Roy continued forward.
His Spiritual Power was highly concentrated. A dangerous red glint faintly shimmered in his pupils, growing even brighter against the shadows on his face.
One step, two steps...
He steadily drew closer.
"What is this guy doing?"
Trides and the others instantly grew wary. They reined in their mounts and stopped, drawing their weapons and preparing themselves.
This continent was a reserve specially opened up by the wizards. Other than the Tower Apprentices, there were no other humans.
In such a desolate wilderness, approaching without warning was itself a sign of hostility.
Suddenly, they caught a strange smell like rotten apples.
Roy saw that their expressions had grown hazy and immediately knew that they had fallen into his trap.
He had appeared at exactly the right moment, solely to make them stop and prepare for battle, then smell the fermented stench of rotten snakefruit carried over on the wind.
But this could not replace Orchard's Bane. It was merely an introduction.
He decisively raised his arm.
A projectile propelled by a High-Pressure Gas Cylinder shot out, becoming an attack resembling Acid Splash.
In their dazed state, everyone reacted somewhat sluggishly and failed to dodge in time.
The gas projectile struck Trides. The "acid" bubbled violently with a sizzling sound, leaving everyone shaken with lingering fear.
That terrifying corrosiveness...
If it had splashed onto their faces, they would definitely have been disfigured!
Trides panicked as well, but soon, the strange smell of fermented rotten apples changed. It faintly became the fragrance of wine.
His gaze grew unfocused, and he stiffened where he was.
On Roy's side, the adrenaline began to take effect.
A strange excitement surged through his entire body like a warm current. His heartbeat quickened, and his blood boiled.
His steps grew lighter and lighter. In the end, he broke into a full sprint, charging at his opponent like an arrow released from a bow.
"Not good!"
Someone in the group finally reacted and shouted a warning.
Roy ignored him completely. He charged straight up to Trides and drew his sword, hacking down.
The physique and strength of a Low-level Knight far surpassed those of ordinary people. Combined with the boost from the adrenaline...
This granted him an attack far more powerful than anything he could unleash at his current stage.
The hallucinatory effects of "Orchard's Bane" left Trides completely unable to fight back. He sat there like a living target, waiting to be slaughtered.
"Ah!"
Trides screamed, clutching his slashed abdomen as he tumbled from the Necromancer Warhorse.
The blood and screams weakened the effects of "Orchard's Bane." Several Intermediate Apprentices came to their senses as if awakening from a dream and fled in panic.
Roy remained where he was instead of pursuing them, quietly calming his emotions and steadying his breathing.
Only after staying on guard for a long while did he plant the Iron Sword in the ground. Trembling slightly, he gasped for breath.
This was the aftereffect of using adrenaline.
His nerves were tense and his muscles tightly coiled, causing him to expend additional energy. He was faintly beginning to lose his strength.
But he had never relaxed his guard from beginning to end. Instead, he had prepared a second dose of adrenaline, while the Orchard's Bane and Calming Pu Shui Xiang hidden in his pocket could also be smashed at any time.
At the critical moment, he would drag everyone, friend and foe alike, into a nightmare illusion.
Then he would use the Calming Pu Shui Xiang to wake up first and finish them off.
That is, if those people dared to come back.
However, that situation never occurred.
Those people had clearly been badly frightened. After fleeing, they immediately put as much distance as possible between themselves and the scene, completely abandoning Trides.
A moment later, Roy shifted his attention back to Trides.
This man, who had once threatened him and said he would strike from the shadows, had died on the spot.
The look of terror had remained frozen on the corpse's face, becoming its final imprint.
Roy briefly checked his belongings.
Just as expected.
The 42 magic stones he had given away earlier had returned to him so easily, and he had even made an extra ten or so.
However, he had not come to kill and loot. After dealing with the corpse simply, he threw it into a nearby copse and hurriedly left.
A little after seven in the evening, Roy successfully returned to the Witch Tower and handed in the quest.
The attendant this time was no longer the apprentice from the daytime. He reminded Roy in a purely official tone, "The Witch Tower gives preferential treatment to Apprentices who take quests independently. At most, you may retain half of the fixed harvest for your own needs...
"Do you want to hand everything in for the Quest Remuneration, or keep some for yourself?"
"I'll keep five and hand in fifteen."
Roy thought for a moment before replying.
The Witch Tower possessed a technology similar to storage space that could preserve fresh fruit for a long time.
Even if other people consumed it during that period by exchanging quest rewards or purchasing it with money, it would not matter. Roy could simply go pick more.
Having tasted the benefits, he did not want to reveal the secret that "Calming Pu Shui Xiang could counter Mental Illusion" just yet.
Moreover, Potterning's threat still remained. He needed to keep a low profile for a while and bide his time.
The next day, inside the Witch Tower's cafeteria.
"Trides is dead!
"He was ambushed and killed by a mysterious figure in the wilderness. His abdomen was ripped open right there on the spot. It was absolutely horrific!"
Renion did not know where he had gotten the news, but he spoke with disbelief.
"I told you the outside world was dangerous!"
"What kind of people are out there? They're unbelievably vicious!"
Nia, Andov, and the others exclaimed in astonishment as well.
One after another...
They had already lost count of how many fellow Apprentices they knew had died around them.
"Oh, is that so? Then that's truly satisfying." Roy calmly ate his breakfast and replied indifferently.
Everyone clicked their tongues in amazement and sighed with emotion. At the same time, they could not help but raise their assessment of the dangers outside to a higher level.
As for suspicion...
It was completely impossible for them to suspect him.
Roy was such a quiet and honest person. How could he possibly be so vicious?
This perception was like the difference between the species of a "sheep" and a "wolf."
How could anyone suspect that the "sheep" had eaten the "wolf"?
Roy ignored them and pondered on his own.
"Based on this attack, I can completely confirm that I possess the strength of a Low-level Knight in my normal state.
"After activating the adrenaline, I can temporarily rise to the Intermediate Knight stage..."
The Seven Towers Alliance used "the power of one person" as its standard.
When converted into Spell Power, that was "one degree."
This actually measured one's "foundation," including Soul Quality.
After the Formal Rank came first level, second level, third level...
After several instances of Soul Sublimation and energy leaps, along with the rules manipulated through connection with Heaven and Earth Nature...
The power of an Advanced Spell would reach an exaggerated level comparable to a nuclear bomb in the Science World.
At that point, 10,000 degrees of Spell Power would no longer be 10,000 times one degree, nor would it be a simple addition of 10,000 people.
Instead, it would be "ritual power" such as "religious ceremonies" and "the sacrifice of myriad spirits"...
However, the Apprentice Stage could exclude those complicated factors and still be calculated through simple addition.
Learning the Knight Breathing Technique and breaking through the limits of mortals meant becoming a Low-level Knight.
At this stage, one's physique, strength, and all other attributes were counted as two degrees. Speed and reaction ability also increased noticeably.
At the Intermediate Knight stage, one's physique and strength could reach more than three times that of an ordinary person!
Combined with advanced martial techniques and excellent equipment, this was enough to single-handedly wipe out a small band of refugee soldiers!
Ten thousand degrees of Spell Power was not ten thousand times one degree...
This statement might be difficult to understand, but if "degree" were replaced with "level"...
10,000-level power was not 10,000 times level-one power... It would be easier to understand.
The reason the unit "degree" was still used was because of the ancestral code of the Wizardry flow. This explanation is provided for clarity.
Before you continue