Robbie's eyes lit up. He had an idea. "Ha! I know your name. I'm going to call for help."
"Don't shout, don't shout! I surrender. Can't help it, I've got too many enemies."
His little eyes darted around as he said mysteriously, "Actually, SI:7 sent me. I'm Princess Vanessa's bodyguard, but for certain reasons I can't show myself openly. Seeing how strong you are, I can leave her to you without worrying. Right now, I'm a Worgen."
"A Worgen?" Robbie curled his lip. "With that mouthful of sharp teeth, those winnowing-basket-sized claws, and that magnificent mane, who'd believe you? Besides, Worgen can turn human. Let's see you do it. Hogger the Gnoll, how are you still alive?"
Legends of the utterly vicious Gnoll Hogger had long circulated throughout Elwynn Forest. He had supposedly been slain by adventurers, only to lead an uprising in the Stockade not long afterward. He just wouldn't stay gone.
Robbie wasn't surprised to see Hogger here. Adventurers' stories were always exaggerated.
A few years ago, several adventurers had brought Hogger's enormous claw to claim a bounty. Yet when Hogger turned up in the Stockade, all four of his limbs were intact, he was in excellent health, and he ate heartily. Some adventurers had insisted that Hogger could regenerate lost limbs.
Rumor and reality were always far apart. In Robbie Capor's memories, Hogger had ruled a mountain in Elwynn Forest and terrorized the local area, but he had stuck to the principle that a rabbit didn't eat the grass by its own burrow. He had left Elwynn Forest and neighboring places like Westfall, Darkshire, and Lakeshire almost entirely untouched.
Hogger's reputation was so terrible because he often led a band of underlings to ambush the Goblins of Booty Bay. Unable to deal with the elusive Hogger, the Goblins could only resort to rumors and slander to utterly ruin his name.
The only crime Hogger had committed locally, which could also be considered a show of force, was stealing the Furlbrow family's land deed in Westfall and holding it for five years.
Reminiscing about the past, Hogger was deeply moved. He bared his teeth and said:
"Kid, do you know what's most important when you're in the underworld?"
"Loyalty, I guess!" Robbie replied.
"Loyalty matters, but it's not the most important thing. What matters is having a powerful backer," Hogger boasted shamelessly. "Back then, I ruled a mountain in Elwynn Forest. My fearsome reputation spread far and wide. Who didn't know me? Stormwind City sent troops to wipe me out, led by a fellow called Hammond Clay. I beat him with ease. I thought, This fellow's talented, so I spared him and let him go, and tactfully expressed my willingness to serve Stormwind City."
General Hammond Clay had replaced General Marcus Jonathan, who had fallen at Theramore, as supreme commander of Stormwind City's defense forces. He was a figure of some standing in the Alliance, and his strength was not to be underestimated.
Seeing how smug Hogger looked, Robbie had every reason to suspect that Hogger himself had been the one captured back then, and that he had been forced to accept the offer of amnesty. Still, Robbie didn't have the heart to expose him and listened as Hogger continued boasting:
"That very night, a rogue showed up. It was VanCleef, before he'd made a name for himself. I subdued him in one move. Thanks to his introduction, I had the honor of joining the Defias... Oh, no, SI:7, as an outside agent."
Robbie didn't believe him. He looked at Hogger. "You're actually an SI:7 agent?"
Hogger opened his bloody maw and laughed. "Didn't expect that, did you? I did SI:7's dirty work. I still remember my first mission: stealing the Furlbrows' land deed. That family was rotten to the core. They wanted to sell their farm in Westfall to the orcs, and worse, a grand duke of Stormwind City actually approved it. The Horde would have been able to station troops in Westfall openly and without shame. If things went on like that, Westfall would become another Theramore sooner or later. Humans might put up with it, but I, a Gnoll, couldn't. It wasn't proper for SI:7 to interfere, so it fell to me. After I robbed Theodore Furlbrow and his wife, Verna Furlbrow, they fled Elwynn Forest for Westfall. Their wagon broke down halfway there, and for five whole years, it was never repaired. Those SI:7 fellows were pretty underhanded too."
