I Might As Well Quit This Lousy Wizard Profession

Chapter 63 - 63 062 Furnace and Filters

?Chapter 63: 062 Furnace and Filters Chapter 63: 062 Furnace and Filters The sky gradually darkened, a gentle breeze fluttering the curtains, a speckled white circle hung in the deep blue horizon.

Chen Shuyun’s expression was extremely serious.

“Wizards are emotional monsters, and I need you to grasp this deeply,” she said.

Seeing Lin An’s earnestness, her tightly furrowed brows also relaxed a bit, as she gently removed her fisherman’s hat and placed it aside, letting the breeze blow through her long hair.

“The human heart is an especially complex thing. Our ancestors spoke of ‘the heart being like a monkey mind and a galloping horse,’ while abroad they talk about ‘a fierce tiger locked in the heart,’ and wizards are precisely the ones who tame this monkey, this horse, this tiger.”

“But such taming is not easy, sometimes they break free of their reins, which is most common among those who have just awakened, and becomes more severe among those who delve deeper into witchcraft.”

“You must have felt it when I visited your home last time, didn’t you?”

“I’m not making excuses for myself, wizards are inherently unjust beings, monsters; there’s no need for excuses, I am simply explaining what happened.”

Chen Shuyun’s voice had a unique softness, tender and with a hint of faint sadness.

“In the future, when you meet other wizards, you will become even more clear on this point; wizards are emotional monsters!”

“Even emotions are just the most basic thing, after all, the human heart is so complex.”

She diverted her gaze from the night sky outside the window, looking intently at Lin An in front of her, “The subconscious is also a part of the human heart. When we meet a stranger, our subconscious judgment of them can easily affect our attitude towards that person.”

“This influence is intangible.”

“And among the monster group of wizards, it is magnified to an extent you can hardly imagine.”

“And because you have learned Breathing Skill, you might subconsciously make a wizard associate you with the evil Witch-hunting Knight, thus instinctively feeling hostility towards you.”

Lin An’s gaze grew heavy. Chen Shuyun was not lying. After all, the huge python and the little squirrel in the room would vouch for that.

“But I’ve already learned it. I thought it was a method of health cultivation. What should I do now?” He realized the gravity of the issue, which in the field of games was called—friendly relationship with the wizard faction -1.

This was not a good thing.

“Marks are left by the wind. Health Cultivation Skill, yoga, sprinting, long-distance running, cycling… any sport will leave its trace on you, and you can’t look like someone who’s never exercised.”

Chen Shuyun meticulously pointed out.

“Maybe you need to learn more sporting skills so that the state of movement in your body becomes more even, and you won’t have the clear scent of only having practiced Baqinxi.”

“It shouldn’t be,” she said with some doubt, pointing at the Ugly Head in the corner howling ‘the monster is coming,’ “I saw you playing basketball; how come your body doesn’t have any traces of basketball?”

Lin An turned to glance at the head, then back at Chen Shuyun, “I just started getting interested, I haven’t had the opportunity to learn yet.”

Chen Shuyun nodded without further comment, returning to the previous topic, “Baqinxi, or any other breathing exercises, you can’t learn them anymore.”

“That is the kung fu of cultivating one’s moral character, and what wizards fear most is just that.”

Lin An’s expression shifted, “Because it affects emotions?”

“Yes!” Chen Shuyun sighed deeply, “Actually, both witches and Witch-hunting Knights, through generations of exploration, have undergone tragedies. You don’t know what happened at the ‘Witches’ Gathering’; the previous generation tried to control their emotions, tried every method, and in the end, without exception, they only accelerated their transformation into Sorcerer Zombies.”

“At that time, everyone realized, the influence of the Spirit World Aura, it’s not just our emotions; as we contain our emotions, the Spiritual Energy starts to affect our other — ”
“Subconscious, memory, emotions, and so on.”

Her expression turned somewhat sad, “Do you know what happens when your memories are influenced by Spiritual Energy? Those most painful past memories become crystal clear, as if they were right before your eyes, ultimately driving us mad and causing our emotions to spiral out of control.”

