The Wizard of Truth: Starting with Analyzing All Things

Stepping out of his dwelling, the cold night rain mixed with the distinctive chill of the Darkmoon Mountains, carrying a faint scent of sulfur and decay, rushed towards him. Luo Wei couldn't help but shiver; the deep wounds in his soul and his physical weakness made him exceptionally sensitive to the cold. He tightened his thin apprentice robe, immersing himself in his body, doing his utmost to maintain that fragile "information camouflage layer" and "energy signature simulation," disguising himself as an ordinary apprentice whose energy fluctuations were slightly disordered due to tension and exhaustion, yet who was still striving to remain calm.

The short distance of a few hundred meters from his residence to the Discipline Tower now felt like traversing a mountain of knives and a sea of ​​fire. He could sense at least three cold and powerful wills in the darkness, like invisible chains, firmly locking him in from different directions. The owners of these wills were at least quasi-wizards, and one of them might even be a full-fledged first-ring wizard! The Discipline Tower's emphasis on this "recruitment" far exceeded expectations.

He lowered his head, his steps unsteady, perfectly embodying the demeanor of an apprentice still recovering from serious injuries and forcibly conscripted. In his mind, however, he was rapidly calculating the probability of every possible outcome and corresponding countermeasures. The nourishing array provided by the stone tablet and Lilith's potion were slowly taking effect, but they were too late to solve the immediate crisis. He could only rely on his calm mind and understanding of the rules.

The massive black iron gate of the Discipline Tower, inscribed with runes of law, gaped open in the night like the maw of a behemoth. Before it stood a high-ranking apprentice deacon, clad in a black law enforcement robe, his face as cold and hard as iron—the very same one who had previously liaised with him. His gaze towards Luo Wei was utterly unwavering, as if he were merely examining a tool.

"Follow me and remain silent," the deacon commanded briefly, then turned and walked away.

Luo Wei silently followed and stepped into the Discipline Tower. The tower was as cold and solemn as ever, with a dense power of discipline permeating the air, making it almost impossible for him to breathe. But unlike when he went to the reporting room, the deacon led him through several hidden passages, directly to the deep underground levels of the tower.

The deeper they went, the dimmer the light became, the colder the air grew, and the power of the Lawful Words became more solid, even carrying a hint of… suppressed rage. More complex sealing runes began to appear on the walls, some even flickering with unstable light, as if desperately trying to imprison something. Deep within Luo Wei's soul, the Abyss Mark began to pulsate with intense heat, as if sensing a shared aura—the pollution emanating from the direction of the Tower of Slumber!

Darkmoon Academy World Encyclopedia: Edict Seal Corridor

The core underground area of ​​the Discipline Tower is used for the temporary imprisonment of extremely dangerous beings or the sealing of highly forbidden items. The corridor itself is composed of multiple superimposed law-based magic arrays, forming a powerful spatial confinement and energy isolation domain. However, when the power of the sealed objects inside becomes too strong or a rebellion occurs, the corridor barrier will bear immense pressure, causing the law-based power to exhibit unstable and violent characteristics. This is also one of the passages through which the Discipline Tower conducts high-risk experiments or carries out special missions.

Finally, they stopped before a large door forged from dark purple metal, its surface flowing with lifelike runes. Two people stood before it.

One of them was the stern-faced aspiring wizard deacon (whom Rowe already knew as Casper). The other, however, made Rowe's heart sink—it was Master Elena! The imprisoned second-ring wizard from the Gray Tower!

Elena, now a far cry from her former majesty and madness, was a shadow of her former self. Clad in a grey prison uniform, her hands and feet bound by shackles engraved with sealing runes, her face was ashen, her eyes vacant, and her aura utterly weak, like a candle flickering in the wind. But Rowe keenly sensed a faint, chilling glint of mockery and anticipation hidden deep within her empty eyes. She seemed to have foreseen what was about to happen, perhaps even…happened to it?

Deacon Caspar ignored Elena and coldly addressed Rowe, "Apprentice Rowe, according to the Elders' Council's decision, you are hereby recruited as a temporary observer of the 'Abnormal Spatial Fluctuations in the Tower of Slumber.' Your task is to accompany the task force into the designated area within the tower, utilize your spatial perception talent to record and transmit energy flow data from specific nodes. This prisoner," he pointed to Elena, "will serve as a 'guide,' assisting in identifying the remaining gray tower magic array traps within the tower."

Using Elena as a guide? That's utterly absurd! This is clearly using her as a pawn to explore the path, or... some kind of special "key" or "catalyst"! And I am the "observer" responsible for "recording" and possibly sacrificed as well!

Luo Wei suppressed the turmoil in his heart, lowered his head, and replied in a weak voice, "Yes, Steward."

