"Mr. Lei!"
After returning to the caravan, the other Unicornians all had looks of admiration in their eyes, cheering loudly.
The reverence for the strong was deeply branded in their bloodlines, and it showed at moments like these.
"All clear! Move out!"
Leilin settled back into the giant snail's shell, his face carrying a calm, indifferent expression.
Indeed, two first-level Wizards weren't worth expending any real effort on. What had truly surprised him was what the Chip had gained after acquiring their energy circulation methods.
"Ding! Analysis complete: fifteen first-level fire-element
Hearing the Chip's notification, a look of delight surfaced on Leilin's face.
Due to the differences in world rules, the Wizard World's spell templates couldn't be directly used in the Lava World. A conversion process was required.
For any other Wizard, this process would demand an enormous amount of time and painstaking research—each spell would have to be studied and deconstructed one by one. It was an incredibly tedious task.
But with Leilin, the Chip could deconstruct them in batches. This immediately expanded his arsenal dramatically.
"Looks like before I reach Wogjin City, I'll have recovered the vast majority of my strength…" A sharp gleam flickered in Leilin's eyes before they slowly closed.
After a brief pause, the enormous caravan resumed its slow crawl forward.
The Unicornians outside were thoroughly at ease. With the formidable Mr. Lei stationed here, they had nothing to fear—whether it was bandits on the road, natural disasters, or wild beasts.
In fact, thanks to Leilin's presence, the caravan was largely spared from natural calamities, and he had even stepped in to help them navigate several major crises.
As time passed, the Unicornians in the caravan practically worshipped Leilin as a deity. In all their previous trading expeditions, hadn't they always lost over half their numbers, with scores of dead and resources consumed beyond measure? Nothing had ever been this easy.
When the time came to part ways with Leilin, every Unicorian wore a reluctant expression. The caravan leader made every effort to convince him to stay, even subtly suggesting that they could keep him by force despite the Sage's objections.
But how could Leilin agree? He simply smiled and departed.
Wogjin City was the largest city in the entire Land of Flame and Thorns.
The city was built across a vast stretch of yellowish desert. Occasionally, fierce winds swept through, kicking up clouds of dust, giving the place a desolate appearance.
But Leilin knew that these living conditions were actually quite good by the standards of the Lava World. Anywhere without lava rivers counted as a habitable zone for intelligent beings. Apart from the purely fire-element creatures, very few races would willingly choose to live right beside flowing magma. In this desert, aside from the slightly higher temperatures, it was almost no different from the deserts of the Wizard World—which made it rather pleasant.
"But these异族… they really are…"
Stepping into Wogjin City, Leilin looked at the buildings—completely different in design from those of the Wizard World, bearing an exotic and peculiar style—and especially at the throngs of alien pedestrians filling the streets. He couldn't help but feel a certain speechlessness.
The pedestrians before him were, without exception, members of various alien races.
Leilin suddenly realized that the Unicornians he'd been traveling with actually counted as a relatively human-like race. At least their outward appearance bore some resemblance to humans. This place was entirely different.
If one could consider alien races with multiple eyes and numerous limbs as roughly normal, then Leilin's composure truly broke when he spotted a giant green caterpillar wearing a top hat, holding a walking stick in one tiny hand, and rapidly arguing with a shopkeeper inside a store.
Even during his previous adventures in the Wizard World, the regions he'd frequented had been predominantly human. Even across the entire Central Continent, despite the abundance of alien races, humans held dominion while the others scraped by in the shadows. Mixed-bloods with human features made up the majority.
But here, watching the bustling crowds of monsters pass by, Leilin suddenly felt like he had become the alien.
This sense of solitude was novel to him, and he found himself savoring it.
"No wonder the old texts say that conquering an alien world is a tremendous trial for a Wizard. Now that I think about it carefully, the difficulty is staggering… especially the notion of opposing an entire world with one's own strength. That's just… insane…"
Leilin murmured to himself, yet his eyes burned like twin flames, blazing with fervor. "I really want… to try it. The feeling of completely conquering a world…"
After his musings, there was still business to attend to.
Leilin casually stepped in front of an alien creature with two green heads, from whose mouth dripped some unidentifiable liquid.
"I need some information. Where can I get what I need? If you can take me there, this is yours."
