Reincarnated as a bamboo rat, it begins its extreme survival struggle.

Only the church still has a conscience; the holy water that can exorcise evil spirits has not increased in price. However, every time the church puts out the holy water, it is instantly bought up by merchants, who then resell it to adventurers, making a huge profit as middlemen.

In response to these merchants who are going crazy for money, the church has decided to suspend the sale of holy water and instead allow believers and shepherds to directly hand over the holy water to those in need.

Unfortunately, the holy water of the church in this world has certain exorcising and healing effects, and in a sense, it is a kind of doctor. Many people, especially those who don't have much money, go to pastors for medical treatment.

The pastor's creed includes saving people from suffering, so pastors and businessmen are not on good terms. Businessmen are profit-driven, and as a profession that pursues money and profit, they often do things that are not humane.

It is said that in economically developed coastal cities, some merchants proposed an extremely advanced system called "foreign slavery." They advocated reducing non-human intelligent races under certain conditions to powerless slaves and treating them as commodities.

When this incident occurred, the church was in an uproar. Pastors from all over the country went into battle preparations, nuns ended their retreats, and even the reclusive Thorn Army was mobilized.

Because the first of the divine laws believed by the church is "all things are born equal and die equal", and there are also many believers of different races in the church.

Leaving aside the non-human believers in the church, from the perspective of human believers and pastors alone, if merchants can create inter-racial slavery now, they can enslave their own kind tomorrow.

It's also thanks to the efforts of these businessmen that...

There was success; otherwise, the church in the conservative inland city could have directly organized an expeditionary force.

But we can't just see the thief getting beaten, but also see him eating meat.

Despite being universally reviled in various cities, these merchants are now making a fortune reselling exorcism items in the Bamboo Forest and the City of the Dead.

“Mr. Bell, I heard that a small bottle of exorcism potion can now sell for five silver coins. Just two weeks ago it only sold for two silver coins. Prices are sky-high.”

Edu complained to Bell about the soaring prices, and Bell, who was perched on his shoulder, yawned, indicating that since he wasn't buying anything, the skyrocketing prices wouldn't affect him.

Bell said he has milk, and no matter what state you are in, positive or negative, as long as it is a state imposed on you by external forces, drinking a sip of milk will instantly cure it. There is no exorcism potion more powerful than this.

"Speaking of which, I should probably stock up on some milk for my next bamboo forest adventure."

Scratching his head, Bell realized the agricultural fair wasn't over yet. He remembered there were quite a few dairy cows at the fair.

He planned to disguise himself as a nibbler that night and go to the agricultural fair to milk some cows—just six or seven buckets would be enough.

Bell decided to explore the bamboo forest again to see what was happening inside after the first wave of human adventurers suffered a major defeat, and also to collect some corpses to burn.

It is said that many human corpses remain unattended in the bamboo forest, and there are also a large number of ferocious monsters, all of which can yield valuable items when burned.

"However, before that, I need to inscribe more magical characters into my body. My enhanced physical body is enough for me to inscribe new poems."

Having already decided what poems to transcribe tonight, Bell was much happier while reading at the music academy.

It's class time now. Bell is the only mouse in the entire library. Edu is in the yard having class with the girl who plays the violin, taught by the same old white-bearded man.

The large-scale development of the bamboo forest has attracted most adventurers, so there are only two apprentices in the academy now.

If it weren't for the large-scale development of the bamboo forest, there might have been even more. Unfortunately, there are few bards, and even fewer people who can come to the music academy for further studies.

"Huh? This book is quite interesting."

Bell, quickly flipping through the books, suddenly came across a rather interesting notebook, written by the high-ranking bard 'The Military Musician'.

The military band's instruments are the powerful drums and bugles that can shake the battlefield, but he also has a band of mid-level bards who use instruments that can convey the battlefield through sound.

In the notes of the military band performer, he described his process of trying to compose military music. He attached great importance to the effect of different instruments working together and recorded in detail how to use his magic to coordinate the magic of other bards around him, so that their performances would resonate with and become stronger than the main effect of the song.

This is very difficult. High-level bards can lead low-level bards to play, and they can also lead mid-level bards to play, but most of the time they use their magic and skills to drag those bards who are a level below them up.

However, the effect of this kind of forced dragging is certainly not as good as what military band performers are pursuing, that is, to achieve a synergistic effect where everyone works together to achieve more than the sum of its parts.

Bell recalled the times he had led Edu in chanting poetry and playing rock and roll with barrels in the bamboo forest, and realized that he was far from the level described by the military band members.

Chapter 112 The Poetic Genius

"Mr. Bell, what are you thinking about?"

Edu, who had just gone up to the second floor, looked at Bell, who was repeatedly reading the notes of a military band performer, and was somewhat surprised.

After all, Bell had always maintained a lightning-fast flipping through books, and had rarely stopped to think deeply like he was now.

"The author of this notebook is amazing. Among the notebooks of these high-level bards, he is in a class of his own. He meticulously and rigorously listed out all kinds of questions and his thoughts, without holding anything back."

I looked at a lot of notes in the library, but only the notes of the military band performers were the most valuable to Bell. This book can be called the treasure of the library.

Edu, however, did not have such a clear understanding of this point, as he did not quite understand many of the notes here.

There's nothing I can do; I've suffered because of my lack of education.

The general's musicians closed their notebooks, and Bell went downstairs to help Edu familiarize himself with the various instruments.

Edu, who hasn't decided which instrument to practice yet, decided to try out various instruments first to get a feel for them. Bell also followed along with him, becoming familiar with the sounds and effects of various instruments in the process.

