Life Problem

On an ordinary afternoon, Lazarus stood in the garden, watching his disciples return.

Xiaoman's clothes were a little messy, with some dirt and grass sap in the fibers, as if he had fought with someone. Fortunately, he was not injured.

She quickened her pace when she saw her teacher, stood in front of Lazarus, and reached out to take out a bag of roughly sorted materials from the "small portable space" that was very useful in the spells she could control.

After the bag was opened, a strong smell of blood escaped.

"Teacher, I saw human bones near the bear's lair before. When I saw it was about to come down the mountain to hurt people again, I killed it. I brought back some materials." Xiaoman said.

She seemed to think that the incident was over after the report, and turned around calmly, picked up the bucket, and went to take care of the herbs that had absorbed the day's sunlight.

After the day of Lainya's visit, Lazarus no longer used magic to cover his face, knowing that his disciple would not instinctively reject him.

He looked at the bag filled with bear bones, viscera, blood, teeth and claws.

He was aware of Xiaoman's learning progress. As long as she was calm enough and good at hiding, she could indeed deal with the nearly four-meter-tall male bear monster without suffering any injuries.

Magic is a difficult course to learn, even if you only learn the fighting part without delving into the theory.

In addition to affinity and proficiency with a certain element, spellcasting also requires sufficient concentration, and requires high calculation and reaction abilities.

On this basis, there is another key factor that determines strength, which is that the amount of magic power that each individual can mobilize is different.

For example, the blue-haired Deer Clan spellcaster who killed Su Mei was able to continue to summon those sharp and swift ice arrows during the battle, and later used the spell to resurrect Elerytna that he had prepared in advance on the spot. The magic power he possessed would probably rank firmly in the top 20 among the spellcasters that have been active in Mithril City in the past few decades.

With Lazarus's magical power, he could use the highest level of wind magic, the spell whose full name is "Summoning the Wind - Saint Anna Gent's Great Storm", hundreds of times in a row.

It is only too normal for a deceased person with such strength, who has also gone against the laws of the beast race, to be wanted all year round and to be targeted immediately if he shows up in public.

Xiaoman is not a powerful lich who is nearly 800 years old and has adjusted her body. Her magic power is just at a normal level among people of the same age, far inferior to her teacher.

Therefore, what she can do now is to familiarize herself with the magic that she can use normally, and plan clearly how to use them to achieve results beyond the strength on paper.

But if the protagonist is given some time to grow, and with the help of his own strong offensive external spells, defeating the blue-haired spellcaster is not a very distant goal.

...But she is a disabled being. Such a rare existence, the beastmen's other cognition about them can be said to be ignorant rumors and fabrications with ulterior motives, only the short life span is true.

Xiaoman's mother was very young when she gave birth to her, so after supporting her daughter for 16 years, she died at the age of 30. In the beast tribe, where the average life expectancy is over 100 years, this age is often regarded as a half-grown boy, and it is common for people not to be married.

But thirty years old is a very rare longevity among the disabled.

During this time, Lazarus searched in two cities, Ivy, which represented academics, and Baroa, which represented spellcasters. Records and research on the Incomplete Ones were extremely rare, even in the city of academics. Even with Lazarus' status as a real lich and the connections that came naturally with his strength, in the end he only obtained a dozen or so pieces of relatively authentic information.

These alone may even exceed the total number of disabled people alive in the world at this moment.

The average life expectancy shown in the data is even less optimistic. The youngest deceased died of exhaustion shortly after their 19th birthday, and only a small percentage of the people in the data lived beyond the age of 24.

And that number is only six years away from Xiaoman.

...Six years may not even be enough for a young tree to take root and learn to bear fruit.

When it is placed on the girl with a pair of blue eyes and becomes the deadline for an entire race on the verge of extinction, it makes people feel extremely unwilling.

Since coming to the world of "The Incomplete", Yuan Qian has been interacting with Xiao Man in different ways. He wants to do something for this protagonist. If he could leave this world behind and take a one-way ticket back to reality, Yuan Qian would have wanted to ask the comic author if there is any method in the setting that can extend the life of the Incomplete.

The last solution he could think of was to help Xiaoman, who was now considered a spellcaster, to achieve some special advancement. However, apart from Xiaoman's own wishes, this was still not a good solution.

