Deep within a gloomy alley, a figure crashed heavily to the ground.
He had appeared so abruptly, without the slightest warning, as though he had simply materialized out of thin air.
"My robes, my equipment, damn Karsus, damn those gravity spells, damn that interplanar gate, damn all of it!" The boy scrambled to his feet in a wretched state, strips of torn cloth hanging off his body as he muttered curses under his breath in a language no one else would understand.
At that moment, Charles was in an absolutely foul mood. His robes had been shredded by spatial forces while passing through the interplanar gate, and every magical item he had been carrying had been destroyed as well.
To think he had actually believed Karsus's twisted reasoning. That bastard was clearly still in the experimental stage when it came to using gravity magic, yet he had still talked him into it somehow. And somehow, he had believed him.
He was definitely going to make that bastard compensate him for every last loss. Teacher or not, this time he absolutely was not letting him off.
"Hm? Strange. I've turned into a child." Charles's attention was instantly drawn to the condition of his body. To his delight, he found that he had become much younger. He was already over a hundred years old. Although Ioulaum's Longevity had kept his appearance fixed at around thirty, making him one of the younger Great Arcanists by their standards, turning into an actual child was another matter entirely.
The change immediately piqued the Great Arcanist's interest. This was a highly valuable subject of study. In fact, it was so intriguing that he had already thrown aside the matter of being screwed over by Karsus.
Charles retraced what had happened when he passed through the interplanar gate. During the transfer, magic had spiraled out of control, destroying both his robes and his magical items. It seemed that one of his contingency spells had been triggered.
Wait, a contingency spell?
That still didn't make sense.
He had never heard of a contingency spell producing such an effect. If contingency magic could really make someone grow young again, then why would Great Arcanists go to the trouble of using Ioulaum's Longevity to extend their lives?
He thought hard, but still came up with nothing.
"And where exactly is this place?" Charles pulled his thoughts back and began checking his condition while observing his surroundings, trying to determine where he had ended up.
Come to think of it, he seemed to have been teleported to some very strange place.
Wait, why can't I cast spells? No, that's not right. His permanent darkvision was still functioning.
That meant magic could still be used.
And as long as magic could still be used, there was nothing worth worrying about.
That was the confidence of a Great Arcanist. He had lived a very long time and seen more than enough in his life. His nerves had been tempered long ago. What storms had he not weathered? He had gone toe-to-toe with demons, devils, and dragons alike.
What could possibly make Charles worry?
Only one thing, if magic could no longer be used. But magic was clearly still active. He was confident he would find a way to cast again. As long as magic existed, there was nothing that magic could not solve.
After turning a corner and walking a bit farther, Charles finally made his way out of the alley.
His gaze landed on the streetlamps by the roadside, and on the vehicles moving back and forth through the street, carriages?
"They look a bit like mechanical constructs," the boy murmured to himself. "Could it be that I've been transported to a plane where mechanical creations are highly advanced?"
"Look at that. Do you see what I found? Are those clothes some kind of new fashion?" said a young man nearby, his voice dripping with poorly concealed mockery.
"What's so strange about running into a freak on the street these days?"
Not far away, two youths loitering on the roadside had noticed the boy.
They were immediately drawn to Charles's pitiful appearance, and with nothing better to do, the pair quickly took an interest in him. They were already preparing to head over and find some amusement at his expense.
Hearing them, Charles turned to look.
Two young men were walking his way, both wearing ill-intentioned smiles. He knew exactly what that sort of smile meant.
Charles frowned slightly. Ever since becoming a Great Arcanist, there had been very few people who dared show him disrespect. Fewer still had ever dared target him directly.
"How interesting." Charles gave them a long look and muttered under his breath. Then he turned and walked back into the alley behind him, disappearing into the dark night.
The two youths exchanged a strange grin. Clearly, they assumed he was afraid and had ducked into the alley to hide from them.
Which suited them perfectly.
If you were going to do something bad, naturally, you found somewhere with no witnesses.
"Move it. Don't let the brat get away," one of them urged. The more terrified the other party seemed, the more excited he felt.
But the moment they turned into the alley, they found that the boy had already vanished.
Smack
One of them suddenly felt dizzy, his vision went black, and he collapsed to the ground on the spot.
"You-"
The other man saw his companion drop and spun around in fright, but before he could say anything, he saw a brick flying straight toward him. In the next instant, that still-decently handsome face had an intimate encounter with it.
The young man swayed like a drunkard before collapsing to the ground. His nose had bent slightly out of shape, and blood was already pouring out.
Charles looked coldly at the second youth as he fell, then sneered in disdain. "Pathetic. With skills like this, you still dared trouble someone else?
Charles stripped the man's clothes off him, then eyed the garments with disgust. He held them up against himself, frowned slightly, and muttered, "Whatever. This will do as a disguise for now."
He casually tossed his own ruined clothes into a nearby bin, pulled on the oversized outfit, then patted the man down and took out something that looked a little like leather.
"Is this money from this plane?" Charles poured out a few pennies and instantly recognized them as currency. "But what are these paper slips? Are they money too?"
"Forget it."
He took both men's money pouches, along with another object that looked like some kind of mechanical construct, then calmly walked out of the alley without the slightest awareness that he had just robbed two unfortunate fools.
Of course, Charles didn't care in the slightest. Arcanists were a thoroughly Lawful Evil bunch. Let alone a couple of idiots, he would not care even if one or two people died. As for these two morons, he could not even be bothered to kill them himself.
Dressed in ill-fitting clothes, Charles wandered through the streets of London, observing this world that seemed to bear traces of mechanical creations everywhere.
He needed to gather information and figure out what kind of world this was, and whether there were any powerful forces here that he needed to be wary of.
Fortunately, the spells permanently fixed on his body were still functioning. Otherwise, he really would have been completely blind in this unfamiliar world.
Comprehend Languages, Read Magic, and Glibness allowed the Great Arcanist to easily understand this world's language, read the words in its books, and communicate with its people.
The prerequisite, however, was that Charles first needed to recover his ability to cast spells.
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