Spellcasting Gods

"Really... Looks like a fish has taken the bait. Have you checked who it is?" Zhang Cheng asked, his eyes shining.

“Richard Phil, ostensibly a senior advisor at an investment firm, is secretly a devil worshipper. According to records from the North American Regional Council, he has committed heinous crimes in Boston, San Francisco, and Detroit, and is currently wanted with a substantial bounty on his head.” As he spoke, Polman pulled a printed document from his briefcase and handed it over.

Zhang Cheng quickly took it, glanced at it, pursed his lips, and muttered to himself in a low voice only he could hear, "Fantastic! A perfect test subject..."

Chapter 0259 Demon Worshipper

Demon worshippers, as the name suggests, are humans who have an almost fanatical obsession with the power and behavior of demons.

They are not bound by any laws or morals, nor do they care about right or wrong. They only want to obtain forbidden knowledge and power from demons, and through a terrifying ritual called demonization, they want to get closer to the form of demons until one day the demons accept them as their own.

Of course, according to the council's records, in the last two or three thousand years, there have been very few humans who have truly succeeded in integrating into the demons, no more than twenty in total. Each of them was a criminal who committed heinous crimes in history, and some demons were even more outrageous than them.

Zhang Cheng's actions, which resulted in the killing of hundreds of thousands of people and the turning of a city into a death trap, are not even comparable to the last person among these individuals.

Perhaps the devils are using this blatant temptation to arouse the desires and dark side hidden deep within humanity, in order to influence the entire society.

However, what the demon worshippers don't know is that only one in a hundred thousand, or even one in a million, of them has a chance of succeeding. The rest are merely pawns used by the demons, discarded once they lose their value.

Clearly, Richard Phil, as described in the information, is one of the tens of thousands of demon worshippers hidden among the crowd. He may have heard about the recent events from somewhere and wanted to take advantage of the opportunity to win the favor of the demon Borun, planning to sacrifice poor Grace's soul to him in exchange for benefits.

Although Zhang Cheng's initial wish was to use "bait" to catch a "big fish," it now seems that before the "big fish" even took the bait, small fish have already emerged.

Driven by intense curiosity, he decided to first study demon worshippers in order to gain some understanding of this legendary and mysterious species, and to figure out whether the devils or demons in various magical worlds all originated from the same place, or were different branches born from somewhere in the universe.

Polman drove fast and steadily, and after about twenty-five minutes, he slowly pulled up to the side of the road near the villa.

Just as Zhang Cheng got up and opened the car door, intending to return to his residence to summarize his gains over the past six months, he suddenly noticed a silver-gray convertible sports car parked not far ahead, with a group of men and women standing next to it.

The woman was none other than the young Grace, and the man, without a doubt, was none other than Richard Phil, the devil worshipper who was actively pursuing her.

The man, who appeared to be around thirty-five years old, with striking features and dark green eyes, was whispering cheesy sweet nothings while gently sniffing the girl's hair. The girl, completely lost in the moment, seemed utterly powerless to resist, allowing him to unbutton her shirt and remove it, revealing a large expanse of alluring skin and snow-white breasts underneath.

However, unlike most lustful men, Richard Phil did not pounce on the girl and tease her sensitive areas in order to pave the way for a "home run." Instead, he glanced closely at her right shoulder.

When he saw the red mark shaped like a claw, a fleeting, terrifying red light flashed in his eyes, like a wild beast spotting its prey, and he subconsciously licked his lips.

"Hehe, it seems this little fish is really getting thirsty. But don't rush, I'm not ready yet, you'll have to be patient for a few more days..."

Zhang Cheng smiled knowingly, got out of the car, and walked straight to the two of them. He said in a nonchalant tone, "Excuse me, gentlemen. Although I don't want to interrupt your good time, I need this lady to help me open the door to get home, so please stop here for today. If you're still not satisfied, you can go inside and find a room to continue. I don't mind."

"Mr. Zhang! When did you get back? No, wait, where have you been for a whole week? And what's with this strange outfit? Did you go to a medieval masquerade ball?"

Gracie, who had just snapped out of her daze, hurriedly pushed her "boyfriend" away and quickly pulled her shirt up to cover her exposed chest.

