Cycle of Destiny

Chapter 7 The Cracked Bucket

Harry's fear stemmed from the fact that his status as a legitimate wizard was obtained through cheating.

Cavill's reference to cheating with potions refers to this situation: some students' natural magical power is simply insufficient to support a level one spell. However, in order to stay in the academy, or to avoid being looked down upon by others, they choose to take forbidden potions before exams that temporarily boost their magical power—completely different from the potent potions Harry had used before. The latter purified magical power, temporarily reducing the total amount; while the former forcibly overdraws it, rapidly increasing the user's magical power in a short period. Although effective quickly, it severely damages subsequent magical training and is generally only used as an emergency potion in life-or-death situations. For the sake of fairness and safety, the academy has long prohibited the sale of such items to magical apprentices.

However, the greed in people's hearts will always find an outlet, and there will always be some adventurous magicians who indirectly purchase and use it. Moreover, this kind of "overdraft" behavior can be covered up by subsequent meditation and training, which also adds to their courage for their adventures.

Harry had considered this idea, but he knew in his heart that he could never repay such a "debt." His lack of magic power wasn't his most fatal problem.

Moreover, while others might be able to, Harry absolutely cannot cheat with magic potions—his sensory talent is simply too conspicuous.

Although few people cared about him after his three failed attempts at the exam, who wouldn't enjoy watching a genius fall into poverty? No matter who he asked to help him buy the potion, the whole academy would know by the next day. Besides, he couldn't possibly brew it himself; brewing such a potion required at least the skill of an intermediate-level mage, something he simply couldn't do on his own.

He neither used illegal potions nor found a way to plug the loophole, but instead took a roundabout approach and pulled off a clever trick with monster meat.

To resolve his physical ailments, Harry began frantically searching through the academy's magical tomes, hoping to find the answer within their pages. He never imagined that he would actually find the answer in "Tales of Magic," a book written by a holy magician himself.

"The space in which a magician stores magic power is essentially his spiritual body."

According to the book, "magic is essentially elemental energy from nature." This elemental energy is extracted and transformed through methods such as meditation, ultimately becoming the magic that a magician can use. This inner space of consciousness is not only the source of a magician's magic, but also the place where magicians store and increase their magic.

Through continuous meditation practice, magicians can not only restore their depleted magic power, but also temper and expand this mental consciousness space itself, increasing its capacity and making it more controllable.

In other words, the core of a magician's magic power lies in this inner spiritual world, which can be continuously strengthened through cultivation.

The book records that some advanced cultivation techniques can even condense spiritual power into "tentacles that are almost physical," which shows that the spiritual consciousness space itself has plasticity.

While browsing through the book, Harry was horrified to discover that the Holy Wizard's book contained a record of an example exactly like his own—

"I once met someone whose consciousness space was born with cracks. If you compare the consciousness space to a bucket, then this person's bucket was leaky from the beginning. He could draw 'water,' which is magic, into the bucket through meditation, but due to the structural defect, the 'water' would continue to leak out."

"Although he can't hold water, this person's perception is astonishingly strong. I speculate that his body may have some kind of 'compensation mechanism.' Since he can draw in magic power at a high speed, it means that the speed at which his consciousness space exchanges energy with the outside world is extremely high—this bucket can 'fill' and 'leak' very quickly."

"This means that, under the same conditions, his efficiency in absorbing magic power during meditation far exceeds that of ordinary people. Consequently, his senses are naturally exceptionally developed. This person can absorb a large amount of magic power in a short period of time and achieve the effect of releasing magic before it leaks out. However, this is not his power at all. What is released in this way, which is similar to 'cheating,' cannot be considered magic. Such a person is destined not to become a true magician."

Upon reading this, Harry felt his heart sink. He finally understood what had happened to him.

He was the kind of person the Holy Magician described in the book—possessing extraordinary sensitivity, but with a leaky bottom, destined to leave nothing behind.

He was almost completely giving up on magic—really, he was just a hair's breadth away.

This is precisely what Harry can't understand—the Holy Wizard clearly wrote in the book with absolute certainty: "Such a person is destined never to become a true wizard."

"But in the end, he still chose me..."

The holy mage chose him not because of the mediocre spell he had cast. That leaves only one possibility—he valued Harry's extraordinary sensory abilities.

