Magus' Journey, 巫师之旅 [Chinese WN]

[Craxuan]

Original Title: Magus' Journey (巫师之旅)
Author: Yi Hang Bai Lu Shang Qing Tian (A Row of White Herons Rising Above The Green Sky, 一行白鹭上青天)
Link: http://www.qidian.com/Book/3268922.aspx



给我无尽的知识，我便以自身为支点，撬动无尽世界。

"Give me infinite knowledge, and I will become the lever that moves infinite worlds."

Background
A long time ago, the Magus civilization was an unstoppable force. With obtaining knowledge as their ultimate goal, they have conquered countless worlds and civilizations. However, one day they encountered the impossibly powerful Abyss civilization and was nearly brought to extinction. When all hope is thought lost, with his life as the lever and an impossible amount of Energy Stones harnessed into his ultimate creation 'The Fulcrum of Fate', the greatest of all Grand Magus Antonio shifted the entire Magus world far, far away to an unknown coordinate in the universe, and saved them all from absolute destruction.

But although they escaped, Antonio paid with his life and passed away with the infamous quote, 'Give me infinite knowledge, and I will become the lever that moves infinite worlds.' Moreover, the Magus world's days are numbered as it was broken forcefully away from its original point in the universe.

But they are not afraid. They are patient. With each passing day they become stronger, smarter, more powerful. When the time comes, they would not tremble before the Abyss.

It would be the Abyss who trembles before them.


Time
This deserves special mention, because time is a very, very long element for a Magus. Below is an example to get you understand the scale of their lifespan:

• Normal humans: 100+ years.
• Magus Apprentice: 300+ years.
• Rank 1 Magus: 2000+ years.
• Rank 2 Magus: 10000+ years.
• Rank 3 Magus: 20000+ years.

I don't remember the exact numbers so there may be a mistake, but basically, the greatest of Magus have practically an infinite amount of life. At the latest the protagonist has already lived over tens of thousands of years - the majority of it is spent when he was trapped inside a time distorted space; in the real world only a few thousand years have passed, but you get what I'm saying.


Synopsis
Imagine the Magus of Fate/Zero (a reason why I chose 'Magus' over more appropriate terms such as 'Wizards' or 'Sorcerers'), and then an entire world (composed of countless planets) populated by such people. Then imagine an impossibly grand scale that spans across worlds, universes, and even beyond dimensions. Interested? Then read on.

The novel narrates the journey of a lowly commoner 'Green (格林)', whom after his grandfather's death, happened upon a Magus Apprentice selection ceremony and decided to pay 1 Gold to gamble for the chance to become a Magus. This is the first turning point of his life.

Green succeeded, but during the journey on sea towards the Light Magus' academy, a Dark Magus hijacked the ship and kidnapped all of the apprentices for himself (the Dark Magus academy that is). Thus, Green's life is changed yet again, and he became a Dark Magus Apprentice far more experienced in death and cruelty than any Light Magus Apprentice would.

Over time, he ascended into a true Magus and began participating as a Demon Hunter in the war between worlds. It was more plundering than an actual war - most of the time it is just the Magus descending on a pitifully weak world, ravage them (by turning every war-able creature into slaves, dissecting their bodies and researching specimens, robbing every usable resources they could find before fully converting the world into a slave farm or resource mine. Basically every 4x strategy game ever without the citizen uprising bullshit), then move on to the next one.

This is all to gather the necessary strength, knowledge, and able-bodies for the future war against the Abyss, and much more recently the upcoming Civilization War against the Terminators (no, you did not read this wrong). It's also the best part of the novel especially when the Magus does extremely evil laughter (Jie jie jie jie jie) and when the civilians scream in despair before being enslaved and slaughtered.

As of now the Civilization War is being fought against the Terminators, but the Magus are running out of time. The Abyss is slowly but surely emerging in their universe even though the distance between them is like north and south. They have to defeat the Terminators quickly, or they may find themselves stuck between a rock and a hard place very soon (although by their terminology, 'soon' can meant between a few thousand to tens of thousands of years).


The Protagonist, Green

• As of the latest chapter, he is a peak level Rank 6 Stigmata Grade Magus.
  
