"Let's go too!"
Leylin watched Wells leave until he was out of sight, then departed with Yuluo. His main destination today — the Grand Library — still hadn't been visited; everything before that could be written off as nothing more than a bit of monkey theater.
After Leylin's figure had also vanished from view, the Wizards present rose to their feet one by one, looking thoroughly disheveled.
Being caught up in the battle for no reason today, and then having been suppressed by the Morning Star domain for so long afterward — it had left them in a wretched state.
Shortly afterward, the "fashionably late" officials finally arrived to tidy up the street and calculate damages. Everything fell into orderly routine once again.
"Gil!" Back in his office, Wells spoke in a low voice — the faint trace of pride from earlier was nowhere to be seen.
"Master!" A black shadow materialized silently from the floor.
"Find out for me! Who arranged for the incident to happen on Drifting Feather Avenue, and made sure it was my turn to respond?" Wells's voice carried a chill, his face etched with shrewd calculation.
"At once!" The black shadow acknowledged the order and withdrew just as silently as it had appeared.
Once Wells was alone in the room, he furrowed his brow and replayed the entire day's events in his mind. A cold smirk traced across his lips. "To dare use me as a pawn? Very well! Very well indeed!"
How many fools had ever ascended to Morning Star? No matter how young they might appear on the outside — even looking like a child — Wells had lived for nearly a hundred years. He understood everything there was to understand.
Risk provoking a powerful Morning Star Wizard over some petty vanity? He would never do something so foolish. Even though his backers could absorb the backlash, unnecessary losses were best avoided.
"That Warlock Leylin — quite interesting today! Like me, he wasn't bound by meaningless vanity. Very good! Very interesting!" After today's events, Wells actually found himself developing a measure of goodwill toward Leylin.
And yet, the person who had orchestrated everything from behind the curtains now filled him with pure hatred.
"Perhaps… I've kept a low profile for too long, making certain people think I'm easy to exploit…"
After a long silence, Wells murmured to himself, and with those words the temperature in the entire office plummeted by several dozen degrees, as though it had been instantly plunged into a world of ice and snow…
Leylin, of course, had no inkling of what transpired after Wells's departure. Under Yuluo's guidance, he had already arrived at the Grand Library.
"Truth is my life!" "The path of knowledge must be built upon the foundation of power!"
Leylin now stood before a sprawling complex of palatial buildings, gazing silently at the multitude of sculptures.
These statues had all been rendered in perfect proportions, allowing Leylin to make out every single strand of hair on their bodies — remarkably lifelike in every detail.
Upon the pedestals, the specific eras in which these figures had lived were engraved, along with their mottos and achievements.
After reading the central motto, Leylin shifted his gaze to the dates. "Ilismin! Continental Calendar 1327 to ???"
"Only a birth date — no death date. Could he have lived for more than five thousand years?"
Leylin stared at the statue with a measure of surprise. It depicted a kindly old man whose snow-white beard reached down to his chest, and behind round spectacles gleamed a pair of eyes brimming with wisdom.
"This is His Excellency, the Great Sage Irisming — the first City Lord of Sky City, a sixth-level Dawn Sun Wizard. His current whereabouts are unknown, but many great beings believe he still exists, perhaps even embarking on new adventures in another world…"
Yuluo introduced him to Leilin, her eyes filled with a look of reverence.
"Mm!" Leilin had come across some information about this Great Sage before, but it had always been entangled with myths and legends, never as detailed as what was inscribed on the statue's pedestal.
He strolled through the statue garden with great interest, discovering that only those who had achieved at least Morning Star Wizard status could be enshrined here — scholars and the like who had made some significant contribution to Sky City or the entire Wizard World.
There was also a small number of wizards, much like Irisming before them, whose statues bore only a birth year but no death year.
This meant there was still a very real possibility that they existed somewhere in the world — whether in another plane or trapped within some ancient formation. And should they ever appear together, the power they represented would be enough to make the entire Central Continent tremble.
"Without the contributions of our predecessors, there would be no wizards today!"
Leilin's expression turned solemn as he bowed to the rows of statues. "Your unfinished work, and your regrets — I, Leilin Farell, will see them through!"
Of course, these words could only be spoken in his heart. If Yuluo overheard them, it would be rather troublesome.