Mage Manual
Chapter 545 - 443: I Became a Substitute

Chapter 545: Chapter 443: I Became a Substitute

At 6 a.m. this morning, when the sky was just beginning to brighten, Ash immediately followed Igula’s bathing routine, when everyone’s Gospel Book popped up on its own again.

Just four days had passed, and the Gospel Book updated with a fifth list: "The List of Evil Magic."

As the name suggests, evil magic referred to a malevolent Magic Faction.

Actually, this definition was quite absurd, as even the dimwitted ogre mages knew magic bore no intrinsic good or evil, it was the Mage that had moral standing. For instance, a Legendary Necromancer from the Six Emblems opened up a mermaid scent farm for his family, and setting aside Ash’s opinion, the mermaid scent farm indeed turned Vatican Mura into a happy and blissful city, even significantly improved the productivity of its citizens. Therefore, it was unquestionable that the Necromancy Faction was advanced, just, and kind here.

But while magic lacked a moral dichotomy, the environment for magic cultivation certainly had its good and bad.

Take the Necromancy Faction for example. In a so-called Eternal Paradise where everyone had Eternal Life, how could a Necromancy Faction with no corpses to draw from cultivate? Hence, in Eternal Paradise, the Necromancy Faction absolutely qualified as evil magic because purveying necromancy equated to murder.

According to the Kingdom of Gospel, evil magic encapsulated those Magic Factions unfeasible in a normal society: pestilence, famine, war, death, chaos, despair... Mages who wanted to cultivate these kinds of magics had to actively lead society towards collapse, thus each and every practitioner of evil magic could be said to be incredibly sinful, deserving of nothing more than a dismal fate.

What’s more, these evil Magic Factions had no contribution to productivity. Necromancy, at the very least, could improve the recycling efficiency of corpses, but pestilence, famine, war, and chaos—didn’t all of these reduce production efficiency?

Other Combat Factions might not boost productivity, but at least they did not decrease it!

Had it been an era of bordering chaos amongst several nations, these evil Magic Factions could have protected and defended the homeland, but now every realm was self-contained, and even leaving a country depended on whether the Void Realm granted a visa channel—national military readiness was wholly unnecessary.

Were it not for the requirement to contend with battle in the Void Realm, and the need for power to suppress the Abyss, Ash would have doubted whether Combat Mages would have ended up as the scorn at the bottom of the pecking order (unless they were Legendary Holy Sanctuary Mages). Every era has its theme, and in a stable society, Creation Mages were the sole answer to the version’s question.

If regular Combat Mages were a sewer profession, then practitioners of evil magic were surely the level of a stinking drainage ditch.

Therefore, today’s update of the "The List of Evil Magic" featured the ten most nauseating stench-filled mages for the next fifty years. In an era where an apocalypse loomed, they might not be remembered favorably for ages, but they would certainly leave behind a millennia of odious legacy, each one taking advantage of societal unrest to create city-destroying calamities, reintroducing almost eradicated concepts like pestilence, famine, war, and chaos back into the nation.

To be honest, Ash actually had little ground to detest the people on "The List of Evil Magic", let alone himself. Igula had once annihilated a city on the "Deceit List", and Harvey had even created ten major Necromancer families on the "Family List". Compared to them, those listed in "The List of Evil Magic" weren’t even worthy to carry their shoes.

If Ash truly detested villains, he should’ve started his motorcycle on a rampage and kicked those two bikes off the highway bridge.

But firstly, Ash believed that the Gospel had simply misunderstood Igula and Harvey, and secondly, he was on good terms with the two, so he’d certainly be biased in favor of his friends. Just like the Gospel had always maligned him as the Source of Chaos, Igula and Harvey had never doubted him—even though Ash wished they’d suspect him just a little. Their complete trust left Ash feeling slightly undervalued.

Just like with "The Happiness List", the release of "The List of Evil Magic" saw all its effects neutralized by Ash. That was also why they were speeding over the highway bridge—Hanna could finally confirm that all subsequent lists would be invalidated at an accelerated pace, meaning the "Assassinate the Princess" plan could officially commence. They no longer needed to play house in Fidel.

However, the actions of ’Gospel Ash’ in "The List of Evil Magic" irked the real one considerably.

If ’Gospel Ash’ had persuaded, threatened, or even killed those Resonators from the list of evil magic, it would have been somewhat out of character for Ash, but he could have accepted that.

Instead, ’Gospel Ash’ chose to make them repent.

An act as naive as it was fraught with cruelty.

In essence, ’Gospel Ash’ appeared before the Resonators before they embarked on their path of evil magic, preemptively forcing them to confront the catastrophic scenes they would cause, the despair and resentment of their victims, and even the pain wrought by the evil magic itself, all crammed into their minds, causing them to repent for their misdeeds and then take their own lives.

Perhaps it was because ’Gospel Ash’ was seen as having done a good deed this time, or maybe because a wanted notice had lost its meaning for him, but the Empire’s Red Hat finally lifted the bounty on him, as if encouraging him to kill more bad guys and do more good deeds in the future.

But Ash was most dissatisfied with "The List of Evil Magic".

If the first three lists misaligned with his character, and "The Happiness List" distorted it, then "The List of Evil Magic" was nothing short of a total reconstruction of his persona.

’Gospel Ash’s behavior in it was like, wielding judgment from on high over the Resonators for the evil deeds they hadn’t yet committed. Nevermind his capacity to sway these Resonators back to the right path—after all, that was too saintly, and Ash himself had no interest in saving potentially fallen souls.

Yet, ’Gospel Ash’, who could have slain the Resonators with a single strike, didn’t settle for simple destruction, whether it was to undermine the Gospel, save the world, or act on dislike. Instead, he insisted on repentance, placing himself in the role of a judge, as if judging sinners who hadn’t yet sinned like a Divine Being.