"…You?"
The witch stared in disbelief.
To everyone else, the newcomer was cloaked in mystery, looking profoundly unfathomable.
Yet she was the one person who actually knew Bai Zhou's true situation!
Of everyone present, only Bai Zhou had his spirituality completely concealed by that bizarre cloak.
But she hadn't forgotten the meager trace of spirituality he carried—faint as a flickering candle flame. A single spit from her could have snuffed it right out.
A greenhorn who had barely stepped into the Extraordinary and hadn't even learned to walk properly wanted to repair runes as indecipherable as celestial script?
Even she had decisively given up after trying to self-study *Runic Studies* for a few days.
Those dazzling, intricate runes made her dizzy, reminding her of the calculus class she took during her freshman year of college. What she couldn't understand, she truly couldn't understand. If you didn't get it, you didn't get it; there was no forcing it.
After all, every Extraordinary had limited talent.
Excelling in a single specialization was already hard enough; biting off more than one could chew was a recipe for failure—that was common sense in the mystical world.
—Well, common sense for most people.
In a mystical realm where talent was starkly manifested in physical height, Bai Zhou, whose talent had reached five feet and five inches, was clearly an exception. But no one knew that.
—And of course, there was the single most crucial reason.
Studying the occult required endless practice, observation, and trial.
All of which demanded rare, costly materials.
Just like the quill and glowing pigment the expert surnamed Li had used earlier…
Every single one of those things cost a fortune!
"You…"
Her instinct was to refuse, but the witch suddenly realized she couldn't let on that she knew him.
She wasn't sure if he had recognized her yet. If she acted strangely without thinking, wouldn't she be giving herself away?
"Are you sure you know what you're doing?"
All she could do was ask uncertainly, her questioning voice still modified to sound genderless.
"Since no one else can fix it anyway, you might as well let me try."
Taking a cue from the witch, Bai Zhou deliberately lowered his voice, letting it carry a raspy edge.
"…All right."
Under the watchful eyes of the crowd, the witch had no choice but to bite the bullet and hand the wand over.
Watching Bai Zhou take the wand with one hand and casually examine it, she couldn't help but caution him, "Be careful! Don't drop it!"
As she spoke, her gaze remained glued to the wand. She stepped uncomfortably close to Bai Zhou, fully prepared to react to any sudden mishap.
From her posture, she practically had the words *zero trust* plastered across her entire body.
"…"
Glancing at the witch, Bai Zhou shook his head and ignored her.
Finding a spot in the corner, he used the dim ambient light to focus on the magic runes etched into the wand.
Sure enough…
Just as he had suspected, the mystical patterns carved along the wand were remarkably similar to the runes he had seen on that pile of "junk" in the deep.
There were only differences in the finer details.
Yet those differences gave Bai Zhou an indescribable feeling.
The runes he had seen before possessed sharp, cold, and rigid strokes.
Even if there were slight variations in detail, they shared the same fundamental spirit and purpose, carrying a heavy aura of slaughter.
This wand, however, despite its seemingly intricate lines, lacked that sharpness. Every stroke looked as though it had been painstakingly traced, as if the carver had been terrified of making a mistake.
—Heavy on craftsmanship, devoid of spirit!
Moreover, at several key energy nodes, the wand featured unexplained spiral patterns, completely unlike the clean, decisive connections in Bai Zhou's memory.
Was this a unique trait distinguishing wands from other weapons, or…?
For some reason, an odd thought occurred to Bai Zhou:
Perhaps the runes on this wand were merely an imitation of the "ancient junk" he had studied.
…Yet that made no sense.
This wand was undeniably an antique as well. The bronze was heavily corroded, and patches of encrusted dirt couldn't even be wiped away.
It was definitely genuine.
"How is it? Any ideas?"
The witch muttered anxiously beside him. "It doesn't matter if you don't. You did your best… How about you give the wand back to me?"
Bai Zhou glanced at her and suddenly asked, "Do you have a pen?"
The witch was taken aback. "What kind of pen?"
"Anything works, as long as it has ink. I'm not picky."
Bai Zhou's reply stunned almost everyone craning their necks to listen in.
"—That is not how magic runes are drawn, young man."
The elderly expert couldn't hold back any longer.
"Which school do you hail from? Quills and specialized pigments are essential materials! Did your teacher never instruct you in this?"
"…" Bai Zhou looked at the expert and nodded with genuine earnestness. "My teacher really didn't teach me that way."
Pigments, schmigments…
Give him a break.
Never mind runes—even the potion he had taken to awaken his Fate Principle was made from cucumbers and beef noodles.
Every occult technique Crow taught him was single-mindedly focused on cost-effectiveness.
It was only after leaving Crow's sight and interacting with other Extraordinaries that Bai Zhou realized just how different everyone else was from him.
