Rewards

Wizard Mara, his face slightly pale, entered the hall. He glanced toward the dining room, the corner of his mouth lifting slightly, but had no time to deal with it. He hurriedly flew up to the second floor.

He had already suffered enormous losses. Now, he had to make the most of his time; recovering even a little was better than nothing.

Third floor of the flying vessel.

It was a field of ruins, corpses strewn everywhere—some belonging to wizard apprentices, others to the three knights.

Outside the innermost cabin, four exhausted knights covered in scorch marks swung their swords in unison, slashing at the pale red barrier outside the cabin, a barrier they did not know how many times they had already struck.

"Crack—"

The barrier could no longer hold and shattered with a bang.

Inside the cabin, Blanya, Mara's only apprentice aboard the flying vessel, looked utterly despairing.

He had locked everyone else outside, making them rely on the traps his mentor had left behind to fend off these Temple Knights.

Yet they still had not managed to hold out until his mentor returned.

Whoosh—

A blood-red sword aura swept over. Blanya gritted his teeth and cast the Fireball Spell, trying to block it.

Pfft.

The sword aura passed through the fireball without the slightest fluctuation and slashed straight at Blanya, cutting him in two.

"Objective complete. Let's go!" The lead knight gave the order and turned to run downstairs.

The moment they reached the second floor, they ran head-on into Mara, who was flying up.

Seeing the knights heading down, Mara's faintly smiling expression completely darkened.

Because he knew there was no one left upstairs.

"You truly deserve to die!"

Mara gritted his teeth and raised his right hand. Deep blue flames burst from his palm, engulfing the four Temple Knights.

"For the God of War!"

The lead knight wore a devout expression as he raised his longsword and slashed at the oncoming flames.

"For the God of War!"

The three knights behind him did the same, raising their swords and striking at the flames.

Perhaps some of them had voted against it in the cave, but that did not mean they feared death.

The irreverent could not sense the power left behind by the gods at all.

The reason they had opposed acting now was merely because they wanted to absorb more power and become stronger before making their move.

Whoosh, whoosh—

In the blink of an eye, the deep blue flames melted the sword auras and continued surging toward the four knights, ultimately vaporizing them all.

"Divine Grace Knights." Mara's face was grim. "I'll remember you."

After taking a long look at where the four knights had been vaporized, he turned and went down to the first floor, stopping at the entrance to the dining room.

"Come out, little one."

Hearing Mara's voice, Lohr immediately breathed a sigh of relief. He pushed aside the bread piled on top of him, stepped out, and bowed. "Wizard Mara."

"Mm." Mara nodded. "I've expended quite a bit. I'll take you to the Wizard Tower tomorrow."

"As a reward for surviving, you may move freely around the first and second floors of the flying vessel today. All the cabin doors have been destroyed by those bastards."

With that, he turned and headed upstairs.

"Thank you, Wizard Mara." Lohr was delighted and thanked him repeatedly as he watched him go upstairs.

With Mara's permission, Lohr could spend the day freely going anywhere on the first and second floors of the flying vessel to collect whatever benefits he could.

There might be some useful spells among the spell models included with the Meditation Methods in the library on the second floor.

And any remaining Magic Crystals in the energy room on the first floor were what Lohr wanted most.

Although he could obtain Magic Crystals by selling optimized spell models, then convert those Magic Crystals into Charge Points, he could not just start selling them right away!

He first had to familiarize himself with the environment and make sure it was safe to sell them.

And before confirming that, he still needed to maintain his persona as a spell-modification genius whose Meditation Method was progressing steadily.

This was when Magic Crystals became useful.

Magic Crystals would help me greatly, but I can't go to the energy room first.

Lohr thought, I shouldn't know that the energy room exists. I need to check the library first, then slowly make my way down to look for it.

Having made his plan, Lohr headed toward the second floor.

After passing through a pitch-black corridor and turning several corners, he arrived at the library once more.

The library was now in complete disarray, parchment books scattered everywhere.

Entering the library, Lohr casually picked up a book from the floor and glanced at it.

Bloodline: Howling Moon Wolf School Meditation Method.

He tossed it aside and picked up the next one.

Baleen Whale Meditation Method.

He tossed it aside and picked up the next one.

Lohr patiently searched for over an hour.

Then, suddenly.

When he flipped to a spell model, the hand he habitually used to toss books aside stopped.

"This is the prerequisite spell for the Earthvein Traversal Spell, the Earthvein Breathing Spell?"

Looking at the spell recorded at the end of an earth-element Meditation Method, Lohr's eyes lit up.

The Earthvein Traversal Spell was one of the essential escape and survival spells for earth-element wizards from Rank 1 to Rank 3. It was extremely practical.

I'll memorize it first and learn it later.

After spending half an hour carefully memorizing the spell model, Lohr searched the library for another hour, but found no more spells that interested him.

They were ultimately just basic spells included with Meditation Methods. It was perfectly normal for there to be nothing good.

He had not considered memorizing spells to sell, either. For one thing, they were not valuable; for another, he did not have enough time to memorize many.

"That should be about enough."

Lohr rose to his feet and walked out of the library. "Now it would be perfectly reasonable to take a look around the first floor."

A short while later, Lohr went down to the first floor and entered the corridor to the left of the hall. Avoiding the corpses of several apprentices, he slowly inspected the cabins one by one.

Whenever he spotted someone dressed extravagantly, he would crouch down and search them for a while, taking several dozen gold coins.

After arriving at the Wizard Tower, only Magic Stones could be used to trade for wizard resources, but gold coins could still buy food and drink.

Since it was easy enough, he did not mind taking a little.

He believed those apprentices would not mind either.

After gathering more than five hundred gold coins, the bag in his hand felt somewhat heavy, so he stopped taking more.

"If only I had a spatial storage item." Lohr sighed as he glanced at the large cloth bag in his hand.

Unfortunately, those things were far too expensive. At least before officially selling optimized models, he definitely could not afford one.

After walking a little farther, he finally saw the spot where the second sword aura from the Temple Knight had struck: the flying vessel's energy furnace.

The energy furnace was now completely scorched black. Its operation had been interrupted, causing it to self-destruct.

"I hope there are some Magic Stones left." Filled with anticipation, Lohr entered the energy compartment beside the furnace.

He swept his gaze around. The half nearest the energy furnace had likewise been blasted into ruins.

The other half was intact, but there was nothing there.

Lohr quickly walked over to the destroyed half and began rummaging through it. Before long, he picked out a fiery red stone as though he had found a treasure.

[Chargeable object detected. Charge?]

"No." Lohr refused without hesitation.

What a joke. What if Wizard Mara was watching him?

A Magic Stone disappearing the instant he absorbed it—did he think he was an Official Wizard?

Carefully placing the Magic Stone into a small pouch hidden against his body, Lohr bent down and continued searching.

One piece.

Another piece.

And another.

"Wizard Mara is really rich. Does he normally keep this many Magic Stones in the energy compartment?"

Lohr put away one fire-element Magic Stone after another, feeling that he had underestimated Wizard Mara's wealth before.