Another Wizard King Takes Action

Sage Pushton nodded slightly.

Then he said to Charles, "All right, I need to begin preparing a few things. You should go back."

Charles nodded, then left Isata's upper levels.

Meanwhile, Sage Pushton withdrew his aura.

He seemed to have returned to the state he had been in as a wizard apprentice.

Dressed in a simple gray robe, he slowly wandered through Isata.

Sometimes, he would touch the tower structures or the ground, even speaking with small street vendors.

At times, he would stop and listen to a First Ring wizard's lecture.

At times, he would slip unnoticed into bloodline modification experiments being carried out by wizards.

Most of the time, he did not alter those bloodline modifications in any way, merely watching everything in silence.

But sometimes, on a whim, he would interfere.

At times, the bloodline modifications would succeed brilliantly, producing a perfectly fused bloodline.

At other times, Pushton's interference would cause the modifications to fail, blasting a huge hole directly into a tower.

Yet no one knew any of this. Only Pushton drifted through Isata like a ghost detached from the world.

This continued for ten days.

On that day, Pushton finally halted, because he had reached the swamps of Isata.

He looked back. Within the thick mist, Isata remained unchanged.

Pushton smiled faintly, then vanished from Isata.

No one knew of any of this, including Charles, who was also a Sixth Ring wizard.

It could not be said that no one knew.

After Pushton departed.

The Book of Causal Paths within Charles turned a page and wrote: "It seems Sage Pushton's preparations for ascension are about to begin."

Charles looked at those words, and with a thought, understood why.

He said, "So when Mr. Pushton said he would begin the ascension ritual a year from now,