Leilin turned his head to see the bald Viper shatter an opposing wizard's innate magical ability with an ice bolt.
At the same time, his prized python lunged forward, baring its razor-sharp fangs and sinking them directly into the neck of the wizard opposite.
His opponent was a remarkably young-looking wizard with brilliant golden hair and blue eyes — a person who radiated sunshine.
Unfortunately, the white wizard's face had gone ashen grey, and as the python tightened its coils around his body, his life slowly slipped away.
After killing the white wizard, the bald Viper even shot a provocative glance in Leilin's direction.
Leilin ignored it completely, rushing straight into the Nine-Ring White Tower's branch building.
"Not going after the spoils and instead picking fights — there's something wrong with this wizard's head!"
Leilin dashed through the doorway and arrived in what looked like a library.
"Apprentice-level materials — skip. Chip, scan!" Leilin swept his gaze across the room quickly. The library had two stories and was fairly large in total area, but most of the books lining its shelves were ones he'd already seen. Nothing of value here.
"Ding! Task established. Scan initiated..."
A faint blue architectural blueprint materialized before Leilin's eyes.
Through this diagram, Leilin easily spotted a narrow hidden passage concealed within the library's partition wall.
The library was deserted. Scattered books and overturned chairs littered the floor — everyone here had evacuated in a hurry.
Leilin crossed the main hall and made his way to the hidden passage the Chip had marked.
"Is it here?"
He scanned the wall before him, then drove both fists down without a moment's hesitation!
Crash! Amid the billowing dust, a somewhat cramped tunnel was exposed behind the collapsed wall.
"Hm?"
The passage was short. Behind it lay a small chamber where several black wooden shelves stood, each loaded with the same kind of inheritance crystal balls Leilin had seen before. Inside the room, three apprentices trembled from head to toe.
"Apprentices from the Nine-Ring White Tower? George isn't here."
Leilin cast a casual glance and waved his scarlet palm.
A shimmering red glow flooded the small chamber.
The three apprentices' eyes turned faintly red before they collapsed unconscious. Their bodies continued to twitch, and their life force steadily drained away. They wouldn't survive the day.
Ordinary apprentices in the face of formal wizards like Leilin were little more than ants — one careless step could crush several of them.
Leilin stepped over the twitching bodies without a second thought and approached the wooden shelves.
"Elementary Meditation Method," "Fundamentals of Potionology"... "Introduction to Runology," "Quantum Research"...
The crystal balls on these shelves were relatively precious things. They could transmit information directly into a wizard's consciousness sea without any risk of forgetting.
Leilin glanced over them. Many of the crystal balls contained apprentice-level content — not much use to him. But several black crystal balls in the center, each labeled with different advanced academic disciplines, drew a faint smile to his lips...
A dozen seconds later, Leilin walked out of the library, and a roaring blaze erupted behind him.
By now, the entire branch was in chaos. Spell-flares flashed intermittently throughout.
Once most of the enforcement squad's formal wizards had been killed, the branch's defensive force crumbled immediately.
Those still at the apprentice level couldn't possibly withstand a assault from a horde of black wizards!
The black wizards grabbed whatever resources caught their eye, destroyed everything in sight, and vented the dark desires within them to their hearts' content.
Leilin watched it all with an expressionless face, continuously using the Chip to scan the branch.
There wasn't much time left. At most a few more minutes before the allied forces from Nevernight City arrived. However arrogant Leilin might be, he wouldn't dare fight a large group of white wizards head-on.
"From the layout, this isn't a branch of an academy — it's more like a research institution, and with very few personnel..."
Leilin wove through the wreckage of buildings, observing as he went.
"Found it!"
An excited voice rang out. "Everyone, get over here! I've found the entrance to the secret realm!"
"Hm?" "Excellent!"
One excited voice after another echoed from all over the branch, and the black wizards quickly gathered in a small garden.
There, the enormous rat-wizard from earlier was rubbing his black paws together, whiskers bristling, his beady eyes staring greedily at an oval-shaped object hovering in midair.
It looked like a mirror, surrounded by a silver glow, with a deep, dark vortex swirling at its center.
"I'm sorry — my spell can only reveal the secret realm's entrance to this degree. Cracking it open will take time!"
The giant rat hurriedly asked, "Which of you captured one of their wizards alive? Hurry and force the entrance password and incantation out of them!"
"Leave that to Old Crone — she's the best at it!"
The zombie-like wizard Leilin had seen earlier was cradling the naked corpse of a female apprentice, occasionally gnawing at it as though savoring some delicacy.