Now that Yuan Qian has the knowledge that comes with his character, he certainly knows what those advanced beings that exceed the lifespan limit of normal species are.

[Spirit of Knowledge] was created by those madmen among the spellcasters who devoted themselves to the city of academia. After completely abandoning their sensibility, they became creatures that lived in the concept of knowledge. Perhaps they still retained enough thinking, or even were completely sober, but in Yuanqian's opinion, the reactions they could make to the outside world were no different from search engines.

…You are still a being with thoughts, but you cannot communicate with others and can only give “answers” ​​within the known range. You no longer have any feelings about the world. Then living must be more terrifying than being dead.

[Astropaths] are the result of spellcasters with stronger faith. After taking up their posts, they become the so-called believers closest to the Star God, or communicators, and naturally can transcend the limits of the orcs.

But in reality, everyone went crazy as soon as they were qualified to talk to the Father of Starlight, or the actual effect was more like being trapped in a nightmare from which they would never wake up, uttering incoherent mumblings in extreme pain.

[Heir of the Dragon] is quite reliable. It is somewhat similar to Lazaris's current posture. It uses a tenacious spirit to borrow the blood of the dragon clan to rebuild the body and even the race. The only price is that as the name suggests, one must completely obey the control of the dragon clan from now on. Like the above two methods, it is a clear way for spellcasters to prolong their lives.

The only problem is... the dragons haven't appeared in a long time.

Most spellcasters under 500 years old have never seen a dragon scale, except for the collections of those who are older than them in the teacher's cabinet. There is only one living dragon heir available on the market, but he is one of the twelve pedestals of the Mithril City and is definitely not something that can be shown to others as a novelty.

Lazarus was able to talk to this person based on his seniority. After checking the emotional value store and finding no such item, he went to this spellcaster who had been transformed into a dragon heir to recount his past in a low-key manner.

But this one also frankly admitted to the lich that he had not felt the orders of the dragon for nearly six hundred years and could do nothing to help.

As for the [Trend Spirits]… let’s not talk about them. It is known that the beasts are a clan created by the Star God, and the reason why the natural elements and the beasts are close is the Star God, so the end of choosing to assimilate with nature is just to become the same kind of astropath in a crooked way, and the best thing is that you don’t have to go crazy in nightmares.

Unless extremely special means are used to awaken it for a moment, the spellcaster who becomes a tree spirit for the sake of immortality can only become a long-lived living dead with tender branches and leaves on his head, taking root in a corner of the world, absorbing sunlight and rain to grow into the heart of a towering tree.

Moreover, Xiaoman is naturally insulated from natural elements, so there is no need to consider this path at all.

Therefore, Yuan Qian was very glad that he did not choose to become that kind of person. At that time, D-009 was still alive. If he had chosen these upgrades, he would definitely have been deducted a large amount of corresponding emotional value, and then his entire personality would have been ruined, just like losing the key props at the beginning of the game and being unable to go to the next map in the game save file. He could only accept the defeat and put it aside.

[Ghost] is formed by a sufficiently powerful soul and can easily lose its mind and go berserk, so it is not a good choice for a spellcaster; the same goes for [Musician of the Dead]. To forcibly transform a part of oneself into the shape of a musical instrument without being able to attach any protective gear is as dangerous as hanging one's heart outside the body. The worst thing is that one will lose most of the spellcasting ability, leaving only the part that controls the dead; [Lich]... Lich.

Yuan Qian had experienced the life of a lich for more than two months, and he really didn't want Xiao Man to live like a living dead. The lich might even die earlier due to the difficulties and circumstances during the job change, or be far inferior to Lazarus, who had certain strength and freedom.

After all, there are spellcasters who are desperate and at the end of their lives every year, but there is only one lich who has lived to be 797 years old, and that is Lazarus. This is a cause and effect that was forcibly filled in with a large amount of emotional value, so it is definitely a very rare case.

There are only so many ways to extend lifespan through the known methods. Yuan Qian thinks none of them are good. They are so tangled that he wants to pull out a few hairs - this body has integrated enough bones and flesh of the Siren to turn into dark red hair. It looks ordinary, but it is actually as strong as the flight feathers of a bird of prey and will not fall off easily.