"Honey, you're asking too many questions. Please remember, I don't need to explain anything to you, and you have no right to interfere in my affairs, understand?" Zhang Cheng warned coldly.

Before Gracie could say anything, Richard finally couldn't help but feign anger and snapped, "Hey! Kid! Speak politely to ladies! Didn't your parents teach you basic manners?"

"Hmph! Idiot! If I were you, I would turn around and run away immediately, instead of staying to play the tough guy." As he spoke, Zhang Cheng released a small portion of the magical energy within his body.

"Who are you?!" Richard's pupils contracted sharply, and he asked loudly with great tension.

If he weren't afraid of scaring away the girls around him, he might have immediately chosen to show his other side to deal with the threat in front of him.

"Relax! Don't be nervous! While I still have some patience, get out of my sight immediately, or you know what will happen." Zhang Cheng issued his ultimatum without hesitation.

Richard glanced at Tracy, who was completely unaware of what had happened, hesitated for a few seconds, and finally gritted his teeth and whispered something in the girl's ear before turning around and driving his flashy chartered car into the darkness of the night.

Watching the "little fish" disappear from sight, Zhang Cheng feigned disdain and scoffed, "This is your new boyfriend?"

"Damn it! Why did you treat him like that? Are you jealous?" Tracy rolled her eyes in annoyance.

Undoubtedly, she was completely unaware of the covert confrontation that had just taken place, and even less aware that she was currently in an extremely dangerous situation.

“Jealousy? No, no, no, you don’t seem to understand your situation. Forget it, why bother telling you this? You wouldn’t understand anyway. Okay, stop talking nonsense and open the door. I can’t wait to take a good shower, eat something, and go to bed.” Zhang Cheng urged the girl impatiently.

The latter sighed helplessly, took out his key, opened the villa door, and the two entered the living room one after the other.

Tracy casually kicked off her high heels and asked without turning her head, "Mr. Wizard, do you believe in love at first sight?"

"Love at first sight? Hahahaha!" Zhang Cheng couldn't help but burst into laughter, explaining as he laughed, "You know what? A person's composition isn't entirely made up of the human cells carried in your genes. To be precise, human cells make up less than 48% of the human body; the rest is made up of countless bacteria and viruses. This means that when someone develops feelings for another person, it's often not determined by human cells, but by the mutual attraction caused by the convergence of bacteria and viruses in their body. Tell me, can you call this love at first sight...?"

Chapter 260 Harvest (Part 1)

"My God! Where did you hear this from? I've never heard of it before!" Tracy looked up, staring at Zhang Cheng in disbelief.

She never dreamed that she would hear words like "gene," "cell," "bacteria," and "virus" from the mouth of a wizard who wielded powerful magic.

After all, in her eyes, magic and technology, even if not opposed, should be completely unrelated. But now a wizard was talking about cutting-edge biotechnology research results that she didn't even know about, so she couldn't help but feel a sense of absurdity and strangeness.

Zhang Cheng clearly understood the girl's thoughts and asked with a smile, "What, in your eyes, am I the kind of weirdo who hides in the basement all day, cooking all sorts of disgusting things in a filthy pot? No, dear Tracy, magic is not the primitive, superstitious, ignorant, and barbaric power you imagine. On the contrary, it is a complex knowledge and skill that requires long-term study and experimentation to master, a discipline that is more ancient and profound than modern science. You can think of it as a kind of fringe science."

“Jimmy science…” Tracy’s lips twitched involuntarily. She took off her coat and skirt, put on a loose gray T-shirt, and sat down on the sofa with a casual air, turning on the TV.

Whether intentionally or unintentionally, she seemed completely unconcerned about the revealing exposure during her change of clothes, as if she considered this place her own home.

Zhang Cheng didn't expose the girl's little scheme. As he walked upstairs to the bedroom, he casually explained, "That's right! That's why I never see magic and science as two opposing systems, but rather as mirrors that can learn from each other. When magical research hits a bottleneck, I try to think about it from a modern scientific perspective. Oh, I almost forgot, for safety's sake, I suggest you stay away from your new boyfriend. He's not as simple as he seems."

"What do you mean? You think there's something wrong with Richard?" Tracy was clearly taken aback.

