Chapter 5: The Magician's Secret

  In Greek, Sicily is called Trinacria, meaning "three heads", hinting at its triangular shape. If you pay a little attention, you will find that its three corners are pointing to Asia, Africa and Europe respectively. It's just because it's too close to the Italian peninsula, so it can't help but show off, slightly tilting its body.

  Palermo, the capital of Sicily, is located in the northwest of the island. Sicily is situated at the southwestern tip of the Apennine Peninsula, which is the "toe" of Italy's boot-shaped peninsula extending into the Mediterranean Sea. It is the largest island in the Mediterranean. The area is vast and fertile, with a warm climate and beautiful scenery, producing citrus fruits, lemons and olives. Due to its favorable natural environment for agriculture and forestry, it has been historically known as the "Golden Basin".

  Sicily is the largest and most populous island in the Mediterranean, belonging to Italy, located in the southwest of the Apennine Peninsula. It is separated from the Apennine Peninsula by the 3-kilometer-wide Strait of Messina to the east. In the 8th century BC to the 6th century BC, the Greeks established colonies on the eastern coast of the island. In 241 BC, it became a province of the Roman Empire. Later, it was ruled by the Vandals, Byzantines, Normans, and others. In 1442, it was incorporated into the Kingdom of Sicily, but soon split again and came under Spanish rule. In 1861, it was incorporated into the Kingdom of Italy.

  Nicholas Cage was born in the southernmost town of Reggio Calabria, a region that faces Tunisia across the sea in North Africa. Of course this is not Hollywood superstar Nicholas Cage.

  Kaiji's father was a sailor who spent most of his time at sea. He would only be home for three months out of the year. Kaiji had two younger sisters and he was the eldest. The family struggled to make ends meet, like many others in their town. At 13 years old, Kaiji was forced to drop out of school to help his mother take care of his siblings. During his free time, he met an 89-year-old Gypsy man. Kaiji would often bring the old man some fruit and sugar, and in return, the old man would show him some magic tricks. The old man discovered that Kaiji had a natural talent for magic and could remember simple tricks after just one demonstration. So, the old man took Kaiji on as his apprentice and taught him many magic skills. A few years later, the old man passed away, but Kaiji became a well-known magician in their town.

  When Keiji was 18 years old, a circus troupe performed in the local area. Keiji went to find this circus troupe and applied to join the circus troupe with the manager of the circus troupe. When the circus troupe manager saw Keiji perform several small magic tricks, he immediately agreed to let Keiji join the circus troupe and paid a sum of money as commission. Keiji handed over most of the money to his mother and left Sicily with the circus troupe.

  Katie traveled with the circus throughout Europe.

  Kaiji goes to every new place to ask if there are any magicians and discusses techniques with local magicians. Slowly, Kaiji's magic is becoming more and more popular. However, Kaiji is not satisfied, his dream is to become the greatest magician in the world. But as the level gets higher and higher, Kaiji finds that he can't create anything new anymore. After every performance, which is always the same, Kaiji is deeply troubled.

  After a performance in Rome, Keats could no longer bear this life. He resolutely signed up to join the Italian African Corps.

  At the beginning of the new recruit training, Kaito relied on his magician's quick reaction and agile hands to quickly grasp various military skills. His training results were impressive, and during his free time, he performed some small magic tricks for his comrades, earning the goodwill of most of them.

  But when it came to the distribution, the bureaucratic officer saw that Kaito used to work in a circus and directly assigned him to the logistics department to feed the military horses. Poor Kaito became a horse feeder.

  Nestor, the guy in charge of military supplies, is a greedy and lustful guy. Not only does he embezzle and withhold materials, but he also withholds his subordinates' salaries. However, Nestor is the brother-in-law of an Italian Ministry of Interior official. The higher-ups in the army turn a blind eye to this guy's behavior.

  Kaiqi's touring performances over the years also earned a lot of money. Apart from giving some to his mother, he had a considerable amount on hand himself.

  So, whether there's a lot of money or not, Kaito doesn't particularly care. However, Nestar is somehow ill and constantly causes trouble for Kaito every day. It turns out that this guy has always been jealous of Kaito's good relationships with others. Kaito's good relationships are also unavoidable; he often performs small magic tricks for everyone to enjoy, and when others have difficulties, he takes out money to help his colleagues. This makes Nestar mistakenly think that Kaito is stealing military supplies to sell for money. Why? Because generally, new recruits are not allowed to carry large amounts of cash and personal items. But this rule doesn't apply to Kaito at all. For an experienced magician like him, hiding some money and things on his body is incredibly easy. This kind of thing is something that Kaito can do with his eyes closed.