"What happened after that?" Robbie's head was spinning. This completely overturned what he thought he knew.
Hogger was clearly the sort who couldn't keep his mouth shut. As he got carried away, he sprayed spittle everywhere. "I risked my life for Stormwind City too. Back then, the Goblins hadn't joined the Horde, but they were secretly in league with them. They bought intelligence on Stormwind City on the sly and resold it to the Horde at high prices, doing enormous harm. So I led my underlings to rob them... Oh, no, to intercept the intelligence. I risked my life for Stormwind City and made great contributions. That's how I prospered in Elwynn Forest and got my own territory, Hogger Mountain."
"And then? How did the adventurers..." Robbie drew a finger across his throat.
At that, Hogger ground his sharp teeth in hatred. "It was all that Marshal Dughan's fault. He took the Goblins' money and was determined to kill me, so he kept sending adventurers after me. With my strength, naturally I wasn't afraid of those petty scoundrels, but there were too many of them. They came every day and harassed me constantly. I was sick of it, and I'd offended countless adventurers' guilds because of it. Later, the Goblins joined the Horde, so SI:7 could intercept their intelligence openly and had no more need for me. General Hammond Clay and I turned their scheme against them and put on a show together, throwing me into the Stockade so I could infiltrate the rioters and catch them all in one net. But with my temperament, how could I be content to serve under someone else? I swatted all the ringleaders to death and became their leader myself.
An undercover agent who became the leader. That was on another level.
"After the Stockade mission, my undercover career came to a glorious end." Hogger scratched his head with a wicked grin. "I've been working in the interrogation department ever since."
The job really did suit him. Even the most tight-lipped man would probably confess when faced with Hogger's ferocious appearance.
"How did you end up in Draenor too?" Robbie asked.
"I took part in the assault on the Dark Portal." Hogger puffed out his chest, looking very pleased with himself.
"You? Assaulted the Dark Portal? Well, one more of you wouldn't have made much difference."
All three hundred commanders in Lunarfall claimed they'd taken part in the assault on the Dark Portal. How many had paid to "ding" their way there was anyone's guess.
Hogger had a big mouth and talked just as much. He chattered and rambled nonstop along the way, like a thousand flies buzzing in Robbie's ears. Robbie was thoroughly fed up.
"Back when I was running the streets in Elwynn Forest, even VanCleef was my junior. But his background was just too impressive. VanCleef was originally a top assassin in SI:7. Later, he took a secret assignment and went into business as head of the Stonemasons' Guild. Heh, heh. VanCleef and I fought several times in private. His strength was nothing worth mentioning, and he only improved thanks to my prodding..."
"Stop right there. How did you meet our commander?"
"We're comrades who fought side by side!" Hogger made a "hough, hough" sound. "I was the top boss in Elwynn Forest, and Vanessa was the underworld princess of Westfall. We joined forces and brought our people together, then sent the Iron Horde into utter disarray..."
His bragging had gone too far. Robbie couldn't hold back and made a sarcastic remark:
"Since you took part in the assault on the Dark Portal, how come you didn't even manage to become a commander?"
"Well, Khadgar was worried I'd earn too much credit and become more famous than him, so he deliberately held me back... All right, mainly it's because I have a bad reputation and a long record of misdeeds. If I became a commander, who would dare join me? Look, I couldn't even make a living anymore..."
And so Robbie gained a second colleague, Hogger the Gnoll—or rather, the Worgen.
When they reached camp and saw Vanessa, Robbie was astonished to discover that Hogger was afraid of her from the bottom of his heart. His fawning, humble manner and the vulgar face he made as he tried desperately to please her made him seem like a different wolf from the arrogant braggart who had talked nonsense all the way there.
Vanessa looked completely unperturbed, as though she was already used to it. After briefly reassuring Hogger, she told him to go away and pulled out a book for Robbie. Her luggage was packed full of books.