Kasper said no more, turning to place his hand on the dark purple metal door. The runes on the door suddenly lit up, emitting a low hum, and slowly slid open to the sides. Behind the door was not a room, but a spatial passage that constantly twisted and flickered with an unstable halo! At the end of the passage, the unique whispers of the Tower of Slumber, a mixture of shadow and madness, could be faintly heard!

"Go in!" Kasper commanded.

Elena let out a hoarse, cold laugh and stepped into the spatial passage first. Lovi took a deep breath and followed closely behind. The instant he stepped into the passage, he felt a violent tremor emanating from the gray stone slab in his arms, along with a complex force of both warning and attraction!

After a dizzying spin, his feet touched solid ground again. A dense, overwhelming shadow energy and a maddening intent surged forth like a tide, making Luo Wei dizzy and almost causing him to fall to the ground. He endured the discomfort, steadied himself, and looked around.

They were inside the Tower of Slumber. It appeared to be the ruins of a circular hall, but it was completely different from what he had seen during his last mission! The eerie runes on the hall's walls, which had previously been dim, now emitted an ominous dark red light, flickering like breath. The floor was riddled with cracks, from which a viscous black liquid seeped, and countless wailing, howling phantoms of vengeful spirits floated in the air. The entire space was extremely unstable; visible spatial folds rippled like waves, and the distant sounds of collapsing buildings echoed intermittently.

Most chillingly, in the center of the hall, where the altar had once stood, floated a colossal, pulsating phantom of a dark heart! It was the very heart that Luo Wei had previously detected remotely! Countless chains of shadow energy coiled around the heart's surface, the other ends of which were deeply embedded in the void, as if binding it, or perhaps drawing power from it. Each beat of the heart emanated a suffocating abyssal pressure, causing the entire tower to tremble!

Above that dark heart, a faint, pure starlight was flickering with difficulty, coalescing into a faint, ethereal key—the Key of the Star Speaker! But it seemed to be suppressed by the dark power emanating from the heart, its light dimming as if it might be extinguished at any moment.

Deacon Casper was the last to pass through the spatial passage, carrying a compass-like magical artifact in his hand. A pale golden beam of light shot from the artifact, barely creating a relatively stable area in the chaotic energy field around him. He glanced at the heart and key in the center of the hall, a flash of fanaticism in his eyes, but it was quickly replaced by coldness.

"Record the energy fluctuations of the nodes, focusing on the energy interaction between the heart and the key!" Kasper commanded Rowe, while keeping a watchful eye on his surroundings and Elena ahead.

Elena suddenly stopped, turned around, and looked at Kasper with her empty, mocking eyes. She chuckled hoarsely, "Kasper, your Discipline Tower... has finally come to this... trying to use the power of the 'Heart of the Abyss' to forcibly control the 'Key of Stars' and open that 'door'? Heh... you're playing with fire! How dare you lay a finger on the will of that being?"

Heart of the Abyss! Key to the Stars! Door!

Elena's words confirmed many of Lovi's suspicions! The Discipline Tower did indeed intend to use the power of the Abyss to control the Key of the Star Speaker, thereby opening a "door" to an unknown place!

"Shut up, prisoner! Do your job as a guide!" Casper shouted sternly, but a flicker of emotion in his eyes did not escape Rowe's notice. Elena's words seemed to have touched on some of his concerns.

"My duty?" Elena's laughter grew colder. "My duty is to watch you... how you are consumed by greed!" She suddenly raised her shackled hand and pointed to a deep, dark corridor covered in broken runes on one side of the hall. "The 'shortcut' to the core control room is over there. But you know what lies along the way!"

Kasper's face was grim as he used his compass to probe the corridor, his brow furrowed. The spatial distortions and energy turbulence there were extremely severe, and it was riddled with powerful shadow traps.

"You, go first!" Kasper ordered Elena.

Elena scoffed and walked fearlessly down the corridor of death. Rowe and Casper followed closely behind.

The situation inside the corridor was even worse than outside. Spatial rifts were as numerous as a spider web, and violent shadow energy manifested as various terrifying illusions and physical attacks that relentlessly assailed them. Elena seemed extremely familiar with the traps here, always managing to evade the most dangerous attacks with subtle movements, but she was clearly not giving it her all, occasionally allowing some attacks to slip past Rowe and Casper behind her.

Kasper had to frequently intervene, using the power of the Law to shatter the shadow attacks and maintain the protective shield. Meanwhile, Lovi was "laboriously" recording energy data (while secretly using information weaving to frantically scan the surrounding environment, especially the structure of the broken runes), while closely monitoring Elena and Kasper's movements.

