Chapter 1187 - Vertical pupils
Chapter 1187: Vertical pupils
Translator: Legge
It felt like the world had suddenly fallen silent.
In the early morning, the campfires that had just been extinguished by Qian Weining and his men were still emitting white smoke. Some of Qian Weining’s men gradually stopped chewing on the biscuits they had baked over the fire, falling into a dazed trance.
When Ren Xiaosu held the Eyes of True Sight in his hand, they looked like Ferrero Rochers manufactured by a Central Plains candy company. To be honest, Qian Weining had never seen such a shocking sight before.
What was an Eye of True Sight? It was something Melgor’s father had spent all his life pursuing for naught. It was the dream of 90% of the people in the Kingdom of Sorcerers, regardless of gender or age.
An Eye of True Sight represented the mark of a sorcerer, and the Eyes of True Sight in Ren Xiaosu’s possession was enough to bribe most people in the Kingdom of Sorcerers, including Qian Weining.
In the entire Kingdom of Sorcerers, not many people could resist the temptation of an Eye of True Sight.
“Sir…” Qian Weining hesitated. He wanted to ask where the Eyes of True Sight came from and whether they were genuine.
But based on everything that had happened in Winston City, he already knew the answer in his mind, so there was no need to ask.
Qian Weining had reason to believe the 61 Eyes of True Sight the Winston family had lost should be in Ren Xiaosu’s possession now.
Ruthless! This was a truly ruthless person.
Qian Weining’s palms started sweating. He knew what these Eyes of True Sight meant to him and his comrades standing behind him.
However, he also realized how far the Houses of Berkeley and Winston would go to get those Eyes of True Sight back.
But those concerns and worries were no match for the temptation in front of him.
After leaving Winston City, Qian Weining had also changed into civilian wear. Due to the hot weather, he had already unbuttoned several buttons on his shirt. Therefore, everyone could clearly see him swallowing saliva, with his protruding Adam’s apple bobbing up and down.
“Sir, do you mean to reward us with them?” Qian Weining said with some difficulty.
“That’s right.” Ren Xiaosu smiled and put the Eyes of True Sight back into the palace. “Starting from today, Lord Melgor will be teaching y’all how to meditate and some simple Magi vocabulary after we set up camp tonight. At that time, you can practice with the Eyes of True Sight. However, before you’re truly capable of casting spells, I’ll keep these Eyes of True Sight on your behalves.”
When Qian Weining heard this, he was stunned for a moment. “As long as we can cast spells, you’ll give us the Eyes of True Sight?”
“Of course.” Ren Xiaosu said with a smile, “There’s no need for me to lie to y’all. Let’s go. Let’s get to Ghent City as quickly as possible. I still have important matters to attend to.”
Qian Weining started getting excited. “Alright, let’s set off immediately!”
It wasn’t until this moment that Qian Weining and his men were truly willing to risk their lives.
Although he had pledged loyalty, it was mainly for self-protection. But it was different now. They had a new goal, and that was to become sorcerers!
Along the way, Chen Jingshu trotted her horse over to Ren Xiaosu and whispered, “Do you really plan to share those Eyes of True Sight with them?”
“Of course.” Ren Xiaosu answered calmly, “I can still get my hands on a lot more in the future anyways.”
Chen Jingshu’s breathing stopped for a moment. She roughly understood what Ren Xiaosu meant when he said he could still get a lot more in the future.
One Eye of True Sight meant the birth of one sorcerer. In that case, every time Ren Xiaosu obtained an Eye of True Sight, it meant the magus order would lose a sorcerer.
If it were in the past, Chen Jingshu would think that Ren Xiaosu was crazy. But now she could only remain silent because Ren Xiaosu had proven all his claims.
Ren Xiaosu looked at Chen Jingshu and said, “If we want to build up our supporter base, we’ll have to treat them with both kindness and respect. Besides, if they learn the language of the Magi along the way, they won’t have the energy to think too much.”
“But you don’t have any meditative visualization diagrams.” Chen Jingshu said, “That means they can’t master high-level spells.”
