My mentor led me onto the path of the mage—the Archmage Russell

Perhaps the Soul Forbidden Zone truly is the domain of the gods. Just as James Carter was preparing to press on and devote himself fully to pondering this profound question, his vision suddenly went black, and he felt a wave of exhaustion wash over him.

“Warning! The concentration of high-energy molecules in your blood has dropped to an extremely dangerous level. James Carter, you urgently need to eat and replenish your energy.” Forrest Gump’s voice sounded unusually anxious.

If Forrest Gump hadn’t said anything, it might have been better. But with this reminder, the next second, James Carter was overwhelmed by a tsunami of hunger.

“Is there anything to eat?” James Carter asked weakly, his voice so faint that even he could barely hear it.

He was completely powerless, his limbs twitching slightly, his stomach aching in spasms, his mind heavy as if weighed down by a boulder. He couldn’t even think coherently; his consciousness was flickering, like a car running out of fuel, about to stop functioning altogether.

James Carter felt that even turning over a thought in his mind was exhausting—so tiring that he just wanted to fall asleep and never wake up.

He knew something was seriously wrong. Clearly, the earlier bout of intense calculation had consumed more energy than this body could handle.

The original owner of this body had suffered from chronic malnutrition. Although there was some small muscle left from years of training, the body had long been hollowed out by a harsh life and simply couldn’t withstand any strain.

You can’t expect a battered old Sanpu to run at Ferrari speeds, and just now, James Carter had forced the car to act like a jet plane. No wonder it was falling apart!

The amount of information processed in an instant by the brain of a super-elite from an interstellar civilization is utterly incomparable to that of an ordinary youth struggling to survive in an agricultural society. Such a massive flow of information inevitably requires a huge amount of energy, and neither James Carter nor Forrest Gump had ever encountered such an awkward situation of energy deficiency in their previous lives. What’s more, this was a brand-new body, and neither of them had any experience using it.

And so, tragedy befell James Carter!

By the time Forrest Gump noticed the dangerous state James Carter was in, it was already almost too late.

Now, if James Carter relaxed his mind for even a moment, he might die instantly. And of course, as James Carter’s auxiliary intelligence, Forrest Gump would also cease to exist.

If the skin is gone, where can the hair attach?

As a purely logical unit, Forrest Gump made his choice without hesitation.

When James Carter could no longer hold on and was about to give up, a sharp pain shot from deep within his mind—something important in his brain had shattered.

The sudden pain was like a bucket of ice water dumped over his head, instantly banishing all drowsiness.

The pain in his mind came quickly and left just as fast. What followed was a wave of coolness spreading throughout his body. The sensation rippled through him like water, and with each sweep of coolness, the faint light of life within James Carter grew a little brighter. The cells of his body, which had been dim to the extreme, slowly but steadily began to regain their vitality.

The “ripples” washed over him three times, barely restoring this extremely weak body to the state it was in when James Carter first arrived. His life was saved—just barely.

This unexpected situation made James Carter’s heart skip a beat, giving him a bad feeling.

“Forrest Gump?” he called out tentatively, but there was no response—something that had never happened before.

James Carter immediately realized what had just happened: Forrest Gump, his auxiliary intelligence, had executed the First Directive and automatically chosen to go into hibernation!

The so-called First Directive means that, under any circumstances, the auxiliary intelligence must prioritize the survival of the primary intelligence, even at the cost of extinguishing its own existence.

Abandoning advanced logic units that provide no immediate benefit to survival, and releasing the large share of life energy used to maintain those units, in order to ensure the basic survival state—this perfectly fits the principle of optimal survival.

The meager energy provided by this broken body could now barely support the intelligence of James Carter alone, and even then, only at the lowest operational state. Even so, it was still on the verge of collapse, with no possibility of supporting two highly developed interstellar intelligences at the same time, let alone running efficiently.

An auxiliary intelligence common in interstellar civilizations is simply too much of a luxury for a frail youth from an agricultural society—he just can’t afford it!

“When you’re down on your luck, even thinking can kill you! What a lousy body.” James Carter was full of frustration.

Now, not only could he not support Forrest Gump, even his own intelligence could only run at the lowest level. Any high-density logical thinking would send him right back to the brink of death.

With Forrest Gump in hibernation, reactivating him in the future would take a huge effort, leaving James Carter so depressed he wanted to curse.

After grumbling and venting his frustration, James Carter began to sort through the fragments of memory left by the youth, hoping to gather as much information about this world as possible.

From the scattered memories, James Carter learned that this place was called Wildfire City, a small, inconspicuous city on the border of the Storm Kingdom, near the Thunder Mountains.