He noticed that when Elena passed through certain areas, the sealing runes on her shackles would glow slightly, seemingly resonating faintly with some structure within the tower. Kasper, however, was mostly focused on the compass and the central hall, paying little attention to these subtle anomalies of Elena's.

Suddenly, as we rounded a corner, something unexpected happened!

One side of the wall suddenly exploded open, and a colossal shadow beast, composed entirely of pure shadow energy and mad will, pounced out, its strength comparable to a peak quasi-wizard! Its target was none other than the seemingly weakest, Rowe!

"Watch out!" Kasper reacted quickly, unleashing a Lawful Shackle that ensnared the shadowy behemoth.

But in that split second, a strange glint flashed in Elena's eyes, and she seemed to have "accidentally" stepped on an inconspicuous rune! The entire corridor space suddenly distorted, and a hidden spatial rift quietly appeared behind and to the side of Rowe!

A shadowy behemoth looms ahead, a spatial rift flanks him! Casper is temporarily entangled by the behemoth! This is a doomed situation!

Is the Discipline Tower finally going to get rid of him, this "redundant" pawn? Or is it Elena using him as a tool to kill someone else?

On the brink of life and death, Luo Wei's pupils shrank to pinpoints! He could no longer keep his trump card hidden!

"Keystone Rune - Stability! Flow!" He roared inwardly, and the mental power he had been suppressing suddenly erupted. Although the total amount was not large, the control precision reached the extreme! He did not attack the shadow behemoth, but poured all his power into the "Energy Signature Simulation" and the "Information Disguise Layer" to simulate the chaotic and void energy fluctuations emanating from the spatial rift next to him!

At the same time, his footwork shifted strangely, not moving backward or forward, but instead "crashing" towards the side—the direction of that spatial rift!

To the astonishment of Casper and Elena, the moment Lovi's figure touched the spatial rift, it seemed to melt away, his aura completely disappearing into the chaotic void!

"What?!" Casper was both shocked and furious. He had never expected that Rowe would "commit suicide" in this way!

A flicker of surprise crossed Elena's eyes, but it quickly turned into a deeper sneer: "Interesting... what an unpredictable little one..."

The spatial rift quickly closed, leaving only the raging shadow behemoth and the ashen-faced Casper in its place.

At this moment, Luo Wei was experiencing unimaginable pain. He hadn't actually entered the spatial rift, which would have been tantamount to suicide. At the last moment, he combined the simulated void fluctuations with a faint guidance from the gray stone slab, performing an extremely risky short-distance spatial deflection!

*Crack!* He felt as if he had been thrown into a meat grinder, every inch of his flesh and soul being torn apart by the power of space. His already severely injured body was further aggravated, and the blood he spat out was mixed with fragments of internal organs.

But the next moment, he crashed heavily onto a relatively hard surface. The surrounding area was no longer the death corridor, but the narrow, dark, dusty ruins of a control room! This seemed to be an auxiliary node room within the tower that hadn't been completely destroyed.

He succeeded! Using the simulated spatial fluctuations and the guidance of the stone slab, he narrowly escaped and veered to this relatively safe corner!

"Pfft—" He spat out another mouthful of blood, his consciousness beginning to blur. His injuries were too severe.

But at that moment, the gray stone slab in his arms suddenly burst forth with an unprecedentedly intense light! A vast and ancient flow of information, accompanied by a strong urging force, surged into his sea of ​​consciousness, which was on the verge of collapse!

Synchronization rate forcibly increased! 70%! 75%! 80%!

[Host detected in the 'Starry Echoes Core Area'! Meets the conditions for inheritance activation!]

[The preparation for the inheritance of the "Star Speaker" has begun! Infusion commences!]

[WARNING: The infusion of this heritage will place an enormous burden on your current body, with a risk of collapse! Do you accept?]

The legacy of the Star Speakers?! At this very moment?! The true nature of the stone tablet is actually an artifact passed down through generations of Star Speakers?!

Accept it, and you might explode and die instantly! Refuse it, and you'll be critically injured and on the verge of death, but you'll still die!

Luo Wei stared at the illusory prompt before him, while sensing the increasingly terrifying fluctuations of the Heart of the Abyss outside the tower, and the fainter mournful cry of the Key of Star Language.

He did not hesitate at all.

"accept!"

boom!!!

It was as if the explosion of the beginning of the universe resounded within him! Endless knowledge of starlight, ancient contract runes, secret methods to communicate with the stars... like a flood breaking through a dam, rushed into his parched sea of ​​consciousness and his broken body!

"Ah—!" He let out a silent roar, his body cracked open with countless fissures, and blood gushed out, but deep in his pupils, starlight suddenly shone!

The ultimate secret of the Tower of Slumber, the legacy of the Star Speakers, the conspiracy of the Discipline Tower... all of these will be revealed in the storm to come.