Although Rose of Decay was also a legend, she specialized in necromancy.
Her legendary boon, Death Gaze, had allowed her to amass a vast army of the undead in the Underdark, and she had always focused solely on researching necromantic magic, dabbling very little in other fields.
Anbaixiu was different. He was the restless sort, curious about everything and eager to try anything—otherwise, he would not have discarded his powers from the School of Divination without a second thought.
Before advancing to become a legend, he had been fascinated by anything related to magic.
Thanks to the world's diverse methods of extending one's lifespan, back when Potions of Youth were not yet exorbitantly priced, Anbaixiu had plenty of time to indulge his curiosity. Alchemy, magical construct crafting, the School of Necromancy, the School of Divination, the School of Evocation, divine magic, and more—he had spent a decade or so studying nearly every field. While he might not have achieved absolute mastery in any single branch of magic, when it came to sheer breadth of knowledge, few across the Nine Kingdoms could rival him.
Thus, Anbaixiu recognized at a glance that the sewer's layout was a modified magic circle for the Wish spell.
The reason it resembled alchemy was that those lunatics had radically modified the magic circle, turning what was originally a spell cast by an individual into a colossal ritual in an attempt to simplify the casting difficulty.
After studying the diagrams closely, Anbaixiu reached a conclusion: "A stroke of genius, but only a lunatic would actually do it."
Wish was the most powerful spell a mortal could master below the gods—bar none.
Yet the most sublime magic often demanded the simplest casting method. Casting Wish required only a simple gesture, with no need for sacrifices or casting preparations—it did not even strictly require mana.
The cost and the payoff seemed utterly disproportionate; it sounded like nothing short of a miracle.
Yet throughout history, hardly anyone had ever successfully cast Wish. The principle of Wish was to make a request of the entire world, and the laws of the world would respond with a trial testing one's understanding of those very laws.
Its difficulty was roughly on par with the Millennium Prize Problems in mathematics that Anbaixiu had heard of before his transmigration—problems of the century that countless geniuses throughout history had failed to solve.
Was mathematics hard? A single sheet of paper and a pen were all it took to calculate, so one could argue it was not.
The trial of Wish was much the same. If you called it hard, it demanded nothing material from you—all you had to do was answer the puzzle posed by the laws of the world. But if you called it easy, there was no way to cheat: you either knew the answer or you did not. No matter how vast your wealth, how exalted your status, or how mighty your faction, none of it could help you in the trial of Wish.
The only thing that could aid you was your own intellect.
Such was the peculiarity of Wish: anyone could attempt to cast it, yet among hundreds of millions, virtually no one truly understood the nature of the world.
Only a select few deities could use Wish without restriction, because they were themselves part of the world's laws.
And for mortals, the consequences of failing to cast Wish were horrific—the sort of gruesome aftermath that would require an age restriction if written in a book.
Even if you were fortunate enough to answer the world's riddle, that did not mean your Wish was a true success.
A Wish and a Perfect Wish were two entirely different things.
Even when your wish was granted, the manner of its fulfillment often left much to be desired.
The laws of the world were like an administrator who adhered strictly to the rules but loathed loop-holes. Since Wish was an exploitation of the rules, the world's laws would do everything possible to inflict side effects as a form of punishment.
Take wishing for a deceased relative to be resurrected: resurrected they would be, but in what condition and at what age was anyone's guess. If you did not specify every detail when making the wish, they might return as a newborn infant devoid of all memories, or as a decrepit elder teetering on the brink of death.
If you wished for an enemy to die without specifying the manner of their demise, you might well be hurled centuries into the future: your enemy would have died peacefully surrounded by children and grandchildren, while you, having skipped those hundreds of years, would find yourself completely alienated from the world.
In short, Wish was a trap. Even someone as fond of courting death as Anbaixiu would not dare mess with Wish; whether it succeeded or failed, there was a massive chance things would go catastrophically wrong.
Yet the madmen of the City of Alchemy had set their sights on Wish, boldly converting it into a ritual spell.
Examining the various structures in the diagrams, Anbaixiu roughly deduced the ritual's effects. The first was extending the casting time.
Wish was normally instantaneous—like a math problem, you either knew how to solve it or you did not, and the outcome was decided in a split second.
This ritual, however, extended the time given to solve the problem. As to how much it extended it or what price it exacted, Anbaixiu could not tell yet, but he was certain the spell required sustained channeling.
Would extra time really help solve the problem? Just as some people could not solve a math riddle even if given hundreds of years, the time allotted had never been the crux of Wish. Anbaixiu had no idea what those madmen were thinking, but this function took up the vast majority of the magic circle, making it the foundation for all the other effects.
The second effect was sacrifice.
Flesh, souls, mana, intense emotions—almost anything could serve as an offering for this ritual. It was only because the magic circle was so immense that such an all-accepting effect was even possible. Different offerings corresponded to different structures within the array; that these structures could be overlaid harmoniously without interfering with one another was nothing short of miraculous craftsmanship.
No wonder those lunatics in the City of Alchemy had not hesitated to deceive fate and fabricate a prophecy.
They wanted to lure ambitious figures from across the continent to venture into the sewers of the City of Alchemy, turning everything they had into sacrifices for this ritual. Even if some managed to escape with their lives, the emotional turmoil they experienced during their descent would still fuel the magic circle.
It was truly magnificent. Beyond being a stroke of genius, achieving such an outrageous effect must have cost those lunatics an unimaginable amount of resources in research and development. Decades or centuries? Tens of millions or hundreds of millions? Only those alchemists were capable of such all-or-nothing madness.
Anbaixiu hurriedly produced a notebook to copy down the schematics, jotting down a wealth of insights and notes alongside them. This was extraordinarily valuable knowledge.
Yet once he finished copying, Anbaixiu sank back into deep thought. What purpose did sacrificing all these things serve for Wish?
According to magical principles, intellect was the sole requirement for Wish. What good would sacrificing mountains of flesh and souls do?
Looking at the incomplete diagrams, Anbaixiu felt an itch in his very bones.
If he could completely decipher this ritual spell, how much would it sell for? Every spellcaster in the Nine Kingdoms would go mad for it!
Aside from these two most prominent effects, there were auxiliary functions such as concealment, stabilization, and illusions, all meant to sustain the ritual spell's operation. The schematics were too incomplete for Anbaixiu to decipher every detail.
Those madmen had turned the entire sewer system into a Wish magic circle, and from the look of it, the array was already active.
That brought up the question: what wish had they made?
Considering the prophecy of the City of Alchemy's destruction, had those lunatics made a mistake while making their wish?
Had they failed the trial of Wish and suffered retribution, or had they phrased their wish poorly and been cruelly mocked by the laws of the world?
There was too little information for Anbaixiu to draw a conclusion right now.
Sensing danger, Anbaixiu was just about to consult Rose of Decay, hoping the Undead Queen of the Underdark might offer some insight.
Yet before he could send another message, an origami phoenix fluttering multicolored wings flew right before him.
The paper unfolded on its own to reveal an official document from the City of Alchemy, demanding that he surrender Alan and the other paladins. And at the end of the document was a single line: "The Wishing Machine is prepared and ready to receive your wish at any time."
Anbaixiu looked at the document, then at the incomplete schematics of the ritual spell, an ominous premonition welling up within him.
Curse fate—it really felt like the time for heads to roll had arrived.
Chapter 70