Chapter 274: The Essence of Spells

When he turned the page, it was not an anatomical drawing, but a series of familiar patterns.

Countless hexagons covered the entire sheet, even spilling over the edges and smearing onto adjacent pages; the extending lines seemed like a hazy glow, or perhaps swimming whiskers and webbed fins, dominating his field of vision.

"We stood in darkness, with the sound of great water ahead, but those sounds grew clearer as the light brightened, and then I saw that thing." The hand holding the pen trembled slightly, making the text jump irregularly.

"No, I did not see it, but I did 'see' it, right below."

Countless thoughts erupted in his mind, forming sentences filled with adjectives, which were then struck through and blacked out in whole passages. He had found the answer, understood something, yet felt he understood nothing at all.

A glimpse of the colossal entity completely altered his mind; its image swam from the waters into his brain, occupying every inch of that limited mental world.

In the pale, ghastly light, he felt the implant beneath his skin become the medium connecting and resonating with it, transmitting pure information in a way that required no translation.

【Pain】

That sensation felt as though it had been imprisoned for countless ages in a place as thin as paper; searing pain conducted like heat along metal, melting the wax of consciousness into a shapeless flow, pouring it into a new mold to shape a new form, just as its fragments reshaped biological bodies.

When resonating with his own pain and that extreme, prolonged agony, the derivatives of such pain were also bestowed upon the recipient.

It was an intense longing to tear open the present world and return to somewhere.

This longing, derived from pain, catalyzed by the inherent properties of the implant, transformed into a phenomenon unheard of.

Space tore like a canvas, splitting open a long, sharp fissure.

In close-contact resonance, he shared the will of that existence, along with a small bonus.

The so-called miraculous healing effect was merely the shallowest function of the fragments, solving temporary physical pain.

But illness is endless; even if part of it is solved today through surgical advances, it is but a drop in the bucket, because consciousness anchored in the body living in the present world is itself the greatest pain.

And he had already learned the ultimate solution—join its return until reaching the source that does not belong to the present world.

"I understand." He no longer had doubts; like a steadfast believer receiving an oracle, he was certain that a great work for ten thousand ages would be accomplished in his hands.

The leader of the small group, his beloved guide, revealed a satisfied smile, stepped forward to embrace him, and welcomed him as a true new member.

"We will solve all illnesses; we are the righteous walking upon the earth."

The author set aside the surgical issues and returned to anatomical work, with a new anatomical atlas being updated daily in the book.

A vast number of seemingly plausible structures were recorded; they appeared to be secondary creations based on the human body, adding parts that should not exist onto the original foundation.

On a diagram marked as an adult male, Kraft saw fifteen thoracic vertebrae and seven lumbar vertebrae; the five extra vertebrae formed a new physiological curve, appearing unusually flexible.

Correspondingly, the ribcage was elongated; the left lung within the rib cage had an additional horizontal fissure outside the oblique fissure, giving it an extra lobe. The diaphragm was overdeveloped, suggesting he might compensate for the limited capacity of respiratory muscles after lung volume expansion through abdominal breathing.

Some structures showed regression, returning to a state of growth and development, which also meant they were more unstable.

If some of this could still be identified as something, others had reached a completely incomprehensible state, almost a pure mixture of tissues where anything could be found, and... that fragment.

Dim, ghastly fragments, identical to the one implanted beneath his skin.

Regarding the source, he called them "sent up from below"; the vast majority were in a state of "very difficult to determine time of death," having died long ago yet retaining basic form and resilience.

Combined with the high-resilience soft tissues adapted to the structural mutations, specialized custom instruments were required for processing.

After extensive dissection, several general conclusions were drawn: First, these fragments had excellent compatibility with the human body, causing neither inflammation nor necrosis at the implantation site like other foreign objects, but instead promoting growth.

The second conclusion was that the fundamental purpose of all manifestations of this thing was to facilitate proliferation and aggregation. Depending on needs, it would assume two states: one was to develop existing anatomical structures to enable higher-intensity activities ensuring survival; the final form of this trend is hard to imagine.

The second was to rapidly extract moisture and a certain vitality upon the host's death, forming a shapeless primitive biomass around itself, waiting like a self-feeding embryo for an opportunity to seize new nutrients.

This was the most suitable time for proliferation and aggregation; it would directly assimilate any contacted organism into itself, growing infinitely.

Besides this, the records repeatedly mentioned "attempts made by predecessors," praising them as excellent validations. A group of figures who lived long before them had once tried to extract unnatural power from it, leaving behind this ruin, and gave these ghastly fragments a name:

【Moon Bones】

They initially thought the predecessors' legacy had all been laid to rest in coffins as Funerary items, until several sample collectors went missing, making them realize that they were not the only ones active here.

The trouble was, as their activities increased, the most excellent of the predecessors' attempts was becoming increasingly active.

He had tried using the method of creating fissures to deal with it, but quickly realized that cutting was useless against something without a fixed form, and would instead stimulate it to actively begin hunting to some extent.

That accident claimed nearly half of those active in the maze; ultimately, it stopped before the corridor.

Due to various considerations, they finally decided not to remove this thing, and could even, when necessary, artificially draw it out through high-intensity "spellcasting" acts to solve some troubles that came knocking.

Facts proved this was a presumptuous bad idea; over-activating the ability directly caused the black salt embedded in the arm, used to suppress tissue proliferation, to melt directly into activated black liquid, which then flowed backward through the veins in a full circuit.

The extremely strong inhibitory effect directly caused some physiologically suffocating reactions, including but not limited to bradycardia, respiratory depression, and a drastic drop in relative blood volume caused by the relaxation of vascular smooth muscles.

Simply put, before the black liquid could exert its effect of pulling a person from mind to body into the depths, the person was already dead.

This also proved their application was still in a shallow stage, with no understanding of their own ability's upper limits.

But the trouble he caused before dying was real; theoretically, that huge chaotic entity could swallow any armed force within the bounds of common sense.

Until the very end of the notes, he was still in endless attempts, seeking a balance in the amount of implant.

At present, he believed the maximum human tolerance would not exceed "Moon Bones" the size of two fingers; any larger would directly cause mental loss of control. This was calculated by one of their colleagues who had gone further than the rest; he had not seen this person for some time.

And others, including his guiding mentor, had also left long ago.

"They went down; I will complete the cleanup work. May they succeed."

"We arrived a bit late, but not too late. Let's see what they left behind." Kraft closed the book, stood waiting for the others to disperse, and then showed Green the black liquid extracted from the incision.

He scanned the remains before him with special senses; there was not a trace of a spiritual entity inside, as if completely consumed. "Good news; I think I know why the production of that miraculous anesthetic is so limited."