"On the relationship between spellcasting, runes, and cats," by Kel'Thuzad.
When Robbie returned to the tent, Hogger was already asleep, snoring loud enough to shake the heavens. Sharing a tent with a fellow like this was definitely no blessing, and Robbie couldn't bury himself like Delvar. All he could do was hope the garrison would be finished soon so he could have a room of his own.
A glimmer of Holy Light appeared at Robbie's fingertip, and he opened "On the relationship between spellcasting, runes, and cats."
Kel'Thuzad's story ran through both Warcraft and World of Warcraft. He was the Lich, an undead hero in Warcraft, and in World of Warcraft, he had twice been the final boss of Naxxramas, bringing players countless joys and memories.
A Lich had a phylactery. In theory, as long as it remained intact, the Lich could be resurrected an unlimited number of times. After the Lich King fell, Kel'Thuzad's whereabouts were unknown. Perhaps he had retired to some corner of Azeroth.
"The process of studying magic is like keeping a cat. You can never guess what a cat is thinking..."
In the book, Kel'Thuzad compared magic to a cat. It was easy to become very familiar with a cat, but a cat could never be as loyal to humans as a dog. Dealing with magic was like keeping a cat: coax her, indulge her, and learn its temperament.
Just as cats had widely different personalities, different kinds of magic had entirely different natures.
The book explained that runes were a means of casting spells, and any magic could be explained through them. Unlike casting with incantations, which required time to chant, rune casting could be instantaneous and silent. The difficulty lay in understanding the mysteries of magic.
Analyzing magic through runes was no easy task. Each spell was an extremely difficult comprehensive problem involving extraordinarily tedious and complex calculations. Of course, one could use a ready-made result directly, as with the Holy Light rune Vanessa had given Robbie.
A successful spellcaster, however, had to create runes tailored to their own attributes. Otherwise, their understanding of their skills would be insufficient, and their strength would have difficulty improving.
Whatever Kel'Thuzad's character, the contents of this book alone showed that he was rigorous in his studies, gave vivid examples, and provoked deep thought.
Once, when Robbie had first encountered calculus, he had marveled that such ingenious wisdom could exist in the world.
After reading Kel'Thuzad's book—its long lists of intricate formulas, the data models it constructed, and its subtle descriptions of the elements—Robbie was astounded. He practically took Kel'Thuzad for a celestial being.
His memories of Earth after the age of twenty-three had all grown hazy. Fortunately, he still remembered what he had learned at university, especially advanced mathematics and university physics. These had been his interests.
Calculus, Gaussian equations, spatial analytic geometry, relativity, quantum mechanics—all of them seemed utterly feeble compared with this book.
Had Robbie's thinking ability not improved greatly after he drank the mysterious demon blood, he would probably have been completely lost.
It would have been like a middle schooler picking up a doctoral textbook.
Still, Robbie noticed some problems.
On some relatively simple matters, such as trigonometric functions, plane geometry, parallel lines, and other middle-school-level problems, the treatment was somewhat careless.
A gap in knowledge.
Knowledge developed from the simple to the complex. A gap meant building a castle in the air.
Unless these advanced formulas had not come from human intelligence, but had been taught by gods or other powerful intelligent beings.
Who was the mysterious being that had taught Kel'Thuzad? The answer could only be... The more Robbie thought about it, the more terrifying it became, sending a chill through him.
Fortunately, there was nothing wrong with the knowledge itself.
After a sleepless night, Robbie meditated for a while near dawn and recovered some of his energy.
"Breathe, run, howl, awoo, awoo!"
At daybreak, Hogger the Gnoll sprang out of bed and raced around the dwarf auntie's garrison, letting out eerie wolf howls as he ran. He threw everything into chaos, and countless adventurers cursed.
Delvar Ironfist crawled out of the earth. Vanessa had already washed and dressed, standing tall and looking heroic and spirited.
"Move out. Eliminate the ravens."
"Wait, Commander, I have an idea..."