Death of the Fire Mage

Moonlight Potion?

Li Wen frowned. She had heard of it before. Even among magical potions, the Moonlight Potion was exceptionally rare, priceless on the Black Market. Most importantly, it was a drug officially banned by Arthur.

The reason for the ban was rather ridiculous. It was not because of its addictive nature or severe side effects, but because the Moonlight Potion was a magical potion from the Umbral Lineage, and only the Moon Worshippers knew how to make it.

"Looks like you know about it too..." the Fire Mage continued. "Yes, it is an incredibly powerful and fascinating magical potion. So when I learned of its existence from those mercenaries' minds through Mind Reading... Heh, those mercenaries had no idea how valuable that tiny bottle of dark green potion was, so I kept it safe for them."

Massacring an entire caravan escorting magical potions out of greed for a rare potion sounded much more reasonable.

"But why would a mage from the Arcane Academy appear in the Black Dragon Territory?"

Li Wen asked again.

"...That has nothing to do with you," the Fire Mage said after a moment of silence.

"But it has a great deal to do with you."

A pointy-eared fellow, and an Arcane Academy mage at that, had appeared at the kingdom's very edge. It was difficult to believe he had come sightseeing. From what Li Wen knew, these long-lived mages were either researching magic, studying alchemy, or delving into even more obscure fields.

Their long lives meant they had few forms of entertainment, so tedious academic research became their only choice.

"It's hard to explain... Put simply, I am a Sub-Elf."

Li Wen's expression shifted.

Sub-Elves were naturally different from pure-blooded elves. Broadly speaking, all elves were born from the World Tree. But Sub-Elves were different. They were the descendants born from unions between some elves—more precisely, Silver Elves—and other creatures.

As a result, most Sub-Elves had impure bloodlines, and descendants with unusual talents often appeared among them. Sub-Elves usually could not be identified by appearance alone; that depended on the other half of their Silver Elf ancestry. Yet because Silver Elves were especially open-minded about sex, some Sub-Elves ended up looking rather... unsatisfactory.

There was one consensus shared by all elves: Sub-Elves were unworthy of being mentioned in the same breath as them. At least in Arthur, ruled by High Elves, the living conditions of Sub-Elves were far from ideal.

Discrimination did not always manifest in actions or words. Especially in a place with such a strong academic atmosphere as the Sunday Secret College, even Sub-Elves were qualified to join the Arcane Academy and study magic, supposedly treated equally.

"But they would never allow Sub-Elves to surpass them in magical academia. It wasn't that they believed Sub-Elves were unworthy... Well, you could put it that way. They simply refused to believe that such achievements could be made by a Sub-Elf. They would only think I was cheating, or using some shameful dark art... Ha, what could those pointy-eared bookworms possibly understand? For someone like me with fire affinity, mixed casting of beginner elemental magic is laughably easy!"

Fire affinity? No wonder his fire magic cast so quickly. Could one of his ancestors have been an elemental creature?

"So you fled here?"

"No, that was only the beginning. Later, they falsely accused me of stealing one of their secret treasures. They even wanted to use the Brain Invasion Technique on me. While fleeing, I accidentally entered a Teleportation Array and ended up here... Before I encountered those mercenaries, I had no idea this was the Black Dragon Territory. Radiance, this place is far too distant from the Royal Capital..."

Logically, it made sense. The Arcane Academy's Teleportation Arrays were indeed capable of crossing more than half the kingdom.

But one thing was strange. The Brain Invasion Technique was magic that the Magic Committee had long forbidden from being taught or used. Compared to Mind Reading, a spell of the same type, the Brain Invasion Technique was more efficient, but also more brutal and inhumane, and it could easily cause irreversible damage to the brain.

Yet among higher-level magic, there was no shortage of spells capable of achieving the same, or even better, results than the Brain Invasion Technique. Even if those spells had certain level requirements, the Arcane Academy did not lack high-level mages.

In other words, he was lying. At the very least, he was concealing something.

If the Fire Mage had truly stolen some secret treasure from the Arcane Academy, how had he escaped the pursuit of its mages?

Li Wen searched through the rumors about Arcane Academy treasures from her previous life, but none of them matched. She rarely knew much about plotlines from such an early stage of the game, unless the Strategy Group had specifically recorded them.

Forget it. What did it have to do with her?

Li Wen directly drew the Bone-Corroding Poison Sword, looking ready to take the Fire Mage's life.

The Fire Mage's face went pale with shock. He could not understand why Li Wen still refused to spare him after he had said so much.

"No! You can't kill me! I still have value! I can tell you many things... No! I'm sorry, I lied. I really did steal something from the Arcane Academy... But it was supposed to belong to me! I can give it to you, as long as you spare my life."

"You should've said that sooner."

Li Wen shook her head. Honestly, it was difficult to place any trust in a liar like him. Turning him directly into experience was safer.

Yet before she could do anything, the Fire Mage's eyes suddenly widened, his face filling with terror and panic.

"No! Don't kill me! No!"

The Fire Mage screamed hysterically as he reached toward his chest. Afraid that he might go mad and use some mutually destructive move, Li Wen hurriedly backed away several steps.

But after waiting for a while, she saw no movement. When she approached, she discovered that the Fire Mage was already dead.

He still held the same pose from before his death, his eyes bulging as though they might fall out. Other than terror, his face held no other emotion.

Li Wen knew he could not have died from the curse. The duration of the Dark Word Curse depended on the caster's level. With her current ability, she could make it last around twenty seconds at most. Such a brief duration had long since passed.

But why, then? Could it have been the poison on Take's Crossbow? But Li Wen had paid for that poison herself, and she knew its effects and onset time perfectly well—unless that underground merchant had sold her fake poison.

It was truly difficult to understand. Li Wen noticed that she had gained 200 experience points, clearly from the dead Fire Mage.

According to the experience distribution system in World Tree: Origins, the Fire Mage's death had to be related to her in some way. She just did not know whether it was because of the Dark Word Curse or something else.

It was a pity Take was not here. She was the only one among the players who had dealt effective damage, so she should have received a share of the experience as well. But Amber City was too far from the surface. She probably would not get any experience.