The further Leilin moved from the banquet hall, the more the lively atmosphere dissipated.
By the time he reached the lower level of the castle, the sounds from above could no longer reach him.
Dim yellow lamplight illuminated the dark walls, casting numerous shadows upon them like the claws of countless monsters, giving off an unsettling feeling.
"I feel like I'm getting closer and closer to the truth!"
Leilin furrowed his brow, examining the rooms and walls on either side of the castle corridor.
The lower levels of a wizard's castle were mostly laboratories and storage rooms; he hadn't found anything of particular value yet.
The numerous defensive and detection magical arrays simply ignored Leilin's presence, allowing him to stroll through the castle with complete freedom, surveying everything at his leisure.
As for the Leilin at the banquet—that was naturally a decoy, a puppet stand-in. After all, the other party certainly wouldn't force Leilin to act, so a Shadow Servant combined with the Chip's simulated intelligence could handle the vast majority of the situation.
With Leilin's current Crystalization-level strength, he could move through the entire castle unimpeded, and could even render all the monitoring arrays completely ineffective, leaving no trace of his presence.
"
Leilin stroked his chin. "And if all of this is connected to the situation outside, it becomes even more troublesome…"
Moreover, Robin was his senior—he had shown Leilin great care back in the day. The current Leilin, without finding concrete evidence, couldn't very well make a move rashly.
After all, Robin's attitude was entirely proper. If Leilin kept pressing the issue regardless, his reputation would suffer—at the very least, he wouldn't be able to shake off the label of biting the hand that fed him.
"Chip! How's the scanning coming along?"
Leilin's figure lurked in the darkness. Gazing at the walls on either side, he posed the question silently in his mind.
"Main structural map of the castle established. Magical array decryption at 58%… conducting reverse extrapolation…" the Chip reported faithfully.
A three-dimensional image was projected before Leilin's eyes, the castle's structural layouts materializing one by one.
Robin Family's wizard castle was a formidable arcane structure on par with the Fuirei Blood Serpent Stronghold, containing countless magical arrays and numerous anomalous phenomena caused by accumulated radiation.
Even Robin himself might not know every secret within the castle.
The Chip's initial scanning progress had naturally been very slow, but combined with Leilin's own detection capabilities and after several visits, he had managed to understand most of it.
The remaining unanalyzed portions were likely beyond the Chip's current computational capacity.
For Leilin, what had already been revealed was more than sufficient.
Beneath the massive three-dimensional projection, Leilin spotted another section of blank architecture, buried deep underground—the Chip had only been able to detect its outermost layer.
The rest of the blank spaces were marked in blood-red characters with the annotation "Unable to perceive," which made Leilin's heart skip a beat.
The castle's true secret appeared to be concentrated right there.
Following the map's indication, Leilin arrived before an enormous mural.
It depicted a vast historical scene. Numerous knights in armor and wizards in flowing wide-sleeved robes, bearing the marks of blood and fire, were severing the horned head of a demon.
The entire mural was rendered in a highly realistic style, yet suffused with a distinctive artistic quality. The eighteen eyes on the demon's severed head were wide open, as if it were still alive.
"This basement level is merely the Robin Family's public facade. The real secret must lie behind this mural…"
A blue light flickered in Leilin's eyes as he reached out and touched the mural's surface.
Getting closer, he could even detect a scent of blood and flame, as though a genuine battlefield lay on the other side—as if the blood there had not yet fully dried.
"Ding! After scanning and comparison, confirmed: First-level Bloodline Lock ahead! Requires specific incantation and bloodline to pass!"
The Chip's database had by now grown to oceanic proportions. After only a brief scan, it fed the relevant information directly into Leilin's memory.
"Bloodline Lock?"
Leilin stroked his chin. Since the other party had chosen this type of defensive ritual, it naturally required the Robin Family bloodline—possibly so restrictive that only Robin's own blood could serve as a key.
Unfortunately for Robin, Leilin had obtained a massive trove of Quicksand organization's bloodline research data and spent over a century studying it in depth. His understanding of bloodlines far surpassed Robin's. What would be an insurmountable chasm for ordinary sorcerers was, in Leilin's view, merely a moderate challenge.
"Ding! Data collection initiated. Detecting the unsealing ritual!"
Upon receiving the command, the Chip immediately surged to full capacity. Countless blue symbols flickered through Leilin's eyes, condensing into dense swarms of tiny points of light that merged into the mural.
Hummmm!
The entire mural trembled, layer after layer of dust drifting away. The figures within appeared more vivid, as if they might come alive at any moment.
Especially the demon head at the center—its many eyes seemed to emit a sinister green glow.
