Wizard: I Have a Nightmare World

Lynn's fingers gently brushed across the cover of the book, leaving a dark gray mark of dust on his fingertips.

Morris.

The ancient wizard from 1,300 years ago, the creator of the burrowing lizard rat, a name long forgotten in the long river of history.

Lynn opened the title page, where the writing was done with a special ink that remained clearly legible despite being a thousand years old.

He flipped through the pages one by one. Morris's experimental records were very detailed, not only recording the materials, steps and results of each experiment, but also including a large number of annotations and reflections.

"The seventy-third grafting experiment failed. The shielding properties of the burrowing earthworm and the energy circuit of the lizard base still could not be stably integrated."

I began to suspect that the problem might not lie in the grafting technique, but rather in the fact that the lizard's substrate could not support the long-term operation of this energy loop...

"In the ninety-sixth experiment, I reduced the size of the shielded energy loop by one-third. This time, the stability of the fusion was significantly improved, but the lifespan of the test subject was shortened by sixty percent."

This is a huge flaw, but I haven't found a solution yet..."

"In the 123rd experiment, I tried adding a buffer node in the loop to reduce energy consumption."

Preliminary tests show that the lifespan of the test subjects was extended by about two years, but the duration of the shielding effect was correspondingly shortened...

Lynn became more and more engrossed in his reading. Although Morris's experimental approach was old, many of the details were still of great reference value to him today.

When he turned to the second half of the booklet, a passage written in different colored ink caught his attention:

"I have noticed a disturbing phenomenon."

Among the test subjects who incorporated the shielding circuit, approximately three percent of the individuals exhibited varying degrees of mental corruption; their consciousness began to become confused, and they gradually developed aggression towards surrounding creatures…

"This phenomenon did not exist in my early experiments, but its frequency of occurrence seems to be slowly increasing as the number of experiments increases."

I began to suspect that some kind of external contamination was seeping in through my experiments…

The text on this page ends here, and the following pages are blank, as if Morris stopped writing after reaching this point.

Lynn closed the booklet, his brow furrowed.

Mental corruption...pollution...these things inevitably reminded him of the figure wrapped in black bandages, and the stench of decay.

He put the booklet into his spatial ring, intending to study it carefully when he got back.

Just then, the Bloodvine Wizard's voice came from outside the study.

"Lynn, come in for a moment."

Lynn paused for a moment, then quickly walked out of the study and into the Bloodvine Wizard's study.

Bloodvine Wizard was still sitting behind the large rosewood desk, but his expression was much more serious than usual.

"Teacher, you wanted to see me?"

Upon entering the study, Lynn greeted the Bloodvine Wizard.

"sit."

Upon hearing this, he sat down in the chair opposite him.

After a few seconds of silence, the Bloodvine Wizard spoke:

"Something's happened at White Raven Tower."

Lynn's heart tightened.

"Last night, a first-ring wizard from the outer watchtower went missing while on patrol."

"His body was found this morning in a wilderness area about three kilometers from White Raven Tower."

Lynn quickly pressed for more information.

"What was the cause of that wizard's death?"

The Bloodvine Wizard did not answer, but instead took out a recording stone from the drawer, placed it on the table, and infused it with a trace of spiritual power.

The photo-recording stone lit up, and a projection appeared in the air.

It was a corpse. The upper body was relatively intact, but the lower body looked as if it had been corroded by something. The skin and flesh were dry and black, and it had a texture similar to rotten wood.

Lynn's gaze was fixed on the corpse's left hand.

The hand, from the wrist down, had an unnatural dark gray color, and the fingers were slightly curled, as if trying to grasp something, but were frozen in mid-air.

Although it doesn't merge with the weapon like the figure in the Nightmare World, the characteristics of this corruption are remarkably similar!

"His left hand..."

The moment Lynn uttered his words, Bloodvine Wizard seamlessly followed.

"That's right, residual corrupting energy was detected on his left hand."

Lynn's heart skipped a beat, but he pretended to be puzzled.

"Corrupt energy?"

The Bloodvine Wizard sighed and began to explain to Lynn.

"This is a polluting energy from outside the dimensional rift."

"It can erode the tissue structure of organisms and even distort the form of consciousness."

He paused for a few seconds and looked at Lynn.

"You mentioned the burrowing lizard rat you encountered in the breeding room, and the tissue samples you obtained from it."

"I initially thought it was just a coincidence, but now it seems things might not be that simple."

Several thoughts flashed through Lynn's mind.

