Diary No. 3

Diary No. 3 The quill's nib scratched busily across the paper: "The 'Savant' potion didn't turn me into an all-knowing, all-powerful genius, but it did bring back knowledge I'd once come across and long since forgotten in the depths of my mind. For an ordinary person, the 'Savant' might only sharpen memory and the capacity to learn, but for a transmigrator like me, it's practically a cheat code! All the problems that used to stump me—improving the printing press, the stability of the ink, how to make cheap paper...—I'd only glimpsed many of them in passing while scrolling videos and reading posts before I transmigrated. Now I can dig them all out of my memory. Even without a complete plan, I've at least found a clear direction. If I could return to Earth in this state, retaking the college entrance exam and taking first place nationwide would be no problem at all. Then, after systematically studying some field in depth, becoming a scientist and winning a Nobel Prize wouldn't be a dream either. This feeling is wonderful. If Captain Dante of the 'Machinery Heart' didn't require me to go to the church every day to learn the basics of mysticism, I'd really want to run off this very moment to find Gelin, tear down all his backward equipment, and redesign it from scratch. Right—improving machinery is exactly what the Craftsman Church excels at. Isn't the reason Suxite became a city where the God of Craftsmen's followers rival those of the Church of the Eternal Blazing Sun precisely because it has so many textile workshops and looms? They've channeled the windmill power from Kelusi Mountain into the Lower Kelusi District to drive the machinery in some of the workshops. That shows the Church doesn't shun research and invention—it actually holds such behavior in high regard. Maybe as long as I make a name for myself in this area, I can quickly raise their assessment of me and obtain the Sequence 8 potion? Xialuote is only Sequence 9, after all..." Writing up to this point, Luosaier couldn't keep the corners of his mouth from turning up, and the quill in his hand wobbled along with it. But soon he thought again of Captain Dante's stern face. He composed his expression, lowered his head, and went on writing: "It's a pity Captain Dante warned me that after taking a potion, one must wait at least two or three years before even considering advancement to the next sequence. There are many reasons—insufficient contributions, hard-to-find materials—but more importantly, the Church worries that if an Extraordinary advances rashly before truly mastering the power of their current sequence, they'll end up losing control. Seems the real business at hand is getting the newspaper running properly. Otherwise I won't even have a few feierjin in my pocket... which hardly befits a transmigrator like me." Having written this, he paused for a few seconds, then dipped his pen in the ink again. "Besides knowledge, the potion also brought back to me a good many other things. For instance, a few days before I transmigrated, I once bought a silver badge from a roadside stall. The thing had a very mystical air to it—its surface was covered in intricate patterns and symbols, and it looked like some kind of amulet. Thinking back on it now, the only thing that counted as strange before I transmigrated was that badge. Could it have been what caused my transmigration? Perhaps in the future I can try to reproduce that silver badge from memory... Finally, there's one more matter—more important, and more unsettling. I've remembered the details of the day I transmigrated. Back then, the place I woke was a small alley outside the mansion's back gate. There was some blood on my chest, and behind me a trail of blood was smeared along the alley, yet there was no wound anywhere on my body. At the time my head was muddled, as if I were drunk, and I only managed to slip back home by relying on the residual memories left in this body. I changed out of my clothes and threw them into the fireplace to burn... If I'd merely fallen, why was there blood on my chest? If I'd been wounded, why was there no wound when I woke? Could it be that the original Luosaier had already been murdered, and my transmigration brought this body back from the dead, its fatal wound completely healed? This world doesn't seem as simple as I imagined. Even if I am the protagonist, there are probably quite a few troubles waiting for me—for instance, whoever it was that did away with Baron Gusitafu's only son..." Writing up to here, Luosaier frowned, dipped his pen in the ink once more, and seemed about to analyze a few more points. But just then a soft knock came from outside the door, followed by the manservant's voice: "Young master, Miss Suolun has come to visit." Xialuote? The contemplation in Luosaier's eyes was instantly replaced by excitement. He closed the notebook, stuffed it into the very bottom of the drawer, and piled a few books on top of it. Only after confirming it was well hidden did he rise, straighten his coat, and stride out of the bedroom, heading downstairs. ——— In an apartment somewhere in Kangsidun City. Zhou Mingrui sat beside the small table in the bedroom. He drew the curtains to block out the Red Moon, which was gradually waxing full, turned up the oil lamp, and only then opened the diary written in Chinese. Quill in hand, he first sorted out the content in his mind, then wrote the first line: "March 16th, 1143, Sunday. I hadn't meant to keep writing this diary. Over the past month, I've gradually come to realize that the mystical forces of this world are far more complex than I first imagined. It's by no means as simple as an 'Apprentice' walking through walls and picking locks, or a 'Warrior' beating people up and wrecking things. Divination, spirit mediumship, ritual magic, mystical items...