Mage? Spell Engineer!.

Chapter 478 "I" and the Mirror Image
This wasn't the first time Rorschach had faced "me".

When the ancient sage separated the two "Rorschachs", he initially only had a wonderful sense of tacit understanding, and they could sense and communicate with each other. After the souls merged, the two memories intersected, and in his opinion it was a completely unified self.

Now there appears a mirror image, a seemingly separate being, a more perfect being.

The red-robed Rorschach claimed that he had been promoted to a great wizard. He seemed to have absolute control over the Tree of Law and this space. He was simply an individual named "Rorschach", a perfect prototype engraved at the border.

The ego Rorschach is just an intermediate wizard, so he naturally felt a little fear when he heard "You are the challenger". This fear is not cowardice, but can be traced back to infancy, which shows that it is a human instinct:

When the baby becomes conscious, he will realize the correspondence between the image in the mirror and himself. When he raises his hand and sees himself in the mirror raising his hand, he will experience a sense of control. Rorschach felt this way when he ordered the tower spirit in the past.

And when the self suddenly realizes one day that the mirror image is out of touch with the cognition of "me", it will doubt: "Is this me?" It's like turning on the front camera without beauty filter and making a click. And "Red Robe Rorschach" crawled out of the fear in this gap and declared grimly "I am me" and "You are the mirror image".

At this time, the red robe Rorschach raised his hand, and the Tree of Law separated golden threads and merged into him. In an instant, the magic power at the border changed its direction, and for the spirit Rorschach, it was like being in a storm.

To fight against it, the ego Rorschach absorbs the violent magic power and then outputs it to form a stable field.

One side has mastered the rules of the border, while the other side is trying to maintain its own rules. From this perspective, the advantages and disadvantages are clear. Red Robe Rorschach exerts pressure bit by bit, gradually compressing the area supported by the ego Rorschach and gradually eroding it.

Rorschach had previously confirmed that the nodes of the Tree of Law reached up to nine layers, and the corresponding link was the mini black hole that Rorschach had released in the plane of air. It was an interweaving of shaping and change, which relied on Rorschach's knowledge of energy control and his understanding of time and space. Although Rorschach himself was not good at casting spells related to time and space, he could make the "mini black hole" effective based on his understanding of time and space itself.

Now, Hongpao Xia opened his arms, and the golden tree glowed brightly. Multiple branches began to extend and intertwine on their own, and more ninth-layer nodes appeared, followed by the tenth layer.
He was deducing and quickly extracting the magical skills belonging to the ancient sages, and then obtained the Nine-Ring Spell to prove to his ego Rorschach that his red robe was worthy of the name.

The entire border was engulfed in lightning and thunder. It was not ordinary lightning, but a mixture of golden and lightless darkness. They were the gaps between reality and symbolism. The light represented energy gushing out of the gaps, while the lightlessness was the devouring cracks. Transmutation dust was absorbed by the lightless cracks and erupted from the lighted gaps.

When lightning struck the territory of his ego Rorschach, he could feel the tremor and loss of control of the magic. With every strike, his territory was forced to shrink a little.

When the domain completely controlled by Red Robe Xia won and reached Rorschach's spirit, all kinds of pain began to act directly on him. These pains were taken from many enchantment spells uploaded to the spell cloud. At this time, they were at the border and did not need to rely on the nerves of the real body to work, but directly tortured Rorschach's soul.

Torture?

Red Robe Xia paced leisurely and said, "I am torturing you, so do you think I dare not kill you?"

He gently lifted Rorschach's distorted face with the [Mage's Hand] and chuckled, "In fact, I don't rely on you to exist, so I can easily erase you and replace your spirit body to return to the material world with just a thought.

"But the material world is not that good either. It's crawling with nothing but ants and monkeys. Only a few of them can uncover the truth of the world and partially understand the ideas brought by Rorschach. In my opinion, it is enough to find a clone.

"The Tree of Law is my throne, and the border is my royal court. I can control Byrne and hundreds of spellcasters from a high position. Compared to the so-called 'Great Mage' crawling in the material world, I prefer to be a transcendent."

The original Xia spat: "Then you can erase me and create a clone of yourself! For a great wizard, isn't this easy?" "Yes, but even if I create a clone, there won't be another agent as active as you. I want to thank you. Without you, there would be no me, and there would be no Tree of Law today." He looked up at the golden tree proudly, watching the light paths flickering: "How lush and beautiful."

Red Robe Xia turned around and said, "So, I am here to express my gratitude. From now on, as long as you don't step into this place again and don't bother about my existence, you can continue to do what you want in the material world - deal with those monkeys, save them, give them alms, and enlighten them. Aren't you enjoying the process?
"And you can still become a great wizard. Yes, I promise you that you will gain power no less than that of the ancient sages."

Rorschach disagreed with and didn't believe a single word he said: "What about you? If it's so simple, then just keep pretending to be 'Talling'. Why do this?"

"Me? I will continue on this path, always one step ahead of you, and be an enterprising Rorschach, not a Tarling.
"When you become a great wizard, I will naturally become a higher being. Becoming a god is a thought that has occurred to Rorschach more than once. However, you always want to stay away from it out of some ridiculous and insignificant obsession. The difference between you and me is that I will continue to move forward unwaveringly."

“Hasn’t what Dryuyats said been clear enough? Now there is not a single concrete god-level being to be seen in the Original Layer, and fragments of the Kingdom of God are flying all over the sky. Don’t you know that there are huge dangers behind becoming a god?”

"So what? Can you avoid danger by becoming an ant? Can a mere mortal fight against Mother Earth? Your worry is nothing but an excuse for cowardice."

Red Robe Rorschach exerted pressure again. Although Rorschach's spirit did not have an actual brain structure, he seemed to be able to imagine the sharp weapon piercing and piercing between the grooves of the brain.

"There is a spell that cannot be uploaded and cannot be included in the original text."

"Of course I know as much as you do, [Reversal Ray], right? It is a spell that cancels spells, but it also means that it cannot be cast at the border because it does not have a perfect prototype." The red-robed Rorschach's expression remained unchanged. He was now seriously considering whether to completely wipe out the other party.

For Red Robe Rorschach, the "self" in front of him is more like a backup image of the old version of the system. It is best to have him, but without him, he will still exist, but things will change in ways he doesn't want to see. This was extracted by Red Robe Rorschach from the memories of ancient sages.

He would never tell his Self what the changes were.

"I feel more and more that you may also be 'Rorschach', but definitely not me." The main body smiled miserably: "On this point, our opinions differ again."

If [Reversal Ray] is still classified as a spell, then it cannot be performed and recorded in this special space. However, tracing its principle, as an existence similar to the original layer, it is not difficult to perform it in the border area.

Especially when it comes to yourself.

The first time Rorschach used the [Reversal Ray] on himself, his appearance changed and his magic circuits faded until the effect was complete and he happened to completely lose the ability to cast spells.

At this time, he had black hair and black pupils, and glared at the red-robed Rorschach. The "crack lightning" was still roaring, and this time it fell between the two, and the scattered traces were like cracks.

The mirror is broken.

(End of this chapter)