The Wizard World

Many fruits completely identical to each other were hanging from the trees.

Under those brown fruits, there were many black flowers the size of a carriage wheel.

Translucent fluid was dripping down from the fruits which were quickly absorbed by the flowers’ pistil.

One of the fruits cracked open as soon as Angele entered the area, revealing the glowing flesh inside.

Several seconds later, a strange human face manifested on the white flesh.

"Hey, you. We meet again," the face greeted Angele. Angele could only see its eyes and mouth. It had no nose or ears.

The green eyes of the face were glowing. Angele tried his utmost to avoid eye contact with it since the green light was making him feel uncomfortable.

"Mocco, long time no see." A gentle smile appeared on Angele’s face. He then stepped forward and stood in front of the cracked fruit. "I am here to complete the mission."

"Mission?" Mocco was a tad confused. He started checking the database immediately. "Don’t tell me you have already finished concocting the Poison Cloud Potion."

"Yeah, it is done." Angele shrugged.

Mocco hesitated but ultimately scanned Angele with a pair of its emerald-like eyes. "Do not even attempt to trick me. No offense, but I do not think you could possibly finish concocting that potion that quick."

"See for yourself..." Angele did not want to waste any time and quickly retrieved a small tube from one of his pouches.

The tube was sealed with a wooden stopper and there was a boiling, sticky, brown fluid contained inside. This was the concentrated Poison Cloud Potion.

"Drop this small tube to the ground. Most creatures will die within its effective range. It is not effective on wizards above rank 2, but it is still quite potent. I invested a lot of time and resources into this," Angele explained as he tapped on the test tube. "Hurry up. Someone is still waiting for me in the forest. I need to keep my identity a secret."

"Ah...alright..." Mocco was still completely shocked. "Your talent on potion concocting is incredible. Three years, and you actually completely concocted a Potion Cloud Potion. I will immediately report back the situation to the headquarters. Actually, you know what, I am not ‘alone’ here. Mocco is actually the combination of 32 wizards’ mentality waves from the headquarters. The information you told me will be disseminated to the 32 wizards. They gave you this mission. I have not seen a Potions Master with such talent in at least 50 years now...The last one was the son of the grand wizard, Finn..." Mocco spouted a bunch of facts and trivia to Angele.

Angele scanned Mocco using Zero and it detected ten different mentality waves. Perhaps they were the wizards who wanted to talk to Angele and were fighting with each other to gain control of Mocco.

"Sorry for the delay. All right, your mission points have been sent to your ring. Please do keep the ring with you always. Once you lose it, you will have to fill out a pile of complicated application forms. You can exchange items and services using the points you earned from the first mission. Here is the list."

Mocco opened its mouth at a strange angle, and a long, brown leather scroll slowly rolled down its tongue.

The scroll was tied with a black string and there was a metal shoulder piece inside.

Angele took the scroll and removed the seal. The benefits of being a core member of Dark Wizard Tower were listed on it alongside the required mission points that were marked on the side.

He needed to return to Lyn’s side before she could completely recover her mentality. Angele then tied up the scroll again and hid it underneath his sleeves.

Angele picked up the piece of armor that had dropped to the ground and did a quick inspection on it.

"What is this?"

"You are now an authorized member of the organization, so we have sent you a small gift. It is called the ‘Crystal Spaulder’. This spaulder may seem like a chunk of metal, but it is made from black crystal and is enchanted with a buff spell. The spell can improve your offensive or defensive spells by 50%."

"Crystal Spaulder..." Angele was inspecting the armor piece using the biochip.

"Remember, this armor is only gifted to the members who have completed the first challenge. Do not wear it like a normal piece of armor as you may be recognized by people who have knowledge of our organization. With this armor piece, you can hire mercenaries of the Shadow Company, but you must use your mission points in order to do so. One or two shadow mercenaries will be sent to you in a week by the headquarters. The cost is already covered by the organization. Also, information regarding ruin exploration, treasure hunting, and secret meetings will be delivered to you from different divisions. You are, however, not forced to attend any of these events since they all have an admission fee."

