Chapter 786: The Regret of Virdantia University’s Dean

From within the Forbidden Forest came the sound of iron chains scraping against the ground, a sound of enormous weight, as though the chains used to suppress some monstrous creature were being dragged, generating a rumbling like an earthquake.

Locke saw this scene and looked back. At Hussein's side of the battle, he had not immediately grasped Hussein's purpose, but he had quickly discerned Hussein's true intent from within the Mithril Silver Code's spell model.

'It is debt slavery. Hussein wants to make him a debt slave.'

Locke worked it out. 'Debt slavery is a form of curse. From Hussein's earlier exchange with the black wizard Isaac, Hussein appears to be in the precarious position of having to worry at any moment about being commanded by the ancestor wizard's descendants.'

'And so the method he has devised is...'

Drawing on his superintuition, his tiger's eye, and the knowledge he had gained at Golden Crown Mountain, Locke deduced Hussein's true purpose.

'He wants to use the power of the law code to confuse the blood curse power, thereby disrupting the Claim Ancestral Authority.'

'It appears that Wizard Isaac has fallen completely into his trap.'

Locke glanced in that direction.

'After all, they are only black wizards, limited in their perspective. Hussein's approach is also not something an ordinary white wizard could employ. One must first work at the Mithril Law Firm for four years and attain a certain level of standing.'

Locke looked toward the depths of the Forbidden Forest. A star ring wizard wearing a tattered and damaged black wizard's robe flew out from within it, already seriously injured. For a brief moment Locke considered whether he could seize on his injuries and surround and kill him immediately.

After all, black wizards were enemies to all and all should strike against them.

But he quickly dismissed the thought. The moment that star ring wizard appeared, his magical force permeated the world, and countless cold winds blew out from his Grand Magic, spreading across the land.

In an instant, a layer of frost enveloped the sky above the ruins of Virdantia University.

A fair number of First Circle wizards without sufficient magic pressure could not even maintain flight and were forced to walk on the ground.

Watching this, Locke immediately perceived the decisive gap between a star ring wizard and an ordinary Second Circle wizard.

'Never mind. I prefer to reason with people. Going around fighting all the time is not my style.'

Locke coughed once.

'Augustine, Augustine, you are a white wizard, a farming researcher at Golden Crown Mountain. Do you remember that?'

'How can you look at someone and think about planting crops in their Grand Magic?'

Locke perceived that the most significant difference between this star ring wizard's Grand Magic and an ordinary Second Circle Grand Magic was that the star ring's Grand Magic appeared to possess greater cohesion and could enter this world more readily.

At this moment, the cold wind blowing from the star ring black wizard's Grand Magic was even more bone-piercingly cold than Wizard Berbel Morgan's Burial Ground.

Pressing down upon everyone present.

The star ring wizard charged out from the forest, clutching fragments of a broken sword in his hands. He immediately called out, "Berbel, Isaac, I have obtained part of what I came for and must bring it to the Grand Sovereign as quickly as possible."

"Remember to deliver a final blow to the White Wizard Association here."

"Hmm?"

The star ring wizard immediately discovered to his astonishment that Wizard Berbel's magic pressure had vanished entirely, and Wizard Isaac's magic pressure was in continuous decline.

"White Wizard Association main headquarters' reinforcements?"

He was somewhat stunned.

He had believed that after finally managing to escape that nightmarish place called the Forbidden Forest, he would at last receive support from the black wizard alliance yet the moment he charged out of the forest, he found his black wizard alliance forces had been routed.

To be fair, before he had entered the forest, the black wizard alliance in the southeastern quadrant had been in a very favorable position.

What had happened?

'This is bad.'

The star ring wizard understood that the situation had become troublesome.

At this moment, Isaac also sensed that something was wrong and shouted loudly toward the star ring wizard, "Lord Marcus, save me!"

The star ring wizard glanced at him, then turned and left without a second look.

A frost bone dragon appeared beneath him, larger and more powerful than Wizard Berbel's, with more extensive magical modifications upon it.

The star ring wizard mounted the frost bone dragon and chose to depart immediately.

'There is nothing to be done. I am seriously injured now, with very little magical force remaining. And though I do not know why, the black wizard alliance's position here is clearly already beyond saving.'

'Those above spent fifty years meticulously planning this uprising, deliberately stoking the conflict between the Blood Curse Court and Lilith’s Cottage to use as the opening move.'

'The hope was that at the very least an agreement could be reached with the local White Wizard Association, allowing the black wizard alliance to expand its influence here without restriction. Never did I imagine it would still end in failure. A single oversight amid many precautions.'

