Chapter 14: Wasteland Space

Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio  Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio

“Wait a moment!” Su Ye stopped Hark.

Hark stopped in his tracks and turned his head to look at Su Ye.

Su Ye had a slight smile on his face as he reached toward Hark.

Although it didn’t show on Hark’s face, something coiled tightly within him, preparing for violence.

Su Ye grabbed Hark’s short sword.

“I’ll return it to you when I have the time. Thank you.” Su Ye lifted the bronze short sword and charged into the house.

Hark opened his mouth and exhaled deeply as he turned to leave. He had only taken a few steps when he turned to look at Su Ye’s house. He had the urge to leap over the wall and retrieve his short sword.

That wasn’t an ordinary bronze short sword. It was a magic short sword that was even sharper than steel. It had taken a year of scrimping for him to save enough money to purchase it.

***

In the house, Su Ye held the short sword and examined it closely.

“This definitely isn’t an average bronze sword. Not bad. I can use it to defend myself,” Su Ye thought to himself. He started to deliberate about how he should spend the night.

Thoughts raced through Su Ye’s heart as he stared at the short sword. No matter how much he planned, there were too many ways that tonight could go wrong. If Lawrence slipped into a frenzy or if the person behind the scenes decided to take action directly, Su Ye might die before dawn.

“I’ll have to reserve this idea as a desperate attempt to save myself if I run out of options…”

Su Ye thought for a moment, then entered his living room. He then bowed deeply toward the three divine statues of Zeus, Athena, and Vulcan.

“O three great deities, I would only employ such a lowly tactic to save myself. It is not my intention to commit blasphemy. Those who would truly commit blasphemy are those who would step over you and kill me in front of your eyes.”

Su Yu slowly moved the statues of the three deities to the door after he spoke. He placed them with their faces pointing outward.

Su Ye looked at the dark figures of the three stone statues as he stood within his pitch-black living room. For some reason, his heart felt empty.

Su Ye flipped open the spellbook and sent a letter to the school administration office of the academy.

“Someone wants to kill a student of the Plato Academy tonight, and that student is me. My performance has been poor and I deserve to be neglected, but if I am really killed and if the great mages of Plato Academy have the time, please help me exact revenge. I believe that you can do it! With respect, Su Ye.”

After Su Ye sent the message, he started to flip through the moving, three-dimensional magic within the spellbook. Soon, the magical three-dimensional figure of an old man surfaced. The figure was about an inch tall, with a thick head of white hair and a beard. He had a kind expression. Even though his eyes looked hazy, the outline of the figure was exquisite.

Plato.

Su Ye set the opened the spellbook behind the three divine statues. He then unfolded the copy of the letter he penned just now and placed it in front of the magic projection of Plato.

“I entrust my life to the four of you!”

Su Ye bowed earnestly. He had done all that he could do. If the other party truly wanted to kill him, then he would undoubtedly die even if he escaped the city of Athens.

He had done his best, and now he was leaving it to the will of the gods.

However, Su Ye didn’t go to sleep. Instead, he sat down on the chair in his living room. He closed his eyes and rested, the hilt of the bronze sword in hand.

It had been an exhausting day. Shortly after closing his eyes, Su Ye entered dreamland.

“Oh?”

Su Ye blinked his eyes continuously as he looked around.

“This dream seems unusually realistic.”

Su Ye noticed that he was in the middle of a wasteland. The ground around him was torn and ravaged. There was an old and broken staircase, as well as toppled stone columns with cracks spidering up them. Everything here was ancient and destroyed. Su Ye wondered how many years these ruins had laid here.

This wasteland was only about two square hundred meters, and it was shaped in an irregular circle. Outside of the perimeter was unending white light.

After scanning his surroundings, Su Ye turned to look at the end of the circular wasteland in front of him.

There was a headless statue stood silently before him. The statue’s arms hung straight at its side, and it was dressed in a simple long robe.