"Teacher, do you mean... there might be dimensional rifts around the White Raven Tower?"

The Bloodvine Wizard shook his head.

"It's uncertain, but the emergence of corrupt energy is never isolated."

"It often means that something deeper is changing."

He looked at Lynn, a complex light flashing in his eyes.

"I called you here today not just to tell you this."

"There's one more thing I think it's time for you to know."

Lynn sat up straight, waiting for the teacher to continue.

The Bloodvine Wizard remained silent for a long while, then spoke in a calm, almost indifferent tone:

"The world we live in is dying."

These words struck Lynn like a thunderbolt.

"The world's energy cycle is gradually slowing down."

"The activity of the elements is decreasing, and the energy of the earth's veins is being depleted."

"The corrupting energy you see is the corpse energy released during the world's death process."

"This process began thousands of years ago, but it was very slow at first and almost no one paid attention."

"But it's accelerating over time."

"Hundreds of years ago, some wizards at the top of the wizarding world had already noticed this problem."

"They came to a conclusion by studying dimensional structure and energy cycles."

"The world we live in has entered a period of irreversible decline."

"Even the most optimistic estimate is that the world will completely collapse in three thousand years at most."

Lynn's breath hitched.

He remembered that he had been in this world for less than a month, that he had just opened the door to the potion, and that he still had so many things to do, only to be told that this world only had three thousand years of life left.

"Of course, three thousand years is indeed a very long time for an apprentice like you."

The Bloodvine Wizard seemed to have seen through Lynn's thoughts and continued.

"But the real problem is not when the world will perish, but the speed at which corrupting energy spreads."

"As the world's energy cycle slows down, more corrupting energy will seep in from the dimensional rifts."

"The lower-level creatures will be affected first, then plants and animals, and eventually the wizards themselves will be affected."

"The first-ring wizard who died was corrupted by the corrupting energy, which caused severe mutations in his body, ultimately leading to a mental breakdown and death."

Lynn remained silent for a while before asking his question.

"Teacher, have those powerful wizards... tried to find a way to deal with this problem?"

"Of course."

A hint of vicissitude flashed in the Bloodvine Wizard's eyes.

"The highest echelons of the wizarding world, those powerful wizards standing at the pinnacle, initiated the Astral Expedition project hundreds of years ago."

"The core of this plan is to send exploration teams into the boundless astral plane to find new worlds suitable for wizards to live in."

Upon hearing the words "Astral Expedition," Lynn couldn't help but think of what Amber had mentioned before.

"Teacher, what does this Astral Expedition refer to...?"

The Bloodvine Wizard remained silent for a few seconds, seemingly considering his words. After a full five minutes, he finally spoke slowly.

"Let's talk about the Astral Plane first. It's a void between different planes, where countless plane fragments and complete worlds, like our own, float."

"Through astral travel, wizards can use special positioning technology to find new worlds with normal energy cycles and no corruption or pollution, and then migrate between planes using large-scale dimensional portals."

"Over the past three hundred years, the wizarding world has sent out dozens of expeditions."

"Most of them have lost contact, but a few have sent back signals, reporting some possible candidate worlds."

"The problem now is that the Astral Expedition requires an enormous amount of resources, and as the world's energy declines, these resources are becoming increasingly scarce."

"So, the wizards came up with a solution."

The Bloodvine Wizard abruptly stopped speaking here, his gaze fixed on Lynn, a mixture of nostalgia and fear in his eyes.

Lynn noticed that her teacher's gaze was a little strange, and a chill ran down her spine.

Soon, the next passage directly confirmed his guess.

"The wizards have come up with an idea: they can send some wizards from the first to third rings to plunder worlds that are also experiencing corruption, thereby collecting resources to sustain the Astral Expedition."

"The plan was approved by the wizarding community, but as the number of worlds to be raided increased, the number of wizards was insufficient, so it was decided to begin recruiting wizard apprentices to join the raiding team."

"So be prepared, you might be forcibly conscripted into a raiding party soon."

"All of this is because you are my disciple, Bloodvine Wizard."

……

Lynn didn't know when he returned to his breeding room; he was in a daze the whole way.

He originally thought that by becoming the successor of the Bloodvine Wizard, he could inherit everything from the other party and then embark on the path of a wizard.

Unexpectedly, this kind of thing awaited me after this conversation.

It also involves traveling to other worlds.

This made Lynn feel a little lost about the future, but more than that, she was looking forward to the arrival of new things.

"Other worlds, astral expeditions... life is starting to get interesting!"