"It's a pleasure to meet you again."
The silver-haired witch Emily stood five meters outside Dago's tent and greeted him coolly.
Her voice seemed not to travel through the air, but to project directly onto Dago's eardrums through some form of mental vibration.
The elemental particles around her were arranged with extraordinary precision, forming a repulsive field barely perceptible to the naked eye that kept the murky dust at bay.
Dago watched her calmly, a pale blue glimmer flashing deep within his eyes.
He spoke. "Good afternoon. May I ask how you found me?"
It had been less than five minutes since he had decided where to pitch his tent.
Yet the people of the Emerald Court had already come calling. This meant his defensive measures were practically useless against detection on a higher dimension.
"This area isn't particularly large, and we had a prophecy to guide us."
The silver-haired witch answered with a faint trace of pride in her voice.
Dago frowned. Although this silver-haired wizard of the Emerald Court showed him impeccable respect in every regard, she still inadvertently betrayed a subtle sense of superiority.
It was the ingrained condescension of a higher civilization toward a lower one, the natural dominance of pioneers who possessed more advanced truths over those who came after them.
Still, considering that she was of the Third Circle while he was of the Second Circle, and that the Emerald Court was a faction from the Wizard Empire of the Central Continent, that inherent superiority seemed only natural.
In the world of wizards, the depth of one's grasp of truth determined how straight one could stand.
Perhaps I should start diligently practicing that prophetic spell, Arcane Divination, which I obtained from the Mechanical Heart.
*I must master the art of manipulating the threads of