New Life, New Hope
When Cheng Yan just arrived in the Wizard Realm, he was both confused and scared. Not long later, he learned that he was reborn as a 6 year old orphan named Agun. Seeing how everyone and everything in this world was different from Earth, he didn't dare to let others know he was from another world. Especially with all the wizards and amazing magics they could cast. As well as horrible experiments which likely secretly involved human experiments, as Cheng Yan had his otherworldly science knowledge, he could easily deduct from rumors that the wizards, although appeared both just and noble. Was in fact looking at the commoners as ants, like they were a whole different species. If not for some great powers which Cheng Yan speculated had restrained the majority of the wizards, it would be likely that everyone commoner would be living in horror and fear wizards. Maybe even living like cattles form the wizards to rear, just so they can have more guinea pigs for their experiments. Thus he was afraid that if someone learned that he was from another world, they would cut open his brain and read his memories through either magic or their advanced laboratory tools. And then cut his body open to see if there's any differences with his body and other humans in the Wizard Realm. Just thinking about that made him soak his back with beads of cold sweat.
Immediately he decided to cast away his old name and chanted his new name over and over. 'Agun, Agun, Agun....'
With his past life's experiences, he quickly found a way to become a servant for a wizard. Although different from a wizard apprentice, he could still learn a bit about magic once he finished his work, he was allowed to browse simple apprentice level knowledge in the library. When Agun first learned the foundation to magic, he was totally dumbfounded. Never in his mind, had he ever thought that magic was based on natural phenomena, physics and chemistry. The apprentice level spell Vector Push, by turning magic power into kinetic energy, one could transfer the energy to an object to move it forward. A support spell simply made for apprentices to carry heavy items in a straight line forward. Agun, using his knowledge of physics and math, calculated the kinetic energy, potential energy as well as many different angles with trigonometry. Agun modified Vector Push into Vector Hand, he created a new spell similar to the wizard level spell Magic Hand, which uses concentrated magic power to form a large hand that can move at the caster's will. Of course Agun's Vector Hand still uses kinetic energy, thus allowed similar function to Magic Hand, but was a spell that wizard apprentices could use. Ecstatic, Agun began to use his knowledge from Earth to learn magic.
Soon he caught many wizards' attention, by the age of 10 an Archmage Wizard accidentally found out about one of his self made magic spell, amazed by Agun's intelligent and creative mind, praise him and wanted to take him as his apprentice. He quickly brought Agun to his place, only to his friends learn about Agun. Intrigued his friends asked Agun how he came up with that spell, Agun helplessly shared some of his innovative theories about magic. The group of Archmages were dazed upon hearing those wonderful theories. Afterwards they started fighting each others for Agun with bloodshot eyes, as if their friends were stealing their most doted upon daughter. In the end Agun's fame spread far and wide, letting even demigods learn of Agun's theories.
Antonidas, the Demigod of Space being one of the several demigods who came in hope to take Agun as their apprentice. Why did Agun catch even those high above beings like demigods? Because the theories written by Agun was so incredibly profound that even demigods would slightly appreciate them. What did that mean? It meant that it was highly likely for a genius like Agun to become a demigod in the future. How many demigods were there in the Wizard Realm? Just around a hundred demigods, to have a demigod student would not just be an honor and display of their wisdom, but also a great increase of their own power. Because the relations between a student and teacher was as close as family. Having a demigod student was the same as having another demigod among their forces.
When Agun heard that Antonidas was the Demigod of Space, he was ecstatic. After all, space theories were mysterious and the humanity on Earth all wanted to unearth the amazing abilities space could provide, Agun of course also wanted to learn more about space, asked Antonidas many questions. Antonidas, seeing how interested Agun was of Space law, he immediately displayed a few space spells including teleporting with Agun. Agun quickly fell in love with Space law and decided to study under Antonidas.
These 60 years Agun had studied under Antonidas had been the best of his life. Agun as an orphan had lived a hard life since he was born, including the 6 years of memory the previous Agun had left him with, Agun himself had toiled many years himself too in this completly strange and mysterious Wizard Realm all alone. With neither family nor friends. Antonidas treated Agun like his own son and Agun also treated Antonidas as his own father. In these 60 years, Agun had already forgotten his old life on Earth, and Antonidas was now his only family as well as his own dear father in this world.
