Spirit Guiding Secret Potion

After spending some time outfitting the entire team and preparing tents, supplies, and wilderness survival tools for emergencies, Li Wen and the others rented a carriage and headed for Streamstone Rift after using up nearly all the gold Mog had given them.

Streamstone Rift was a necessary pass along Arthur's foreign trade route. The locals of Black Dragon Territory knew its terrain inside out, so there was no need to seek directions. They could simply follow the main road.

Inside the carriage, Li Wen quietly explained the situation to Take and the others. She did not go into detail about the Moon Worshippers, Black Wind Fang, or the cargo, focusing instead on the mage.

"The other side is a mage from the Arcane Academy. We still don't know whether he is friend or foe, but it would be best to treat him as an enemy. You don't need to kill him. I only need you to hold him off."

"A mage?" Take was secretly surprised. Still, a newbie village quest shouldn't be too outrageous. "What level is he?"

"He won't be above level ten."

Li Wen said that, but she did not actually know what level the mage was. She had said level ten because mages above level ten—Stage Two mages—could no longer be defeated merely by throwing lives at them. Abandoning the quest would be the best choice.

Take did not know the difference between each level either and had no clear idea of what a level-ten mage was capable of, so she said nothing.

The carriage rolled onward amid everyone's silence, leaving behind the bustling crowds and towns, passing through rice fields and villages. Before dusk arrived, it finally reached the depths of a dense forest—Streamstone Rift.

"This is as far as I can take you. If you want to go deeper into the rift, you'll have to get off here."

After who knew how long, the driver, who had not spoken a word until then, reminded them.

The others in the carriage had long since grown impatient. Upon hearing that they could finally leave, they eagerly climbed down one after another.

Li Wen was the last to disembark. She looked around. They had arrived in a canyon region, where a long, narrow passage cut through the gorge and led straight toward the distant Leicester City.

This place was dry year-round, with scarcely any vegetation. Finding the lost cargo should not have been difficult. The only problem was that the area was simply too vast and filled with jagged rocks. They would indeed have trouble finding anything without splitting up.

"Let's go."

Only after the driver had taken the carriage far away did Li Wen begin giving Take and the others instructions.

"It should be nearby. Split into groups and search on your own. He must have left traces behind, but don't go too far. This may be Arthur's trade route, but mages are far from the only danger here."

After briefly discussing how to split into groups, Take and the others departed in different directions.

Li Wen remained where she was, pondering why the mage from the Arcane Academy had stolen that unknown cargo.

First, it definitely was not for money. Arcane Academy mages had the least need for wealth. Second, it could not have been a personal grudge. If a mage wanted someone dead, countless followers would act on his behalf. He would not need to dirty his own hands.

Looking at it that way, perhaps the mage had a reason he could not avoid acting... The cargo Black Wind Fang's people had mentioned might not have been ordinary cargo at all.

Before she could think any further, Take and the others had already found clues... or rather, it was no longer merely a clue, but the mess the mage had left behind.

Li Wen followed Take. Along the way were fragments of carriages, ruined goods, and things burned into charcoal, their original forms impossible to discern.

When they reached the true site of the incident, they discovered that it looked as though a devastating fire had swept through it. The earth had been scorched black, while charred unidentified matter lay everywhere. As they stepped over the burnt soil, they could vaguely feel the lingering heat of the fire seeping through their shoes.

Li Wen frowned. Besides the pungent smell of charcoal, she sensed another presence—wild, scorching, and incomparably restless. It was Fire Element.

Elements were a concept within the Aether Spectrum, as well as one of the paths of the Aether Spectrum.

Judging from the traces left at the scene, their opponent was undoubtedly an Elemental Mage of the Aether Spectrum, and quite possibly a Fire Mage specializing in Fire Element.

Looking over the wreckage, Li Wen formed an image in her mind:

A caravan from Leicester City, perhaps even King Arthur City, had passed through Streamstone Rift. Then it encountered the Arcane Academy's Fire Mage here. For some unknown reason, the Fire Mage attacked the caravan. He controlled flames to assault the carriages. Faced with that unknown power, the caravan's people and horses panicked and fled in all directions, but in the end, they could not escape the mage's grasp.

Li Wen also recalled the things she had seen on the way here. Those traces showed that at least some of the caravan members had fled a considerable distance with part of the cargo before meeting their deaths. In other words, the Fire Mage had not killed everyone immediately.

That meant he was likely injured or restricted in his spellcasting. Otherwise, there was no reason he would have allowed people carrying cargo to escape.

That was good news.

Besides that, Li Wen noticed something else. Black Wind Fang—or rather, the Moon Worshippers—wanted her to find the lost cargo. Yet judging from the scene, all the cargo seemed to have been burned by the mage. Since those people knew it had been the work of an Arcane Academy mage, they could not possibly have failed to investigate the site.

Yet they still wanted Dark Dawn's people to help recover the lost cargo. That meant the destroyed goods were not the real cargo, but merely a cover meant to deceive others. However, the Arcane Academy's Fire Mage had clearly not fallen for it. After slaughtering the entire caravan, he had taken the real cargo, leading to the situation before them.

So where had the Fire Mage gone?

He could not have left Black Dragon Territory. Magic capable of long-distance movement was invariably high-level magic and required immense magical power. Unless the Arcane Academy had established a Teleportation Array somewhere near Streamstone Rift that Li Wen did not know about, that Fire Mage could never have left Black Dragon Territory.

If Li Wen wanted to recover the cargo, the most important thing was to find the mage's location.

That would not be difficult. Li Wen had prepared in advance.

She took a thumb-thick little bottle from her backpack. Inside was a viscous dark yellow liquid that gave off a fluorescent glow.

Spirit Guiding Secret Potion

Consumable - Potion - Magic (Blue)

One of the potions commonly used by Mage Hunters in Sinful Nation. It was said that, with the help of this potion, countless mages had died at the hands of hunters.

Pour out the potion, and it will reveal the mage's location to its user.

Potion-making originated from alchemy before later becoming its own discipline. Like rituals, it was a field of knowledge that supernatural beings had to understand and even master.

After completing the ritual that required prior preparation yesterday, Li Wen had used the remaining materials to concoct this potion. Its purity was limited by her equipment, but it was more than enough to indicate a general direction.

She directly threw the bottle containing the potion onto the blackened ground. The bottle shattered, and the viscous liquid slowly flowed out. The instant it touched the hot, dry air, the potion seemed to be granted life. It writhed and reached about, drawing in the faint lingering magic in the air, then trembled as it desperately crawled in a certain direction. Only after several seconds, when the magic within it was completely exhausted, did it stop.

"Let's go. It's in this direction."