Days as a Spiritual Mentor in American Comics
Chapter 4775 - 3848: The School Doctor’s "Daily Routine" (26)

Chapter 4775: Chapter 3848: The School Doctor’s "Daily Routine" (26)

"I can teach you," Shiller suddenly spoke again. His attitude perfectly showcased the whims of an evil black magician. "I can see your evil side; you and the Supreme Magician will never be on the same path. Creating a rival like you for him is something I am happy to see. However..."

"However, what?"

"What do you think black magic is like?" Shiller chuckled and said, "Is it the same as the childish knowledge this naive school teaches you? You think your school grades are quite good, so you’re brimming with confidence trying to learn black magic from me? I can only tell you, the uniqueness of black magic doesn’t lie in its evilness."

"Then what does it lie in?"

"It’s a very great system," Shiller said. Although he himself did not know what kind of system it was, nothing stopped him from boasting. After pausing for a moment, he continued, "It will reveal the truths of the cosmos to you. It’s a power system that even excellent Grand Mages feel is deeply complex and obscure, far more difficult than any magic you’ve learned at school."

"Then what about the Supreme Magician?"

"He won’t," Shiller said, "Learning black magic requires a unique gift for evil, and he doesn’t have it."

Night Owl’s interest was clearly piqued, and he said, "But you said I’m evil enough."

"You’re just evil enough. I’ve seen some interesting parts in your soul, which is why I’m willing to try teaching you. But whether that’s enough to support your understanding of this knowledge, I can’t say for sure."

Night Owl didn’t find it strange, he even felt that the deep and obscure black magic Shiller spoke of was the real magic. The magic taught at school, which involved waving wands around, was nothing but child’s play, and a complete scam.

Batman always had the ability to complicate everything, and Night Owl was no exception. He preferred to think that requiring unique talent and being extremely difficult to learn was the real magic. Anything that was simple and didn’t need talent, even if it could be used, surely wouldn’t be as good as the difficult kind.

"Where should I start learning from? I noticed some books in your secret room..."

"Then go read those books," Shiller said disdainfully. He stood up and walked to the window.

"What I mean is, I think I should start by learning from your notes," Night Owl said, knowing he was angry and quickly tried to recover, "After all, you are the best Dark Magic Master in the world; your notes will surely benefit me greatly."

"What I mean is, those books don’t form a system, even if you read them, they won’t be useful. But if you really want to read them, you can flip through them. I have things to do tonight; I’ll contact you once I’m done."

Having said that, he waved his sleeve, and Night Owl fell down. It wasn’t really magic, just the gray mist knocked him out. Then Shiller used the gray mist to send him back to his dorm room.

After sending Night Owl back, Shiller went to find Mephisto. Mephisto had been hanging around the filming base lately. Chris had found him a new job: being a guide lecturer.

Chris had everyone read the guidebook that Batman wrote. Batman indeed wrote well, but not everyone could understand it, especially children, who would feel sleepy just by looking at such texts.

The one who understood it the best amongst everyone turned out to be Mephisto. Not to mention, as an Immortal Species, he was knowledgeable and experienced; Mephisto was indeed very interested in Batman’s way of explaining the world.

As a devil, the world in his eyes certainly couldn’t be full of logic, but after all, he was a wise being, not entirely chaos and disorder. Any thinking creature has an element of order; Mephisto was exceptionally intelligent and cunning, he could completely understand human logic, and naturally, he could appreciate thoughts that were rigorous in their logic.

Batman’s thinking was not only rigorous but also had a certain arrogance and pride, as if saying "the world is definitely as I understand it". That’s not necessarily true, but writing with such sentiment makes it highly provocative. Devils love anything provocative; they won’t miss the chance to learn from a great debater.

Not to mention, Mephisto himself liked Batman very much, feeling they were the perfect choice for believers. After reading the guidebook, he liked him even more. If he weren’t afraid The Ancient One would return and beat him, he’d surely try it out.

Moreover, as a diligent devil, he was very professional. Whatever interested the people he was swaying, he’d go and learn about it. Now, the big boss he most wanted to sway, Chris, was interested in this guidebook, so he had to put in extraordinary effort to fully understand it.

So he read that guidebook over and over several times, understanding it clearly and thoroughly. The next day, he had an animated discussion with Chris, extending many of his own insights from Batman’s content, leaving Chris quite astonished as he listened.

When Shiller found him at the filming base, he was giving a lecture to the crew, currently talking about the evolution and branching of mushrooms. Shiller waited a while on the side, and when the lecture ended, Mephisto still had a look of lingering interest.

"It used to be so troublesome to coax a believer," Mephisto couldn’t help but sigh, "Dream weaving, revealing miracles, managing children at home and old people falling ill, incidents with various relatives, even to cheese spoiling and beer turning sour, I had to take care of it all. The disobedient ones I’d scare by butchering an ox or sheep in the sheep pen, and if not watched carefully, they’d run to the church. Modern times are better, yesterday someone even messaged me on an app, inviting me to go to a hotel."

Shiller nearly spat out his coffee. He looked at Mephisto and said, "Then did you go?"

