Lost Cargo

Prayer Incantation required 2 mana and one basic prayer.

A basic prayer usually took a fixed three seconds and included the corresponding gestures and prayer words.

Li Wen's loose cloak concealed her prayer gestures, while the prayer words were completed through silent recitation under focused concentration.

This resulted in the current situation: Li Wen had merely sat there as if doing nothing, yet the man about to attack her suddenly collapsed to the floor, barely clinging to life.

The sheer shock and strangeness of it sent chills through everyone in the Tavern.

Unable to bear the shock, someone immediately crumpled to the ground.

"W... witchcraft!"

With that cry, nearly everyone still capable of walking hurriedly fled through the door. Before long, the spacious Tavern held only Black Wind Fang's mercenaries and a few drunks passed out cold.

The remaining mercenaries looked at their companion, still twitching on the ground, and felt their hearts go cold, their legs trembling.

Scared? Good. They should be.

The gap between classholders with a Spectrum and ordinary mortals was impossible to bridge. Without a Spectrum, mortals could never break past level ten in their entire lives.

Li Wen understood scum like them far too well. If she did not utterly crush their courage and resolve from the start, greed, rage, and other emotions would soon give them ideas far beyond their station.

Witchcraft? This was no witchcraft!

Perhaps only the mercenary leader present knew what had just happened. He had personally seen those foreigners—eyes covered in white cloth, bodies painted with all manner of symbols and words—command shadows to slaughter and brutally dismember a group of goblins.

They communicated in the ancient language of the Jabah people. Their every action made others profoundly uncomfortable. They usually fiddled with bizarre skulls and animal limbs, and sometimes kept ravens and black cats, though those were actually demons they raised.

Agents of devils, cursecasters who served the night—they called themselves such.

More often than not, the mercenary leader would rather return to the battlefield than deal with people like them.

And the mysterious woman before him, her body hidden beneath a robe and radiating a horrifying aura from within and without, was clearly one of their kind.

The mercenary leader wondered whether he should surrender first and leave this dangerous place as quickly as possible.

Then he saw the gleaming gold coin in Li Wen's hand.

The coin bore the image of the Twin Moons, a symbol he had once glimpsed from afar on those foreigners.

What kind of mess was this?

He glanced again at his companion lying on the ground, his fate unknown, and once more wondered whether cooperating with those people meant seeking a tiger's skin. But what did it have to do with him? It was not his decision to make.

"This is a misunderstanding..." His Adam's apple bobbed as he spoke dryly.

"A misunderstanding?" Li Wen sneered. "Then let it be a misunderstanding."

She was not someone who cared about such details. She had come here because of Priest Mog's commission. While completing the task for experience, she also wanted to know what the other party—and the Dark Dawn and Moon Worshippers behind them—were plotting.

"They... never told us what kind of people would come to meet us."

That was merely passing the buck. After all, Black Wind Fang's mercenaries had been the ones to make the first move.

"Then what did they say?" Li Wen countered.

This so-called "they" should have referred to the Moon Worshippers. It seemed Black Wind Fang had not previously dealt with Mog. In other words, the Moon Worshippers and Dark Dawn communicated directly, and that letter might well have been delivered by someone from the Moon Worshippers.

But if they could contact and communicate with each other directly, why had they sought out Black Wind Fang?

"One of our shipments went missing near Streamstone Rift." The mercenary leader looked terrible. "Those people told us to wait here. Someone would come help us recover the cargo."

Streamstone Rift?

Li Wen's spirits stirred. That was precisely where she was headed. Something of utmost importance to her lay there. It could even be said that every effort she had made since her rebirth was for the sake of obtaining that thing.

What a coincidence. Still, that was fine. It saved her an extra trip.

"That's all?"

Li Wen's tone rose slightly as she pretended to be angry.

The mercenary leader was indeed startled. Trembling, he said, "Also... also, they said the ones who took action were mages from some Secret College..."

He should not have said that. He had overheard it from that group of foreigners. But now, if he did not say it, he feared he would be the next one lying on the floor.

Secret College? Sunday Secret College?

Li Wen's expression turned grave. If that was true, she should consider abandoning this mission.

As Arthur's largest Magic Society, Sunday Secret College was renowned for producing mages of Source Essence and the Aether Spectrum. Any mage who could emerge from the Arcane Academy was undoubtedly among the gifted.

Mages from other societies and mages from the Arcane Academy were entirely different concepts.

To be frank, even Li Wen did not want to provoke an Arcane Academy mage at the same level. It was not that she could not beat them, but every mage able to enter the Arcane Academy for further study was either wealthy or noble. They possessed so many magical items and enchanted pieces of equipment that they could crush Li Wen to death just by throwing them at her.

"I understand. You may leave." Li Wen spoke coldly. "I'm not someone who kills for pleasure. Your companion should still have a breath left in him. As for what you do with him, that is your business."

Of course, that was all a lie. Li Wen's Prayer Incantation was only level one, and the Dark Word Curse was only powerful enough to frighten ordinary people. At most, it could lower a mortal's health below 30%, leaving them severely injured and unable to move.

If it could kill, Li Wen would not have minded getting a little blood on her hands. These mercenaries were almost all irredeemable scum. Rather than staying alive to make trouble for others, they might as well become her experience fodder.

The mercenaries looked at one another. In the end, they lifted their fallen companion and fled the Tavern in a rush, so quickly that even the onlookers at the entrance had no time to react.

Li Wen did not believe that man would receive proper treatment. Those mercenaries were capable of anything. Even so-called companions would be abandoned once they lost their value, and all their possessions would be divided up and stripped clean.

"Arcane Academy..."

Li Wen frowned slightly.

She now understood why the Moon Worshippers had not personally acted to reclaim the so-called cargo, and why Priest Mog had handed the matter to her.

So none of them wanted to deal with Arcane Academy mages.

She definitely had to visit Streamstone Rift. As for whether that mage was friend or foe, that would depend on the other person's fortune.

If conflict truly broke out, then as a player with the advantage of unlimited resurrection, Li Wen might not be unable to kill the other party.

Of course, that assumption only held if the other party was in Stage One.