Look at them—so delicate, so wealthy! Even their pigments were extravagant!
—Then again, perhaps they were the normal ones, perfectly fitting the public stereotype of an "occult scholar."
It was a pauper like him who was the oddity…
"I've got one. Use mine… you can keep it."
A bystander who loved stirring up trouble handed over an everyday Copic marker.
Beside him, the witch was horrified at the thought of Bai Zhou scribbling indiscriminately on her prized relic.
She leaned in with deep apprehension. "Can you really do this? Let's just drop it…"
She reached out to reclaim her wand, only to see Bai Zhou fall dead silent. He straightened his spine, raised his head, pinched the marker's tip, and traced several strokes through empty air.
—More accurately, he made many strokes.
First, he drew a circle.
Then, a horizontal line.
Next came a solid inverted triangle, a sharp upright triangle, a gentle undulating wave, and an upward spiral that coiled one and a half turns…
The movements flowed in one continuous motion, so blindingly fast that onlookers could barely follow.
Only a true initiate would understand the depth behind it:
The pressure of the strokes, the precision of each movement, and the incantations chanted silently in the mind—a single mistake in any step would render the entire thing useless!
"Pact forged."
Finally, Bai Zhou lifted his hand.
At the same moment, he murmured inwardly:
*Guide me—*
*Hum!*
A brilliant white radiance flared across Bai Zhou's body.
From that instant forward, his movements were empowered by the ritual, his mind resonating with the fabric of the world, vastly increasing his chances of repairing the runes.
At the same time, any minuscule error would be treated as a disruption of the ritual, potentially causing a terrifying backlash.
—This was precisely why Crow had drilled him relentlessly on the basics.
The light bursting from Bai Zhou illuminated the witch's frozen figure.
Reflected in her stunned eyes was the sparkling radiance clinging to the tip of Bai Zhou's marker.
*Wait…*
*You actually know how to do this?!*
She was utterly dumbfounded.
In the dim ghost market, this striking shimmer also drew gasps of astonishment from the surrounding crowd.
"This is…?!"
Beneath his hood, the elderly expert's expression shifted drastically.
Words failed him as he stared at Bai Zhou in shock and suspicion.
Though he knew nothing of the specific chants or intricate details, Expert Li recognized the ritual itself—
*Sacred Demarcation!*
The circle symbolized standing within an inviolable sacred space.
The horizontal line symbolized division.
On the other side of that division, the inverted triangle represented earth, the upright triangle represented fire, the wave represented water, and the spiral represented wind.
—Earth, fire, water, wind: the world itself!
By delineating a boundary between oneself and the mundane, the practitioner underwent a sacred shift in identity, temporarily transcending the mortal plane.
Standing upon this holy threshold, the performer became the focal balance and conduit between both realms, granting them the miraculous gift of inspired, divine craftsmanship.
Any mundane object held in their hands would be imbued with a unique spirituality, bringing their strokes to life.
It turned the user into a living master, capable of bringing any rune into reality.
—It was a ritual coveted by every runic master.
Yet it was also dismissed by many conservative masters as an unorthodox, corner-cutting shortcut.
However…
This very ritual was the hallmark of a specific, renowned runic sect!
Regardless of raw skill, anyone who had crossed the threshold of this ritual was acknowledged as a bona fide runic master.
Expert Li happened to know the formidable weight and overbearing reputation of that sect.
Their screening of disciples was ruthlessly strict, and they never permitted their knowledge to leak outward.
Within a certain official bureau in Tinghai, their standing was unimaginably exalted.
If this person had stolen this knowledge, he was as good as dead…
Yet if that were the case, why would he dare display it so openly in front of a crowd?
Which meant…
This peculiar eccentric, draped in a cloak that read *Mass Grave Real Estate* and looking like an indigenous wraith straight out of the Reflected Ruin Realm—
Was actually an heir of that sect?!
Expert Li's aged face twitched, his expression a storm of shock and suspicion.
What was his purpose in coming to the ghost market?
Did this bizarre attire tie into some curse or ritual? Or was it crafted using some esoteric runic technique?
…Could it be that he was here for the auction as well?
"…"
On the other side, Bai Zhou was wholly engrossed in guiding the continuation of the wand's mystical patterns.
His hand remained rock-steady without the slightest wobble, all thanks to the endless days he had spent drawing eggs back in his dormitory.
The runes on those pieces of "ancient junk" from the Deep Ruin Realm were the only material Bai Zhou had been able to practice on after crossing the threshold.
—In other words, he had secretly practiced those patterns countlessly until they were etched into his bones.
In Bai Zhou's eyes, these damaged runes were no different from a familiar fill-in-the-blank poem he had memorized a thousand times.
It was second nature; he could have drawn them backward!