“It’s fine as long as the Norman and the Tudor families have them,” Ren Xiaosu replied with a smile.
When they set up camp again that night, the food was quite sumptuous.
Ren Xiaosu directly had Melgor summon four sheep, each larger than the previous one.
Mel thought to himself that Ren Xiaosu was really treating his summoning spell as a life hack.
Chen Jingshu, An’an, and the others were quite surprised to see this. “Is that the long-lost summoning spell?”
“Yes,” Mel admitted reluctantly.
Chen Jingshu and the others hesitated for a while before saying, “That’s pretty practical….”
Mel was speechless.
Ren Xiaosu suddenly realized Li Chengguo and Liu Ting were circling around the fourth sheep that had been summoned. He was a little puzzled. “What’s up? Do y’all know each other?”
Li Chengguo and Liu Ting’s expressions immediately changed. “What do you mean by that? It sounds like you’re insulting us!”
They were afraid Ren Xiaosu would bring up their unbearable past again, so they quickly hid away and whispered among themselves.
When Ren Xiaosu saw the two sheeple’s reaction, he wondered if he had guessed correctly!
He sized up the fourth sheep and was surprised to see the number “178” branded on its rump by someone using a soldering iron.
Ren Xiaosu was shocked on the spot. Mel had actually summoned a sheep from Fortress 178?!
This was a fucking loss of collective assets!
However, this event proved something else to Ren Xiaosu. Whatever that was summoned by the summoning spell was indeed a creature from this world. There were no other realms around.
In any case, Ren Xiaosu did not believe there were also sheep with the number “178” branded on their rumps in other universes!
Then what did he encounter when he activated the stellar gate previously? That creature must also exist somewhere in this world.
Was it a mutated life form? Ren Xiaosu couldn’t be too sure.
Before it turned dark, Qian Weining and the others quickly started a cooking fire and set up their tents. Then they sat neatly in a block formation in front of Melgor.
Mel looked at the hundred-odd men in front of him and felt his scalp go numb as they stared at him with piercing gazes.
He looked at Ren Xiaosu pleadingly. “I’ve never taught so many people before….”
“What’s there to be afraid of?” Ren Xiaosu urged, “You’re going to be a big shot in the future, so how can you not cope with a small situation like this?”
Off to the side, Chen Jingshu said, “Why don’t I teach them instead?”
“No.” Ren Xiaosu turned her down and said, “It has to be Mel who teaches them.”
Ren Xiaosu also had his own ideas. In the future, he was going to promote Mel to become the head of the Prosperous Northwest’s branch office. How could he leave it to others since he was trying to nurture his own supporters?
After he was done with the Kingdom of Sorcerers, Qian Weining and the others would become Mel’s students. With this relationship, they would definitely be of some use.
If Chen Jingshu deliberately recruited Qian Weining and his men during the teaching process and caused them to defect to the Assassin Sanctuary, Mel would become a mere figurehead.
Who knew what the inner workings of the Sanctuary had become after 200 years? What if they had gained a great desire for power?
Qian Weining had had his men sit cross-legged on the ground, not minding that it was dirty.
This group of soldiers from the Knights of the Inferno were all sitting straight. Ren Xiaosu simply distributed the 60 Eyes of True Sight to them, as well as a notebook and pen for everyone.
Ren Xiaosu reminded them, “Make sure to take notes during the lessons. You can review during the day while you’re riding on your horses! Li Chengguo, Liu Ting, from today onwards, you two will act as the class representatives. Remember to check everyone’s lesson notes!”
Li Chengguo, Liu Ting, and Mel were all dumbfounded. They felt as though they were being put up to something they couldn’t handle.
However, Ren Xiaosu did not care what they thought. After delegating their tasks, he went off to a secluded spot to study his own spells.
After confirming that no one was around, Ren Xiaosu took out his black Eye of True Sight and recited softly, “Prosperous Northwest!”
That dazzling stellar gate gradually appeared. The astral particles were spinning, and the spell once again opened a doorway for Ren Xiaosu to some other place in this world!
