"You're a Warlock... hmm, I recognize this feeling. You come from the
The Wisdom Ancient Tree spoke slowly, each word requiring an agonizing amount of time to utter — enough to drive any impatient Wizard up the wall.
But there was not a trace of impatience on Lei Lin's face. Quite the opposite: he felt nothing but reverence toward the Wisdom Ancient Tree. After all, his own advancement to Tier 3 Warlock had been partly thanks to its guidance, so he bowed with deep respect.
"Yes! A Tier 4 Warlock from the Wizard World — Lei Lin Farrell, greeting the Great Illuminator of Wisdom!"
The Illuminator of Wisdom was the title that all the Wizards of the Wizard World had collectively bestowed upon the Wisdom Ancient Tree through deliberation.
According to legend, the Wisdom Ancient Tree was the crystallization of all knowledge, even comprehending every mystery of the Astral Plane and the cosmos. Countless high-level Wizards had received its illumination, and even the glory of the ancient era was said to owe much of its guidance.
Yet the great tree, which had always appeared as a sage and riddle-solver, suddenly vanished from the Wizard World one day. No matter how the ancient Wizards searched, they could not find the slightest trace of it.
In later ages, many Wizard historians even attributed the decline of the ancient era to the absence of the Wisdom Ancient Tree's guidance, claiming that without it, countless ancient Wizards had walked the wrong path.
Although Lei Lin didn't quite agree with this view, the tree's thorough understanding of Wizards was beyond doubt.
"The Wizard World..." A flicker of nostalgia passed through the Wisdom Ancient Tree's enormous eyes. "I still remember... it was twenty Black Epochs ago, or perhaps twenty-five. Those Wizards were such charming children. Oh! There was one among them named Atan — his skill at roasting meat was truly remarkable..."
The great Wisdom Ancient Tree was like an old man lost in reminiscence, beginning to ramble on and on.
Lei Lin waited quietly to the side, but Toad Quark was growing impatient. "Old friend! Are you moving again? You've only been here for eighty-seven thousand years... I barely took a nap and you're already relocating?"
"Eighty-seven thousand years... one... nap?" Lei Lin was somewhat speechless.
"Yes, my friend! I have sensed the approach of terror. Even the ends of the world cannot stop the gaze of a powerful force from reaching in, and the aftershocks of the ancient era will continue to send ripples outward, drawing more worlds into the storm..."
The Wisdom Ancient Tree slowly uttered something that sounded like a prophecy, stirring something in Lei Lin's heart. But no matter how he pressed with questions afterward, the Wisdom Ancient Tree remained silent.
"Leaving a sentence half-finished, honestly..." Lei Lin secretly rolled his eyes. Then he heard the Wisdom Ancient Tree's voice after it had finished bidding farewell to Toad Quark: "And you, little one — as a final gift, I can answer a single question for you. Of course, it cannot touch upon the topics we just discussed..."
"Thank you, great Illuminator of Wisdom!" Lei Lin's face lit up with wild joy. The opportunity to have the Wisdom Ancient Tree solve a riddle was something that even in the ancient era, not every Wizard could obtain. Even a Dawn Wizard would probably fight tooth and nail for it.
But after the rush of elation subsided, Lei Lin found himself lost in uncertainty.
"What should I ask? How to achieve immortality? That's too broad!" Lei Lin parted his lips but ultimately could not bring himself to ask the question.
After an intense struggle, a flash of clarity suddenly crossed Lei Lin's eyes. "Even if this truly is the Wisdom Ancient Tree, it's merely one of the ancient myths. In itself, it could be considered an Eighth or Ninth Level Wizard — and even those have to protect themselves now. Asking it would be pointless. I need to ask the question most relevant to myself..."
Once he understood this point, the fog that had been coiling around Lei Lin's mind finally dissipated completely.
"I want to know — the method for breaking through the Warlock bloodline shackles!" Lei Lin took a deep breath, clenched his fist, and posed the question to the Wisdom Ancient Tree.
For him, nothing was more important than finding the answer to this question right now.
"Ah, that..." The Wisdom Ancient Tree raised one of its roots to rest beneath its lip, mimicking a remarkably human gesture of contemplation. "You could..."
...
The thick fog dispersed, and Lei Lin suddenly snapped back to awareness.
He rubbed his slightly aching forehead, gazing at the grey flagstones on the ground, the mist gradually fading all around him, and the structures steadily emerging from it. The glazed look in his eyes quickly recovered, only to be replaced by puzzlement.
"Just now — was that scene real or fake?"
Lei Lin stared at his own hands. "I'm already at the Dawn Wizard rank. Under the sweep of my spiritual power, any illusion should have been exposed... Besides..."
He touched his own heart. "The Wisdom Ancient Tree's answer is still firmly imprinted in the depths of my heart, and it seems highly feasible..."
This situation only deepened Lei Lin's confusion.