"That means I can hire mercenaries, purchase intelligence reports, and join in special events as long as I have enough mission points, right?" Angele was curious about these.

"Yes—all the intelligence reports, secret events, and special items. You only need to exchange them with your mission points. Secret treasures and ancient techniques found from the ruins will not be sold to the public. Only the strongest members of the organization have the right to purchase them. The concoction of the Poison Cloud Potion was not a simple mission but was a truly difficult challenge. You are one of the most talented potion masters in our organization. Work hard and keep on improving. Then your future will become as bright as the sun..." Mocco smiled and disappeared into the fruit’s flesh.

The crack on the fruit closed and the white light disappeared.

Angele pondered for a short while before keeping the crystal spaulder into his pouch. Then he turned around and began returning back to Lyn’s location.

He acquired 10 mission points by completing the challenge. There were many things he could do using the points he currently had according to the information on the scroll.

His interest was also piqued due to the shadow mercenaries Mocco had talked about.

Several minutes later, Angele found Lyn leaning against a large tree with her eyes closed. Her mentality seemed to be recovering.

Angele brought back several dried branches he found along the way and quickly built a campfire.

The orange light from the flame brightened up the surroundings and brought warmth to the two wizards.

Lyn slowly opened her eyes. She lightly bit her lips as she watched Angele build a campfire.

"Master Angele...I should be the one building the campfire...I am sorry, and..."

"Get some rest. It was I who brought you into this mess. We are in the Sherry Forest where there are countless mutated beasts roaming around. We cannot stay here for too long." Angele stopped Lyn from continuing.

The light from the dancing flames illuminated their faces. They no longer continued their earlier conversation.

Lyn rested for a while and decided to cook food with the ingredients she had on her.

They began to travel once more the next day and finally saw several archers in black armor suits near the forest’s edge.

"It’s the 3rd regiment of the Watchers." Lyn immediately recognized their identities and approached them.

The archers surrounded Angele and Lyn with them right in the middle of the encirclement. They wanted to make sure that there were no enemy scouts around. A tall man carrying a black bow on his back walked to Angele and bowed.

"Master Angele, I am the captain of the 3rd company. We are here to escort you home. Let’s move now." The man’s voice was deep and loud. He called Angele "master" but did not express too much of a fawning attitude.

"Sure. The flying knights have already lost track of us. Do not be too nervous." Angele sighed in relief.

"Our mission is to escort you to the second secret guard post. Majority of the Watchers are still serving in the war, so this is only a temporary company. Please hurry, we still need to join in the war after we finish escorting you," the man explained with a face devoid of any expression.

"All right, let’s go." Angele nodded. He himself knew just how crucial the war against Thousand Waterfall City was, so he did not want to waste their time.

More or less a hundred archers were part of the company. All of them were rank 3 wizard apprentices but all of them possessed a body comparable that of knights’. Angele also noticed that the archers carried a lot of low-level enchanted items with them.

Angele was ambushed by a black boar that was five meters tall on their way back.

However, searching for the boar’s weak point had only taken the archers several seconds.

Hundreds of black metal arrows escaped from the bows and rained on the boar’s head.

The boar’s Stamina stat was over 19 units—it was a terrifying number. The arrowheads had been infused with fire energy particles, so they exploded together resulting in the boar being blown into pieces. Only a pile of black ash was left on the ground.

Not a single arrow released by this company of archers missed. The accumulated damage their arrows dealt was over 1000 degrees.

Angele would not even believe that a company of trained rank 3 wizard apprentices possessing attributes at a similar level that of a knight could deal such a high damage had he not witnessed the battle with his own two eyes.

He initially never once thought wizard apprentices could actually aid him during a battle, but this company of wizard apprentices could easily ambush and even kill a formal wizard with such a formidable teamwork.

Lyn, too, finally showed her full capabilities after her mentality had fully recovered.

She applied a speed boost to everyone in the company. With the aid of energy particles, they were now traveling at an incredibly fast speed.

Although it was slower compared to Angele’s speed, they still arrived at Angele’s mansion in just two days, with Vivian there awaiting his arrival.