“It turns out to be like this…” Thirteenth Fragrance sighed under his breath.
He sat on a chair in the inner room and quickly flipped through the posts recommended to him by Longjing Tea.
Today seems to be… the public beta test opening? In short, it is the day when many new players log in. He was just the first one to come.
Regarding “where is this place?” and “what are we going to do?”, Longjing Tea and the rest decided to wait for everyone to get together before talking about it. The goal was to avoid having to tell everyone one by one about it when they came to this world, which was troublesome.
So, Thirteenth Fragrance ran into the room, sat down, and rested for a while… while having his drink. Dove asked him to feel free to help himself with the snacks and fruits, but he was too shy to eat them.
According to the “starting spell” on the post, he figured out that he was a wizard inclined toward the Soul Snatch school.
Of course, this inclination was not 100% certain.
Changing the magic school could be done through ritual or mastering other magics. As long as the proportion of the spells learned exceeded 50% of the overall ratio, one would be classified into the new school of magic after becoming a transcender.
Generally speaking, this approach was only chosen when someone identified their original path was wrong. For example, if the erosion rate was too high, he could only pick the path of the Destruction Wizard.
In comparison, one of Soul Snatch Wizard’s taboos was falling in love.
That was because it was too easy for the Soul Snatch School to manipulate others’ minds.
The most basic Soul Snatch Spell could identify the strength of “a certain emotion” in everyone around them. For example, love, killing intent, and fear. This could not only be used to detect the enemy, but also to judge others’ views of themselves.
Because of this, it was necessary to have a certain level of morality for self-control. That was not to seize the hearts of others indiscriminately. The most serious taboo was to use spells for personal gain.
Couples who did not quarrel or break up when they were in love were a minority. Once there was a relationship dispute or even a crisis of breaking up, outsiders had no position to prevent Soul Snatch Wizard from using spells to peek into the other party’s inner thoughts, determine the target’s thoughts, and even directly alter the target’s mind.
For the other person, every time he quarreled or was in a bad mood, he would doubt whether the other party had manipulated him or whether he liked the person because of the spell’s effect.
This distrust would further deepen suspicion and create conflicts.
Half of the major eight schools of wizardry advocated “use as little magic as possible”, and the other half advocated “using more spells”. For example, the Prophet School, Idol, and Alteration School were in the latter situation.
Both the Destruction School and the Soul Snatch School were the former.
Thirteenth Fragrance also noticed that the mentors were all riddlers in the wizard tower that taught Soul Snatch Spells.
When they usually spoke, their words were “bring that book”, “go to that classroom”, “to achieve that goal”, and so on. In short, they did not speak comprehensible words.
That was to train the Soul Snatch Wizards to gain insight into other people’s minds and guess their intentions without using spells.
If this ability were lacking, the teacher would usually dismiss them and stop them from pursuing the Soul Snatch Wizard advancement.
If this power of observation and analysis was insufficient, then a half-knowledge of the minds of others was almost a disaster on the social level.
They might notice a little hatred and regard the target as an enemy in their hearts; they might perceive the fleeting love and think that the other party was pursuing them.
They must have 100% confidence in the accuracy of their spells. However, with the low-level Soul Snatch Spells, it was impossible to search the other party’s memory in detail. It was even more impossible to detect all the emotional details of the target with incomparable precision.
If they got a little information and made a mistake in the analysis and judgment, the problem would become more serious — it would be difficult to check for themselves.
After all, feelings were fleeting.
The feeling at that moment could not be preserved forever, let alone be preserved in a fixed frame, nor could it be expected that it would never dissipate. Achieving this was the feature of the highest level of Soul Snatching Spell that wizards could only master at the Gold Rank, which involved partitioning and permanently sealing a portion of emotions. Moreover, it was operable in a Ritual Spell approach.
A Destruction Spell of the same rank could easily destroy a city; an Alteration spell of the same rank could exchange a piece of matter for the flame at the sun’s center.
In this world where “the heart and mind have power”, the spells, costs, and difficulty of manipulating the mind were much greater than other spells of the same rank.
