The Wizard World

Inside the dark room, Liliana put down her oil lamp on a black table.

Countless tiny cracks suddenly appeared behind her, and groups of mosquitos flew out of her body to form the gray ball again. The ball split in half and the white eyeball revealed itself.

"What do you think?" Liliana spoke in a grave tone. Although her voice was still cute and sweet, she sounded serious.

"We had an agreement with Moon Gin Garden. It was just an accident. They were not trying to kill your student," the eyeball responded.

"An accident? If he hadn’t been summoned back to the school, he would already be dead." Liliana was not happy, "I need an explanation, they can totally hide those materials from him. What was that monster thinking?"

The eyeball turned around, "As an intermediary, I certainly don’t want you two to misunderstand the situation. That young man was affected by their hatred, it’s not a big deal."

*BAM*

Liliana pounded the table.

"That was not some simple hatred. They were clearly trying to devour him. Although Moroco ate the main threat and I had his body cleansed, there’s something nasty left deep inside him. They must give me an acceptable reason for doing that!"

"Reason? What reason?" A high-pitched female voice echoed in the room.

*CHI*

Some blood mist exploded at the corner and turned into a head-sized object that looked like a jellyfish. The red object floated in the air, glowing. It was the source of the strange voice.

"Your student was trying to steal my materials. You should apologize to me first before trying to blame me for that," the jellyfish shouted.

"I knew it..." Liliana’s expression changed. There were worms squirming between the gaps of her face, "It’s the Northland Alliance, right? Are you working for those filthy scums now?"

"I’m not going to comment on that, heh..." The jellyfish sneered.

"Wait, don’t tell the plague in the east is..."

"Don’t blame everything on us! You damn prick! My children were so kind that they didn’t kill your student!" The jellyfish spoke in a cold tone, "Northland Alliance tried to ambush him on his way back, and they wanted to make it look like we did it. My children saved him! He’d be dead already if my children were not around him."

"Is that so?" Liliana calmed down a bit, "Angele’s Mentality is very close to a formal wizard’s. Your children were not kind at all, they just couldn’t kill him. Also, I think he’s capable of escaping the ambush of Northland Alliance. If he’s a low-rank apprentice, his mind would’ve already been crushed by your children. Kristina, you really think I’m that dumb?"

"Whatever!" the jellyfish yelled, not refuting Liliana’s assumption.

"Calm down you two. Kristina was just trying to take revenge for what happened at Rinwo last year, Liliana, what you did there was a bit over the line," The eyeball turned around again, and started mediating, "Northland Alliance’s plan was to alienate you from Kristina by killing one of your students, so we can’t let that happen."

"Fine. I will forgive you this time." Liliana snorted, "They forced us to abandon our school for a while and now, they want to alienate us. We must make them pay!"

"You’re right. We have to plan it out. Liliana, how many apprentices are summoned back?" the eyeball asked.

"We need a plan for sure. We sent the message to about 120 apprentices, but only half of them came back." Liliana lowered her voice.

"Wait. I have a sad message for you," the jellyfish interrupted, "One of my babies just found a dead body. It’s your student."

"What!" Liliana opened her eyes and her body started glowing, "What? Say that again?"

"My child found your student’s dead body a while ago." The jellyfish stopped talking. Some of the red mist separated from its body and created a thin oval mirror on the side.

The mirror was covered in a thin meat barrier. The surface was white initially, then it turned into pitch black for a second before bringing up the image of a remote area.

It was cloudy at the area and a huge area was burnt black in the middle of the grassland.

A young girl was lying on the burnt area. Sadly, she was killed before she could realize it. Her body was sliced in half and there was no blood coming out of the cut. It was almost like she was not hurt at all.

"I already checked it. Her organs were gone, and there was nothing in her stomach. I’m sure Jeremy did this," the jellyfish explained.

"Jeremy..." Liliana’s expression changed and lowered her head, "Damn it! I don’t know if you’re telling the truth. I need to check it myself..."

"Fine. We are leaving now." The jellyfish disappeared with the eyeball, and the gray ball became complete again. It was still floating in the air.

After several seconds, Liliana suddenly screamed like crazy, "Damn it! Jeremy! One day I’ll make you pay! I’ll devour your whole family!"

*********************

Angele was walking down the underground tunnel slowly, thinking about how the place was empty.

Before the war, he would see wizard apprentices walking around in the school and yet, he had not seen anyone in the tunnel today.

He heard the footsteps coming from the corner as he was thinking.

A young-looking, middle-aged male apprentice appeared at the corner. His face was yellow, and there was a black handkerchief inside the pocket on his left chest. Angele could see the noble suit and flower family insignia under the man’s gray robe.

Angele walked past the man and had a glance at his face, ‘He probably just came back from a funeral...’

The man had a depressed and serious look on his face. He looked nervous as well.

‘I wonder how much damage the Northland Alliance did to the school,’ Angele thought, he was walking toward the Potions Department.

He met several other apprentices that just came back from the funeral as he advanced. They all looked sad and nervous.

It took Angele a while to reach the Potions Department. The Potions Department was built inside a large, empty cave. The wall was yellow, and there were four huge glowing sapphires set on the top of the cave. The four different runes engraved on the sapphires represented the four basics of Potion Study.

There were more than ten people inside the large cave. They looked like ants standing on such a huge empty field. People did not even notice Angele’s presence.

Most of the people had black handkerchiefs on their chests. All of them had serious looks on their faces. They were chatting in groups at the side. Angele thought something was not right.

He quickly walked past them and reached the counter. The counters were set up for selling the potions and there were several potion labs behind them.

There was only one person at the middle counter at the moment. It was a middle-aged woman. She did not have a pretty face, but she looked gentle and elegant.

‘She’s a noble.’ Angele guessed. After all, he knew what nobles looked like.

Angele stepped forward and stood in front of the counter.

"Greetings, I want to purchase the..." Angele saw the woman shaking her head before he could finish his sentence.

"Sorry, one of our resource points was taken, so the potion storage is almost empty right now. We decided to stop selling potions for a while," the woman spoke in a low voice, "Also, Potion Master Benjamin was killed in the war, so there’s no estimated date on when we will reopen the shop." The woman made everything clear.

One resource point was taken and they were short on materials. Angele felt speechless upon knowing this.

Potions were always rare and expensive due to the difficulty in crafting them. A potion’s price could be 10 or 100 times the price of the raw materials, but now they decided to close the shop.

Angele wanted to purchase the Water of Asu today, but it seemed like he would not even be able to get regular potions. Also, the waitlist for Water of Asu was based on the wizard apprentices’ talent levels. Angele’s talent level was low, and Water of Asu would only be sold to apprentices with high talent levels first. If they kept joining the waitlist, Angele’s turn would never come.

The middle-aged woman was kind. She decided to explain a bit more after seeing Angele’s regretful face.

"It’s not just us. Liliado and Northland Alliance are short in potions as well. Many resource points were destroyed or taken during the war, so..."

Angele heard her words and sighed, "I understand. It’s just I had high expectations."

"I’ve seen expression like yours many times these days." There was a bitter smile on her face.

"Wait. I have some rare materials in my pouch. Can I still exchange them for magic stones here?"

"Sure, we are in need of materials. We’ll buy them for twice the original price. It’s a good time to sell whatever you have in hand." The woman smiled again.

Angele took out the preserved Dragon Scale Flowers and a Single-Eye Flower he obtained this time. He had taken them in a hurry, so they did not have nice appearances.