NOVEL NEXT Chapter 200: Demon Town
A box full of melted high-purity magic stones—unfortunately, Luo Wei couldn't use them now.
She put the magic stones back, pressing down the burlap underneath, then took out a handkerchief and wrapped the wooden box.
The contents of the burlap couldn't be revealed yet; otherwise, the rapid collapse of this world's order would actually serve the purpose of those beings above.
Setting the wooden box aside, Luo Wei picked up the rat cage and placed it on the table. These rats were her best experimental assistants, helping her better understand magic runes.
Wearing gloves, Luo Wei randomly selected a lucky star from the cage and placed it on a small magic rune iron plate.
"Sizzle—"
A wisp of scorched smoke slowly rose. The lively little rat was electrocuted into a lump of black charcoal, with the pungent smell of burnt fur and roasted meat permeating the air.
Too cruel. Luo Wei turned her head away, unable to watch.
After all, it was a life, and she had just killed it with a magic rune!
"I'm sorry, but I didn't mean to."
After the magic rune lost its power and dimmed, she turned back and dumped the rat from the iron plate into the trash bin.
This rat was too charred to be recycled; she had originally planned to save the body for the ravens' dinner.
Luo Wei tested all the remaining magic runes in one go. A cage of rats was completely depleted by her experiments, all of them breathless, each dying in its own tragic way.
Ten of the rats died from the same cause.
Luo Wei was also anxious. According to her analysis, one of the small magic runes should have increased the concentration of magical elements within the academy, but after experimenting ten times, the result was always the same—it consumed the rats' life force.
The rats died as soon as they were placed on the iron plate, and the more carefully she drew the rune, the faster they died.
She checked many times before reaching a conclusion—the problem was with herself.
This particular small magic rune gathered earth elements, and the earth-system magic power in her body seemed to have an inherent decomposition ability, capable of breaking down any living thing into carbohydrates.
When it came time to choose a division, she definitely couldn't choose the Magic Rune Apprentice path. This profession had to be ruled out first; otherwise, she wouldn't be able to explain to people later why the magic runes she drew could suck the life out of people.
Deciphering the small magic runes took a month, and Luo Wei's magical power had noticeably increased. When she moved on to deciphering intermediate magic runes, it was much faster, taking just over half a month.
During this half month, she also completed all her community service, including but not limited to cleaning the stables, catching escaped chickens from the academy cafeteria, and clearing mountains of waste materials from the alchemy storage room.
These community service tasks were purely physical punishments, as the tasks were tedious and monotonous, difficult to complete with magic, especially since the apprentices' magical power was low.
Moreover, Luo Wei discovered that the magic in this world was very singular, and its development had long stagnated. The spells and magic runes used now were passed down from two thousand years ago.
In other words, after two thousand years, magic had not seen innovation or improvement.
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For instance, the cleaning magic rune that the professors taught them could only protect clean things from getting dirty but couldn't make dirty things clean—quite inconvenient to use.
And the spells they learned in spell class were completely formulaic. Students were constantly memorizing poems without anyone writing new ones.
This was strange. Normally, no industry would fail to progress, but the field of magic hadn't. Not only had it not progressed, but it was also regressing.
Some profound spells and magic runes, once lost, could never be found again. The types of Mystical Smiths were also decreasing; many Mystical Smiths only knew how to forge swords but not how to invent magical machinery.
The same was true for potions—just a few types repeated over and over. Whatever formulas existed a thousand years ago were still the same formulas used today.
Luo Wei vaguely felt that magic in this world was approaching its end. Perhaps in a few hundred years, magic would completely disappear from history.
She was pondering a question: would the disappearance of magic be good or bad for the Star of Galan?
On the positive side, human power would tend toward an average value, with no one being inherently superior due to bloodline talents. Ordinary people, with effort, could also gain a voice.
On the negative side, if magic disappeared while gods and dark creatures still existed, in an age of cold weapons, once giant monsters like Behemoths appeared, humans would have no ability to resist and would face a dead end.
However, none of this mattered to her. In twenty years at the latest, she would be able to return home.
In late March, Luo Wei made another trip to Demon Island.
After more than two months of construction, Demon Island now had over a hundred houses. The undead and humans lived in an orderly manner on this land, with roads extending in all directions and dozens of acres of fields cultivated.
It may not have been a city-state, but it had at least reached the scale of a town.
The mercenaries and the undead built wooden houses, strictly according to the design plans Luo Wei had provided. They looked pleasing to the eye, like an ancient-style small town.
The slaves built mud houses, constructed without prior layout planning. The distribution of houses was somewhat chaotic, and the fences and paths outside the houses were crudely made, looking like a slum from a distance.
In such a short time, the poor and rich districts on the island had become distinctly separated—although no one had moved into the rich district yet.
What surprised Luo Wei was that between the two areas, a group of people was building a structure that looked somewhat like a church from its framework.
These people belonged neither to the slaves nor to the mercenaries; they were a third faction on the island.
Luo Wei watched for quite a while before recognizing one of the women who was going in and out, directing others to lay bricks. It was Norma, a believer she had rescued from the edge of the ice plains.
Now, Norma was spirited and full of energy. Her thin but healthy face glowed with two patches of passionate blush, completely different from the ashen-faced woman who had lost two children.
Luo Wei cast an invisibility spell on herself and quietly walked among them, finally eavesdropping on what they were doing.
They were actually building a temple for her!
Norma even claimed to be the priestess of this temple, and the people around her called her Lady Priestess because she was a woman who had received guidance from a divine messenger.
Unexpected! Back then, Luo Wei had told her that she didn't have a free soul and couldn't enter the temple of the God of Death and Time, but as a result, she had come to Demon Island to build her own temple.
Not bad—she was a follower with good ideas.
Luo Wei counted the people around. Besides the slaves who came to help, there were more than twenty people here.
She remembered that she had rescued only about a dozen shepherds from the Seko people. Where did the extra people come from?
After thinking for a moment, Luo Wei flew to the undead cemetery and called out Patrick.
【Master, what are your orders?】
Patrick's voice was as weak as ever, like seedlings ravaged by a violent storm, but Luo Wei had just seen him sitting on a branch at the edge of the cliff, nodding his head while listening to birds sing.
"There's a woman named Norma who is building a temple for me. Do you know about this?"
【Yes, I do.】
Patrick bowed and said, 【I thought it was with your permission, as she said she was guided here by a winged demonic divine messenger.】
"I did have someone guide her here," Luo Wei waved her hand, "but that's not what I wanted to ask. Did you register the people she brought?"
"There were only about a dozen people originally, but now I see there are more?"
Patrick respectfully replied, 【Yes, Master, they have been registered.】
【The additional people are followers that Norma recruited from other places. Every half month, she leaves the island to preach and brings back a few people.】
"Followers? Whose followers?" Luo Wei asked, already knowing the answer.
【They worship a deity titled the God of Death and Time. Some people on the island have also been recruited by her.】
Luo Wei nodded. Those who had been recruited must be the slaves who were helping.
"What about Zachary? How is his reform through labor going?"
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