Chapter 45: The Madman Who Only Knows Tricks—Magician Harold!

Chapter 45: The Madman Who Only Knows Tricks—Magician Harold!

It had been three weeks since the Boss arrived at the stronghold, and Stuart had been secretly observing through the Magic Mirror all this time.

Stuart believed his Boss suffered from severe amnesia and persecution delusions.

Well, the persecution delusion was the main issue. If that illness was cured, the amnesia would surely be cured too, because the amnesia was artificial—every time Stuart told the Boss something terrifying, the Boss would cast an Obliviate to forget it all!

As for the delusion—the Boss constantly imagined he had a terrifying, powerful enemy who might kill him at any moment. He set that person as his target, wanting to surpass him.

What was that person’s name? Archimedes?

Yes, this Archimedes was described by the Boss as extremely terrifying. His Mana wasn’t strong, but it was constantly growing. And even more frightening, this Archimedes had a… something something lever.

According to the Boss, if you gave this ‘Archimedes’ a lever, he could move the whole world.

The Boss believed that Mana was just some counterweights; what was truly important was the lever—that is, knowledge. And when a person’s knowledge reached a certain level, that person wouldn’t need much Mana to easily take care of Stuart or Ocris with a low-level Magic Spell.

The Boss’s enemy used this lever in an extremely powerful and terrifying way.

Stuart believed that the enemy the Boss spoke of was the Boss himself.

And what the Boss did every day now was try to kill himself, kill himself—what did he call this?

Breaking through a bottleneck between life and death?

Whether the bottleneck was broken, Stuart didn’t know. But according to records, the Boss had already successfully killed himself hundreds of times.

Over these three weeks, the Boss came here every day to play at suicide—dying a dozen or twenty times on average each day.

In the first week, the Boss played like this—he would first release a large area of magic on the far left side of the hall, then Apparate to the far right side while casting the spell. He used this to try and hit himself.

To talk about this matter, it wasn’t actually difficult, but the key was, the Boss wasn’t using magic like Black Serpent, Foxfire, or Magic Missile. He was using spells like Petrification, Nightmare Curse, Infatuation, and such!

Cast such spells on an empty area, then try to catch them?

That was simply absurd! Anyone who said such things was absolutely crazy!

Because unless he appeared in two places at once, it was impossible to succeed.

Not long after, the Boss, under Stuart’s own eyes, successfully petrified himself—Stuart at that time was just as shocked as Helen was today. Because Louis at that moment turned into a series of afterimages, as if he had lined up in a whole row!

Stuart asked about it for a long time back then, and the Boss explained it to Stuart for several days.

What did the Boss say? He said it was an ‘interesting’ phenomenon produced by ‘four dimensions’ and high-level Apparition undergoing a chemical reaction. In fact, he didn’t use Apparition many times; he only used Apparition once, yet created many Faceless Ones.

Stuart thought the Boss was probably lying. The Boss was afraid his butler Stuart would learn something! After all, how could just one use of Apparition make a person appear in multiple places at the same time? This was clearly a lie.

Also, this attempt wasn’t the least bit interesting. Because you would die if hit by those spells.

Soon, the Boss was no longer satisfied with just hitting himself. He started trying to block those spells while hitting himself.

Obviously, in this second week of trying to kill himself, he finally succeeded!

The Magic Mirror had been shattered countless times, and the Boss seemed to be getting more and more resistant to being hit—Stuart remembered, certain Magical Creatures were like that.

For example, the Hydra Nine-Headed Serpent; the more its heads were cut off and regrew, the more powerful it became. Many such Magical Creatures, while growing up, would often play by hitting themselves for fun, or wildly seek death, and in that growth, become unafraid of magic and swords.

The Boss now greatly resembled such a monster.

Now, if a few of his fingers were cut off, applying some Potion would make them grow back at a speed visible to the naked eye!

And ordinary Magic couldn’t leave any marks on his body at all—once, Stuart even saw the Boss flick out a Foxfire with his finger!

But Stuart felt the Boss couldn’t possibly block so many Black Serpents. He was doing useless work, because the Black Serpents’ penetrating power was too strong. Moreover, the Boss each time had to keep releasing them continuously for several minutes, until the number of Black Serpents exceeded ten thousand, before starting the game.

No magic could withstand so many spells! Even if he altered space, it was impossible! Because those Black Serpents were everywhere, always finding a way out of his dimensional maze to reach him.

It seemed the Boss also discovered this problem. He seemed to have finally encountered a bottleneck—his shield couldn’t block his spear.

He began flying and Apparating constantly throughout the underground areas of the Holy Icon Tree Academy City, the sewers, and such places, evading the serpent swarms. And the terrifying serpent swarms, like bee swarms, chased him madly. Often, if he escaped just a bit too slowly, he would be swallowed by the serpent swarm.

More fatally, within this Holy Icon Tree Academy City, there were many anti-magic zones, and also many areas like the Hydra stronghold where you couldn’t enter without knowing the secret.

So on his escape route, Louis often ran into various dead ends. And his serpent swarms could still enter the passage left behind after the target Apparated and hit the target. Therefore, he had nowhere to escape.

In the end, he was stuck at this bottleneck.

And what made Stuart feel relieved was that the Boss also finally realized that the Boss couldn’t escape the serpent swarms’ pursuit.

