Detect Thoughts

Amid the cheering, Ye Wei'an immediately began treating the next two seriously wounded men.

Two more healing flames lit up at once.

As the fourth wounded man struggled to thank Ye Wei'an through the glow, the remaining two were already looking on with eager anticipation.

Ye Wei'an walked over to the sixth injured man.

He was a very young guard, perhaps only sixteen or seventeen. A deep gash had been cut into his thigh, exposing the bone, and blood loss had left him barely conscious.

The young guard had been ice-cold all over when he suddenly felt a warm hand press against his forehead. Then a reassuring warmth flowed in from his brow, gradually spreading through his limbs and body.

The pain ebbed like a tide, his grave wounds quickly healed, and his lost strength began to return.

The young guard struggled to open his eyes. Before him stood a boy dressed in noble finery, magic shimmering around him.

"Y-young master..." His voice was hoarse, and tears welled up at once.

Somehow, he found the strength to struggle to one knee. "Thank you, young master. Thank you for saving me. I... I owe you my life! By Helm, God of Guardians, I, James Anvil, will repay your kindness!"

"Me too!"

"And me!"

"Thank you for your blessing, young master!"

The other wounded men who had been dragged back from the brink of death also tried excitedly to bow.

Ye Wei'an hurried to stop them.

Witnessing everything, all the guards around them—whether lightly wounded or unharmed, whether they had received treatment themselves or not—felt a surge of respect for him.

Until now, they had protected their lord's illegitimate son only out of orders and duty.

Their true loyalty belonged to Baron Harandir Xiaxing himself and his heir.

But after this battle, everything was different.

Everyone had seen the strength and compassion Young Master Ye Wei'an had shown.

Normally, asking a Cleric at a temple to cast Cure Wounds cost at least ten gold coins, but the young master had treated them for free.

Some even found themselves entertaining a "treasonous" thought: perhaps this illegitimate son was far better than the Baron's rightful heir, his arrogant younger brother.

If only he weren't an illegitimate son.

Ailian had stood a little way off, gazing at her master with shining eyes, unable to hide her pride.

Only after Ye Wei'an finished his final treatment did she hurry over. "Young master! You were incredible! They used to talk about you behind your back... but I knew you could do it!"

Only then did she notice the barely perceptible weariness between his brows. She quickly reached out to support him. "You must be tired, young master. Shall I help you rest for a while?"

"Not yet."

Casting spells one after another had indeed taken a lot out of him, but he couldn't rest just yet.

There was something more important he had to do.

"Cain," he said, turning to the knight, "bring that Barbarian over."

"Yes, sir!"

Soon, two guards dragged the bandit leader over, one on each side.

The powerful Barbarian was bound tightly, and the wound in his abdomen had been bandaged roughly.

Seeing his current state, Ye Wei'an finally understood just how tenacious a Barbarian's life force was.

Blood loss and the weakness that followed his Rage hadn't brought him down. In less than half an hour, he'd regained some strength—enough to glare fiercely at him.

But that was as far as his bluster would get him.

The guards' loyalty to Ye Wei'an was at its height. A mere defeated enemy dared to look disrespectfully at the young master they revered. He was no ordinary prisoner; they ought to hit him hard.

The two guards unceremoniously shoved him into the mud and forced him to kneel before Ye Wei'an.

The Barbarian chieftain struggled to lift his head.

His face was smeared with blood, grease, and dirt, but his eyes remained defiant.

He glared at Ye Wei'an and spat, "Bah! Damn Wizard brat, all you do is scheme... Untie me if you've got the guts, and fight me one-on-one!"

"How dare you!" The guards grew even angrier, and an iron-shod boot slammed into his injured ribs.

"Ugh!" The kick landed right on his wound. The Barbarian convulsed in pain, but gritted his teeth and refused to cry out, forcing only a ragged breath from his throat as his glare grew more venomous.

Ignoring the defeated man's howls, Ye Wei'an got straight to the point. "Who sent you to kill me? Tell me, and you can suffer a little less."

"No one sent me," the Barbarian said with a grimace. "I'm a bandit! This is what I do! You nobles are fat sheep, and you deserve to be slaughtered! I only regret being blind and not chopping your head off with my first swing!"

"Who do you think you're calling 'I'?" One of the guards flew into a rage and was about to hit him again.

Ye Wei'an raised a hand to stop the guard.