"I went, of course. Every invitation I got, I went and turned into their favorite image, fooling them completely. Unfortunately, not many converted into believers, but it wasn’t a loss; at least it increased my account’s followers."

Shiller opened his mouth but didn’t know what to say. You can’t expect devils to understand etiquette and decency; isn’t this the routine devils use to coax believers?

During the Middle Ages, there was still the church to regulate things. In modern society, everyone is open, perhaps too open, so Mephisto isn’t guaranteed to sway everyone he encounters.

Shiller decided to skip this topic. He said, "Do you know black magic?"

"What?"

"Black magic, like curses and stuff, do you know it?"

Mephisto’s expression turned somewhat strange. He looked at Shiller and said, "Do you think I should?"

"I think you’ve lived so long, even if you haven’t eaten pork, you must have seen pigs run. When those Grand Mages used black magic, you must have seen it. You must know a bit, right?"

Mephisto’s expression grew even stranger, as if he thought of some embarrassing past. After hesitating for a moment, he said, "Do you know who the first person to use black magic was?"

"Who?"

"The first Supreme Magician."

"Did he beat you?"

"Not every Supreme Magician can beat me!" Mephisto raised his voice and said, "He was my follower! The black magic he used was taught by me! I am the creator of black magic!"

"That can’t be right." Shiller looked at him and said, "You’re a devil, the energy you can wield is almost infinite, why would you study black magic?"

"Isn’t it because of you all, you foolish human race!" Mephisto finally couldn’t hold it back and said, "I give you energy, and you don’t know how to use it! If I don’t teach you the correct way to use magic, you’d blow yourselves to pieces!"

"Uh..." Shiller didn’t know how to argue. Judging by Mephisto’s current emotion, what he said might be true, black magic might really have been passed on to the human race by this old devil.

Mephisto sighed rather helplessly and said, "I was among the earliest demons to invest in the human race. I saw your potential long ago, I knew the unique aspects of your souls, and that’s why I’ve been tirelessly advocating for thousands of years that Hell is the destination for human souls."

"Unlike those demons who recklessly oppressed and plundered humans in that era, I adopted a method of peaceful trade from the start. Although it wasn’t completely honest, it was at least a transaction, which was quite civilized in that era."

"But the human race is a race with many congenital defects. I don’t know how to describe it to you, but those humans with barren magical talents before you released energy in the Nine Major Kingdoms were already the result of generations of demons tirelessly providing you with energy nourishment. In ancient times, human magic talent was even worse than that."

This didn’t surprise Shiller. The human race is inherently a life form completely different from magical creatures. At the starting point of evolution, they should have no direct understanding of energy or any direct way to use energy; otherwise, they wouldn’t have needed to drill wood to make fire.

"The energy I can provide to the human race is too strong for them, they simply can’t store or control it well. To allow them to use this power, I had to put in place restrictions, like the safety on your firearms, requiring the drawing of specific patterns or the reciting of spells to invoke power. This was what black magic looked like at the beginning."

Shiller understood a bit. Previously, he had wondered when watching Strange cast spells, why didn’t he need to recite spells or make gestures. Strange had told him that magic itself flows with the mind, what you want, you achieve, without so many restrictions.

But this might actually be because he has magic talent, and he’s not lacking in energy, so even if he moves with his mind and makes a mistake, it’s not a big issue, at least it won’t hurt him.

But in ancient times, it was different. Mephisto might not be able to pick out a few people with magic talent, and without restrictions, these people could accidentally kill themselves, so he imposed many limitations on magic.

"Later, the form of magic I invented with restrictions was greatly expanded upon, and the human race called it black magic. The name isn’t wrong, after all, I am a devil. But the reason this magic was able to develop, you humans have yourselves to blame."

"The human race is just too greedy. No matter how much energy I give them, it’s never enough. If I give little, they’ll max out fighting; if I give too much, they’ll dare to fight the Sun when drunk. So usually I don’t give them too much energy."

"However, if I give too little, I’d seem too stingy, and humans would criticize me for not being generous enough. In that era, I had many competitors, and I didn’t want to lower my image among humans over this. So I told them, you need to study ways to conserve energy on your own. If you can’t research it, that’s your own stupidity, you can’t blame me for giving too little."

"Humans really racked their brains on this, and within a few generations, they came up with several ways to conserve energy, which became the prototype of what is known as black magic today."

"Only a prototype?"

"Yes, from start to finish, only a prototype. Because before it could develop more profoundly and widely, The Ancient One became the Supreme Magician. His magic talent was so good, no matter how much energy the demons gave him, he could absorb it all and use it naturally. He beat all the black magicians on Earth, and then they realized this path was a dead end, and basically no one used it anymore."

"I see." Shiller said. But what he thought to himself was that if it weren’t for The Ancient One, if black magic had continued to develop, it might have reached a point where even ordinary people with no magic talent could use it. Unfortunately, The Ancient One descended like a god, completely blocking this path.

However, this was actually a good thing. If the extremely energy-efficient black magic hadn’t been lost over time, humans wouldn’t have ambitiously acquired so much energy. This is the same principle Shiller wants to teach Night Owl about black magic.