As Leilin lost consciousness, the red glow inside the second floor of the villa did not dissipate — instead, it continued to intensify.
The crimson light grew ever brighter, until even the blue runes on the walls began emitting creaking sounds, struggling to hold.
CRASH! Like the sound of shattering glass, the blue runes finally began to collapse. The red light pierced through the walls and shot outside the villa.
"Look! What is that?"
The villa's anomaly was finally noticed by passersby. A bald man who looked like a merchant pointed at Leilin's villa and started shouting.
Following his finger, one could see that the second floor of the villa was continuously emitting a crimson glow outward.
The red light was so blinding that even the sun couldn't overshadow it.
And as the light continued to radiate outward, many ordinary people near Leilin's villa collapsed unconscious without even understanding what was happening.
THUD! The bald merchant who had just been pointing at Leilin's villa, his face still twisted in terror as though a creature had just seen its natural predator, clutched his chest with both hands, his eyes rolled back, and he crumpled to the ground.
As the red light continued to expand, more and more pedestrians fell to the ground, the phenomenon gradually spreading down the entire street.
Citizens screamed and wailed. Large crowds squeezed together, surging toward the outskirts of the city as though some terrible demon were chasing them from behind.
...
Leilin had a very long dream.
In the dream, he was a tiny young serpent, constantly hiding and darting about, learning the techniques of hunting.
The world around him was a sea of fire, with lava and black scorching rocks everywhere. His entire field of vision was nothing but red.
He gradually grew larger, transforming from a creature that had to hide from enemies at every turn into one of nature's most powerful apex predators.
No matter how terrifying or fearsome any creature outside might be, it could only face death before him — devoured by his jaws.
Leilin kept changing territories, until one day, he arrived at a certain place.
It was filled with creatures like himself, and from the depths of his heart arose a powerful craving that compelled him to keep crawling deeper.
The further he went, the more of his kind there were whose aura surpassed his own. Some radiated such immense pressure that he could barely breathe.
Moreover, the flames and sulfur around him rapidly faded away, replaced by a darkness so thick it seemed to solidify.
This darkness was filled with countless shadows, yet it gave him a sense of security, as if he had returned to the womb.
And at the very center of the darkness, he finally saw — An enormous sphere of serpents, stretching across the sky like a planet in the cosmos, eternal and powerful, every great serpent within it beyond anything he could have imagined.
"Hiss! Hiss!"
Leilin flicked his tongue at the serpent sphere, producing the distinctive sound of a snake.
The massive sphere of serpents dispersed, revealing within it the figure of a dark-haired woman.
The dark-haired woman had an exceedingly bewitching face. Her eyes were vertical-slit pupils, as clear and transparent as the finest glass crystal, and her long hair drifted and twisted behind her like countless small serpents.
Her snake-like black hair only added to her strange allure.
"You've come!" The woman spoke, her voice resonating directly within Leilin's mind. She spoke in a bizarre language he had never heard before, yet he understood it perfectly.
Leilin was about to ask a question when suddenly a burst of light flooded his vision.
He raised his hand to block the light and saw that it was a human palm. Only then did he realize he had already woken up.
"I remember now. I am Leilin. I was undergoing a Bloodline Transformation Ritual, attempting to break through the bottleneck..."
The life he had lived in the dream appeared in his mind as though it had been a real experience, and for a moment, Leilin felt a strange sense of dislocation.
Everything in reality seemed to be veiled behind a thin gauze, impossible to see clearly.
Slowly, his memories began flooding back.
"The villa is destroyed?" Leilin looked at the collapsed buildings around him and the sunlight piercing straight through the ruined roof, finally noticing the difference.
Within several li of Leilin, everything was in ruins, and aside from himself, not a single other living being had survived.
"It looks like the Energy Absorption Formation failed, causing a massive radiation overflow..."
Leilin stroked his chin, then suddenly remembered: "Warlock?! How did my advancement go?"
He was still completely naked, but Leilin could feel a tremendous power flowing beneath his skin, and his Spiritual Power had surged far beyond what it had been before.
With a rough idea of what had happened, Leilin sank his consciousness into his Sea of Consciousness.
The Sea of Consciousness was now filled entirely with crimson light, painting the entire space a blood-red hue.
At its very center, an octagonal crystal covered in runic formations floated silently above the Sea of Consciousness.
The feeling of power, radiating from the inside out, spread through every part of Leilin's body.
Sensing the innate
"Chip, bring up the previous monitoring records!"
"Detected suitable components for absorption by the host! Identified as Komoin Giant Serpent blood essence! Initiating absorption!"