Initially, Ren Xiaosu was worried the roars of the ferocious monster would come from behind the stellar gate again. But this time, it was totally quiet on the other side.
Ren Xiaosu peered through the stellar gate that was half a meter wide to the other side. But perhaps due to the angle, he was unable to see anything.
At this moment, Ren Xiaosu didn’t even dare to breathe too loudly. After all, there was no spiritual contract with the summoned creature. If it were to suddenly attack him, he might not be able to withstand it.
“Hello, anyone there?” Ren Xiaosu asked in a whisper.
He didn’t know whether the other party did not hear it or if it could not understand. In any case, there was no movement on the other side of the stellar gate.
The stellar gate with a diameter of only half a meter was still too small for Ren Xiaosu to clearly see what was on the other side.
Moreover, the ground behind the door appeared to be charred and covered in dark red jagged rocks.
He could not even spot any proper vegetation within his field of vision.
If he could get a glimpse of any plants, Ren Xiaosu’s master-level wilderness survival skill would allow him to roughly determine the location of the other party.
In fact, nature was capable of talking. There were tropical plants in the tropics and temperate plants in the temperate zones. Even the altitude of mountain ranges and the abundance of water were factors that determined the distribution of plants.
But right now, Ren Xiaosu could not see anything at all, so he was unable to determine any useful information.
“Should I expand the stellar gate?” Ren Xiaosu muttered to himself hesitantly.
If he wanted to expand it, he would have to use the Proficiency Stones.
One Proficiency Stone cost one gratitude token. Way back when, it wasn’t easy to earn gratitude tokens, so Ren Xiaosu felt a pinch whenever he used them.
Therefore, he hoped to properly choose a powerful spell to use it on and not waste his resources on weird spells.
Ren Xiaosu had seriously thought about it before. The most powerful land beasts he had come across so far were probably the six-meter-long brown bears that the expeditionary army had brought with them and the Wolf King that followed Yan Liuyuan.
But even if he could tame these two types of ferocious beasts, it would not raise Ren Xiaosu’s strength by much.
The Wolf King was really quite powerful, but the reason was that it had a large pack backing it. Therefore, it would be meaningless for Ren Xiaosu to summon a lone beast like the Wolf King.
Rather than spending the Proficiency Stones on such a summoning spell, it would be better to directly use it on Meteor Shower.
But every time Ren Xiaosu thought of that enthusiastic but ferocious roar he heard when he activated the stellar gate, he could not help but want to take a gamble on the spell.
“I’ll use 10,000 Proficiency Stones first!” Ren Xiaosu said decisively. He now had 92,000 gratitude tokens, and only 90,000 of them could be used. He wanted to save the remaining 2,000 for Yang Xiaojin’s usage of the black bullet.
He carefully traded for the Proficiency Stones and said to the palace, “Use them all on the Prosperous Northwest spell!”
The voice from the palace in his mind, “Confirm usage of 10,000 Proficiency Stones on the Prosperous Northwest spell?”
“Yes!” Ren Xiaosu answered.
A moment later, the Proficiency Stones piled up like a small mountain in front of the palace’s vending machine dissipated one by one. It was as though the white limestone balls had been crushed before disappearing into thin air.
Ren Xiaosu could feel the changes within his body, and it was as though there was suddenly an added sense of wonder in his mind. The summoning spell he was initially not that proficient in seemed to have become engraved in his bones.
The brass typewriter in the palace suddenly started typing. With every tap of the brass keys, words appeared on the pale yellow leather parchment: Prosperous Northwest (Proficiency: 10,119)
Ren Xiaosu was clearly taken aback. He had only used the summoning spell twice throughout, so why wasn’t his proficiency at 10,002 instead?
Wait a minute, could this also include the number of times he had uttered “Prosperous Northwest” before?
It seemed that other than this speculation, there was no other explanation for it.
Ren Xiaosu did not know whether to laugh or cry. If he had known this earlier, he would have said the words “Prosperous Northwest” every day. He might’ve saved even more gratitude tokens then.