“Our predecessors explored this path with their lives, and now the only thing that we can be sure of, although not very useful but also not harmful, is the yoga meditation method you’re planning to learn from me.”

She seemed somewhat pessimistic, “It’s better than nothing, but it’s really not very useful.”

“Emotion is a double-edged sword; it’s extremely powerful, powerful to the extent that a wizard who survives the outburst of the emotional period of wizard apprenticeship, after having superficially learned some witchcraft, can confront powerful Witch Hunter Knights.”

“It’s also extremely terrifying, devouring the wizard’s soul.”

“Is there really only one path leading to death?” Lin An was somewhat reluctant.

Chen Shuyun pursed her lips, her gaze distant, “This is Destiny. Witches who live a life of oblivious pleasures are carefree while those who struggle to seek an improved method fall into despair when they fail, their hearts shocked, and they turn into Sorcerer Zombies even faster.”

“But if you indulge your desires and allow emotions to grow strong, continuing down this path will also lead you to become a psychologically twisted monster, just as likely to turn into a Sorcerer Zombie.”

“…”

“…”

For a moment, the room fell into a state of extreme silence, so quiet it was suffocating.

Looking at the earnest Chen Shuyun before him, Lin An let down his guard a bit and tried to broach a subject that shouldn’t have been brought up, “Then… what about Witch-hunting Knights? What if I took the path of the Witch-hunting Knight?”

“Witch-hunting Knight?” Chen Shuyun chuckled lightly, “Of course, they suppress their emotions, after all, they’ve melted away their Seven Emotions and Six Desires in the Furnace, so of course they’re not affected by the Spirit World Aura.”

“Furnace?” Lin An heard the familiar term.

“The method of the Furnace can actually be traced back to the ceremonial magic of witches,” Chen Shuyun said with a touch of mockery whenever she talked about Witch-hunting Knights.

She chuckled lightly, “Do you remember the background of the cultivators’ world I told you about?” (Chapter 24)
Seeing Lin An nod, she continued, “Witch was the self-proclamation after people explored Spiritual Energy from the Spirit Realm when the Qi of Heaven and Earth was cut off; since then came the distinction between Witch and Witch Hunter Knight.”

“Many things about Witch-hunting Knights still bear the traces of witchcraft of witches.”

“The way of the Witch-hunting Knight…” Chen Shuyun narrowed her eyes, “originally began with a doctor from abroad who found that the impact of Spiritual Energy within a wizard’s body was akin to cancer cells.”

“So, he thought, spreading cancer cells throughout the body certainly wouldn’t do. Was there a way to make the cancer cells find an outlet in the body? To grow in just one place? Then cut it off, and wouldn’t that solve the problem?”

She lightly brushed her fallen hair behind her ear, “He actually found a way, a ritual magic for sacrificing to the Evil God, which he cleverly adapted by sacrificing to himself.”

While speaking, she looked at Lin An with a somewhat amused expression, “Guess what he turned into?”

But there was nothing funny about it.

She didn’t wait for Lin An to guess and continued to tell the story, “He grew a pair of goat horns, a pair of wings, and a tail.”

“A demon?” Lin An was astonished.

“Even worse than a demon!” Chen Shuyun looked at Lin An with teasing eyes, “Think about it, what did he sacrifice to himself?”

Lin An clearly realized the problem and gasped, “Emotions?”

Chen Shuyun gazed deeply at him, “It’s the Seven Emotions and Six Desires!”

“Regardless of how much witches and Witch-hunting Knights explore, there are only these two paths. Witches head towards the uncontrollable extreme of the mind, while Witch-hunting Knights head towards the silence of the soul!”

“During the cultivation process of Witch-hunting Knights, their desires gradually dissipate from their hearts, eventually turning them into the living dead, into very odd statues.”

“After the awakening of a witch, they deal with surging emotions, while Witch-hunting Knights, after their awakening, deal with the disappearance of the Seven Emotions and Six Desires, with some people losing their appetite all at once.”

“Not able to savor the goodness of even the finest foods.”