"Bloodline combustion in progress! Host's Spiritual Power surging significantly!"
...
"Komoin Eye Meditation Method, first layer complete! Host promoted to First-level Warlock!!! All physical data has increased significantly!!!"
"Re-scanning host data..."
"Ding! Leilin Farell — Warlock, First-level. Bloodline: Komoin Giant Serpent. Strength: 7.1. Agility: 6.7. Constitution: 8.5. Spirit: 27.9. Mana: 27 (Mana is synchronously determined by Spiritual Power). Status: Healthy."
The Chip faithfully projected the monitoring data in front of Leilin's eyes.
"It actually increased by so much — no wonder I feel so different. Even my physical strength has gone up!"
Leilin clenched his fist hard, and a sharp sonic boom crackled through the air.
"My current body is no worse than some high-energy creatures!"
Leilin looked at his chest. His build hadn't changed much, but his skin had become smoother and more refined. A few abdominal muscles protruded slightly on his lower abdomen — not prominently, but in perfect proportion.
"However, this much commotion will definitely attract the attention of nearby Wizards. I should leave quickly!"
Leilin casually grabbed a black robe from the ruins and draped it over his shoulders, looking at the devastation around him with a bitter smile.
For the advancement of a formal Wizard, the Chip didn't have much research material. Although Leilin had done his best to set up an energy absorption formation beforehand, the sheer volume of energy had overwhelmed it directly.
Even formal Wizards normally had to consciously suppress their radiation, and ordinary people still couldn't withstand it.
Leilin had been in the midst of an advancement — where would he have had the awareness to manage that? That was what had caused the scene before him.
After understanding the full picture, Leilin shook his head, retrieved some important items from the ruins, packed them up, and slung a bundle over his shoulder.
BANG!
Leilin pressed his right foot lightly, instantly cratering the ground. His figure blurred into a black shadow, his speed several times faster than before, and he departed.
After a long while, a sharp bird cry echoed across the sky.
A massive white bird descended, bearing on its back two formal Wizards wearing the attire of Black Bone Forest Academy.
"We've arrived — the location where the energy fluctuation was detected earlier!"
A female Wizard stroked the debris on the ground, closing her eyes to sense.
"I can feel an enormous amount of Spiritual Power, along with an extremely bloody aura. It appears that a Dark Wizard has advanced, but to me, it feels slightly different from a typical formal Wizard..."
"That's perfectly normal!"
With the female Wizard was a male figure completely shrouded in a white cloak, the man's voice coming from beneath it.
"Choosing to advance here means this person is just a Wandering Wizard! And they must have obtained the legacy from those ruins!"
The cloaked man shrugged helplessly. "There are many ruins on the South Coast. Nobody knows what era's legacy this Wizard obtained, or what obscure lineage they inherited. Some differences in aura are perfectly normal, but the energy fluctuation clearly reached the level of a formal Wizard — it demands attention..."
Hearing the male Wizard's words, the woman's expression grew solemn.
On the South Coast, the major Wizard organizations had joined together to control the channels through which Apprentices could advance, thereby maintaining their own exalted positions.
But across such vast territories, there were always a few lucky Wandering Wizard Apprentices who obtained the legacies of their predecessors and successfully advanced.
Though this didn't happen often, a few cases cropped up every few decades.
The major organizations on the South Coast had a clear stance on such people: those who could be recruited were recruited outright, and those who couldn't were suppressed — at the very least, forced to swear an oath not to pass on the advancement knowledge!
And the nearest organization to Grey Stone City, Black Bone Forest Academy, was naturally responsible for dealing with Wandering Wizards throughout the entire Marsh Duchy.
The cloaked man and the female Wizard began their investigation, but most of the witnesses had died. Among the survivors, it seemed they had been so traumatized that no matter what, they couldn't recall Leilin's appearance — even memory-extraction Wizard Spells proved useless, and the two returned empty-handed.
Meanwhile, in a dark, dense forest far from Grey Stone City, Leilin had also come to a stop.
"I've been running for so long and I don't feel the slightest bit of fatigue — truly extraordinary!" The delight on Leilin's face was impossible to conceal.
He was now essentially a humanoid beast. Even if a greatsword were to strike him directly, his muscles would likely clamp it in place.
"According to the Book of the Giant Serpent, when ordinary Apprentices advance to formal Wizards, they only experience a surge in Spiritual Power and the formation of an innate Wizard Spell. But Warlocks are different — the advancement awakens the power of their bloodline, granting them dual reinforcement of both Spirit and physical body!"
Leilin's current constitution had already surpassed many Great Knights. Even the legendary Seal-Branded Swordsmen probably couldn't compare.