But according to Mel, there was actually no qualitative change in practicing a spell several hundred times. If those few hundred practices were reflected in the stellar gate, it would probably only increase in size by a few centimeters? That was why there was no obvious difference in the size of Ren Xiaosu’s and Melgor’s stellar gates.
Ren Xiaosu was very curious about something. If the Great Hoodwinker could master the “Prosperous Northwest” spell, how many stellar gates could he open? After all, the Great Hoodwinker had been going on about the Prosperous Northwest for most of his life.Thinking of this, Ren Xiaosu decided to set aside a better Eye of True Sight for the Great Hoodwinker.
However, he was unsure now if he were the only one affected, or if everyone else were also like this. Ren Xiaosu felt that everything related to superpowers always seemed a little special when it came to him.
The stellar gate suddenly expanded from half a meter wide to three meters.
Ren Xiaosu stared blankly at the brilliant stellar gate and was surprised to see a huge creature lying on the charred ground and resting.
But even though the stellar gate had expanded to three meters wide, Ren Xiaosu was still unable to get a clear view of the creature’s head. Even at three meters, he could only see half of it!
The creature that looked like a lizard had dark red scaly skin. As it breathed in and out, a fiery glow could even be seen.
So it turned out the dark red color he had seen just now was not jagged rocks at all but the skin of this shocking creature!
Ren Xiaosu swore he had never seen anything so terrifying before in his life. If this thing’s head was about six meters long, how fucking big would its body be?
He gently touched the stellar gate but realized his hand could not pass through it. Instead, it was blocked by an invisible force.
From the look of things, the stellar gate was a one-way portal. Only the summoned creature could pass through it from the other side; he could not pass through it himself.
While Ren Xiaosu was thinking about it, that terrifying creature’s eye suddenly opened. Within that amber eye, a vertical pupil that resembled an abyss was visible.
The eye stared intently at Ren Xiaosu, but there was no roar, nor did it make any further moves.
Ren Xiaosu was so shocked he immediately took four to five steps back and closed the stellar gate at the same time.
“Is that really not a fucking creature from another realm?” Ren Xiaosu muttered to himself with lingering fear. He thought that even after The Cataclysm, the radiation should not have produced something that terrifying, right?
Besides, wasn’t there a big issue with his summoning spell? Mel had summoned a creature of the same size as the stellar gate, so why did something several times larger than Ren Xiaosu’s stellar gate appear behind the portal?
As he thought about it, he suddenly felt that the creature looked a little familiar. However, he could not remember where he had seen it before.
This feeling was really too strange.
…
In the night sky, a huge falcon was quickly approaching the campsite where Qian Weining and the others were. Its sharp gaze was fixed on the humans around the campfire below.
A 100 kilometers away, tens of thousands of the Knights of Tudor had set up camp. There was a brazier placed every ten steps or so in the vast camp. The warm orange light flickered in the darkness, and from time to time, armored patrolling soldiers would shuffle back and forth.
In the camp, the canvas-sewn tents served as temporary barracks for the soldiers. There was even a strange fishy smell inside because many areas of the tents had goat oil applied to them.
In the center of the camp, five or six large tents stood out from the rest. Every time the patrols passed by, they would look over in awe.
That was because each of those tents housed a true archmage in them.
At this moment, several sorcerers were standing solemnly in the main tent of the Knights of Tudor’s camp. More than a dozen tallow candles in the tent were burning and emitting a strange fragrance. It smelled like an expensive spice was mixed in with the candles.
The sorcerers were dressed in exquisite black sorcerer robes with a white falcon’s head embroidered on their sleeves. The embroidery was extremely lifelike.
There was a transparent ice mirror in front of them that was as tall as a person, and the image on it was of Ren Xiaosu’s camp. The mirror was formed from ice and was still giving off cold air, making it look exceptionally mysterious and eerie. The image on the mirror’s surface was a bird’s-eye view, quietly overlooking everything on the ground.
A middle-aged sorcerer looked at Qian Weining and the others in the mirror and suddenly wondered, “What are they doing?”