...
"With my soul essence merging with your soul, my former self will definitely recognize you, child, it's time-" Antonidas said weakly and coughed "Cough, cough"
"Teacher!" Agun looked emotionally at Antonidas. With tears in his eyes, fell down on his knees and kowtowed three times, knocking his head hard onto the ground. Causing blood to flow from his forehead.
*bam bam bam*
"Good child, good" Antonidas understanding Agun's feelings, looked gently at him. Pulled Agun up and gently hugged him while caressing the back of his head.
Antonidas gently pushed Agun into the spell formation and started chanting and making gestures. Light flashed across the spell formation's carvings
*Woin Woin*
With a flash of light, a small black and white colored vortex looking like a spinning popsicle appeared in the middle of the spell formation, seemingly wanting to suck the whole world. Antonidas' forehead was dripping with beads of sweat, the small vortex in the middle of the spell formation seemingly had no effect on Agun as it slowly settle down in Agun. Antonidas waved his hand and pulled Agun's soul out of his body. Immediatly Agun who had been unaffected all this time, had his soul sucked into the vortex so quickly he hadn't had the time to even react.
The vortex almost instantly after sucking in Agun's soul dissipated. Antonidas spurted blood and fell down.
*Puh*
"I have done everything I could, everything depends on you now, child..." Antonidas said weakly before falling into the endless abyss of darkness...
...
In the time-space tunnel Agun saw many things, white light flashed everywhere, many projections were displayed all around the tunnels while Agun were pulled forward by a violent force. The many projections seemed like movies skipping backwards. A man drinking a glass of water looked like he was ejecting water into the glass, slowly filling the glass to the top. A large tree slowly grew smaller and smaller until only a small seed was left on the ground. Many similar scenes were displayed before Agun while his soul were tearing from the violent force pulling Agun forward in the time-space tunnel. The pain was excruciating, the pain from tearing the soul was much worse than being tortured in prisons. Be it pulling of nails, smashing fingers, hammering spikes into the body, skinned alive. Nothing could compare the the pure pain to the soul.
"AAAAAH!!" Agun shouted loudly in deep pain, luckily he was in soul form or else he would have bitten off his tongue hundreds of times already.
Normally with such damage and pain stimulus, Agun would have fainted and his soul gone to deep sleep. But due to Antonidas soul both protecting Agun's soul from truly tearing apart and also nurturing and healing his soul. Agun had no way to faint and could only bear the pain from having his soul torn over and over. Due to the pain, Agun had no idea that while his soul turned smaller and smaller from the damages caused by having his soul torn over and over while Antonidas soul had no way to heal Agun's soul fast enough to restore his soul back to it's original size, Agun's soul had begun to glow brighter and brighter. Agun, having had his soul torn over and over, in turn had the impurities in his soul which were weaker and the cause of his soul tearing so easily, washed away. Even the impurities from Antonidas' soul essences which were much less than what existed in Agun's soul, but after fusing with Agun's soul, were washed away by the tearing force.
If demigods knew what was happening to Agun, they would have turned crazy and jumped into the vortex to have their souls also washed away from all impurities which would greatly increase their chances of breaking through to become a god. It's unfortunately that even if demigods knew of this, it was impossible for them to replicate what Agun was going through. As a demigod's soul is stronger and the tearing force would have no effect at all on them, just like how Antonidas' soul barely suffered any damage even while wrapping around Agun's soul protecting it, only Agun's soul had to suffer from the tearing force.
After an unknown amount of time had passed, all of Antonidas' soul essence had merged with Agun's soul. And Agun no longer felt the tearing force being able to threaten him anymore. Amazed, Agun started inspecting himself. His soul felt as strong as steel if not more, Agun had the feeling that his soul could twist steel even without the use of magic power, just simply by relying on his soul's power. Agun's soul used to be half the size of his body, and Antonidas' soul that were nurturing his soul was as big as a giant. If he were to fully fuse with Antonidas' soul, even if Agun's soul wouldn't be as big as a giant, it would at least be half as big. But right now his soul was just as big as his body. But the quality of Agun's soul has already surpassed a demigod's soul by far, even though his soul is alot smaller, just the pure difference in quality made Agun capable of smashing a demigod's soul to pieces in a fight between souls, if no magic was involved.
