I don't see myself as a savior. What I want is very little and very simple. I love my wife very much, and I hope she lives in a better world, preferably a world that has never been invaded by mages. A pure human world, even if it's not perfect, is how that world should be."

"You think you shouldn't even exist." Du Zhengyi felt as if he had fallen into an ice cave. He finally understood why, if this person really had traveled from the future, he hadn't gone to find his still-living lover. He stared at the clownfish's blurry shadow, wondering if, besides the necessary concealment, he also believed he should exist in such a blurry way, or perhaps, in a blurry way, not exist at all.

The clownfish evaded his question, even though it was phrased with certainty. "If humanity were capable of recognizing the existence of mages, perhaps they would have long ago realized that mages are actually just a group of intelligent beings from extraterrestrial galaxies. Arrogant and belligerent, obsessed with biotechnology, they see themselves as creators. They are passionate about war, destroying their own worlds in conflict, and migrated to this planet, whether to escape enemies or something else. Have you ever wondered why all the legends tell the story of a single-digit number of progenitor mages? I think it's because in their apocalyptic war, only a handful escaped. They fled here, tragically using biotechnology to propagate their race. But perhaps, as some human papers have pointed out, forcibly cloning a population might lead to irreversible genetic regression, ultimately resulting in the extinction of the species once again. Just like we are now. This was our destined fate, yet we forcibly changed it, only to destroy another intelligent race on a planet."

“I would love to meet the future Roach, since I may never see him again, but I never imagined Roach would turn out like this.”

Du Zhengyi's indifference caused the mist surrounding the clownfish to ripple. Du Zhengyi later realized that it might represent his emotional fluctuations, which had caused some unusual changes.

"Can your brain avoid thinking? It's as difficult for me as talking to my dad," the clownfish said.

"Stop mentioning your dad. What does it mean for someone to be rejected and abandoned their whole life? Have I ever rejected you? Have I ever abandoned you?" Du Zhengyi didn't know what he was saying, but his chaotic emotions needed an outlet. Or perhaps it was because his broken and regrown bones were hurting too much, causing him great distress.

The clownfish fell into a deathly silence.

"If you have nothing better to do, I suggest you go find your wife. Seeing this young lady will cure your madness," Du Zhengyi said, raising his hand to cover his wound and enduring the pain.

“The genes of the progenitor mages are the keys that can unlock their devices. By choosing your family to continue their genes, they are essentially preserving a family of system administrators. Have you been playing the role of a key for so long that you're now willingly becoming key spirits?” the clownfish said, slowing its pace slightly.

“Don’t think I can shut down this environment created by the Ancestral Mage,” Du Zhengyi said.

“Of course I know there’s no way to shut down the magical environment the mage has embedded in Earth,” the clownfish said. “Although the energy is unstable now, and the power the mage can draw upon is decreasing, the fools still think the magic really comes from themselves.”

"Has the magic of you mind-manipulation mages become weaker? No, right?" Du Zhengyi asked.

He didn't argue with the clownfish about things he didn't quite understand, but a counterexample might have been enough, and the clownfish couldn't answer.

This book has been in the works for a long time, and I'm really sorry to have kept everyone waiting for so long. I'll try my best to maintain a consistent update frequency for this one, but since I've reached a crucial point in the plot, I'll also have to be careful and meticulous (I'm still embarrassingly slow to update). This story has been going on for far too long, so I started another book to refresh my mind and practice my writing. Consider it a little treat for everyone. This time it's a female protagonist story set in ancient times (I can't go to the wrong channel again!), but I'm still not entirely sure about its specific categorization (my protagonist just can't be too elegant, too reliable, or too easily categorized). While you're waiting for Luo Qi and Du Zhengyi, you can also check out the perhaps lighter "New Phenology" over there.