He produced a pinkish mineral and tossed it casually in front of the alien, immediately making its eyes light up.
"I… I'll take you!"
The simple-looking left head of the two-headed alien stammered out the words, as though each syllable cost enormous effort.
"Good! Lead the way!" A trace of amusement flickered deep in Leilin's eyes.
…
"R-right here!" The two-headed alien was clearly very familiar with Wogjin City's streets. Its thick, long legs covered several meters in a single stride. At first it worried that Leilin couldn't keep up, but when it saw the consistently unperturbed look on his face, it quickly picked up the pace.
Only after entering a secluded alley did the two-headed alien finally turn around and speak with a stutter.
"Is that so?" Leilin looked up. The massive buildings overhead cast deep shadows, completely blocking out the sunlight and plunging the area into gloom.
Not a single person appeared for what felt like ages. A cold, sinister feeling lingered in the air.
"Heh heh! Look what Pi-dai brought us!"
A creature entirely jade-green, resembling a mantis with many segmented limbs, clambered down the wall. Atop its triangular head, blood-red eyes gleamed with malicious intent.
"Ant race? Winged race? Doesn't matter—old man Hawk will pay a good price for his meat…"
Following this alien's voice, other bizarrely shaped creatures emerged from the corners, their faces twisted with bloodlust and cruelty.
"I knew it. I knew this would happen…" Leilin sighed as though genuinely exasperated. "Why is it that whenever I want to do business properly, you insist on forcing me to solve things with violence…"
As he sighed, his face carried just the right amount of bewilderment—yet it sent a chill straight through the aliens' hearts, as though they had committed some terrible, irreversible offense.
"Perfect! My anatomy specimen collection is still missing quite a few specimens from other worlds."
Leilin cracked his knuckles, then elegantly drew a gleaming silver scalpel from inside his coat, his expression one of focused devotion.
…
"Oh! No! Please let me go! I don't know anything—they forced me to do this…"
Half an hour later, in the blood-soaked alley reeking of iron, all the alien creatures had vanished. Only the two-headed alien remained, kneeling on the ground and begging pitifully.
But this time it was the other head speaking, its voice a shrill, feminine tone.
"Is that so?" Leilin wiped the gleaming silver scalpel clean, a hint of amusement in his eyes—yet it made the two-headed alien bristle like a kitten whose tail had been stepped on.
"I know! I know who in Wogjin City has the best information—it's old man Jake! Really! He even knows about things on the other continents! I can take you to him right now!"
Facing life or death, the alien's mind worked quickly. At last, before Leilin's scalpel descended, it had found the one path to survival.
"Good! Take me to him!" The scalpel halted precisely one millimeter from the two-headed alien's eye, and then came Leilin's calm, flat voice.
"Yes! My lord, I'll take you right away…" The two-headed alien's voice took on a sobbing quality. It wished it could die right now. If it hadn't happened to be in its dormant phase and let its younger brother come out instead, it would never have provoked someone as terrifying as Leilin—but it was too late for that now.
The alien knew full well that if it didn't lead Leilin to his destination immediately and help him get what he wanted, the shredded flesh and bones on the ground would be its only fate.
True to its reputation as a local informant, the alien quickly led Leilin to a vast underground venue.
The moment he stepped inside, Leilin's expression shifted. An atmosphere thick with fervor, madness, and death seethed beneath the surface, causing the concentration of shadow-element energy particles to spike sharply.
"If an ordinary person lived in this environment, they'd develop psychological problems before long…"
Leilin stroked his chin and followed the two-headed alien inside.
"Pi-dai! What brings you here today? Feeling like a gamble?" A minotaur missing its right leg—replaced by a massive metallic prosthetic—clapped the two-headed alien on the shoulder.
Leilin subtly sniffed. From this creature, he caught the scent of a narcotic substance. It came from the blood-red drink in the minotaur's hand—apparently some kind of alcoholic beverage from this alien world.
"No! I'm here to see old man Jake. Look…" The two-headed alien gestured toward Leilin, then leaned in and whispered to the minotaur, its tone dripping with flattery.
"Go on in."
The minotaur glanced at Leilin once more. Perhaps Leilin's slender frame was sufficiently misleading, because it let its guard down.