Chapter 18 : Chapter 18
Chapter 18: High Tower Mage
Once it was locked down by Divine Sense, that remnant soul very obviously began to panic.
Jiang Lin’s method was so strange that he could not even tell what it was, much less sense it clearly.
He had never seen anything like it before.
“Y-you... what are you trying to do?”
The remnant soul’s voice carried suppressed fear.
“That is what I should be asking you.”
Jiang Lin chuckled softly. With a single thought from him, this remnant soul would be scattered to nothing.
“Were you planning to seize my body?”
“No, I was only trying to pass on my inheritance.”
The remnant soul was still trying to argue.
Jiang Lin looked at him quietly and said flatly,
“If you will not tell the truth, then die.”
As he spoke, he slightly stirred his Divine Sense and pressed it fiercely toward the remnant soul.
A shrill scream burst from the remnant soul’s mouth. Then, with even greater terror in its voice, the remnant soul twisted and hurriedly cried out,
“Do not kill me! I am an Archmage from the High Tower! Believe me. As long as you bring me back to the High Tower, you will receive great blessings and glory!”
“The High Tower? That mage academy?”
Jiang Lin did not continue pressing forward. Instead, he asked mildly, while thinking it over inwardly.
“Yes, yes! I am Trelis Hepery! The ninth headmaster of the High Tower! A Ninth-Tier Archmage, only one step away from advancing to the tenth tier! You have to believe me!”
The remnant soul sounded agitated. This time, he seemed to be telling the truth.
“Then why are you here? Did you also come looking for some Underground Palace treasure?”
Jiang Lin asked with interest.
“Yes. Damn it, this Underground Palace is a complete fraud from beginning to end.”
Trelis’s remnant soul sounded utterly furious.
“I should have realized it sooner. How could the treasure of Archmage Isno possibly be hidden in some remote forest like this?
“This is nothing but a trap she set! A naked display of twisted humor!”
Jiang Lin nodded, completely agreeing with him. He had spent so much Spiritual Power, only to end up finding nothing but a useless statue.
If that was not twisted humor, what was?
“Give me a reason not to erase you. Or tell me what you can offer me.
“And do not mention bringing you back to the High Tower. Compared to your empty promises, I trust immediate benefits more.”
As Jiang Lin spoke, he watched him.
Trelis’s remnant soul fell silent for a moment, then asked in return,
“What do you want? Spellbooks, gold and silver, treasure, even enchanted weapons?”
“Magic Crystals.”
Jiang Lin answered flatly. What he wanted most right now was, of course, Magic Crystals that could restore his strength.
As for gold, silver, or enchanted weapons, every sword in his Storage Ring was better than the vast majority of weapons in this world.
“Magic Crystals... You want to learn magic?” Trelis was stunned for a moment.
“That is none of your concern. Do you have them or not?” Jiang Lin’s voice turned cold. He could not be bothered wasting words on him.
“Yes! Behind the statue is my corpse. There is a Mana Storage Bracelet there, and there are Magic Crystals inside! But you must promise me that even if you do not take me to the High Tower, you will still spare me.
“Otherwise...”
Before he could finish speaking, he saw Jiang Lin already walking back from behind the statue, casually turning the Mana Storage Bracelet over in his hand.
He had originally wanted to say, Otherwise, I will not remove the Mana Seal, and you will never get anything out of it.
But in the very next moment, a flash of light appeared in Jiang Lin’s hand. Under the coverage of that strange power, which did not belong to any kind of Magic fluctuation, several Magic Crystals suddenly appeared in Jiang Lin’s palm...
Trelis looked as though he had seen a ghost, if he still had the expression to show it.
“Mm, not bad. I will take this, then. Is there anything else?”
Jiang Lin smiled as he held the bracelet. After probing it with his Divine Sense, he found quite a few good things inside, and there were roughly more than a hundred Magic Crystals as well. This counted as a rather plentiful harvest.
Seeing that the remnant soul had gone silent as though it had been stunned senseless, Jiang Lin frowned.
“Speak. Is there anything else?”
“You... how could you possibly open the restriction I set? There is clearly not the slightest mana fluctuation on your body... What exactly are you...”
Trelis’s muttering came one sentence after another, but none of it could conceal the shock in his heart.
“Are you really some Ninth-Tier Archmage? Your soul power is unbelievably weak. The Ninth-Tier Archmages of your world seem rather underwhelming.”
