Chapter 778: Fishing, Claiming Ancestral Authority, and Blood Packs

On the ruins of Virdantia University, two Second Circle wizards from the black wizard alliance had appeared. One had just arrived from the Pale Pilgrimage, and the other was a Second Circle wizard that both Locke and Hussein had encountered before during their time in the southeastern quadrant.

In that battle above Lilith’s Cottage years ago, this Second Circle wizard had threatened the local White Wizard Association's combined forces with his Grand Magic.

Locke still remembered that scene. The sky had been divided in two, one half black, the other white.

As a wizard who had only just become a formal wizard at the time, he had immediately felt himself fragile as an infant, as though he had been returned to his days of weakness.

And at this moment, Locke immediately recognized the Second Circle wizard who had appeared at his side as the same Second Circle black wizard he had once stood looking up at above Lilith’s Cottage.

Locke looked at this black wizard. His hair was white as snow, and the face beneath his black wizard's robe no longer carried that god-like, overwhelming power.

Wrinkles lined the corners of his eyes, and his gaze was filled with caution, scrutiny, and assessment.

The other party was tense.

He appeared to be observing Locke, trying to understand the current situation.

This Second Circle black wizard's magic pressure was approximately fifteen thousand, and this was his main body, not an avatar. But from the aura drifting off his soul, Locke estimated internally that he was approximately one thousand years old.

Which meant this black wizard had already reached the limit of his lifespan, and was likely only barely sustaining himself through certain measures.

'In other words, he came to the southeastern quadrant to retire in peace. He simply never expected that while staying here, he would run into a mission dispatched by the Pale Pilgrimage's main branch.'

Wizard Berbel Morgan swept his gaze over Locke, his eyes filled with envy, disbelief, and something he could not quite suppress.

"Such a young wizard."

"Are you not even thirty yet? Goodness, at your age even just being a formal wizard would already make you highly promising."

"Watching you strike so ruthlessly earlier, I had assumed you were one of those ancient and undying types. At the very least, someone who had reincarnated."

Wizard Berbel Morgan looked behind Locke and judged that this was likely Locke's first lifetime.

"That said, for a Second Circle wizard to repeatedly make moves against First Circle wizards, is that not somewhat improper?"

"By convention, wizards of the same circle contend against wizards of the same circle. Today you, as a Second Circle wizard, strike against First Circle wizards. Tomorrow the Pale Pilgrimage's Second Circle wizards can equally hunt down Golden Crown Mountain's First Circle wizards."

Locke smiled, unconcerned.

"The old wizard can actually recognize my origins."

"But old wizard, have you yourself never used your Second Circle wizard's level of magic against First Circle wizards?"

Wizard Berbel Morgan paused, then burst into laughter.

"Frequently."

"You are right. In wild and ungoverned lands, there is no need to observe the codes of the jianghu. They are merely low-circle wizards from a subordinate wizard territory. But let us discuss a transaction. Let us end things here today. You disregard whatever happens to your black wizard friend who betrayed the Blood Curse Court."

"Our Pale Pilgrimage will likewise refrain from moving against your alma mater, Lilith’s Cottage. How does that sound? Quite fair, is it not? Of course, that Ghost Sacred Order high priestess you will need to leave behind. She is, after all, the head of a subordinate institution within our Pale Pilgrimage's Ghost Hall."

Locke fell into thought. The other party was actually willing to abandon the attack on Lilith’s Cottage, disrupting their black wizard alliance's plans in the southeastern quadrant, all in order to surround and kill Hussein.

He was not sure why.

It appeared that obtaining the ancestor wizard's inheritance was truly no easy matter.

On the other side, Hussein glared ferociously at the figure before him, another beast-form vampire viscount, wearing a golden mask bearing six red eyes and eight pairs of black bat wings, blood magical power resonating with the surrounding magical tides to form a blood ring.

That vampire viscount, Isaac, let out a contemptuous laugh.

"Mere leek stock, and yet you dare to deliberately fish me out here."

"What a shame that your vision is ultimately too limited. Hussein, is it."

Wizard Isaac said, "Your calculations are all wrong. You are from a subordinate wizard territory after all, shallow in foundation and limited in perspective. The inheritance you obtained belongs to the ancestor wizard. The blood you used is the ancestor's blood. The Second Circle you attested is his."

"It has nothing to do with me. I am not your superior bloodline. Fishing me out here serves no purpose. Your superior bloodline consists of the blood clan wizards who are the ancestor wizard's true personal disciples. They are the ones who can use the Claim Ancestral Authority on you."

