Chapter 1173: Hamstrung
First of all, no matter what was behind that stellar gate, Ren Xiaosu was extremely intrigued by the Prosperous Northwest spell.
After all, the words “Prosperous Northwest” themselves already carried extraordinary significance!
The roar from earlier had alarmed the entire relay station. Qian Weining, who was drunk, was suddenly jolted awake. “What was that sound just now?”
The guards were also puzzled. “I think it came from Lord Melgor’s room. But we could only determine the direction of the sound, not which room it came from.”
“Hurry up and go see what’s going on.” Qian Weining urged, “Bring your swords and be careful!”
More than a dozen guards quietly placed their hands on the hilts of their broadswords and quietly went deeper inside the relay station. All of a sudden, Melgor’s door swung open. He said to the guards, “I was performing an alchemy experiment just now. Return to your rooms and don’t disturb me.”
Upon hearing that, the guards said, “Oh, Lord Melgor, please carry on then. We’ll take our leave now.”
Things like alchemy were extremely mysterious to ordinary folk, so no one could tell whether it was true or not when alchemy was used as an excuse to cover up a secret.
Melgor looked at the departing guards and heaved a sigh of relief. Although he looked very calm on the surface, he was actually extremely flustered!
He hurriedly went over and knocked on Ren Xiaosu’s door. Then he lowered his voice and said, “What on earth are you doing?!”
…
As Qian Weining and his men’s rooms were farther away, they were not sure which room the roar came from. But Melgor was right next door, so how could he not know?
Ren Xiaosu opened the door and let Melgor in. He bluntly said, “Let me ask you something. Are there any spells that aren’t recorded in the Introduction to Sorcery?”
“There’s a lot.” Melgor said, “The Introduction to Sorcery had been edited many times, so a lot of the spells that were clan-exclusive were removed. I heard that before they were edited out, the Introduction to Sorcery was twice as thick as it is now. For example, there used to be dozens of bloodline spells listed in the Introduction to Sorcery. There was the Bloodline Summoning spell, and even spells that could allow a son to inherit their father’s inner world of meditation. But later, all the bloodline spells were edited out by the sixth edition. It seems that the top sorcerer clans don’t want others to know their secrets too well.”
“Something like that happened?” Ren Xiaosu nodded. “No wonder y’all said that the Introduction to Sorcery has no reference value.”
“Mhm, if it were the complete and unedited Introduction to Sorcery, someone could probably sell it for a million gold coins, and there would still be sorcerers willing to buy it.” Melgor said, “It would be priceless.”
“It’s a pity that the Introduction to Sorcery that Russell spent so much effort writing in his later years has gone to waste like that.” Ren Xiaosu said, “Then let me ask you something else. Have you ever heard of a spell that can open a dimensional portal?”
Melgor was stunned. He looked at Ren Xiaosu. “You opened a dimensional portal just now? You don’t even know the language of the Magi. How did you cast the spell? A word of advice: You had better not test out spells by randomly pronouncing incantations. What if it turns out to be a spell that sacrifices yourself to cast?”
“There’s even self-sacrifice spells?” Ren Xiaosu was shocked.
“Of course there are.” Melgor said, “It’s mentioned in The Sorcerer Chronicles that there was a sorcerer from a small clan who tried discovering spells for himself because he couldn’t obtain the high-level spells. In the end, he immolated himself.”
Ren Xiaosu thought to himself that this was similar to the legend of Shennong tasting a hundred herbs. It was just that Shennong1 did not die but the sorcerer did.
He described to Melgor, “I tried casting a spell just now. After I was done reciting the incantation, starlight immediately appeared, and a small doorway of about half a meter in diameter opened up in front of me. Behind it was a wasteland, and the ground was covered in black scorch marks. That roar also came from behind the door.”
“Wait a minute.” Melgor said, “In fact, I’ve heard of the spell you’ve just described….”
Ren Xiaosu’s eyes lit up. “What spell is it?”
“It’s a summoning spell.” Melgor said firmly, “It’s not important what’s behind the door, but it’s easy to determine based on the characteristics of a stellar gate appearing. It’s a summoning spell!”
“A summoning spell? The kind that can summon extremely powerful creatures from another realm?” Ren Xiaosu’s eyes lit up.
But Melgor laughed and said, “Don’t let your imagination run wild. This is a spell widely recognized as useless among the Magi.”
“It looks very powerful, though, so why call it useless?” Ren Xiaosu could not understand.
“Summoning spells might sound very powerful, but it can’t summon monsters from other worlds.” Melgor explained, “In fact, since the development of sorcery, no one has ever opened any dimensional portal to other realms. At most, there’s portals to travel from one place to another within this world. There’s no such thing as other realms.”
Melgor continued, “At the beginning, when the magus order discovered the summoning spell, a lot of people reacted as ecstatically as you. But later, they realized the things they summoned were basically just sheep, cows, and rabbits. A more powerful archmage might be able to summon more ferocious beasts like lions, tigers, warhorses, brown bears, and so on. But think about it. What are these ordinary beasts in the face of powerful spells?”
Ren Xiaosu thought about it carefully and realized it did seem to make sense. For a sorcerer who could freeze an entire city, why would he feel threatened by tigers or lions? He only needed to raise an arm and kill them with a spell.
From the look of things, the summoning spell was indeed a little hamstrung.
Ren Xiaosu was rather indignant. “Then if I practice the spell more times, can I summon stronger creatures?”
“Of course not.” Melgor said, “It can only summon larger creatures. What’s awkward is that the larger creatures are mostly ocean dwelling. An archmage once practiced the spell for more than a decade and summoned a killer whale, but the creature died not long after it was dropped onto the ground. That was before The Cataclysm, and the incident was recorded in some books about anecdotes of the Magi. Later, summoning spells became ranked as one of the top ten most useless spells. When everyone heard about it, they just treated it as amusing chatter. No one would want to practice it.”
Melgor said, “Think about it. For a sorcerer to spend over a decade specializing in such a spell just to summon a killer whale, how useless is that? So who would want to spend all those years taking a path that leads nowhere?”
If all it took was spending money to improve the level of their sorcery, many sorcerers would probably still be willing to try learning the spell. But if it meant spending their youth to perfect it, no one would be willing to take such a risk.
The summoning spell had been abandoned by all sorcerers. In fact, no one could even find the corresponding incantations and meditative visualization diagrams for it anymore.
Ren Xiaosu fell silent. He could not accept the fact that the corresponding spell of “Prosperous Northwest” was so useless. Clearly, these words had unparalleled significance to them.
And most importantly, there might be no point in summoning creatures before The Cataclysm. But what about after The Cataclysm? He had seen gigantic six-meter-tall bears with his own eyes!
1
When he recalled the roar he heard through the stellar gate, it sounded so strong and alluring. Ren Xiaosu suddenly had the urge to use all of his Proficiency Stones on the “Prosperous Northwest” spell.