Su Ye wasn’t certain about the style of the long robe, as it seemed that there were similar styles in both eastern and western Greece. However, when he looked closely at the robe, he noted several unique aspects that didn’t seem to align with any style he knew of.

In front of the huge headless statue was a circular table.

Su Ye only realized that the circular table was a round platform made out of stone when he walked up the stairs and arrived before it.

Most of the round platform was white. Outside of the white area at the center of the platform were layers of gold rings, ten layers in all. Each of the rings was carved with extremely complicated black and gold symbols. The symbols increased in size the further away they got from the center.

For some reason, Su Ye knew that this round platform was a sacrificial altar the moment he saw it. It almost felt as though the sacrificial altar was communicating with him.

“This dream is strange…”

Su Ye extended his hand and touched the round table. It was solid beneath his fingers, and he could feel the texture of the material.

“This isn’t right!” Su Ye realized.

He suddenly opened his mouth and said, “Major premise: all Greeks believe in deities. Minor premise: I am Greek. Thus, I believe in deities. This…”

Su Ye’s eyes were filled with confusion.

Logic didn’t exist in the dreams of humans. Although these three sentences he had just blurted out were the simplest constructs of logic, they could never exist in a dream.

Su Ye reached down and pinched his thigh. There was no feeling.

“What is going on?”

Su Ye started to test various things, and after a few minutes of experimentation, he developed the beginnings of a hypothesis.

“This isn’t a dream. Instead, it is a strange space that allows my consciousness, but not my body, to enter. I want to go out!”

In the next instant, Su Ye opened his eyes in his living room again.

Su Ye was about to test it again when he noticed the figures of the three divine statues and Plato. He thought for a moment, then lugged his bronze sword and bag of coins behind him as he walked out. However, he didn’t step over the three statues and magic projection. Instead, he turned his body and slid sideways around them and out the door, hoping to avoid showing any disrespect.

Su Ye entered the bedroom. He then closed his eyes and recited silently in his heart, “I wish to enter.”

Nothing.

“I wish to enter that space.”

Nothing.

Su Ye thought for a moment, then started to picture the sacrificial altar in his mind. He then recited silently in his heart, “I wish to enter this space.”

Nothing.

Su Ye knitted his brows and thought for a long while. He suddenly closed his eyes and pictured the headless statue in his mind. For some reason, Su Ye felt as though he had developed a mysterious connection with the headless statue. It wasn’t unlike the connection he had with the spellbook.

“I wish to enter!”

Su Ye saw a flash of darkness and light as he entered the Wasteland Space again.

Su Ye suddenly remembered that he had seen a large underwater ruin when he encountered the tsunami in Greece and been swallowed by the ocean.

The ruins he could see in this Wasteland Space were identical to what he remembered of the underwater ruin.

“Could I have brought a portion of the underwater ruin here before I died? Or was my appearance in this world caused by that underwater ruin?”

Su Ye couldn’t come up with an answer no matter how hard he thought. For the moment, he decided to give up on trying to figure out what had brought him here, and instead, he started to think about the effects of the Wasteland Space.

“Since there’s a sacrificial altar here, I should be able to make an offering.” Once he had that key realization, Su Ye looked around. He then lowered his head and looked at his hands. They were empty.

“Can I bring in things from the outside world? And if I can’t bring in anything else, can I only offer myself?”

Su Ye stared at the sacrificial altar for a while, but ultimately decided not to step onto the altar. Instead, a light flashed past his eyes as he had an idea and returned to his bedroom.

Su Ye thought for a moment. This time, he held the bag of coins and the bronze short sword tightly, then imagined himself bringing these two items with him as he appeared before the headless statue.

Light flashed past his eyes, and Su Ye once again found himself in the Wasteland Space. He was standing on the sacrificial altar.

Su Ye lowered his head and then grinned widely. The bronze short sword and bag of coins were in his hands.