"The moment any of them appear near you, you are finished."

"And your situation is not the same as these leeks here."

Wizard Isaac opened his mouth wide. Behind the golden mask appeared what seemed to be the maw of a demon god. The Blood Curse Court formal wizards who had just been congratulating themselves that a Second Circle wizard had stepped forward had not yet registered what was happening when they saw Isaac's magic suddenly directed at them.

These black wizards' expressions changed drastically and they made to flee, only to be blocked by Hussein's Eleven-Pull Death.

Hussein appeared to be deliberately allowing Isaac's actions to unfold, testing how completely the Pale Pilgrimage's wizard could suppress Blood Curse Court black wizards who had been subjected to hidden manipulation, in order to gauge the extent of that control. He let things proceed so that he could observe the situation and reverse-engineer his own odds when directly facing the ancestor wizard's avatar.

In the next instant, those black wizards who had tried to flee, along with those who intended to resist, suddenly found that they could not bring themselves to raise any resistance against Wizard Isaac whatsoever.

At the same time, their magical force was continuously being converted by the vampire curse into blood, filling their blood with magical force and magic pressure.

Then their bodies and souls exploded one after another, each one transforming into the purest blood, flowing into Wizard Isaac's body.

Originally Wizard Isaac's magic pressure had been only twelve thousand, but after consuming the blood of these leeks and directly killing one-third of the Blood Curse Court's formal wizards, his magic pressure was temporarily supplemented from twelve thousand to thirteen thousand.

This rise in magic pressure was only temporary.

But his vitality had inexplicably grown somewhat younger.

Hussein's expression shifted slightly, because these Blood Curse Court black wizards who had learned a blood curse magic system that had been tampered with had, when facing the Pale Pilgrimage's Second Circle wizard, not even the capacity to resist.

They had all their blood drawn away entirely, everything they were dissolved into that blood.

The gap was this vast.

Wizard Isaac smiled and said, "The Blood Curse Court of the southeastern quadrant is nothing more than food for us high-ranking blood clan of the Pale Pilgrimage."

"Every piece of magic you have learned only serves to merge everything you have painstakingly obtained into your blood. You are our mobile blood packs. Do you understand now, Hussein? They are my blood packs."

"And by accepting the ancestor wizard's inheritance, you have become his blood pack."

Wizard Isaac said dismissively, "But that is your honor."

"The ancestor wizard stands high above all. He certainly has no interest in your paltry magic pressure. As long as he has no special requirements, he will ordinarily not dispatch his avatar to retrieve a blood pack like you."

Wizard Isaac clasped his hands behind his back and said, "For formal wizards, none of this is actually a secret."

"We are not like those hypocritical white wizards, hiding and obscuring everything out of fear that others will discover they are being exploited. The black wizard principle is simple: if you want to serve a great figure, you need to have the ability for it."

"What benefit would there be otherwise? Why should great figures allow you to learn magic? Can they not keep magic for themselves exclusively? On what basis would they let you learn magic, just because you have aptitude?"

"Everything has a price."

"Hussein, since you are the ancestor wizard's blood pack, come with me back to the Pale Pilgrimage. The ancestor wizard will awaken from his eternal slumber in approximately one hundred years, ending yet another thousand-year sleep. At that time he will decide how to deal with you."

Hussein furrowed his brow and looked toward Locke Augustine not far away, uncertain what choice he would make.

Seeing this, Wizard Isaac immediately smiled.

"White wizards are so hypocritical, though this one is rather vicious. But there is nothing in it for him. Why would he help you?"

"Very shortly you will be caught in a siege between me and Berbel. From the moment you accepted the ancestor wizard's inheritance, this trap was already hanging above your head. But you need not despair. The opportunity to serve is still being offered because you have that talent."

"If the ancestor wizard truly comes to appreciate you, perhaps he will not treat you as an ordinary blood pack to extend his lifespan, but instead elevate you to become a true personal disciple. Who knows. It would be better to surrender."

In the next instant, Wizard Isaac froze. He looked down and saw that his vampire demon god form, which served as his permanent defensive force field shell, had been pierced through by a magical plant.

That was the summer magical plant, Pinellia.

"Roar!"

Wizard Isaac threw his head back and let out a furious roar, and a terrifying magic pressure swept outward from beneath his feet in all directions. "Locke Augustine, you are truly foolish."