"Heh heh... That wizard's soul was extracted quite smoothly. Looks like a big haul is destined to come our way!"
The old witch cackled and shuffled up to the silver circle, reciting several awkward, guttural syllables.
Buzzing!
The void rippled, and the circular entrance expanded, revealing a pitch-black warehouse-like space beyond.
"Haha... We've struck it rich!" The giant rat tore inside like a cyclone, and the other black wizards followed close behind.
"I'll stay and keep watch!" The old witch produced several powdery substances and scattered them on the ground around her. "It all gets divided up in the end anyway..."
Leilin exchanged a meaningful look with the old witch, then ducked into the secret realm.
The realm was indeed quite small — like a large warehouse, with only a single narrow walkway for passage. Small storage rooms lined both sides, marked with numbers and material names.
"Quick! Grab the most valuable things and get out. Burn the rest!"
The zombie-like wizard flung the female corpse from his hands, yanked open the door to a small storage room, and strode in with a cold smirk.
Leilin watched the black wizards enthusiastically stuffing goods into their satchels and shook his head with a touch of resignation.
In the world of wizards, spatial magical artifacts were extraordinarily rare. At the very least, Leilin had only ever heard of them in legends and ballads — so far, he hadn't met a single wizard who possessed such a thing.
That meant wizards had to carry many of their important belongings on their person. Every expedition had them festooned with bundles, with even more crates loaded into the carriages behind them.
Now, with far too much in the warehouse, Leilin and the others could only select a portion of the most valuable items. As for the rest of the enormous stockpile, the black wizards — eyes red with greed — had no choice but to destroy it.
"If I could get my hands on a spatial ring or something like that next time, it would make things so much easier!"
Leilin rushed into a storage room where shelves were packed to bursting with all manner of materials. Piles of Magic Stones lay heaped in the corners like refuse.
He quickly stuffed rare materials into his pockets, ignoring the low-grade Magic Stones entirely. Only high-grade Magic Stones and Magic Stone cards were worth a second glance.
He still had the presence of mind for idle thoughts.
"Of course, rather than finding a spatial ring, the best approach would be to simply seize this place outright — that would be the real no-cost, maximum-profit move!"
A hint of regret flickered through Leilin's mind, but he buried that fantasy deep down where it belonged.
"Ding! The current countdown has reached 4 minutes and 37 seconds, exceeding the subject's preset critical threshold!!!"
The Chip's alert flashed before Leilin's eyes.
"No more time — withdraw!" A flash of steely resolve crossed Leilin's eyes, and he left the storage room swiftly.
"The main force from Nevernight City is almost here — move!"
Only after Leilin had exited the secret realm did he hear the frantic, exasperated voice of the giant rat from earlier.
"Go!"
Leilin and the old witch nodded, transformed into two dark shadows, and vanished into thin air.
Once all the black wizards had retreated, Leilin looked back and could still see firelight and black flames billowing from the Nine-Ring White Tower.
Some wizards from Nevernight City had already cast first-level flight spells and were descending from the sky.
...
A colossal creature thundered across the land.
From a distance, the beast stood over fifty meters tall and stretched more than two hundred meters in length, its appearance resembling an enormous hippopotamus — its broad snout took up nearly half its body.
Every stride the beast took stamped deep imprints into the ground and sent tremors rippling through the surrounding earth, like a minor earthquake.
The various animals in the vicinity scattered upon catching sight of the beast, not daring to linger.
Inside the beast's body, the black wizards had gathered once more.
The wizard wreathed in green smoke stood unscathed at the center, barely having lost any aura at all. It seemed he had dispatched his opponent with ease.
"All right! You all swore oaths earlier, witnessed by the Eye of Judgment. Hand over half the total value of everything you plundered!"
The wizard known as "Giant" spoke in a cold voice.
A ripple of murmurs ran through the wizards below, but constrained by both their oaths and the difference in power, they quickly piled Magic Stones and materials in the center of the hall.
Before long, the various materials and Magic Stones had formed a small mountain.
"That's got to be worth at least ten million Magic Stones," Leilin thought, his eyes flashing as he ran the calculation.
"And that's only half! That means nearly twenty million Magic Stones' worth of resources were looted from the Nine-Ring White Tower's branch secret realm — and an incalculable amount more was destroyed... The Nine-Ring White Tower is going to lose its mind..."
Curious, he leaned toward the old witch beside him and asked in a low voice.
"Is it always half the proceeds that have to be turned in? Isn't that share a bit steep?"