"Yes! I don't know if he told you, but he and I are actually the same kind of people. I believe you understand what that means." After saying that, Zhang Cheng walked straight through the stairs and corridor, returned to his bedroom, and then locked the door with a click.

Left alone in the living room, Tracy heard the door close and jumped up from the sofa, angrily cursing, "Shit! I knew Richard was up to something! How could a man as rich, handsome, witty, and charming as him fall in love with me for no reason! He's been hiding a secret all along! Bastard! Bastard! Bastard!"

Hearing the faint sounds of things being smashed outside the door, Zhang Cheng smiled and shook his head. He took out the mysterious parchment from his pocket and muttered to himself in a low voice, "Alright, now let me see how much this adventure has yielded..."

The once empty sheepskin was now covered with several lines of tiny characters:

Quest – Game of Thrones Completed. You not only successfully placed Daenerys, who had been in exile, on the Iron Throne through a series of means, but you also became her rightful husband. Overall rating: Excellent. Reward: Azerothian class – Mage, level up 10.

Quest – Dragon. You have successfully hatched two dragon eggs and obtained the spell "Dragon's Oath," which allows you to summon the dragons you have sworn a pact with at any time.

Quest – Children of the Forest. You have not discovered the true source of the Children of the Forest and their magic; you only obtained a small amount of information from a prisoner. Quest failed.

Quest – Overcome Magic Addiction. Although you have temporarily overcome your addiction using opportunistic methods, this can still be considered a quest completion, and the reward is a magic pouch.

……

As he finished reading the last word, a massive surge of arcane energy rushed into his body, continuously transforming every cell and muscle, widening the originally narrow magical circuits so that more energy could be mobilized when casting spells, thereby increasing the power of the magic.

In reality, unlike in the game, mages in Azeroth don't differentiate spell levels based on power when casting the same spell. Instead, the spell damage is determined by the amount of energy gathered during casting. The width of the magic circuits within a mage's body determines the maximum power limit of the spell. Only when the magic circuits are wide enough can mages cast advanced spells, and that's all.

After the surging arcane energy gradually subsided, Zhang Cheng discovered that two new skills had appeared in his mind: Teleportation and Mana Crystal Creation. He also gained a few talent points. Including his previous accumulation, his current mage level should be equivalent to a little over level 50 in the game.

Clearly, absorbing a new type of magical energy in the world of A Song of Ice and Fire greatly helped him improve his mage level, especially by significantly increasing the upper limit of energy he could store.

If a normal Dalaran mage has a magic power value of ten, then this mage has eighteen, or even twenty or more.

After several weeks of training, he has mastered the method of storing two or more types of energy in his body at the same time. Now, he only needs a few bottles of well water to allow arcane energy and the mysterious energy of the Song of Ice and Fire to coexist, and he can use one of them as needed.

This means that he can cast more than twice as many spells as most mages of the same level, giving him an obvious advantage in battle.

Without any hesitation!

Zhang Cheng continued to follow the previously established plan, investing the points he had just acquired into the Frost talent tree, enhancing Blizzard, Ice Cone, and Shatter Ice, one talent after another that could greatly improve combat power was unlocked.

Most importantly, I finally obtained the ultimate Frost talent I had always dreamed of—Ice Armor.

With this, he doesn't have to worry too much about being ambushed by ranged weapons like arrows and guns during battle. As long as the Frost Shield is still active, no physical or magical attack can directly harm the mage's fragile body, and he can also buy enough reaction time in the midst of a chaotic battle.

As for the remaining points, he poured them all into the Arcane talents, unlocking Arcane Vitality, a talent that players generally consider useless in the game.

moment!

A faint energy shield, invisible to the naked eye, covers the skin's surface from all angles. While it's far less effective than a magic shield or an ice shield in terms of physical defense, it's still the last line of defense to protect one's life.

After all, reality isn't a game where you can just run back to your corpse after dying. Zhang Cheng wouldn't hesitate to use even the weakest possible protection to protect himself as much as possible.

In addition, the enhanced Arcane Missiles and Arcane Focus talents not only greatly reduce the rate of mana consumption during combat, but also allow him to eliminate the time spent casting spells and launch attacks anytime, anywhere...