"Did we not already agree not to attack your alma mater Lilith’s Cottage? Given that, what concern of yours is anything that happens here?"

Locke smiled and said, "Hussein is my friend. If you want me to betray my friend, you need to offer a fair price. You are using something that never actually happened as a bargaining chip to negotiate a deal with me."

"Black wizard, that is not how transactions work. What you are doing is called armed robbery."

"I have never made such a losing deal in my life."

Wizard Isaac had three arms at this moment. With one of them he reached back and wrenched out the Pinellia.

Hussein said, "Locke, the original version of the vampire transformation blood curse can serve as both a permanent defensive force field and a Grand Magic."

"So for the Pale Pilgrimage's blood clan wizards, their blood clan demon god is both their permanent defensive force field shell and their Grand Magic. They possess terrifying close combat ability, and their recovery speed..."

In the next instant, the blood clan demon god hand that had seized the Pinellia began to melt under the scorching blazing summer energy of Pinellia.

Sparks began to appear on his third arm.

There were no high-circle white wizards present here, so Locke directly activated the Beast Panel. Even without deploying his Grand Magic, his magic pressure rose from ten thousand to thirteen thousand.

Equal to Isaac's current magic pressure.

Far above Hussein, yet still below Wizard Berbel Morgan's fifteen thousand magic pressure.

The two black wizards' confidence at this moment was grounded in the fact that they were seasoned veteran Second Circle wizards, and their comprehensive magic pressure was higher than that of Locke and Hussein, who had only become Second Circle wizards this year.

Their spell pool was far richer.

Locke had not even yet formed his own permanent defensive force field shell.

Their earlier restraint while watching from the sidelines, rather than intervening, had two reasons. The first was that they had not had time. The two of them had been concealed within the black wizard assembly when things suddenly erupted, and neither had anticipated it.

The second was that they needed to observe Locke's and Hussein's methods.

They now dared to act because they had confirmed that even with Locke and Hussein working together, they still had ways to deal with the two of them.

What neither of them had anticipated was that Hussein had become an ordinary Second Circle wizard only through a special inheritance, and so his actual combat power was vastly inferior to theirs.

But Locke was not.

On the surface his magic pressure appeared to be just over ten thousand, but his main body's true magic pressure was sixteen thousand.

Moreover, he had the Beast Panel, allowing him to maintain his magic pressure at nineteen thousand for extended periods without side effects, placing him extremely close to the star ring wizard threshold.

This led to a severe mutual miscalculation on both sides.

Wizard Isaac's hand that had seized the Pinellia turned directly into charcoal.

In the collision of both sides' magical forces, Locke saw within a medium-scale world a demon god from beyond the sky lording it over everything. That was the blood clan demon god.

This so-called original vampire transformation blood curse had converted the majority of that world's living beings into blood clan, and then forcibly used Claim Ancestral Authority on the entire world, holding the world hostage and forcing the World Stone to emerge, thus contaminating it.

'I see now.'

Locke understood.

'Both are Second Circle wizards, yet the ways of obtaining a World Stone are many and varied. For a black wizard like Isaac, the method was outright conquest of an entire plane, converting all living beings in that plane, then forcibly confronting the plane head-on to obtain the World Stone in this manner.'

'That approach is crude, but it is not without merit. However, it is equivalent to him either suppressing that medium-scale world's world will, or converting it. Either way, this has placed limits on his own future.'

Locke judged, 'This is a shortcut approach, using the future as the price to elevate one's height.'

'If the entire Pale Pilgrimage operates this way, their ceiling will not be very high.'

'But the Pale Pilgrimage must have Third Circle wizards behind it, which means this wizard before me is still not truly part of the Pale Pilgrimage's actual mid to upper ranks. He has not learned the Pale Pilgrimage's capabilities, and remains in the stage of cannon fodder.'

Wizard Isaac erupted in fury.

At the same time, a look of gravity flashed through Wizard Berbel's eyes, because Locke's magic pressure had at this moment reached thirteen thousand.

Though he was two thousand magic pressure above Locke, his lifespan had already reached its limit.

If he made too many moves, he might reach the end of his days prematurely.

Wizard Berbel sighed inwardly, 'I actually paid attention to his magic pressure back then, after all he was the young First Circle wizard who had made such a notable showing in that battle above Lilith’s Cottage. But I dismissed this young man from my mind in an instant and took him for nothing more than a minor figure.'

'Who could have imagined that the minor figure of those days would now stand before me like this.'