  Neshta is a greedy fellow, but that doesn't mean he can tolerate others being greedy.

  While searching Kaito's place, this guy rummaged through all of Kaito's belongings. In the end, he couldn't find a single Rila and in his frustration, he tore up a photo of Kaito's whole family into shreds. When Kaito returned home, many of the shredded pieces had already been blown away by the wind. Seeing that his sister's head and half of his dad's body were gone, Kaito got angry.

  Kai Qi was really furious.

  One night, when everyone in the camp was half asleep, Kaito sneaked into Nest's quarters. He used an anesthetic from the circus to knock out animals, soaked a towel with it, and gently covered Nest's face with the towel. As a result, Nest was knocked out while sleeping. After a few minutes, Kaito lightly touched Nest and saw that he had no reaction at all. Kaito then carried Nest on his back, opened the door, and evaded the patrolling sentry in the darkness, carrying Nest to the entrance of the ammunition depot. Kaito took out an object similar to a hairpin from his body, inserted it into the lock, and gently shook it. With a faint click, the door was opened. Kaito was seen half-crouching on the ground, one hand supporting Nest on his back, while the other hand and two feet slowly moved. At this time, the guard outside the ammunition depot was leaning over the table, reading a book, completely unaware that Kaito had slipped past his desk.

  Katie crawled over the outer earthen wall of the ammunition depot and entered the interior. Then she opened a long, narrow box used for storing shells and took out one of the shells. She pushed a scale over to weigh the shell. Katie then pulled out a thin rope that had been prepared in advance and carefully tied Nestor up from head to toe, leaving only two small holes for his nose to breathe through, and just enough space around his chest to allow it to rise and fall with each breath. When she finished, Nestor looked like a work of art, with not a single knot or seam visible anywhere, like a perfect M?bius strip. This craftsmanship would likely make even the most skilled SM masters from future generations green with envy. Katie then weighed Nestor again, placed him in the shell box, and added some packing material to secure him inside, making it impossible for him to move except to breathe. Finally, she added some counterweights to make the box containing Nestor weigh the same as the other boxes, and evenly sprinkled a layer of long strips of paper on top. She closed the lid, then drilled several small holes in the corners of the box for ventilation.

  Cai Qi then put the cannonballs taken out of the box into some scrapped ammunition piles far away from the cannonball box, and finally wiped away his footprints with a rag and left the ammunition depot.

  It wasn't until 4 days later, when artillery units were firing shells that Nestor was discovered.

  When Nesta was sent to the field hospital, he could no longer be called human. Without even a glimpse of sunlight, where there were no boxes or cabinets, became Nesta's new home. The doctor, in desperation, had no choice but to issue a certificate and send Nesta back to Italy.

  Kai Qi was sentenced to life imprisonment for injuring a superior officer.

  Facing prison life, Katch didn't show a desperate attitude. Nor did he recklessly hang out with other inmates. Calm, extremely calm. After most people in the camp knew about Katch's past, they kept their distance from this calmly terrifying guy. There were also some guys who went to look for trouble with Katch, but every time Katch was fixed, these guys would have problems the next day. Either they choked on food during meals or their whole body was covered in tar while sleeping.

  Kaiji became a special existence here. Even the German soldiers guarding this place did not want to provoke Kaiji. Every day, Kaiji was doing one thing - studying magic. Kaiji often performed in front of a large crowd. Even performing naked, people made various requests to increase the difficulty of the magic. Once, he even declared that he would go to Egypt's pyramids to perform and make Egypt's pyramids disappear.

  The military camp was guarded by German soldiers, because the Italian Carabinieri were useless. In their eyes, money and life were more important than anything else. Discipline and bravery didn't matter. And among the North African army prisoners there were also some German soldiers. The Germans, who were originally arrogant and proud, would not obey the Italian guards at all.

  After Germany's defeat in World War I, for nearly 15 years, there were only 100,000 land armies. These 100,000 land armies basically had the rank of officers and never forgot the pain and humiliation of defeat. Basically, everyone was working hard, sleeping on twigs and tasting gall. So it can be said that the German army in World War II was the best disciplined in the world, and its combat effectiveness was also the strongest. However, having only combat effectiveness is not omnipotent, and the shortage of manpower and resources eventually became the most fundamental reason for Germany's defeat.