"But he doesn't know... he doesn't know that I, this 'genius' with extraordinary sensitivity, am actually a cracked barrel..."

This sole possibility, like the last straw, gave him both a glimmer of hope and plunged him into deeper fear. He didn't know what awaited him when this false hope shattered.

Although the words in the book essentially sentenced him to death by hanging, they also gave him inspiration.

Harry had always had a voracious appetite, his craving for food—especially meat—was as intense as a saint's devotion. Back at the Knight Academy, after a day of training, everyone had a big appetite, and since the academy knew these students were mostly gentlemen, the food was prepared to be as delicious as possible, resulting in their enormous appetites—yet even so, their consumption was somewhat insignificant compared to Harry's. Harry's meals were equivalent to those of ten particularly voracious students.

What's even more surprising is that despite eating so much, he moved around without any clumsiness. Although he was the fattest student in the academy, that was mainly because everyone else was lean. In comparison, he was just "a little overweight"—at least that's what he firmly believed.

But in reality, he was forced into it. If he ate too little at any meal, or if there wasn't enough meat, he would immediately feel weak and listless; only when his appetite was completely satisfied would he feel comfortable and full of energy. His body was strange; he could eat only a small plate of potatoes like a normal person at each meal, or he could stuff himself with piles of meat chops, but his body clearly preferred the latter.

In order to continue training, he was willing to indulge his desires, and only such "dedication" could make him feel at ease with his physique.

Before this, Harry at most thought he was just "a little bigger eater" than others—well, more like "a lot bigger eater." But after reading Tales of Magic, an extremely audacious idea popped into his head.

As we all know, the biggest difference between monsters and wild beasts is that monsters can absorb magical elements from nature and unleash magic, just like magicians.

The magic core of a monster is essentially the mage's consciousness space, used to store magic power.

However, there is a fundamental difference between the two: a magician's magic power resides entirely in the space of consciousness; unless a magician actively releases magic, there is no magic power in the magician's body.

But magical beasts are different. Their magic cores are merely the main storage for magic power. In reality, from head to tail, from flesh to bone, every part of them contains magic power, just not as concentrated as the magic core.

This explains why magicians are so fascinated by magical beasts.

Although magic permeates the entire body, the concentration varies greatly in different parts. And those parts with high magic concentration are basically precious magical materials in the eyes of magicians.

Leaving aside the magic core, let's take a few common magical beasts as examples: the most magical part of the Flame Griffin is the feathers on its wings, which are rich in fire element. They can be inlaid on a staff as a medium for energy conduction to reduce magic power loss, enhance the power of fire spells, and even create a fire vortex.

The most valuable part of the Crystal Armored Earth Dragon is the rhomboid crystal armor on its back, which contains powerful earth-elemental protective energy. It is a top-grade material for making arm shields or breastplates. Once activated, it can generate a continuous elemental shield to resist surprise attacks. It is also a core material for crafting high-grade protective scrolls.

The python skin of the Thunder Python, especially its naturally occurring purple thunder patterns, can significantly enhance an affinity for the thunder element if incorporated into a mage's robe. This can accelerate the casting speed of lightning spells and even spontaneously activate a static electricity barrier to protect the wearer in times of crisis.

The most magically powerful parts of different types of magical beasts vary, excluding the magic core. However, if you were to find the part with the weakest magic power, without exception, it would be the beast's flesh.

Whether it's the feathers of the Fiery Griffin, the crystal armor of the Crystal Earth Dragon, or the skin of the Thunder-Patterned Python, these excellent magical materials all share a common characteristic: they are the most powerful offensive or defensive means of these spells, and also the locations where these magical beasts release their magic most intensely. It's not surprising that these parts have a high concentration of magic.

In contrast, monster meat does not have these effects. After all, monsters are not wild beasts, and no monster can defeat other monsters simply by relying on its muscles.

The magical energy content of monster meat is so low that mages can only replenish a negligible amount of magic energy by consuming it. Furthermore, the monster meat in the monster market is bitter and astringent, so no one uses it to absorb magical energy. The monster meat in the market is mostly used to feed monster pets, not for human consumption.

It's clearly stated in that book, *Tales of Magic*:

"If a level one mage wants to gather enough magic power to cast a level one spell by eating monster meat, he would have to eat four kilograms of level one monster meat every day for a whole year."

But who could have predicted that someone would actually manage to "eat for a year"!