The Path to Power
When Luke was a child, before his Green Flame power awakened, he was preoccupied with one question: survival.
To live happily as an ordinary person in a DC world where gods and demons were as common as dogs required extraordinary luck.
Luke's luck had always been good, so he chose to wait. He spent his days eating and sleeping, keeping himself well-fed and comfortable. But after five years, the "transmigrator's benefit" never materialized. Forget a system, he didn't even get a basic cheat ability.
Reluctantly, he gave up the comfortable life of idleness and began to look for alternatives.
There are many ways to gain strength, generally boiling down to a few categories: superpowers, mutation, technology, magic, secret martial arts, or becoming a fanatical follower of some evil entity.
The last option was immediately discarded. Superpowers depend on destiny and can't be forced. As for mutation, that was a concern for the poor; as the grandson of the former leader of the Hongmen Society, Luke had never known the meaning of "poor."
That left technology, magic, and secret martial arts.
All three required time to accumulate, especially secret martial arts. Whether it was Chinese boxing, ancient Indian yoga, or Amazonian Mayan battle forms, they all required decades of practice. Worse still, even practiced to the highest level, they couldn't withstand a single punch from a Kryptonian.
This was quite embarrassing.
After learning the destructive potential of top-tier martial arts from the old beggar, Luke immediately abandoned the idea of martial arts training. No matter how the old man sweet-talked him, Luke refused to become his disciple, frustrating the beggar almost to the point of hitting a wall.
Since secret martial arts were out, only two options remained: technology and magic. Magic was fascinating—what man doesn't love magic? The problem was bloodline. Magic in the DC world requires a specific lineage to be effective. Someone without the bloodline of a sorcerer or a demon could study for a hundred years and still be stuck as a Muggle.
Luke's ancestors were proper Han Chinese. It wasn't until his great-grandfather failed a rebellion and was chased by the Qing dynasty that they fled to America to make a living. To expect such a family to have a sorcerer's bloodline was a joke.
As expected, Luke had no magical talent. After two years of training with no results, he shifted his focus entirely to the Phantom Armor.
He never expected that, after so many years, he would finally encounter a genuine magic book—and a forbidden one at that, detailing black magic and demon summoning arrays.
A Midnight Conversation
Inside the underground base at the Coast City docks.
Looking at the empty hall, Luke spoke with a hint of resignation.
"Stop hiding. I know you're here."
As soon as he finished speaking, the Kryptonian girl, wearing an oversized white shirt, walked out of a room. She looked like she had just showered; her hair was damp, and a pair of long legs were exposed, gleaming under the light. The only disappointing thing was that she wasn't carrying a condom, but a golden-crusted, roasted lamb leg.
The girl stuck out her tongue, slightly embarrassed.
"I was bored at the house, so I wanted to wander around. I didn't realize I wandered all the way to Coast City."
Luke didn't bother to scold her. He knew what she was up to but chose not to call her out. He then removed the Phantom Armor, sat on the sofa, and opened the parchment book, flipping through the pages one by one.
Since Luke didn't speak, Linda's prepared excuses went unused. She pouted, chewing on her lamb leg, and asked,
"What are you reading?"
"Magic."
"Like the kind on TV?"
Luke glanced at her and said calmly, "That's parlor tricks, for performance. This book is about Black Magic that actually exists in reality."
Linda immediately became interested. She tossed the lamb rib aside, jumped onto the sofa with bare feet, and peered closely at the book along Luke's line of sight.
The parchment was covered in mysterious, unfamiliar characters. Some were pictograms, and others bore traces of ancient Greek script.
"Are these characters also letters?"
"More accurately, they are Magical Runes—a form of demonic script that circulated in Hell, later refined by humans into their current form. They are the foundation for casting spells."
"How do you know that?"
"When I was little, I studied magic for two years. I mastered the reading and spelling of the runes, and I also learned how to inscribe certain magic arrays."
Luke flipped the book to the tenth page and pointed at the strange diagram.
"For example, this one. It's a common Five-Star Array in black magic, used specifically for demon sacrifices. You place a prepared living person in the array, use a specific incantation to communicate with a demon, the demon takes the soul and flesh of the sacrificed, and the caster receives a reward from the demon. The more people sacrificed, the greater the reward."
"That sounds truly evil!"
Luke smiled. "What black magic isn't evil?"
"Well, can you do it?"
"Do what?"
Linda pointed at the parchment book. "Magic!"
Luke pondered for a few seconds, then slowly said, "Magic is divided into many types: Reversal Magic, Elemental Magic, Mind Magic, Temperature Magic, Force Field Magic, Flight Spells, Space Magic, Time Magic, Sensory Magic, Light Magic, Regeneration Magic, Dispel Magic, Enhancement Magic, Conjuration Magic, and so on..."
He paused, then shrugged under the girl's expectant gaze.
"Because of my bloodline, I can't do any of the above."
Linda: "..."
Why didn't you say so earlier? What a waste of time!
"However..." He changed the subject. "Magic related to the soul—Soul Magic—and the demon summoning array... I might have a tiny bit of talent for those."
"Seriously? Are you lying again?"
"We can try it and find out."
Luke felt it was necessary to give it a try. After all, the Green Flame was closely linked to the soul. If he couldn't learn other types of magic, Soul Magic might be an exception. Conveniently, the parchment book detailed several necromancy spells related to the soul.
"Follow me!"
Necromancy Test
The two left the docks and found an abandoned graveyard.
It was currently midnight. The surroundings were pitch black. All they could see were overgrown weeds and broken tombstones.
The graveyard looked like it had been deserted for a long time.
Linda felt her teeth chattering. She asked anxiously,
"Are we really going to test it here?"
"The best place to test Necromancy is a graveyard. If you're scared, just close your eyes."
"I'm not scared!"
"Then come help me. Push the coffin lid open."
Linda: "..."
Luke Shaw, you are an absolute bastard!
The girl glared furiously at Luke, then kicked the stone coffin. The lid, weighing dozens of pounds, flew off like a projectile.
The corpse inside had long since decomposed into mere bones, easily a century old.
Luke opened the ancient parchment book, flipped to the middle page, memorized the spell for enslaving a corpse, and then walked up to the skeletal remains.
As the hoarse, low incantation echoed through the air, several inexplicable auras suddenly appeared in the graveyard.
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