Chapter 418 - 306: Root of Magic, Medical Tentacle (Part 2)

Chapter 418: Chapter 306: Root of Magic, Medical Tentacle (Part 2)

After a series of sounds, the tentacle extended and waited quietly.

"Extract the root of Magic and transfer it to him," Yuan Mingfei commanded.

"Voice detection in progress... Voice verified. Confirming command: Extract the root of Magic and transfer to another person. Commencing operation. Please do not leave."

The tentacle then deftly picked up a nearby syringe and reached toward Yuan Mingfei, who was lying face down on the bed.

Yuan Mingfei had already taken off his shirt, revealing his gaunt, knobby spine.

The tentacle first sprayed a disinfectant, sterilizing his back with great care before abruptly plunging the syringe needle into his lumbar spine.

Yuan Mingfei let out a muffled groan, and Wu Liangchen frowned as he watched.

’So this is how they extract the root of Magic?’

As the syringe drew back, clear cerebrospinal fluid was extracted first, followed by a pale golden spinal marrow.

By now, Yuan Mingfei didn’t even have the strength to scream, leaving himself completely at the mercy of the medical tentacle.

Finally, after a full minute, an entire syringe of spinal marrow had been drawn.

Yuan Mingfei had already fallen into a semi-conscious state.

"Commencing transfer!"

Along with the hollow, synthesized voice, the medical tentacle turned its attention to Wu Liangchen. It reached over, ready to plunge the syringe into him.

Just then, Wu Liangchen erupted in a brilliant golden light that instantly shattered the syringe’s needle.

"Warning: Medical syringe damaged. Target is resisting. Preparing to switch to secondary protocol."

As the warning sounded, numerous smaller tendrils sprouted from the medical tentacle and shot toward Wu Liangchen, attempting to bind him.

But Wu Liangchen gave it no such chance. He seized the medical tentacle and squeezed hard.

CRACK! Sparks flew from within the medical tentacle, and it went limp, slumping like a dead snake.

Wu Liangchen reached out and caught the falling syringe, a cold smirk appearing on his face.

"Trying to set a trap for me? You’re still too green for that!"

That’s right.

From the very beginning, Wu Liangchen had never trusted Yuan Mingfei.

His suspicion began the moment he first laid eyes on him.

How to put it? When Wu Liangchen first met Yuan Mingfei, his initial feeling was that the man was very strange.

Not weak, but a strangeness akin to a mismatch between an operating system and its user interface.

But at the time, it was merely a suspicion, and Wu Liangchen didn’t dwell on it.

After all, it was his first time meeting a Magic-user from overseas; perhaps this was just how they were.

His suspicion deepened after they reached the Shadowlands, when Yuan Mingfei suddenly changed his story, claiming he needed to recover for a while before he could contact the Navigator’s Guild.

This undoubtedly increased his mistrust.

However, when Yuan Mingfei fought side-by-side with him, not once turning traitor even when facing immense danger, Wu Liangchen suppressed that mistrust deep down.

He figured Yuan Mingfei probably just liked to tell little lies, but that his fundamental nature wasn’t bad.

And telling little lies wasn’t even considered a flaw in the grand scheme of the Alliance.

After all, even the man he met on the ship had said it was best not to trust anyone in this place.

Even as Wu Liangchen followed Yuan Mingfei down into the sewers and before they successfully reached this hideout, he thought he might have misjudged the man.

It wasn’t until they arrived at the hideout that Wu Liangchen sensed something was amiss.

The hideout was too concealed, its facilities too complete; it was nothing a mere Level Three Magic-user should be able to possess.

That’s why Wu Liangchen had asked a probing question, and Yuan Mingfei’s explanation was that his master had made many enemies, forcing him to take such precautions to avoid disaster.

The explanation sounded reasonable at first glance, but it didn’t hold up under careful analysis.

First, if the situation was truly as perilous as Yuan Mingfei claimed, how had he survived this long?

Second, a hideout like this obviously couldn’t have been built in a short amount of time, yet Yuan Mingfei said his master had disappeared the year before last.

Two years was a short time, and if you factored out other activities, it was shorter still.

Unless Yuan Mingfei had poured all his time and energy into this project—but was that even possible?

So after realizing something was off, Wu Liangchen kept a straight face and carefully re-evaluated everything that had happened.

He realized that ever since he had come ashore, he had been led around by the nose by Yuan Mingfei.

First, they hid in the small building in the Shadowlands, and after being exposed, he was led into these sewers.

Everything seemed so logical, yet at the same time, everything seemed too coincidental.

It was as if an invisible hand had arranged it all in advance.

And what Yuan Mingfei said afterward put Wu Liangchen on even higher alert.

Transferring the root of Magic—the whole thing sounded fishy.

Yet when Wu Liangchen raised questions, Yuan Mingfei’s earnest, sincere expression was enough to dispel any doubts.

To win his trust, Yuan Mingfei had even offered him something like the Wyrm-Rider’s Horn.

But the more he acted like this, the more Wu Liangchen felt that something was wrong.

But he didn’t expose him on the spot. Instead, he played along.

He only made his move when the so-called medical tentacle, after extracting Yuan Mingfei’s spinal marrow, attempted to inject it into his own body.