"Mr. Lei!"
After returning to the caravan, the other Unicorn Clan members all had looks of admiration in their eyes as they cheered loudly.
Their reverence for the strong was deeply branded into their very blood, and it showed at moments like these.
"I'm fine! Let's get moving!"
Leilin sat back down inside the giant snail's shell, his face wearing a calm, indifferent expression.
Indeed, two first-level wizards were hardly worth expending any effort on. What had truly surprised him was the Chip, which had after obtaining their energy circulation patterns delivered an unexpected reward.
"Ding! Analysis complete — fifteen first-level fire-element spells, seven second-level spells, and three third-level spells have been parsed!"
Hearing the Chip's notification, a look of delight surfaced on Leilin's face.
Due to the differences between world rules, the spell templates from the Wizard World could not be used directly in the Lava World. They first had to go through a conversion process.
If any other wizard were to carry out such a process, it would require enormous amounts of time spent in exploration, and would be extraordinarily tedious — each spell would need to be individually studied and analyzed.
But in Leilin's hands, they were being parsed out in batches, immediately and dramatically expanding his repertoire.
"If this keeps up, I should be able to recover the vast majority of my strength before we reach Vojin City…" A sharp gleam flickered in Leilin's eyes before slowly fading away.
After a brief pause, the enormous caravan began to move forward once more.
The Unicorn Clan members outside were completely at ease. After all, with such a powerful Mr. Lei stationed among them, they had nothing to worry about — whether it was wilderness bandits on the road or natural disasters and wild beasts.
And so it proved. With Leilin standing guard, not only were they spared from the effects of most natural calamities, but he even intervened personally to help the caravan through several major crises.
As time passed, the Unicorn Clan members in the caravan practically worshipped Leilin like a god. When had any of their trading expeditions not resulted in over half their number lost, with piles of dead and enormous quantities of supplies consumed? How could any of them have ever been this easy?
By the time they parted ways with Leilin, every one of the Unicorn Clan members wore expressions of deep reluctance. The caravan leader even tried earnestly to persuade Leilin to stay, subtly hinting that even if the Wise One objected, they could keep him by force if necessary.
But how could Leilin possibly agree to that? With a smile, he departed.
Vojin City was the largest city in the entire Land of Fire and Thorns.
The whole city was built within a vast expanse of yellowish desert, with fierce winds periodically sweeping through, kicking up clouds of dust. It looked thoroughly desolate.
But Leilin knew that these living conditions were actually quite good by the standards of the Lava World. Any place without rivers of magma was considered habitable for intelligent beings. Aside from pure fire-element creatures, very few races would actually enjoy living right beside magma all day. And this desert, aside from being slightly hotter, was almost no different from the deserts of the Wizard World — quite acceptable.
"But these alien races are really…"
Walking into Vojin City and seeing buildings with designs utterly unlike anything in the Wizard World — structures sporting all manner of peculiar styles — and especially the flood of alien pedestrians on the streets, Leilin found himself somewhat speechless.
The numerous passersby before him were, without exception, members of alien races.
Leilin suddenly realized that the Unicorn Clan he had been traveling with was actually one of the races that more closely resembled humans. At least their outward appearance bore some similarity. But here, it was entirely different.
If beings with multiple eyes and a profusion of limbs were still somewhat normal, then when Leilin saw a massive green caterpillar wearing a top hat and carrying a walking cane in one tiny hand, briskly arguing with a shopkeeper over something inside a store, he felt as though some string inside him had snapped.
Even during his previous adventures in the Wizard World, the regions he had stayed in were predominantly human-populated. Even across the entire Central Continent, though there were many alien races, humans still held dominance, with other species relegated to hiding in the shadows, barely clinging to survival. Mixed-blood offspring with human-like appearances made up the majority.
But here, watching the bustling throngs of monsters walk past, Leilin suddenly felt as though he himself had become the alien.
This feeling of solitude was strangely novel, and he found himself savoring it.
"No wonder the old texts said that conquering another world is itself a tremendous form of training for a wizard. Now that I think about it carefully, the difficulty really is staggering… especially the notion of pitting oneself alone against an entire world. It's just… insane…"
Leilin murmured to himself, but his eyes burned with two flickering flames of scorching passion: "I really want… to try it. The feeling of utterly conquering some world…"
After his moment of reflection, business still needed to be attended to.
Leilin casually stepped in front of an alien with two green heads and some kind of unidentified liquid continuously dripping from its mouth.
"I need to know a few things. Where can I find what I'm looking for? If you can take me there, this is yours!"
He produced a chunk of pink mineral and tossed it in front of the alien, immediately making the creature's eyes light up.