Jiang Lin looked at him quietly. This fellow could not even break free from his Divine Sense lock, which made him genuinely doubtful.
Logically speaking, a Ninth-Tier Mage in this world should be roughly equivalent to the level of strength he once possessed in the Mahayana Realm.
But this man’s soul power was pitifully weak, even inferior to those Foundation Establishment Realm cultivators.
Trelis fell silent for a long time, as though he were digesting the information hidden within Jiang Lin’s words.
His heart grew even more horrified. At last, he understood everything.
Jiang Lin wore a half-smile and paid him no further attention. With Divine Sense locking him down, this remnant soul could not stir up any trouble.
So Jiang Lin simply leaned against the statue and split off a strand of Divine Sense into the Mana Storage Bracelet.
There were quite a few things inside this fellow’s storage bracelet.
Although he had failed to obtain the treasure of this Underground Palace, discovering this man counted as an unexpected gain.
Most of the contents were books concerning the mysteries of magic, all of them things Jiang Lin could not understand.
Then there were various bottles and jars, along with a strangely shaped Staff.
With a flicker of light, Jiang Lin took the Staff out and held it in his hand for careful inspection.
The entire Staff was pure white. Even under the dim yellow light of the Underground Palace, it still carried a lustrous, jade-like sheen. Its shape resembled linked sections of bone.
The top of the Staff was made of the same material and had been carved into a bizarre-looking animal.
In Jiang Lin’s eyes, it was nothing more than a winged lizard.
The only difference was that this lizard held in its mouth a black yet translucent Magic Crystal.
It contained abundant mana, as well as Spiritual Energy.
There was no doubt that it was a first-rate Magic Crystal.
It was tens of thousands of times better than the Magic Crystal on Mage Orr’s Staff.
“At last, something that matches your status.”
Jiang Lin looked at the Magic Crystal on the Staff. With a flash of white light in his hand, a dagger appeared, and he immediately began trying to pry the Magic Crystal loose.
The moment Trelis saw that, he was instantly alarmed out of his wits.
“What are you doing?! That is my Staff!”
“It is not yours anymore.”
Jiang Lin’s hand did not pause in the slightest as he replied flatly.
Crack.
The sound that rang out was even more like the sound of Trelis’s heart breaking.
The Magic Crystal clutched in the creature’s mouth dropped into Jiang Lin’s hand. At the same time, the Staff changed from pure white to pitch black, as though it had lost all of its luster, and slowly crumbled into dust.
Trelis’s voice ground with fury, as though he had forgotten his current situation.
“Do you know what that was? Inside it was the soul of a Black Dragon that I defeated with tremendous difficulty. That was a mighty Black Dragon! Damn it, and you ruined it just like this!!”
“A Black Dragon? You mean that winged lizard?”
Jiang Lin turned his head slightly and looked at him with a cold sneer. “Something that ugly is worthy of being called a dragon?”
“You people have probably never seen a real dragon...”
After putting away the Magic Crystal, Jiang Lin took out all the spellbooks from the bracelet as well.
He began flipping through them carefully.
After a while, Jiang Lin rose to his feet, looked at the remnant soul of this Ninth-Tier Archmage, and asked,
“Is there any kind of array that can gather mana? It only needs to gather mana.”
Trelis remained silent, as though he had already prepared himself to be erased.
“Of course, I am not such a bad person. As long as you help me complete a mana-gathering array, I might spare your life.”
Jiang Lin walked over to him and revealed a radiant smile.
The sight made Trelis shudder.
“What do you need that for? It is not that such arrays do not exist, but they are only one part of a magic array’s construction. Ordinary magic arrays generally contain combinations of this kind of mana-gathering array.”
“That is none of your concern.”
A gleam appeared in Jiang Lin’s eyes. If this method proved workable, then in the future he would be able to use it to absorb the Spiritual Energy contained within the Magic Web, rather than relying on Magic Crystals to provide that pitifully scant Spiritual Energy.
And then he would be able to cultivate here in peace and restore his strength.
“Do your words still count? If I help you construct the array, you will let me go?”
Trelis did not agree at once.
“Of course. And if the chance comes later, I might even return you to the High Tower.”
Jiang Lin suppressed the excitement in his heart and nodded as he spoke.
“All right...”
In the end, for this Ninth-Tier Archmage, the desire to survive overcame his reason.