The Barbarian's wound had started bleeding again after that kick. Ye Wei'an didn't want to waste his last 1st-level spell on a prisoner.

Then he looked down at the Barbarian.

"Robbery?" he sneered. "When your men first rushed into my carriage, I heard one of them clearly. He didn't call me a 'fat sheep.' Guess what he said?"

The Barbarian's breathing hitched almost imperceptibly.

"He said, 'We've found the target,'" Ye Wei'an bluffed. "Tell me, who was the 'target' he was looking for?"

In truth, the bandit hadn't meant that, and Ye Wei'an only suspected there was a mastermind behind the attack.

But bolstered by his Actor talent, he sounded so certain that he fooled the Barbarian.

The bandit leader's expression finally darkened. "...May Uthgar curse that idiot for not knowing when to keep his mouth shut!"

"I'll ask you one last time." Ye Wei'an straightened, his voice returning to its original calm. "Who was pulling the strings?"

"You want to know? Hahaha... In your dreams! Go ahead and kill me if you've got the guts!" His lie had been exposed, and all the Barbarian had left was his stubborn silence.

Ye Wei'an wasn't surprised by the Barbarian's defiant expression.

It would have been strange if a cutthroat who lived by the sword had given in easily.

"It doesn't matter if you keep your mouth shut." His voice was calm, betraying no emotion. "Even if you don't tell me, I have a way to find out what you're thinking."

With that, Ye Wei'an closed his eyes, focused, and began to marshal his mental power.

2nd-level spell—Detect Thoughts.

A glimmer of purple flashed in Ye Wei'an's eyes.

A cold thought, like a tentacle, quietly pierced into the Barbarian's consciousness.

The first thing Ye Wei'an sensed was a tumult of surface emotions:

The burning pain of the wound beneath his ribs, the weakness he felt deep in his bones after his Rage faded, his hatred of the Wizard before him, and, carefully concealed, his fear and unease about magic.

This so-called toughness was little more than the stubbornness of a thug who had nothing to lose. Deep down, he was still all bluster and no substance; most people simply couldn't get under his skin.

Ye Wei'an didn't stop there. His thoughts probed deeper into the Barbarian's mind.

His mental intrusion was crude; he hadn't even considered whether he might be noticed.

After all, this was just some savage, not a spellcaster. He couldn't possibly have enough mental power to resist Ye Wei'an's psychic tendrils.

"Ugh... What..." The Barbarian's eyes flew open, and for the first time, genuine terror showed on his face.

He felt a cold, slick tendril trying to pry open his skull and burrow into his brain.

"What... What are you doing to me?! Get out! Get out of my head!"

He shook his head violently, trying to fling out whatever was inside it, but his feeble Mind Blank was useless against Ye Wei'an's powerful mental force.

His memories' defenses shattered like fragile glass. The tendrils of thought surged in, and flickering fragments began to surface against his will. All Ye Wei'an had to do was touch one to see the scene within.

The first to emerge were the memories that mattered most to the Barbarian:

Ye Wei'an saw a gaunt boy at a tribal camp on the northern tundra, beaten bloody by bigger children over half a piece of black bread as hard as stone...

He saw a woman's corpse lying in the snow. The boy shook her uselessly, then could only pry open her clenched fingers and take a tiny carved totem...

He saw the scrawny youth crush a wild deer's neck with his bare hands for the first time. As its warm blood sprayed, fear mingled with a twisted thrill...

He saw a strong man hold his own coming-of-age ceremony and give himself the name Grumman, meaning "cruel."

He saw the adult Grumman head south to the Sword Coast with a passing mercenary company...

He saw Grumman earn the title of Butcher over the course of one mission after another...

He saw the enraged Butcher kill his comrades after an argument, forcing him to flee the Sword Coast with no way back...

The fragments of memory flashed past. The better part of the Barbarian's life gradually unfolded before Ye Wei'an.

But none of that was what he wanted.

Ye Wei'an quickly sifted through the useless information. Finally, in a more recent memory, he found a familiar scene:

It was a noisy little town of rough-hewn wood and stone, one that the original owner of this body dimly remembered. It was the only town in Firefall Valley: Firefall Town.

The place was only a few dozen miles from where they had been ambushed, and reaching Firefall Town meant entering the territory of the Summerstar Family.

Ye Wei'an's heart leapt.

He'd found the target.