• His true body is so huge that even with his natural talent he has to 'squeeze' into a world like toothpaste out of a tube. Just imagine a giant face on the sky covering your FOV from left to right and you will get my meaning. For smaller worlds, he is literally too big to fit in.
  
• His powers, or should I say energy, is the Void. In the past ancient Magus had tried to assimilate this power into their being to no avail, but Green succeeded and became the first Void Magus in history. It's less impressive than it sounds, because Magus are always striving to obtain knowledge so there are a lot of unique powers out there that cannot be learned by another Magus.
  
  However, Void is at this moment, acknowledged to be the most destructive power / energy to exist.
  
• He has a pet crested myna, also formerly the pet of the Grand Magus Antonio. His true form is a 2D drawing on a handkerchief. He lives inside the dimensional gap, and can hide inside instantly the moment he senses danger in the outside world. Speaking of which, the dimensional gap is considered the craziest world ever in Green's opinion because it is an imaginary world that follows zero logic, and he would never enter there unless given absolutely no choice.
  
• His achievements make him often described as a shining comet. He rose from zero to hero so quick (a few thousand years to achieve Stigmata is not unheard of but incredibly rare, and he is the fastest to date) that it is impossible to tell if he will vanish just as quick in the future, or grow to become an indomitable power of the Magus civilization.

Love Interest
1 true love and 4 potential love interests. At first Green wanted to love one and only one person, but after thousands of years and certain circumstances, he realizes that his love need not waver even if he accepts others, especially when life is so fickle even during a peaceful era (the Magus who fails to ascend will not be able to extend their lifespan, hence).


Conclusion
Magus' Journey is one of the most unique Chinese web novels out there to ever exist due to One, it realizes knowledge as a true power; and Two, it lives on a grand scale that is unmatched by most, if not all. I would suggest readers of any level to give it a try (well, maybe not the kids...). It will be worth it.

[wuhugm]

Umm... Is there a record keeper or something? Coz you know, it's like thousand years in scale... Maybe everybody has forgotten everybody already. Hell, I forgot the name of guy I met half a year ago. Also, such as Green who rose so fast, I suppose many other newbies rose one after another? There must be so many recurring characters for this novel. Also wth is Abyss and Terminator?

Oh yeah, has there been romance for the novel you mentioned back then? That one that uses telekinesis to control metal cards.

[Ruki0089]

Usual freaking questions ~~

[Craxuan]

@wuhugm
Record keeper? How should I put this...

Since they have long lifespans Magus have equally impressive memories. Therefore, they don't forget. Moreover, you should imagine them meticulously jotting down every note when conducting their experiment, and it can last between tens of years, hundreds of years, thousands of years and even tens of thousands of years, depending on how large scale the experiment/research is.

They do keep records, of course they do, but the most important of them are private knowledge (known to the Magus alone) that can be traded, if they're willing. Incredibly intimate knowledge such as the Magus' origin of power are usually not tradable, unless the other party is willing to trade for its equal or above value.

You can say that although there are record keepers, and there's the 'Will of the Magus' (basically the will of the world; imagine that the world is sentient) to help store and regulate that info too in super accurate detail, but in general knowledge is not made open in the Magus world. A Magus who has lost their curiosity because the knowledge they seek is completely open is no longer a Magus, so to speak.

And yes, Terror Net Fic does have... I'm not sure if the other counts as true love, but I guess?... 3 true loves, or to be exact 1 true TRUE love and 2 true loves. The author seems to lose confidence in himself near the end there and the sequences are a bit out of whack, but the count is correct.

@Ruki0089
It's already answered in the passage above, but for the readability purposes:

Is the MC OP?
Yes. But it is hard power obtained through hard work plus a tiny bit of 'fate'.

Does he have the harem?
1 true love and 4 potential love interests. The true love you meet almost immediately at the beginning and it's impossible to miss.

Is there snusnu?
Honestly, this absolutely shouldn't be a FAQ in web novels; it is a subjective question aimed at a subjective style. There are cruelty and gore, but no.

[SereneSolace]

Originally Posted by Craxuan

@wuhugm
Is there snusnu?
Honestly, this absolutely shouldn't be a FAQ in web novels; it is a subjective question aimed at a subjective style. There are cruelty and gore, but no.