All of the sorcerers were staring intently at the mirror. They saw Qian Weining and his men sitting upright on the ground and hands scribbling something.
“Notebooks, pens, and that young sorcerer is talking nonstop about something.” One of the sorcerers said curiously, “It’s like they’re researching some kind of secret.”
“It feels to me like they’re listening in class.” A sorcerer frowned.
“Haha, attending classes on a battlefield in the wilderness?” Another sorcerer laughed and said, “Who would have the free time to give classes in a place like that?”
“Then what are they doing…”
The sight transmitted back by the falcon stunned the sorcerers. No one knew what Qian Weining and the group were doing.
The archmage, who was the leader of the group, said coldly, “Don’t worry about what they’re doing for now. Based on our previous intel, they should be the group that just departed Winston City. The person who relayed the intel said they’re heading to the House of Norman, but I don’t think they’re going the right way. They’re about to encounter our knight regiment’s vanguards.”
“Yeah, what are they doing there?” the others wondered.
Initially, the falcon was soaring in the sky as a scout for the advance guard. But in the end, it discovered this small group of troublemakers blocking the advance guard’s path.
“Fly a little lower.” The archmage ordered, “Let’s see what they’re doing. Also, confirm if Melgor is in the group. Melgor is someone the patriarch has ordered to be killed. We thought we wouldn’t encounter him if they went to the Normans’ side, but we didn’t expect them to send themselves to their death.”
“Yes, my lord. I’ll make the falcon fly a little lower,” a sorcerer next to him said respectfully.
But a sudden turn of events occurred. A loud explosion boomed like a sudden clap of thunder in the darkness. The long and narrow sniper bullet arrived in the blink of an eye and forcefully shattered the falcon in the sky into pieces of ice.
Ren Xiaosu sneered as he looked at the falling ice pieces. This was probably the House of Tudor’s doing again. In his opinion, the House of Tudor liked the falcon too much. If it were any other bird that flew past in the sky, he wouldn’t have opened fire on them.
However, based on the other party’s speed of flight and his current marksmanship, his shots were simply too accurate.
Over at the Tudor camp, the falcon constructed from sorcery shattered along with the mirror in the main tent.
All of a sudden, the sorcerer who cast the spell felt a splitting headache as though something was violently rolling around in his mind.
“What happened?” The chief sorcerer said with a solemn expression, “What broke your spell?”
“I don’t know. There were no signs at all, nor did I see who did it. No one at the camp even looked at me.” The sorcerer covered his head and panted.
“Just as the patriarch said, there’s something fishy about this Melgor.” The archmage waved his hand. “Help him down to get some rest. Also, Hall, lead a team and join up with the advance guard in case the opponent has any alternate plans.”
“Yes, sir.” After a middle-aged sorcerer answered respectfully, he turned around and gestured for a few people to walk out of the main tent together. There were stewards and servants outside who had already prepared their warhorses for them. Hall even brought along two particular sorcerers who specialized in the Wind Bind spell to speed up the assembly.
Ren Xiaosu had just returned to the camp at this moment. The gunshots from earlier had alarmed Mel and Little Qian. Everyone looked at Ren Xiaosu and asked, “What happened?”
“I think we’re right in the path of the Knights of Tudor’s marching route,” Ren Xiaosu said nonchalantly.
When Mel and Little Qian heard this, they immediately panicked. “What? The Knights of Tudor? Then we had better quickly escape.”
“Escape? What for?” Ren Xiaosu raised an eyebrow. “This is as good as having Eyes of True Sight come knocking on our door, isn’t it?”
Mel retorted, “Have you subconsciously replaced sorcerers with Eyes of True Sight whenever you encounter them?”
“What else?” Ren Xiaosu chuckled. “Qian Weining has 192 men on his side, while we only have 64 Eyes of True Sight to go around. We’re still a long way off from equipping everyone.”
Qian Weining was stunned for a long time. He suddenly felt that the first group of sorcerer knights in the Kingdom of Sorcerers could be appearing soon.