"Descendants of nearby bloodlines shall return to their origin under the violet light, converging upon the source…"
Leilin chanted an archaic incantation. At the same time, a single black hair flew from his hand, still carrying tiny flecks of skin and debris.
He had secretly collected this from the servant girl Ada during one of his dalliances—kept precisely for use in a situation like this.
For sorcerers, since their research into bloodline power was the deepest and they were the most confident in it, their traps and defensive measures naturally prioritized this domain.
Leilin had therefore collected traces of a Robin Family descendant's bodily remains well in advance, specifically for this purpose.
Hsss…
Under Leilin's incantation, a sphere of crimson light enveloped the black strand of hair.
After the bloody glow faded, the hair had vanished. In its place hovered a tiny droplet of purplish-red blood, radiating the wild, primordial aura unique to the Comoin Giant Serpent.
"Not enough!" Leilin shook his head and tossed several blood-red stones from his hand.
The crimson stones crumbled into powder in midair, their particles converging upon the purplish-red droplet one by one.
The stone powder transformed into a bright silvery liquid. After merging into the blood droplet, it caused the purplish-red sphere to swell significantly into a small ball of blood, its color shifting to a pale red.
Yet upon witnessing this, Leilin's eyes lit up with a sharp gleam.
His incantation grew ever more piercing and shrill, and the pale red mass of blood solidified into a dark crimson clump. A powerful and dangerous aura spread outward from it.
If the bloodline before had only belonged to Ada, a low-level sorcerer, then the current blood mass already contained the terrifying latent power of a Crystalization-level being—its aura was strikingly close to Robin's own.
Since Robin had set up a Bloodline Lock, the key he programmed would certainly not be as simple as Comoin Giant Serpent blood. Otherwise, any random sorcerer could stumble upon the secret.
He would have made his own blood and genes the sole key.
And what Leilin was doing now was using the bloodline of Ada—someone closely connected to Robin—to brew a blood essence that mimicked Robin's bloodline aura.
Though he couldn't replicate the deepest genetic layers, Leilin was confident that with the Chip's technical capabilities, the magical defenses here absolutely lacked the ability to detect the difference.
"Ding! Unsealing ritual extrapolation complete!"
The Chip transmitted a stream of information. Leilin's face brightened, and he raised his voice to recite the incantation.
"Ding! Bloodline aura mismatch detected. Initiating automatic calibration!" The dark crimson blood clump's aura shifted subtly, restructuring into the aura of a different sorcerer.
"What is this…" A flicker of surprise crossed Leilin's face.
He shook his head and thrust the blood clump directly into the mural. The two merged together like water and milk, blending seamlessly.
Immediately, a wash of blood-red color rippled across the entire mural, creating a rather terrifying sight.
The figures within the mural, bathed in that crimson glow, underwent horrifying transformations. Delicate scales and fleshy membranes emerged across their bodies. Some knights sprouted horns directly from their heads, unfurled two massive flesh-wings from their backs, and took on the shapes of various monstrous beasts.
At the very center, the severed demon head wore a look of eerie, almost mocking amusement—sending a chill straight down Leilin's spine.
"I get the feeling this mural is no simple matter… as if it's foretelling something…"
Leilin murmured, then turned his gaze back to the demon head in the mural.
"Chip, scan the image! Search the database for similar samples!" Leilin ordered.
"Ding! Task established. Recording initiated. Cross-referencing database…" the Chip responded promptly, pulling up vast quantities of literature for comparison.
"Ding! Similar pattern found!" The Chip projected an oil painting before Leilin's eyes.
In the painting was an enormous demonic figure—the horns and eyes bore a striking resemblance to the demon in the mural.
"What is this?" Leilin immediately pulled up the associated data.
"In the 15th year of the Sacred Calendar, during the Month of Dark Crow Cries, an avatar of
The information in the Chip's records was sparse—just a few brief lines and a single image, with several portions missing along the edges.
These were the defects present in the ancient text scanned long ago.
"Beelzebub, the Gluttony Arch-Demon?"
Leilin covered his mouth. "Even an avatar—yet it took a Radiant Sun Wizard to destroy it! What a terrifying existence!"
Though the ancient text did not detail the specifics, the calendar it used belonged to an ancient era. In that age when Dawn Star Wizards were commonplace, Green Leaf City would certainly have had its share.
And even so, that avatar of the Arch-Demon had still run rampant, causing enormous casualties, to the point where nothing short of a Radiant Sun Wizard could put an end to it!
"How many among those casualties were Dawn Star Wizards—or even Gleaming Moon ones…"
Leilin sighed.
At that moment, with the incantation and bloodline fully activated, the entire mural split down the center, revealing a passage leading downward.
The Bloodline Lock had been broken. Without alerting the original owner, the way was thrown wide open for an outsider.