Chen Shuyun pointed to the iron plate on the table next to them, “This fish, Witch-hunting Knights call it ‘Stone Treasure’, witches call it ‘Precious Pet’, but it doesn’t matter. Lu Dexian clearly doesn’t understand the pain of Witch-hunting Knights, talking to you about it as if it’s just a subject.”

“The ultimate fate of Witch-hunting Knights is similar to that of these Precious Pets.”

“!!!” Lin An’s eyes widened as he took in a cool breath.

Good grief, this is a dead end in both directions!

Witches are on a path of no return, and Witch-hunting Knights, too?

But he quickly caught on to another issue, “Awakening? Did you just say Witch-hunting Knights awakening?”

Chen Shuyun nodded, “Witches have a hereditary inheritance, Witch-hunting Knights have a master-disciple inheritance. Before they become these ‘Precious Pet’ states, they will sever their cultivated Transcendent characteristics, bestow them upon their disciples, and through a ritual, allow the disciple to inherit their power.”

“Generation after generation accumulates, and that’s why they can currently suppress witches.”

“By the way, that ritual was also modified from witchcraft!”

Lin An didn’t care about such origins of knowledge, as his thoughts turned to the Lu Jiao inside his young boss’s body, he looked at Chen Shuyun blankly, “It’s not through cultivation that one becomes a Witch-hunting Knight?”

“It’s possible, the earliest Witch-hunting Knights were indeed cultivated,” Chen Shuyun’s answer eased Lin An’s relief, but her next words made his heart leap again, “Only it’s quite dangerous, that’s all.”

She shook her head, “It is said that out of ten people who operate a Cultivation Furnace, perhaps one succeeds? We don’t have many ways to understand the current situation of Witch-hunting Knights, but that used to be the case.”

“Then…” Lin An swallowed nervously, “What about the ones that fail?”

Chen Shuyun glanced again at the plate of fish on the table, revealing a ‘you know what I mean’ expression.

Seeing Lin An’s startled look, she couldn’t help chuckling, her demeanor suggesting she was enjoying the misfortune of enemies while she shared amusing anecdotes with Lin An, “When Witch-hunting Knights once called themselves ‘Demon Hunters’, there was an ‘Animal Husbandry Faction’.”

“Animal, as in livestock. It meant they treated witches like domestic animals for herding.”

“Under specific conditions, they would torture the imprisoned witches, accelerating their emotional extremities, turning them quickly into Sorcerer Zombies. Then they would strip materials from the Sorcerer Zombies to throw into the Furnace, aiding in their cultivation.”

“Ah this…” Lin An didn’t understand why Chen Shuyun seemed so cheerful discussing such a topic.

“You know what?”

Amidst Lin An’s vigilant demeanor, Chen Shuyun’s persona instantly shifted from graceful and demure to somewhat sinister and maniacal.

However, she didn’t show signs of madness, merely clenched her fists tightly, her complexion turning somewhat pale as if enduring something unbearable.

She turned to look at Lin An, licked her lips, “The Animal Husbandry Faction quickly found an even better method than torturing witches!”

“Heh…”

She let out a somewhat cryptic chuckle.

“They began to recruit disciples extensively, those fools who didn’t realize Witch-hunting Knights could only pass on their mantle to one disciple – one that they reserved for their own son, not for any disciple.”

“They were exceptionally kind to their disciples, instructing them, helping them condense their Furnace, capturing Sorcerer Zombies and finding Stone Treasures for the disciples, so they could cultivate their Furnace and become stronger.”

“Ha, and then all those disciples turned into statues, which were simply better for cultivation materials than Sorcerer Zombies!”

“Those fools never imagined when their master was enhancing the Stone Treasure, they would end up becoming Stone Treasures themselves, to give back to their master.”

“How clever, to use witches as filters for the Spirit World Aura and then use the apprentices as filters for the Sorcerer Phantom Demonic Qi.”

“And so, the Animal Husbandry Faction turned the livestock they herded from the witches into their own disciples, ha ha ha.”

Lin An was stunned.

He didn’t find it funny, not one bit.