—things that once existed only in novels and games are all truly present in this world. Some Extraordinarys of certain pathways can even make their target unconsciously spill every secret, and some abilities can spy out a person's inner thoughts without the target ever opening their mouth. This forces me to reassess the risk of keeping a diary. True, no one here can understand Chinese, but if someone were to seize me, wring the secret of my Chinese out of me, and then get hold of this diary, everything I've written would be exposed. Then again, thinking it over, this worry is a bit like the joke of catching a mouse and then feeding it rat poison. If I've already been captured and have honestly confessed even the secret of my transmigration, would the other party still need to read the diary? So I've decided to keep recording everything after all, until I'm forced to stop." Zhou Mingrui thought for another moment, then continued writing: "What's happened over the past half month or so can be divided into two parts. First, the practical side. After testing the waters a few times, I've managed to make contact—through letters—with members of another branch of the Yabolahan family in the city. They do indeed know my parents and have some understanding of my current situation, and they're willing to meet me. But such a meeting inevitably carries risk; I still need to observe for a while longer to confirm that they aren't being watched by other forces, and that they aren't probing me. Each time I deliver a letter, I use my 'Apprentice' ability to pass through walls and floors, leaving from a different direction before circling back to the apartment. Even if the other party is also an 'Apprentice,' it wouldn't be easy for them to figure out my route at once. Of course, when it comes to divination on the mystical level, I have no counter for the time being. Second, I'm afraid I need to find a job. The money my parents left isn't small—at least enough to support me for a while—but living off savings without income is no way to go on, and I don't intend to use my 'Apprentice' ability to steal... Though for an Extraordinary who can walk through walls it wouldn't be hard, my parents' notes mention the official Extraordinarys many times. If thievery drew their attention, the consequences would likely be unbearable. More importantly, it goes against my own principles. Perhaps I could start as a genuine apprentice—whether a clockmaker or a locksmith, either could provide some income and also help me understand this world. On the other hand, this may well have something to do with the digestion of the 'Apprentice' potion. If a potion's name is itself a concrete image and the key to its digestion, then becoming a true apprentice—learning, recording, experimenting—may allow me to control this power more steadily. If the original body's parents were still alive, they could probably tell me much more common knowledge about the Yabolahan family and the world of the Extraordinary, so I wouldn't have to judge every step alone the way I do now..." Parents... Zhou Mingrui looked at these two characters and let out a barely perceptible sigh. After flexing his wrist, he continued writing: "...Fortunately, as long as my contact with those Yabolahan family members goes smoothly, things may improve. Then there's that strange patch of gray fog. After repeated tests, the gray fog's abilities seem to include imitation, recording, and replication. Drawing on my imagination, I can construct certain false things atop the gray fog. As long as they don't involve overly complex details or genuine power, they can be sustained fairly stably; and the closer they are to things I've encountered and understood, the more real they become. So, following my own imagination, I replicated an ancient bronze table and rows of high-backed chairs, along with a towering edifice resembling a giant palace of ancient Rome. Finally, I constructed a shadow upon the seat at the head of the long table. It took as its model the most mysterious, most unbearable-to-behold image in my heart—it had mist, a cloak, and something like the outline of tentacles. It doesn't truly act, nor does it have a consciousness of its own; it's merely a false shell. To avoid giving myself away, I also recorded a few lines in advance and set them to be played back in a certain order. That way, I myself can sit below and pretend, just like the other two, to be nothing more than an ordinary participant drawn into the gray fog. Put simply, I've become a shill in the mystical gathering I set up myself. After that, I tried pulling those two earlier 'victims' into the gray fog together to test the effect of this setup, but I didn't succeed until this afternoon. Does this mean my control over the gray fog space is still somewhat limited—like a guest account on a computer rather than the real administrator? Fortunately, compared with the other members, I'm still half a master within the gray fog. They've shown no obvious suspicion; on the contrary, because of that blurry shadow's presence and my deliberate guidance, they've come to regard the gray fog space with greater awe. This shows my approach is workable. Next, I'll keep refining these two identities: the unfathomable master of the gray fog, who only occasionally gives a response, and one of the devout followers of him—no, of Him. Finally, the one thing from this afternoon's gathering most worth recording. Four weeks later, a new member appeared above the gray fog. Though it was I who, while summoning the two veteran members, noticed one shining star among the surrounding stars and deliberately touched it, drawing his spirit body in with the power of the gray fog—according to him, he ended up here for no apparent reason only because he had touched a peculiar candlestick from the Tudor era of the Fourth Epoch."