Before long, the repairs were nearly complete.
As if awakening, the wand began to tremble faintly in Bai Zhou's palm.
The final stroke presented a slight challenge. Bai Zhou pondered for a moment before recalling a similar stroke trajectory he had seen on a shattered crossbow.
The marker tip pressed down, carving deep with effortless grace.
The rune fell seamlessly into place.
*Hum—*
Beneath the varied, intense gazes of the crowd, the runes along the wand illuminated in sequence from top to bottom, bursting with a piercing crimson glow.
After two thousand years, this enchanted battlefield weapon shone with brilliance once more.
*It worked after all.*
Bai Zhou let out a long breath, feeling mentally drained.
He gazed at the revived wand with considerable satisfaction.
Strictly speaking, this was his very first independent masterpiece as a runic master!
Calling it a miraculous recovery was an understatement—it was nothing short of resurrecting the dead.
Even Bai Zhou hadn't expected his execution to be this flawless.
He had only intended to give it a shot, but the moment the pen touched down, he had been completely absorbed.
—From now on, he, Bai Zhou…
Was an esteemed runic master!
What kind of handsome reward would the witch prepare to express her gratitude?
Curious, Bai Zhou casually glanced at the cloaked witch, who was currently staring in pleasant surprise.
As far as enchanted weapons went, this wand wasn't necessarily worth much more than Bai Zhou's own pile of "junk."
It was just that Bai Zhou's junk was far more battered and almost impossible to repair, whereas her wand could still be restored.
Still, it seemed to hold extraordinary significance for her; she had clearly been desperate to fix it.
He could only hope…
That a high-tier Adventurer wouldn't be too stingy, and definitely wouldn't renege on her word.
*Buzz, buzz, buzz, buzz!*
The wand in his hand began to shudder with mounting intensity.
The harsh crimson glare carried a distinct trace of foreboding.
A turbulent surge of energy flickered restlessly beneath the surface.
…Was something wrong?
Holding up the wand as it vibrated at an absurdly high frequency, Bai Zhou turned to the witch. "Have you ever seen it do this before?"
"…"
The witch shook her head blankly.
Bai Zhou took a closer look at the wand.
The cracked gemstone embedded in its tip pulsed with fiery red light.
Deep within the stone, a glyph faintly sparked to life.
At a glance, Bai Zhou thought the glyph looked oddly familiar.
He searched his memory for a beat before finally recalling where he had seen it: on an abandoned, unidentified trap in the Deep Ruin Realm.
Right then, the gem flared with blinding brilliance.
The surging power began to swell outward in Bai Zhou's palm.
As if…
It was about to blow.
*?*
Bai Zhou's face instantly dropped.
Could this actually be an *explosive wand*?!
What in the world had he just repaired?!
—A dud that hadn't gone off in two thousand years?!
Oddly enough, that sounded entirely plausible. It was completely on brand for that ancient civilization.
…Or had his rune restoration gone off the rails somewhere?
Before Bai Zhou could dwell on it any further—
*Crack!*
The gemstone set in the tip shattered violently!
A burst of crimson flame began to roar to life at the wand's head.
*Oh no!*
*It's really going to blow!*
Startled, Bai Zhou reacted instantly, raising the cursed, self-destructing wand and hurling it into the distance with all his might.
"Hit the dirt!" Bai Zhou bellowed.
"What?" someone nearby reflexively looked up.
The shadow of a hurtling club fell over his bewildered face.
A tapered wooden rod soaring through the air, with flames roaring from its tip… What on earth was—
His expression shifted violently as the meaning behind "Hit the dirt!" slammed home.
Pale terror overtook him.
The man hurled himself backward, unleashing every ounce of spirituality in his body at once.
It was likely the fastest reaction of his entire life.
As he dove like lightning onto the ground, he didn't forget to look back and scream at the top of his lungs:
"GRENADE—!!!"
The hysterical, terrified shriek echoed straight down the street.
The effect was immediate.
The surrounding crowd—young and old, men and women alike—dropped flat to the stone pavers in unison.
Yet another figure darted past the prostrate crowd, moving even faster than the scream.
It was…
"MY WAND—!"
With a heart-wrenching wail of despair, the witch pounced like a starving tiger, leaping straight toward the airborne wand.
Seeing this, Bai Zhou, crouched on the ground, clamped a hand over his face and squeezed his eyes shut.
*It's over.*
*What about my handsome reward?*
…It seemed Bai Zhou's journey as a runic master was off to a rocky start.
On his very first job, before the merchandise was even properly fixed, he was already on the verge of blowing his client to kingdom come.
The very next instant.
A miniature mushroom cloud erupted with startling, terrifying violence right in the middle of the ghost market.
*BOOOOOM—!!!*
Chapter 68