Wizard Marcus Dalton racked his mind, yet could not identify precisely where his oversight had occurred.

In executing this plan, he had reviewed everything carefully and paid attention to every person worth noting.

Exactly where had the problem arisen?

But nevertheless...

He looked at the broken sword fragments in his hand.

"Though the objective was not fully achieved, I have obtained the most important thing from among the mission's goals. I can finally begin repaying a portion of the Grand Sovereign's kindness. Ha ha ha ha..."

Wizard Marcus Dalton decisively chose to mount the frost bone dragon and leave. This left Wizard Isaac completely stunned.

He tried to reach toward Wizard Marcus with his left hand.

"No, Lord Marcus. We are both wizards granted official positions by the Pale Pilgrimage. How can you abandon me and go?"

In the next instant, Hussein seized him by the throat, and with his left hand pressed the finger of a high-ranking demon against his forehead, confusing his identity as a black wizard and causing the law code to perceive him as a white wizard.

Then chains of argent silver flew out from the Mithril Silver Code, binding Isaac and his Grand Magic completely.

Hussein said, "Isaac, you are now my debt slave."

"In the presence of your creditor, you dare to be defiant?"

He flung Isaac off to one side.

Isaac rose from the ground, his frame enormous as a demon god, even triggering a small earthquake in the surrounding area.

His gaze was furious.

"Laughable. A low-rank blood clan from a lineage of leek stock, who in the past would not even have qualified to study magic further. And you dare to say I am your debt slave, that you are my master. Laughable."

"Get one thing clear, my bloodline is superior to yours. I am a pureblooded descendant of the high-rank blood clan, a descendant of a Third Circle blood clan prince. You..."

He moved to charge at Hussein and attack, but at this point the chains of argent silver had already completely sealed off every part of him: his magical force, magic pressure, Grand Magic, permanent defensive force field, and every spell model.

Including his spiritual force.

He had not taken more than a few steps before he found his power entirely sealed away, unable to exert any force despite feeling it within him.

He fell to the ground, and his body gradually began returning to the form of an ordinary human.

Hussein swiftly wrote out a bill of accounts and presented it to him.

"This is the bill of what you owe. I will help you restructure your assets so that you can repay me."

"And moreover, you must provide me free service for one hundred and ten years before you can clear your debt."

Hussein was also drenched in cold sweat. If this black wizard had been even slightly cleverer, he could never have turned him into a debt slave.

He had gambled, and won.

With this black wizard in hand, he was no longer a lamb waiting to be slaughtered in the Pale Pilgrimage's eyes.

He now had a buffer, and could use this black wizard's existence to buy himself some time.

As for why he needed the other party to serve as a debt slave for one hundred and ten years, the answer was simple: it was because the ancestor wizard was expected to awaken in approximately a hundred years.

And once a blood clan member awakened, what would they want to do?

It was not hard to guess.

It would be time to feed on the blood packs.

Hussein stood before Isaac and said, "In white wizard society, no one cares about your bloodline. All are equal under the law. As long as you owe money and refuse to repay it, you are subject to another's control. I understood this principle not long after entering white wizard society. I hope you will come to understand it soon as well, Isaac."

Isaac suddenly stood up and tried to curse Hussein, only to discover to his horror that his soul was now saturated with curse power, yet he could not draw on even the smallest amount of his magical force.

Isaac went pale.

"How can such a thing exist."

At the same time, Hussein swept his gaze around the area and lifted the Eleven-Pull Death Blood Curse, allowing some of the black wizards to escape, while retaining every black wizard from the Blood Curse Court.

The reason he allowed the others to flee was that he did not want to make mortal enemies of the organizations behind them.

He had always had only one true enemy: the blood clan palace within the Pale Pilgrimage system.

And so at this moment, he needed to absorb the Blood Curse Court into his own fold.

Hussein raised his voice and said, "I respectfully request the indulgence of the respected wizard lords present. I am Hussein, a wizard of Lilith’s Cottage."

"I simply have a certain close connection with the Blood Curse Court. I hope to be allowed to fully absorb the Blood Curse Court."

"Please, there is no need to continue hunting them. As for those who have already been killed, that cannot be helped. They can only blame their own poor luck."

At this moment, among the people of Lilith’s Cottage, the gathered white wizards looked at one another.

Chairman Justin thought for a moment and immediately gave his assent. Looking at Hussein, he thought back to Hussein's identity.

He truly had not expected that the southeastern quadrant would produce two such individuals in such close succession.

