Annan didn’t hesitate for long.
He lay in bed, grasping Gerald’s broken bones.
He felt an odd chill seep into his veins... and found it strangely comforting.
...Four seconds, five seconds... twelve seconds, thirteen seconds.
Finally, Annan’s vision began to blur.
The environment around him gradually became tranquil and dark, and a prompt appeared before him:
[Detected an unpurified Nightmare Shard]
[Level requirement: Bronze-tier or above]
[Profession requirement: Wizard]
[Special requirement: Must have killed before]
[Requirements met, falling into nightmare in ten seconds, ten, nine...]
All of a sudden, Annan felt his consciousness rapidly plummeting.
He had no idea how long he had been falling until, at a certain moment, he suddenly came to.
Before him was darkness, with data streams flashing by rapidly:
[Falling into the nightmare, creating instance...]
[Instance difficulty is set to hard, with a maximum of ten entries]
[Current purification rate is 1/10]
[Team’s total erosion is 8%, instance difficulty increases by 8%, probability of nightmare distortion increases by 8%]
[This instance has no save points, dying will increase erosion by 5%, and death results in forced exit from the instance]
[This instance provides an introductory storyline and has decryption rewards]
[Instance clearance reward: Profession (Wizard) increases by 1 level]
[50% instance decryption reward: Obtain a random Soul Snatching School spell (guaranteed to be equippable)]
As the characters for "loading complete" also gradually faded away, Annan heard Gerald’s sigh beside his ear:
"Doubt everything..."
It was as if he stood right beside Annan, gazing forward and murmuring in a low voice, "Trust no one."
As soon as his words ended, the darkness around was instantly torn apart by the cold wind.
He immediately realized that he was in the midst of a snowy wilderness.
The sky was leaden gray, and a blizzard was howling towards him.
Even the abnormally dazzling celestial body in the sky seemed to lose some of its color here.
He was wearing heavy non-slip boots, holding a long staff in his right hand, and adorned with a woolen cap on his head.
His boots were buried deep in the snow, and both his face and hands were numb from the cold. Even though he was dressed very warmly, Annan couldn’t help but shiver.
"...It’s a bit cold."
If he continued to stand here, he might end up freezing to death.
He needed to find a place to shelter from the blizzard.
Annan was acutely aware of this fact.
He looked back and saw that his footprints had come from a distant place beyond his line of sight, the furthest ones almost covered by the snowstorm. This meant he had just walked from that direction... and the snow had been falling for quite a while.
Going back was impossible.
He could only continue moving forward.
Thinking this, Annan proceeded to check the items he had on him.
—The result was surprisingly scant.
On his left hand, he wore Gerald’s silver ring, and in his backpack, there was a pair of gold-rimmed glasses, a silver pocket watch that could serve as a mirror. And...
A small white hammer?
...the Skeletal Noble’s Blood Bone Lever?
Annan was slightly startled, yet not overly surprised.
He remembered Salvatore mentioning that the theft of this cursed object happened not so long ago, about four or five years prior. It definitely occurred at least three years after Gerald advanced to the silver rank, so it couldn’t have been too long.
Annan checked and discovered that six teeth had already been filled into the bone hammer, making for quite an extensive battle preparation.
But on the contrary, despite coming to such a cold place, he didn’t carry a backpack or luggage. He didn’t have a change of clothes, nor did he bring food or water.
It was as if he knew from the start... that he wouldn’t stay outside for too long.
In any case, I should confirm my identity first.
Annan thought this and used the smooth back of a pocket watch to reflect his face.
The image in the silver reflection was that of a young man with a gentle smile and ordinary features. His brown curly hair was full of falling snow, and his deep blue pupils were unusually calm.
Annan murmured softly to himself.
The body he was currently using belonged to that man... David Gerald.
The dark wizard wanted by the Heath Tower of Black.
The next moment, the introduction to this copy emerged before him:
[After being expelled by the Heath Tower of Black, David Gerald was left homeless and nowhere to go.]
[If he were a wizard of the Transmutation School, he might at least find a job. Unfortunately... as a wizard of the Soul Snatching School, no noble would trust him, and even less would employ him.]
[At least until he advanced to the gold rank, this situation would not improve.]
[Not long ago, Mr. Gerald came across a piece of news.]
[The master of the Frigid Wight Tower, the gold-rank grand wizard "Eye of Lag" Michelangelo, decided to recruit a successor for the Frigid Wight Tower from all silver-rank wizards worldwide——]
[——Without age restrictions.]
[——Without gender restrictions.]
[——Without restrictions on background.]
[The only requirement was to have no teacher, no classmates, nor any apprentices.]
[Among the eight major schools of Soul Reaping, Decree, Prophet, Transmutation, Cripple, Destruction, Shaping, and Idol, the best qualified applicant from each would receive an "invitation" from Master Michelangelo and be summoned to the Frigid Wight Tower for a secret ritual to determine the ultimate successor.]
[Gerald symbolically applied. But he never expected... to actually be chosen.]
[The moment he opened the invitation, he was teleported to the snowy plains near the Frigid Wight Tower. Fortunately, he came prepared, wearing thick clothes and carrying a mountain stick, which although looked somewhat comical, prevented him from being too embarrassed.]
[However, apart from the cursed item "Skeletal Noble’s Blood Bone Lever", he carried no weapons or cursed objects.]
[And you will take his place here to complete this ritual.]
[You can use this cursed object to strike anyone’s bones, arbitrarily imposing one of the six "Curse Bindings": "Cardiac Paralysis", "Forgotten Secrets", "I Am Not Here", "Inhibited Speech", "Claustrophobia", and "Bookbind Shackles". Each Curse Binding can only be used once in this copy, and if the power difference is too great, the effect may be exempted.]
[You must temporarily bear the Curse Binding "Curse of Breaking Proclamation" from dark wizard Gerald:]
[Before initiating an attack on others, you must issue a warning three to ten seconds in advance and reveal the target. The closer to ten seconds, the greater the power, but if no attack is launched within ten seconds, the proclamation resets.]
[In this copy, only Soul Snatching School spells below the silver rank may be used; your Mana Pool ratio is temporarily treated as 15/34 (Distortion is more than double that of Order).]
[At sunrise, you can restore all the Power of Order.]
[At sunset, you can restore all the Power of Distortion.]
[Warning: If the Mana Pool ratio reverses to 2:1 or above, you will enter the Cripple (Madness) state, losing 20% of your maximum health every second.]
After these texts faded away, another line emerged in front of Annan:
[Main Quest: Survive]
Then, under this line, a plethora of small text appeared:
[Avoid battling with anyone]
[Discover the true name of everybody]
[Survive at least to the last four remaining]