"Perhaps the Path of Bewilderment works through this kind of extraordinarily sophisticated illusion, forcing intruders to seek answers while doubting themselves. The answers were actually buried in the intruder's heart all along — they're simply being drawn out once more. And of course, if you can't find them, you'll remain lost forever..."
Drawing on his past knowledge, Lei Lin arrived at a speculative explanation that sounded plausible but was ultimately uncertain.
Yet deep down, he felt that what had just happened was most likely real.
With the power of the ancient Wizards, creating such a scene wasn't impossible. But it was even more likely that this was a form of communication spanning across a vast stretch of time, causing numerous scenes to converge in this single place.
In other words, Lei Lin's consciousness had pierced through the barriers of time and space in a single instant, arriving at a fragment of space from the ancient era, where he had come face to face with the true Wisdom Ancient Tree of antiquity.
"Whew! Whatever! This can only benefit me, so there's no point worrying about it. If I can't figure it out now, I'll just leave it be. Once my strength grows enough in the future, I'll probably understand naturally..."
Lei Lin thought with remarkable optimism.
For him, this journey to the Path of Bewilderment had brought no drawbacks whatsoever. He had even unexpectedly obtained a method for resolving the bloodline shackles — even if it was merely a theoretical framework, it was immensely valuable. All the gains from the Crimson Arc Moon combined might not even compare to it!
"But, having completed the Path of Bewilderment, it seems I ought to receive some kind of reward!" Lei Lin rubbed his chin and looked at the enormous Wizard structure that had fully materialized ahead of him, a smile spreading across his face.
What appeared before Lei Lin was unmistakably a two-story Western-style cottage, its balcony windows still open, as if the owner had merely stepped out for a moment.
The brass door handle glowed with an ancient yet lustrous sheen, clearly the product of frequent use.
But Lei Lin knew that this building had been abandoned for at least ten thousand years. The only thing that could produce such an effect was, naturally, the work of magic.
Click! He gripped the door handle and applied a bit of force, and the door swung open with ease, revealing a living room with an enormous fireplace. The firewood inside still crackled away, and a wave of warmth gradually filled the interior.
"A Wizard's most precious belongings, apart from what they carry on their person, will only appear in the bedroom, study, or laboratory…"
Lei Lin quickly swept his gaze around the room, immediately abandoned the living room, and headed to the second floor.
He found the study first. Some kind of spatial magic had clearly been applied here — upon opening the door, what presented itself to Lei Lin was a vast space resembling a football pitch. Towering bookshelves over a dozen meters high stood everywhere, but every last one of them was completely empty, with only piles of ash remaining in the gaps between the partitions.
Lei Lin searched through them several times and, unwilling to give up, had the Chip scan the area repeatedly. In the end, he had no choice but to accept his fate and leave the study.
"To think they even took every last book and research document… so what could possibly be left…"
Lei Lin felt somewhat discouraged, but he continued searching room by room, and soon discovered the original owner's bedroom.
To his surprise, in front of the vanity in the bedroom, he obtained something with remarkably little effort.
Inside an open jewelry box, a crescent-shaped blood-red pendant lay quietly. After Lei Lin confirmed it was not a trap and picked it up, a stream of information immediately flowed into his mind.
"Crimson Pendant! High-grade magical artifact! A work of Meifelke! …Ah! I offer this to my goddess, Eunice, my true love…"
Judging by the open jewelry box, the owner had apparently been about to put on the pendant when everything had suddenly come to an abrupt halt.
Lei Lin searched the bedroom through once more, somewhat bewildered, but found nothing else suspicious.
"Strange arrangement!" Lei Lin muttered, tucked the Crimson Pendant away, and added a multitude of seals over it on the outside.
Even if it turned out to be a trap, a high-grade magical artifact was worth taking a small risk for. Besides, Lei Lin had confidence in his own judgment and in the Chip's scans.
As he was leaving, he instinctively glanced at the mirror frame on the vanity.
The frame held a large oval silver mirror, and in it he could see his own reflection. But what was eerie was that the Lei Lin in the mirror wore a cryptic smile, which sent a jolt of alarm through his heart.
By the time he came back to his senses, everything inside the mirror had returned to normal, as if the whole thing had been nothing more than a hallucination.
But would a Morning Star Wizard ever suffer hallucinations? What a joke!
After his expression shifted darkly several times, Lei Lin gritted his teeth, swiftly put the mirror away, rushed out of the bedroom, and sprinted all the way out of the villa.
The instant he left the villa — crash! The entire massive villa vanished without a trace, leaving behind nothing but a huge, beast-bite-shaped crater where it had stood.
Bang!
A fist slammed onto the desktop, sending up clouds of dust. "Damn it! How could he still have gotten away with it! That was the easiest magical artifact to obtain — and it was high-grade!"
Inside an ancient crystal chamber, the old Wizard's face was twisted with hatred, filled with unwillingness.
"Not only that — he even took 'that' with him!"
The old man's expression shifted several times before he finally made up his mind.
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