“It’s like Professor X, but not exactly so.” Thirteenth Fragrance looked at the Soul Snatch Spell he was about to master, trying hard to think and conceive its possible practical approach.
For example, the primary spell of the Soul Snatch System was “Consciousness”.
This was something all Soul Snatch Wizards learned. Its status was about equal to Destruction Wizard’s Fireball spell series.
Fireball, super-large fireball, high-temperature fireball, a sticky fireball that burned continuously, fireball with lightning, a fireball that could explode… If you ignore the original names of those spells, at least one-fifth of the spells in the Destruction School could be understood as variant versions of the fireball spell.
Looking at the explanation on the post… It seemed that the first boss the players encountered was a Soul Snatch Wizard at the beginning of the adventure.
He could use the [Mind Manipulation] spell to manipulate the player’s mind, just like Urie. There was also an advanced version of this spell called [Full Control]. According to the player being manipulated, it felt like a dream.
The player vaguely realized his action was wrong, but a louder voice told himself, “this was for granted”. It was not about having consciousness completely disconnected, blackened, unable to remember what happened, or trying to take over one’s body.
After being controlled, if the victim suddenly suffered a critical injury or intense pain, the target could get out of the manipulation instantly. It was like being in a dream and suddenly realizing that he was dreaming.
The point was not to make the target do something “they did not think they could do”. It was about their “perception”, not that they could not do it… like betraying a friend.
But for “wild monsters”, these manipulation spells were too challenging, with a significant focus on the wizard’s adaptability.
Longjing Tea recommended immense and straightforward consciousness-based spells.
For example, Thirteenth Fragrance could use “Consciousness Capture: Fear” to lock on the enemy and then use “Consciousness Enhancement” to control them. He could also identify his teammates who were afraid and enemies who were not scared and use “Consciousness Replacement: Fear” to swap their fears.
Alternatively, he could use “Consciousness Capture: Courage” to lock the enemy and then use “Consciousness Displacement” to make the enemy’s desire to fight to disappear. Or he could use “Consciousness Displacement” to dispel the fear and despair of teammates.
It enabled him to take the role of a controller and supporter.
It could be called a universal spell.
There was no preparation needed, and the range of the spells was not too small. The magic could be cast as long as the opponent could see him.
After the Soul Snatch Wizard became a transcender, as long as the opponent had a “strengthened” consciousness or intense emotions, he could use the [Soul Tear] spell to cause great damage to the enemy.
If there were more than two types of enhanced consciousness simultaneously, the damage of Soul Tear would also be doubled. In Thirteenth Fragrance’s opinion, this should be similar to the type of “additional damage according to the number of debuffs after stacking debuffs”.
Misfortunes never come singly?
Or was it an outbreak?
In short, Thirteenth Fragrance still liked this profession, just like the psychological test he had done at the beginning.
He was not a Twisted Fate [1] enthusiast who enjoyed spamming red cards. Instead, he liked to possess a lot of controlling spells.
From this point of view, this psychological test was worthwhile.
Just as Thirteenth Fragrance was still rehearsing in his mind, “How will I form the damage output cycle in the future”, the door opened again, and two girls came in.
Are there two new players coming in?
Thirteenth Fragrance thought to himself.
One of them was a short-haired girl who looked familiar… It seemed to be Ah Dian. She was a voice actress from China and also a horror game streamer. She seemed to have a late-night radio station or something. She was a young girl who looked a little clumsy.
However, another girl with a silver ponytail, whom he had never met, suddenly stared at him blankly.
Then, the person exclaimed, “Wang Shouyi!”
—Who are you?
I beautify 30% of my face, but how do you still recognize me?!
Thirteenth Fragrance was shocked.
As if reading Thirteenth Fragrance’s mind, the other party added, “I’m Huohuo… It’s me, Husky!”
“What the hell?!”
Thirteenth Fragrance was dumbfounded.
He was familiar with this name. This was the “partner-in-crime” for his job.
However, “Husky” should be a man.
“—Why did you create a female account?”
No, wait, I should have said…
“How the hell did you do that?”