Feeling the changes and also no longer having to endure the great pain from having his soul torn apart again and again, Agun was overjoyed. Super excited, Agun began trying out his new powers, moving his arm forward, he grabbed in front of him and lightly pulled. Who knew that simply by grabbing nothing and pulling lightly, the space-time tunnel would shake like there was an earthquake. The space distorted and and the tunnel started collapsing. Agun suddenly remembered that not only had his soul been hammered like divine sword being forged. Due to the great pain Agun felt earlier, he forgot that while his soul fused with Antonidas' soul, he also fused with Antonidas' Space law comprehension. His Space law comprehension was close to that of a demigod and in his excitement earlier had accidentally used all his powers including his Space law comprehension, which was just supposed to be at the Archmage level which was completely incapable of affecting the space-time tunnel. Agun cursed his own stupidity, with the space-time tunnel collapsing, he had no idea if he would make it out alive, but most importantly, his teacher had given his own life to send him back in time and now he had ruined it.
A large space crack swallowed Agun, fortunately his soul had become so formidable that although the space crack caused more damage than the tearing force from earlier. The damage was manageable for Agun at his current state. A bright blinding light flashed and Agun lost consciousness.
...
Agun groggily opened his eyes, seeming to have heard someone next to him calling.
"Your Highness, wake up..."
Agun felt sluggish, with great effort tried to wake up. While trying to wake up, he felt someone gently tug his sleeve.
"Your Highness, my Royal Prince!"
Agun finally managed to wake up, looking around, confusion filled his mind. The scene in front of him was unique, making him feel like he was back on Earth watching a medieval theater play. There were rows of small brick houses, a round public square crowded with people wearing course hemp clothes, and gallow built like a door frame on top a platform stood in the middle of the square. Agun was sitting on an elevated platform not far from the square. Sitting on the cold and hard iron chair made his mind a bit clearer. Looking at the people sitting alongside him, a group had their gazes fixed on him, while some young women dressed in medieval clothes for ladies, were busy giggling instead.
Agun tried hard thinking why he was here and what were he doing. His mind sluggish, he could hardly think clear, helplessly he could only look at what the people sitting alongside him was going to do, as they seems to be his 'peers'.
"Your Highness, please announce your verdict soon."
Agun heard a voice which seemed somewhat familiar, like he had heard it before, turning his head to the source of the voice. He saw an old man in his fifties or sixties wearing a white robe. The man also seems to be the one who gently tugged his sleeve earlier and seemed friendly.
"Verdict?" Agun confusedly looked at the crowd around the public square looking at the gallow in the middle, while yelling and waving their fists. He even saw some of them throw rocks at the gallow.
The pillars on the gallow was 4 meters long, on the horisontal beam on the top of the gallow, a rusty metal ring with a rope tied on it had it's other end tied around the felon's neck.
The felon had a sack covering her head, her hands were tied behind her back, she was clad in gray cloths that looked like rags. She looked so emaciated as if a pinch could break her bones.
"A convict?" Agun thought peculiarly, unable to think how such a weak woman could possibly commit any crimes.
"What crimes did she commit?" Agun asked carelessly as he wasn't really interested in any of this and just wanted to go sleep.
While Agun hoped to quickly finish this and leave, suddenly some memories burst out in his mind. Quickly he learned that that woman was a 'witch'. Agun remembered the witch hunts from Earth's history. Something foolish the church created to increase their influence of the people. After all if it was in the Wizard Realm, if anyone had dared to incriminate someone for being able to use magic, they would have long been wiped out. And as for the reason Agun thought she was a 'witch' and not a witch, is because if a strong and powerful being like a witch could be caught by commoners, she might as well as choke herself to death.
In this place, witches had degenerated after falling to the devil's temptations and were evil. Agun looked at the people as if they had eaten horse shit.
"Those bunch of fools" mumbled Agun.
Looking at the white robed old man, he now knew he was called Barov, the Assistant Minister of Finance who was sent here to assist him with government affairs. And Agun, he is the Fourth Prince of the Kingdom of Graycastle, Roland and he is in charge of this place called Border Town.