He would rather deal with the problem himself than ask Xiaoman for her opinion first. There was actually an important reason for this.

As a child raised by such a sickly but stubborn and open-minded woman, and the protagonist of the comic, it is not difficult to guess what choice Xiaoman would make if she were faced with the concerns he raised.

Because Xiaoman has always known that her life span will not be long, she will not feel sad or resentful about it. She will just continue to travel in the remaining time and try to see as much of the world as possible. This is enough, and when she meets the same ending as her mother, she will not have too many regrets.

Her own disciples did not know that she was the protagonist and were too open-minded to worry about premature death. In the end, only Yuan Qian was worried that she would use this opportunity to leave.

He could see that Xiaoman was about to achieve the short-term goal she had set for herself of studying here. Besides, any enemies she had should have eased up on her after so much time had passed since she had not participated in the murder.

So if Xiaoman feels a little bit of urgency when he is stimulated, he will say goodbye to him and plan to leave as soon as possible. As a villain NPC who cannot follow the protagonist around, he will have nowhere to cry.

The lich teacher, who is immersed in a laboratory whose space has been expanded by magic, is also worried about the survival of his disciple and the protagonist today.

The robe walked through the endless bookshelves, where any one of the expensive books that could be exchanged for a villa in the outside world were displayed. A spellcaster who lived long enough would have a huge collection, so these books were collected under his name at the same time as the existence of "Lazarus" was confirmed.

The lich was thinking about the problem here, and his bone-shaped knuckles slowly scratched the surface of the spines of books of various styles.

His action was originally a casual one, but someone suddenly stopped him.

[Don't move. Pinkstar is storyboarding here.]

"...You can see the real-time progress?" Yuan Qian was shocked.

“Because she was using the official account to live stream her painting,” said the adjutant.

"..." At this moment, Yuan Qian, a modern man whose mind was full of magic and transformation, remained silent.

With the precious hint, he focused on the books at hand that might contain clues, and opened them one by one to search.

Using the dual thinking of a spellcaster and having read various stories, Yuan Qian quickly found the most likely answer to how the moment just now was drawn into the comic.

This set of books is about the description of magic that does not belong to the elemental system. Because it is not too old, it even has the seal of verification from the City of Knowledge as a basis for raising the price.

This type of magic was originally created by various casters through coincidences or fantastic ideas, so there is no faction among them. There are even many cases that seem to contradict theories but are all true, which would scare researchers away.

However, this category also includes some magic that has spread because of its unexpected practicality. The "small portable space" preferred by Xiaoman and many low-level spellcasters is of course among them.

This set of books was not neatly arranged in the same place on Lazarus's bookshelf. The volume he was holding now recorded a very special and profound magic in just a few pages.

Because the conditions for its completion are extremely stringent, the recorder could not find any record of successful completion, so he simply wrote down its effect as a legend and noted that there was no actual evidence to support this content.

——prophecy.

——A magical power as powerful as a miracle and as dangerous as a curse that allows the caster to see the target's future direction.

It just so happens that perhaps the spellcaster who is least afraid of death in this world and is capable of completing it is reading this page and thinks that he can use it to find the answer to the question that has been bothering him for a long time.

"Finally, I saw how the protagonist's halo works." The adjutant, who guessed his partner's thoughts, said casually.

"I volunteered." Yuan Qian waved the book in his hand.

[Of course I would volunteer. After all, the only person who sacrificed himself on the stage was a poor old empty-nest witch who was really kind to the little girl. What does it have to do with the actor who took off his makeup and went home to eat dumplings?]

The adjutant who sent aid from across the world spoke in a light tone, and there was absolutely no hypocrisy in his words.

Yuan Qian, however, managed to make him express some guilt. After copying and keeping this part of the book pages, he guiltily went upstairs to make a large pot of expensive sweet tea for Xiaoman. He also drove a teleporter thousands of miles from the Commercial City to buy the "Golden City's most popular Princess Tea Party Ladies' Favorite Flower-Shaped Cream Preserved Cake Set with Crystal Inlaid Dessert Stand Tableware Set and Premium Lunch Box" which was made and sold that day as his disciple's afternoon tea.

Xiaoman was slightly surprised by the teacher's sudden action and ate the cakes in two meals. Then she had a dream with the flavor of cream and candied fruit.