"The materials needed after Plan Three are far too rare — I can't find them anywhere right now!"
"The Comoin Giant Serpent bloodline has already bonded with my body and even my soul. Forcibly abandoning it would definitely drop me by one rank as a warlock, and could even endanger my life. Absolutely out of the question!"
"It looks like the only option is to brew the Tranquility Potion as quickly as possible!" Leilin's expression was grave.
He had long possessed the recipe for the Tranquility Potion, and the ingredients had already been gathered at Black Bone Forest Academy. Producing the finished potion was merely a matter of time.
He had previously thought he could endure through sheer willpower, but now it was clear that the problem of emotional instability had plagued warlocks for tens of thousands of years — it truly wasn't something that could be easily resolved by individual willpower alone.
Leilin had always prided himself on being a rational person, and he detested anything beyond his control.
He then turned his gaze toward a cave nearby, a cold smile forming on his lips.
Inside the cave, Kweireit — bound and unconscious — had been stripped of everything on his person and tossed there by Leilin.
Leilin was quite eager to get his hands on the Liliteer Family's intelligence.
Therefore, even knowing that Kweireit might carry some kind of tracking spell, Leilin still decided to interrogate him.
As long as he was fast enough, he could surely leave before anyone reacted.
After all, so far they still only considered him a Third-rank Apprentice — no one would even consider the possibility that Kweireit might fail. But such good fortune wouldn't repeat itself after Kweireit.
...Several hours later, Leilin finally departed after obtaining what he wanted.
Where Kweireit had been, nothing remained except a puddle of yellow pus.
"I didn't expect Bosayin's backing to be so formidable — he turns out to be the only grandson of a Liliteer Family elder who has achieved over 80% spiritual elementalization and met the conditions for advancement..."
As he traveled, Leilin mulled over the intelligence he had just obtained.
Apothecaries excelled at brewing various potions, and Leilin had accumulated all manner of miscellaneous methods through his experiments in Polar Night City. He had tried every single one on Kweireit, and before long, this formal wizard had suffered a complete mental breakdown, selling out everything in exchange for a swift death.
According to Kweireit, Bosayin's grandfather was a powerful elder of the Liliteer Family and the person in charge of Kweireit's line of wizards.
That was how he had been able to dispatch Kweireit, a First-level Wizard.
Leilin knew that by killing the man's blood relative and then additionally sacrificing a First-level Wizard under his command, his enmity with that elder had only grown deeper.
But it wasn't all bad news.
The Liliteer Family was currently locked in an internal power struggle over the position of patriarch, and it had reached a critical juncture. The elders of each faction answered to no single authority, so Leilin only needed to figure out how to escape from that particular elder's reach.
However, having so brazenly killed the man's blood relative — and even a formal wizard — whichever faction caught him would certainly not hesitate to deal with him.
And with his strength alone, he couldn't possibly stand against such a massive family.
After just a moment's thought, Leilin made his decision: he would defect from the Academy.
The Marsh Duchy was Black Bone Forest Academy's territory, and in a sense, it was the concentrated stronghold of the Liliteer Family's influence. The further east one traveled, the more pronounced this became.
The north was an impassable danger zone. Leilin's plan was to head due west, crossing the Moon Lute Mountain Range and entering the territory of Gothic Sage's Cottage.
The two forces had just fought a battle, and they were bitter enemies.
Within Gothic Sage's Cottage's domain, Black Bone Forest Academy's power would be at its weakest.
That said, Leilin had no intention of lingering in Gothic Sage's Cottage's territory either. They would certainly be glad to gain a formal wizard's fighting strength while simultaneously annoying Black Bone Forest Academy, but Leilin had absolutely no desire to become anyone's pawn.
The entire South Coast was vast! Black Bone Forest Academy and Gothic Sage's Cottage were merely in the easternmost backwater of the South Coast — practically the countryside.
After passing through the Yinglan Duchy controlled by Gothic Sage's Cottage, he would travel through the Magelie Grand Canyon, pass through over a dozen duchies, and arrive at the central region of the entire South Coast.
He had heard that in those parts, the White Wizards held supreme power, coexisted peacefully with ordinary people, and deadly conflicts and wars were rare.
Leilin's plan was to go there and develop himself.
Even though he could continuously advance simply by practicing his high-level Meditation Method, that didn't mean he didn't need resources.
Quite the opposite — whether attempting spiritual elementalization or improving his Meditation Method's cultivation speed, he needed resources, vast quantities of top-tier wizard resources!
At the same time, he needed to brew potions on a large scale to earn sufficient funds.
All of this required a distribution hub large enough to make it possible.
And the largest wizard market on the South Coast was located in the South Coast's central region, jointly overseen by the Nine-Ring White Tower and several major local powers.
At the thought of the Nine-Ring White Tower, Leilin suddenly thought of George.
That youth who had traveled with him had ultimately entered the Nine-Ring White Tower to study. Five or six years had passed in the blink of an eye. With his fourth-grade soul aptitude, he had surely advanced to Third-rank Apprentice by now.
"I wonder how they're all doing?"
Leilin murmured to himself and quickened his pace toward the Moon Lute Mountain Range.
**BOOM!!!**
The massive cave collapsed entirely, revealing the fury of whoever had struck.
As the dust settled, the figure of an old man clad in silvery-white armor emerged from within.
The old man's face was still adorned with strange metallic ornaments, and his silver eyes burned with unmistakable rage.