Using the sharpened tip of a pitchfork as a pen, with the blood of the deceased for ink, Laine drew a terrifying array in the terrified and struggling gaze of Samer, much like a cultist would.
Then, he smiled and approached, easily putting an end to Samer's futile struggles before tossing him into the center of the array.
As the array lit up, in a special form, the energy from the dead man's flesh and blood was continuously transformed into controllable spiritual power. It was like a primitive holocaust, only there were no nature spirits to receive the sacrifice. This energy, mingled with the resentment of living beings, was merely used as a force to touch the omnipresent superficial Magic Net.
With a flash of inspiration, the witchcraft [Advanced Detection of Thought] was effortlessly cast, which was the sole value of Samer's extended life.
Like a film reel, a massive amount of useful and useless information flashed before Laine's eyes. Although most of it was worthless, even the perceptions of a lowly peasant allowed Laine to understand this world that was both familiar and strange.
"Church, Evil God, Divine Blood Nobles, Wizards..."
"New Chronicle, the calendar established with the founding of Athens as a marker..."
"The nation blessed by the Gods, Olympia... The Sanctuary of the Heavenly Empress Argos... Blood Sacrifice, Natural Disasters... Northern barbarians worshiping the Evil God, claiming that everything has a spirit and can become a God?"
"And there's Turingen City, the northernmost city-state within the Athenian sphere of influence...
The city has seen major changes recently, because the King of Athens signed an agreement with the Emerald Ring Alchemy Society, leading to alchemical products gradually flowing out from the capital—What's this situation, are the humans of the Chaos World so fierce that they have researched alchemy to such a degree by themselves?"
One by one, unexpected but welcome pieces of news flowed from the memory. In fact, Laine was a bit incredulous, not expecting a mere mortal he'd randomly selected to be so experienced.
However, he had no time to focus on the individual's loves and hatreds, nor why he knew such irrelevant information. His attention was solely fixed on this Emerald Ring Alchemy Society.
From nothing to inventing alchemy—if it were a God, it would be understandable, but how did humans achieve this? He was curious...
As he pondered, Laine's attention was instantly captured by the content in the memory.
It was precisely what he had wanted to know—the inventor of alchemy, and the president of the Emerald Ring Alchemy Society.
He slowly typed out a question mark, and once again, Laine felt that this world was indeed very interesting.
"...A child from a village outside the City of Eryxis who later went to study in the southeast of the continent... In Condonia City, he learned the secrets of witchcraft and, after becoming a Grand Sorceress, declined the White Tower's invitation, delving into the mysteries of witchcraft on his own."
"Eventually, after countless failures, he proposed the concept of 'equivalent exchange', believing that everything in the world could be transformed into another, and personally accomplished the feat of Transmutation, thereby founding a new school of alchemy. His name thus spread among All Countries..."
With a low chuckle, the memory before his eyes reached its conclusion, and Laine granted the unfortunate soul a swift end, then dusted off his clothes.
"Great Alchemist Hermes, very good, this is an interesting development... Indeed, going offline appropriately does help the world progress."
With a slight smile, Laine decided to first visit Turingen City, the nearest city.
Memories after all are just memories, [Advanced Detection of Thought] is not [Soul Insight] or [Memory Weave], or any other advanced level witchcraft. Of course, maybe in the time he was offline, someone might have invented something even more impressive at the lower levels of witchcraft, who knows?
In any case, browsing this version of memories was like reading a book, not only lacking illustrations but the results were also indistinct in importance, with ninety-nine percent redundancy.
In the end, as the ancients... the later generations said it well, 'Shallow learning from books is insufficient; one must experience things personally.' Laine intended to use his own eyes, to witness firsthand this Mythic World that had veered who knows how far from the original History.
Note 1: Regarding the names of the currencies in Ancient Greece, different sources say different things; here we use Gold Coin for Stater, silver coin for Drachma (also made of gold, but more silver coins were present, and this is still the name of the Greek currency), and copper coin for Lepta (strictly speaking, it's a subsidiary currency, not a copper coin, but let's say it's a copper coin here.
Likewise, modern Greece also uses this name). As for the conversion ratio, defer to this book.