However, Stuart strongly suspected that the Boss might actually be able to break through this bottleneck. After all, the Boss’s Magic was so terrifying, and he knew so many things. He also had the Magic Mirror to solve puzzles for him.

So perhaps the Boss should research a new spell.

“New spell? Lately, my teacher keeps making me do homework, no time to research new spells. I think understanding spatial structure and Schrödinger’s cat is enough,” Louis said at the time, scratching his face. “Do you know what special experiences people with Apparition talent have had?”

Louis’s words first left Stuart utterly confused—cat? What cat?

But then Stuart was terrified again—this pervert had an even more powerful teacher?

Who could also give him homework?!

How powerful must she be?!

Stuart put that frightening guess aside for now and answered the Boss’s question about Apparition—Stuart introduced a few people. All were the most famous Dark Wizards in Blackhorn Alley.

Thus, Gray Gloves Igner and others entered Louis’s hat.

Stuart didn’t know what inspiration and secrets the Boss got from these people’s Dreams, nor did he know what homework the Boss’s teacher gave him.

Anyway, it seemed the Boss didn’t research any new spells.

Instead, in this third week, after doing his homework every day, he came over to study mathematics—and brought a whole bunch of geometric plaster models, a huge pile of paper, pens, and Muggle math books!

Mathematics… what did accounting have to do with Magic?

“Oh, Stuart, essentially there’s no relation. These math and geometry books don’t contain any secrets of Magic either. But you know, mathematics is a language. It’s a pair of eyes. It can help me find some ‘patterns’.”

“As I continuously explore and understand spatial structure, I can already perceive four dimensions in my mind, but they are too complex. It makes exploring four-dimensional structures like a blind man touching an elephant. I need a pair of eyes to discover their patterns.”

Louis pointed at the geometric plaster models on the floor and said, “They are the most basic constructs. As long as I study them thoroughly, I can find a pattern, and thus ‘see’ what those complex objects look like in four dimensions.”

“A few days ago, I remembered a book called ‘How to Turn a Demon Lord into a Dot Matrix Diagram’. It used a mathematical way to describe how an object has different structures in different dimensions. I have the memory of this book in my mind, but I need to do some derivations.”

Soon, with the help of the Magic Mirror, Louis found formula after formula, and successfully deduced and solved puzzles of truths, the floor covered in written papers.

And today, Louis successfully turned a box into a ‘piece of paper’.

Even more bizarrely, when he threw this paper ‘drawn’ with a box onto a distant water cup, the water cup was actually covered inside the paper—without any bulge!

When Louis picked up this paper, he stood on its surface. Then, it was as if he stood inside the box, his body became shorter! But Stuart could clearly see the Boss’s ‘disappeared’ legs, and they looked very three-dimensional.

This paper drawn with a box was like a master artist’s hyper-realistic 3D painting on the ground! But this 3D painting could hold things!

Stuart was dumbfounded.

And his Boss spoke these words: “Now, the entire Academy City has become a plane in my eyes.”

Saying this, Louis made the serpent swarm in the sky rush down.

He suddenly took a step forward—at that moment, the entire hall seemed to have many Mirrors appear, and in these Mirrors were many versions of Louis.

The countless Black Serpents hit every Louis, but Louis didn’t suffer any damage.

As if he didn’t exist at all.

Clearly, besides the ‘plane in his eyes’, Louis could also hide himself within dimensions now.

Now, he could go to any so-called ‘anti-magic zones’ and sealed secret places. He could also give himself a Buff of 100% dodge rate.

“Confused? Let me explain it to you.” Louis rolled up his sleeves, getting enthusiastic. School hadn’t started yet, and that little underachiever Ocris had been played with and run off by him. Lately, there were no ‘little underachievers’ to listen to his lectures, which was so boring.

“Sir.” The unlearned Stuart wiped his cold sweat and quickly changed the subject. “That map you wanted, I’ve finished it. You should go back and study it soon. I hear a certain alliance has appeared in Blackhorn Alley recently, specializing in catching some extremely vicious criminal… I think they’re looking for you. When you go out tomorrow, you’d better not run into these people.”

“Oh, then I won’t go. I’ll stay here this month.”

“No, no, Boss, take this map, you definitely won’t meet them—really. I’ve already compiled all the information from the spies—lately, a very interesting scholar has come to Blackhorn Alley. He’ll definitely understand what you’re talking about. It would be disappointing if he couldn’t see you.”

Stuart wiped his cold sweat. He felt this ‘Accountant Archimedes’ before him, who firmly believed knowledge was useful for Magic, should have a good chat with that ‘Mad Hat Magician’ who firmly believed he couldn’t use Magic.

The Boss was way too idle. He needed to find something for him to do so he wouldn’t keep playing suicide in the stronghold.

“Alright.” Louis became interested. “I’ll go take a look later. It would be best to meet that scholar in the newbie area. I hope we can have an exchange.”

As a result, Louis met a fat man.

He wore a tailcoat, a top hat, seemed a bit eccentric, and a little mentally off. But he seemed quite interesting.

His hat also looked quite interesting, with a Diamond Jack and a madly laughing clown on it.

What did he say? That he had always been targeting him?

And that he wasn’t a Wizard, or a Mage, and didn’t know Magic or Magic Spells either.

He only knew some magic tricks and sleight of hand.

Because he was a Magician.

Then, Louis was pulled into a Magician’s Box. Looking up—there was a god blotting out the sky in the heavens!

[Magician Harold]