We all know who to thank blame for that

[wuhugm]

^Isn't that important though? And that writing style is what we're trying to figure out.
Let's say "A Step into The Past" has no snusnu, it would become an entirely different novel, one that I can't take seriously anymore

So Magus doesn't forget, but are all characters in this novel a magus?

On that account, I think the major difference of chinese and japanese novels is the time scale/time perception. Chinese so easily use year as the smallest time unit while time skip in Japanese's solely reserved for major turning point.

Btw, I'm more interested in this "moving worlds" thing. Since moving only the planet would bring catastrophe, I guess they move an entire solar system, or maybe galaxy? But how fast can it go beyond the normal expansion speed of the universe? If the speed is increased beyond that, then the revolution speed of celestial bodies would increase as well and the inhabitants would... die?

[pervypig]

Originally Posted by Craxuan

@wuhugm
Is there snusnu?
Honestly, this absolutely shouldn't be a FAQ in web novels; it is a subjective question aimed at a subjective style. There are cruelty and gore, but no.

On the contrary, snusnu is not just essential to the survival of all mankind, its the goal of all life to replicate itself. I don't consider it subjective in literature just because certain pruds find it hard to deal with. But randomly putting snusnu is somewhat pointless and instantly degrade your style, so I'd prefer it handled better.

[Craxuan]

@wuhugm
Obviously not every character in the novel is a Magus (the crested myna is a talking bird and obviously is not a Magus). But since the story is told from a Magus' point of view, obviously you'll be seeing a lot of them.

Maybe I should explain this better, but basically, any living being that hasn't evolved into Rank 1, 2, 3 and so on in their respective worlds (like how Xian Xia warrior evolve using their Qi energy) will have their life span limited to a normal people's level. A random Magus' parents for example, is a normal human, so while the Magus might live on for hundreds and thousands of years, the parents would die after at most 100.

Rank is used to categorize the evolution level of a life form. In general - quite literally so for every other universe, even if they call them by different names - the ranks are differentiated as:

Rank 1 to 3: Insignificant. The absolute top most Rank 3 life form will have the power to destroy a country. There are actual numbers for this although it applies only to Magus, but a rank 3 Magus Attack stat will hover between thousands to 10s of thousands.

Rank 4 to 6: World level. They quite literally have the power to destroy continents and entire planets/worlds. At the highest level - which is where Green is right now - his Attack stat number around a few million.

Rank 7: Universe level. The protagonist isn't there yet so I cannot give you specific numbers, but here's a simple comparison - there's this guy who can destroy planets, and then there's this guy who can destroy universes.

Rank 8: Transcendence level. The life form has exceeded beyond his own dimension and became a higher life form. The example would be a 2D painting that had suddenly come to life.

I can't actually tell you much about moving worlds, because Antonio is dead? The point is he succeeded, and the inhabitants are safely transported to a different universe altogether. However, the Magus world is slowly breaking apart: all Magus apprentices will receive a World Fragment - literal fragments of their breaking world - and through it attempt to ascend as a true Rank 1 Magus. The bigger the Fragment, the more the Will of the Magus World is paying attention to said Magus apprentice. Green held a significantly huge World Fragment as he is graduated top in his Academy, being hailed as a Nightmare level Magus apprentice.

[wuhugm]

^I see

But wait, isn't it kinda inappropriate to describe Magus by their power of destruction? Coz there's that knowledge is power thing. Is the supposed knowledge only about destructive purpose? I thought Magus here is like Nasuverse Magus with fantastical abilities and not only destruction.

Pity, I kinda curious about the world movement thing, coz the world here maybe in different shape than we're thinking. Especially since xia novels' world sometimes is funky flat world lol~

[Craxuan]

No, I'm describing them by the level of their life. It just happens that the higher level you are as a life form, the more powerful you become (and Magus use their knowledge to evolve themselves, unlike most other races out there who uses energy), just like the difference between an ant and a human.

Also, I can't explain the world thing because it wasn't explained in detail in the novel itself; since there aren't many people who enjoys exposition talk.