"Speaking of which, those better musical instruments are worth thousands of gold coins. Can you afford them?"

"If you can't afford to buy one, just use a cheaper instrument as a temporary measure. If all else fails, you can buy a castanets to help keep the beat and make do."

Through the bard's notes and what he had seen and heard during this time, Bell knew very well how much a good set of musical instruments was worth, and that a penniless guy like Edu would basically never come across a good instrument except in a music academy.

"Speaking of which, could I make magical musical instruments?"

After a day of studying, on his way home from Edu, Bell wagged his tail and pondered these thoughts.

He observed many magical musical instruments and discovered that although these instruments were made of different materials, they all possessed the characteristic of resonating magic.

If I were to use materials containing magic to forge musical instruments, could I create similar magical instruments?

Bell had some doubts in his mind. He was eager to dismantle the magical musical instruments in the music academy, understand their structure, and use [Fire-Loving Wisdom] to remove the magical traces from them.

Unfortunately, those items belonged to the music academy, and Bell could not touch them without permission.

"I wonder if any of the adventurers who died in the bamboo forest left behind any magical equipment. If I dismantle and burn those lost items, I should be able to collect a lot of useful knowledge."

Putting aside his idea of ​​creating a magical musical instrument, Bell quickly jumped onto the roof of Edu's house after finishing his private lesson with Edu.

Edu has made rapid progress in his bard training during this time, and Bell naturally cannot fall behind. The apprentice-level bard is simply not enough for Bell; it's time to take it a step further.

“Using the traces of time preserved in ‘Chang Ge Xing’, the newly engraved poems must also be songs that are highly related to the imagery of time.”

His spiritual power spread upwards, drawing in a large amount of magic like a net, which swirled around him. Bell had already decided what kind of poem he wanted to inscribe.

He had previously recited the fourteenth of the seventeen poems by the poet Li Bai, whose talent was astonishing, but whose poetry was not suited to resonating with the traces of time.

.

He was unrestrained and carefree, taking the passage of time lightly and rarely lamenting the passing of years.

On the contrary, the poetic style is characterized by its ethereal and even bizarre nature, with fantastical imagination, elegant diction, varied and colorful style, and deliberate innovation, yet it has left behind many famous works that celebrate time.

Li He, the "Poet Ghost".

While both were masters of poetry, his style differed greatly from that of the "Poet Immortal." He often expressed sorrow and lamentation, writing mostly ancient-style poems and folk songs. His poetry can be summarized in four words: "ghosts, weeping, blood, and death."

The poem Bell is preparing to engrave this time is "The Short Day" by the poet Ghost.

"Hoo... Flying light, flying light, let me offer you a cup of wine."

With focused mind, flames rise.

In the state of [Fire-Loving Wisdom], Bell quickly condensed the magic characters and engraved them into his blood.

The opening line of "The Short Day" is not domineering; it is simply a first-person perspective, raising a glass to invite the fleeting time to pause for a moment and share a drink.

In the poems of the "Poet Ghost," time is alive, existing as something that can sit before you and drink with you.

However, this level of opening is not enough to evoke the lingering traces of time in "The Long Ballad".

To extract the traces of time from the imagery of the changing seasons and the long river flowing into the sea, one must use even more extraordinary imagery, and "The Short Day" is full of such imagery.

"I do not know the height of the blue sky or the thickness of the yellow earth; I only see the cold sun and the warm moon, which come to erode human lifespan."

As soon as the incantation was uttered, the surrounding magic rapidly transformed, quickly condensing into one magical character after another, which adhered to Bell's body and slowly merged into his body.

As the poem suggests, the poetic ghost did not know how high the sky was, or how thick the earth was. Similarly, Bell did not know the full picture of the world, nor the various changes within and outside the universe.

When the poet wrote this poem, the world he perceived was completely different from the world Bell currently perceives.

As the sun and moon revolve and the stars shift, things in the world change, not to mention the differences between the two realms.

Only time, flowing freely through the myriad worlds, remains unmoved by external influences, neither increasing nor decreasing in the slightest for anyone. It is the poetic ghost who wrote this poem, just as Bell on the rooftop felt, that has always existed and has never changed.

The cold of the sun and the warmth of the moon cannot touch the traces of time, but the 'people' captured by it can.

As the main body for recording the magical characters, Bell's body and mind trembled wildly as one character after another poured in.

In a daze, he saw his own body withered and his hair dry, turning into a lifeless corpse with the passage of time, and eventually turning into ashes over thousands of years.

In this world, words and language possess power, and the process of inscribing magical characters is how Bell uses his spirit and body to accept and absorb this power.

The sinister nature of the words "The cold sun and warm moon bring death to human life" was so great that even with Bell's fire-loving wisdom, he could not tell whether he was sinking into the feeling of time passing or had actually sat there for countless years and turned to ashes.

It is also in this poem that the traces of time previously hidden in "Chang Ge Xing" quietly emerge and flow into "Ku Zhou Duan", giving the empty and superficial meaning of the passage of time in it a more perceptible reality.

It was precisely this tangible presence that allowed Bell's consciousness to glimpse the time illusion within him.

The wisps of spiritual energy that escaped from the illusion quickly drew upon the magic around him to continue recording the second half of "The Short Day of Suffering".

To decipher the time-scarce situation in "The Short Days of Bitterness," the solution lies in the entire poem.

Chapter 113 The Short Days

"The power of time is beyond human resistance, but can one truly be a hero if one is trapped by the cycle of day and night?"

New magical characters merged into Bell's body, and "The Short Day" continued to improve, while the time-related predicament that shrouded Bell gradually faded with the influx of new characters.