The thought led Wizard Justin's mind to wander. 'It is not that the southeastern quadrant lacks talent, only that it cannot retain it. The moment any talent emerges here, they are taken away by the Star Domain Sea, the Three Wetlands, the Twilight Border, the Four Bright Waters, or the Dragon Fall Lands.'

'Sigh.'

Wizard Justin asked Hussein, "With the Blood Curse Court under Wizard Hussein's control, will they remain in the southeastern quadrant?"

Hussein said, "They will naturally come with me to the Cloud Marsh Wetlands."

Wizard Justin said, "Then I have no objection. As long as they are not in the southeastern quadrant, they are not our concern. I will naturally grant Wizard Hussein this courtesy."

In his heart he was thinking more than that.

Although Hussein had effectively gone legitimate, given his dark history, and given that Justin himself was seriously injured, while Locke and Hussein appeared to be allies rather than enemies, if he were to refuse Hussein now and force Hussein back to the black wizard side, he would have no idea how to manage the aftermath.

For now he would focus on eliminating the wizards of the Bone Cult and the Corpse Court.

When one thought about it, it was almost amusing. This time Locke and Hussein had returned to the southeastern quadrant, not only placing a pause on a war that had dragged on for five years, but each of them taking away one of the southeastern quadrant's top black wizard organizations in the process.

For a very long time to come, the black wizards of the southeastern quadrant were unlikely to recover their strength.

This great battle between white and black wizards had produced its final victor.

But the winning side had not won in the way they had imagined, and the losing side had not lost in the way they had imagined either.

No one had anticipated that the two people who five years ago had fled the southeastern quadrant to escape the war would return as Second Circle wizards and personally bring the war to a conclusion.

Locke could no longer pay attention to the battlefield. The dean of Virdantia University appeared to have the intention of approaching him personally to apologize.

By this point, Virdantia University had realized that Locke had originally been a promising wizard cultivated by their own intermediate academy, and by all rights should have enrolled in their wizard university.

Once they pulled on that thread, the upper levels of the university immediately understood the old history of those years.

And so they were all filled with regret.

Regret at having lost the opportunity to become the alma mater of a Second Circle wizard.

The dean of Virdantia University had intended to exchange a few words with Locke. After all, Locke had studied at the intermediate academy under their university for at least his first two years. Rounded off a little, their university could be considered his alma mater as well. That was not an unreasonable claim.

But at this moment, Locke looked toward the depths of the Forbidden Forest, where a plume of magical tide suddenly erupted like a fountain.

"That position is... the location of the ruins I once found in the Forbidden Forest. Hmm? Is someone within the Forbidden Forest trying to contact me?"

"Back then, I did indeed have special rights to freely enter certain areas of the Forbidden Forest. I was always curious about why. No matter."

"I am a Second Circle wizard now, and it is a good opportunity to go in and see. After all, this is only an avatar. Whatever happens, my main body cannot be harmed."

The elderly dean of Virdantia University had just led several wizard mentors and drawn near to Locke when they stared blankly as Locke donned the Magical Dragon Rose, transformed into a stream of dragon meteor, and vanished from their sight.

In the next instant, Locke's silhouette appeared above the Forbidden Forest, then he plunged directly into it.

The wizard mentors of Virdantia University all looked toward the dean.

"Dean, this..."

"Wizard Augustine seems to be very busy. I hear that Second Circle great wizards in the Cloud Marsh Wetlands are extremely occupied at all times, always searching for new projects worth researching. So I would say it is perfectly normal that we have not been able to speak with Wizard Augustine. It is probably not deliberate on his part."

The dean let out a sigh.

"In the future, we should stop trading away the talented people cultivated by our own institutions to others. What a loss. What an enormous loss."

"How did someone cultivated by our own intermediate academy end up at Lilith’s Cottage?"

The Forbidden Forest.

Locke landed on the floor of the Forbidden Forest and heard the sound of something's hooves touching down. Then an existence robed in black, a pair of enormous feet visible beneath the robes, stepped out from within the forest.

At its side was an ink-green honeybee fairy.

That was the Silent Bee.

The robed existence looked at the Silent Bee and said, "This counts as having met, I suppose. Are you satisfied now? Silent Bee?"

The face of the being beneath the black robes was impossible to make out clearly, but Locke could tell that it did not appear to be a human face.

It lowered its head toward the direction where Locke was. "Beast, greetings."

"The Forbidden Forest is also your home. When you have time, you are welcome to come back more often. Very well, Silent Bee. I must be going. I am busy. The damage that blasted human wizard caused to the Forbidden Forest has still not been resolved..."