Wizards

After the Cave Dweller King died, everyone breathed a sigh of relief.

Even wounded, the Cave Dweller King had required the combined strength of so many of them to kill.

The gap in strength between Knight Level and Knight Apprentices was still far too great. Under normal circumstances, it was difficult to deal with one.

The group then began searching the cave. The moment they entered, they saw a horrific sight: many half-eaten remains, along with others that had been prepared for drying.

The stench inside the cave was unbearable. The smell of blood mingled with the foul odor of excrement, and with no ventilation in the cave, it was enough to make one vomit.

Duke and the others gathered all the remains in the cave together and burned them in a single fire, offering what little comfort they could to the departed souls.

Lu Ping and the others gathered around the Cave Dweller King, discussing something. They had all noticed the wound on its chest.

Such an injury could never have been caused by ordinary means. The charred flesh had surely been instantaneously burned by extremely high temperatures.

Duke was also examining the wound. It did indeed look as though it had been struck by lightning.

This was an age of cold weapons. There were no firearms.

Looking at the corpse on the ground, he could not help wondering, Did this thing just happen to get struck by lightning?

Duke felt that something was off, yet he could not put it into words. The location of the wound did not seem like where lightning would strike, either.

After a moment of silence, Lu Ping said, "It seems some magical beast capable of wielding spell power seriously wounded this Cave Dweller King, forcing this Cave Dweller tribe to migrate."

"Spell power?" The others all became wary at those words.

Listening from the side, Duke thought, This world actually has spell power...

Knights themselves already possessed extraordinary power and had surpassed the realm of ordinary people.

Duke had thought that knights stood at the peak of this world and represented its greatest power.

Yet now he had learned that magical beasts could possess spell power as well.

That naturally raised another question: could humans also master spell power?

Thinking of this, Duke could not help asking, "Can an Official Knight deal with such a magical beast?"

"It would be difficult. It depends on the magical beast's rank. If it is a Knight Level Tiered Magical Beast, an ordinary Official Knight would have almost no chance of winning," Lu Ping said after some thought.

Above High-Tier Magical Beasts were Knight Level magical beasts, known as Tiered Magical Beasts.

And above Tiered Magical Beasts were the legendary Super-Tier Magical Beasts.

Duke later learned that spell power was extremely strange and difficult to deal with.

Armor could resist blades and arrows, but it could not defend against spells.

For example, the lightning burn mark on the chest of the corpse on the ground—no armor could withstand such lightning.

Even an Official Knight would be helpless before such power, no different from being naked.

Magical beasts capable of using spell power were extremely rare. No such magical beast had appeared in the Vira Kingdom for several decades.

Lu Ping and the others all wore grave expressions. They needed to report the news as soon as possible and come up with countermeasures in advance.

If such a magical beast truly appeared, it would likely mean another bitter battle.

During their silence, Duke could not help thinking of a question. He asked, "Can humans use spell power?"

Lu Ping froze for a moment, then said, "According to the legends, there was once a group of people who could. They could summon wind and rain, reshape heaven and earth, and do anything. But those are only legends, and they may not be true.

"In the legends, those people were called Wizards."

"Wizards..." Duke felt that he needed to look through some books and old records after returning, to learn more about them.

Since knights who possessed Battle Qi truly existed, he believed Wizards might not be mere legends. They might actually be real.

"Legend says this world was created by Wizards, but stories like that are just for listening to. Creating a world would make them no different from gods," Lu Ping said with a laugh.

After the Cave Dweller matter was settled, Nightingale's group returned to Maple Hill City to receive their rewards.

According to the previous rules, killing one Cave Dweller earned one Gold Coin.

Considering the existence of Elite Cave Dwellers, each Elite Cave Dweller was worth three Gold Coins.

Duke alone received fifty-five Gold Coins, thirty of which were the reward for assisting in the killing of the Cave Dweller King.

After receiving the rewards, his purse grew full again, holding more than seventy Gold Coins.

Lu Ping immediately went to report the entire course of events to Count Hardy, including his discoveries and some of his speculations.

Duke did not know the specific details. He had already taken the money and entered Maple Hill City again, buying ten pounds of cured magical beast meat in one go.

Duke bought several small pieces so he could eat them separately.

He would probably consume four or five pounds of magical beast meat each month, so ten pounds would be enough for two months of training.

After buying the magical beast meat, Duke returned to several days of peaceful training.

Seeing that no more missions had been assigned, he changed into the outfit Wood had given him earlier and headed for Maple Hill City.

Duke returned to the adventurers' tavern. After ordering a mug of butterbeer, he found an empty table and sat down.

The tavern was lively and extremely noisy. People clustered together in twos and threes, each discussing their own matters.

Most of these adventurers were loud-voiced, and those who had drunk too much spoke even louder. Their voices blended together until they made his eardrums vibrate.

Duke did his best to sift through the chaotic chatter, trying to pick out useful information.

He noticed that a bard was telling a story, surrounded by many people listening.

Bards were essentially drifters, wandering from place to place for long periods and earning money through singing and storytelling.

This bard, for example, was really just being bought drinks by others in exchange for telling them about what he had seen elsewhere.

Quite a few people had never traveled far from home and knew very little about other places, with no reliable source of information.

Now that they had encountered a bard, they could not help but grow curious.

Duke immediately became interested as well, because the bard was speaking about Wizards.

"Official Knights are impressive enough, right? But did you know that long, long ago, even Great Knights were only fit to serve as Wizard attendants?" the bard said slowly.

"Bullshit!" A bearded man looked utterly unconvinced, thinking it was complete nonsense.

"Exactly. Great Knights are legendary figures. How could they possibly serve as someone else's attendants? Are you trying to fool us?" someone questioned.

The bard was clearly used to such situations. He did not panic and merely smiled. "How would I dare fool you? Everything I tell you is fact recorded in history. It is only because Wizards have not appeared for too long that people gradually forgot them."

"In fact, many countries still bear traces of Wizards. The power of the mysterious items many people possess actually comes from Wizards. You should know that much, right? Take Count Hardy's Red Glove, for example..."