Chapter 261 Harvest (Part 2)

“That’s right…this is the power I want…but it’s not enough…I need more…more…” Zhang Cheng muttered to himself, clenching his fist.

Just as he was immersed in the immense joy of his increased power, a brown leather bag, no bigger than a woman's makeup bag, appeared in his palm, with a leather cord at each end for securing it.

Without even asking, it's obvious that this is the magic waist bag that can carry a volume of no more than ten cubic meters and a weight of no more than one hundred kilograms.

Driven by intense curiosity, Zhang Cheng first threw the parchment onto the table and carefully examined the somewhat dirty and worn-out leather container. It didn't seem like an extremely rare magical container at all; instead, it looked like a garbage bag for holding junk.

Even in the technologically advanced magical kingdom of Dalaran, a magical container capable of reducing the size of an item is extremely rare. Most mages' backpacks only reduce weight by 20% to 40%, and as for reducing size, only a very few archmages who have made significant contributions to the Kirin Tor Council are qualified to obtain one.

Despite his inner grumbling, when he reached inside the belt, his face quickly revealed undisguised surprise.

Because inside the bag, what he touched was not tanned leather, but a fragment of space that had been torn off from somewhere.

In other words, the leather fanny pack itself is just a disguise, an entrance and a passage; the unknown space fragments tied to the backpack are the main body.

"Interesting, this is really interesting. Perhaps this is the biggest gain from this adventure." Zhang Cheng was overjoyed and grabbed the things on the table, putting them in and taking them out repeatedly. He felt the barrier created when passing through the passage and didn't notice that there was an inconspicuous line of letters hidden inside the waist bag. These letters were ones he had never seen before.

About an hour or two later, fatigue and drowsiness gradually calmed his previously excited nerves. After locking all his important belongings in the basement, Zhang Cheng drank two or three bottles of well water to ensure he had enough arcane energy stored in his body before taking a shower and falling into a deep sleep.

When I woke up the next day, the sun was already past noon and was shining in through the gaps in the blinds, so bright that I couldn't open my eyes.

"Damn it! I overslept!"

Rubbing his eyes, he quickly got out of bed, washed up as fast as he could, put on modern clothes, and headed straight for the greenhouse behind the villa, which was filled with herbs.

Having been away for a whole week, he was eager to see how the seeds he had sown were growing, especially the Dreamleaf Grass and Mountain Silver Grass he had bought at a high price.

These two important alchemical raw materials are not like those in the game, where they respawn every forty minutes or so on several high-level maps. They are so rare that experienced herbalists need to avoid all kinds of terrible monsters and go deep into the desolate wilderness to find them, and they only have a little stock every few months.

It can be said that apart from the Cenarion Circle, which is composed entirely of druids, there is no other organization on the entire continent of Azeroth that can provide high-grade herbs in large quantities.

The reason is simple: the higher the grade of the herb, the more demanding its growing environment and the more magical energy it needs to absorb; neither can be lacking.

Although Zhang Cheng used special soil from Un'Goro Crater and the evergreen bags invented by the druids to grow these herbs, he was still a little uneasy.

However, this worry disappeared completely after he pushed open the greenhouse door, replaced by a face full of joy.

The once somewhat empty land was now covered with colorful plants and flowers, the most numerous of which were peace lilies. The white sea of ​​flowers densely covered nearly a quarter of the greenhouse area, accompanied by a large number of silverleaf grass and ground root grass.

Because the well water continuously releases strong energy radiation, these low-grade herbs, which already grow very quickly, are now ready for harvest.

If nothing unexpected happens, we won't have to worry about low-level alchemy materials for a long time.

As for slightly higher-grade herbs such as heather, bruise grass, wild steel flower, golden thorn grass, winter thorn grass, and Khadgar's beard, many of them have also reached maturity and can be harvested in two more days.

Finally, and most importantly, several Mountain Silversage, Dreamleaf, and Grom's Blood plants in the corner also successfully sprouted and did not wither and die due to lack of care.

Admiring the greenhouse full of herbs, Zhang Cheng pursed his lips and said in a meaningful tone, "The time has finally come! It's time to take action, make some contact with those high-ranking figures, and test just how deep the waters of this world really are."