Not long after Lynn returned, the First-Rank wizard of the Root School burst out of the inn in a fury.
Flashes of spell-light flickered rapidly between his hands, fanning out across the streets in all directions.
Lynn understood immediately that this was the man scanning the area for the assailant.
Blending in with a few bystanders caught in the sweep, Lynn stood quietly at the roadside, presenting a harmless front while carefully observing the wizard's results.
The man's sharp gaze swept across them, lingered for the briefest instant, then moved on. His expression darkened further as he glanced around.
Even a First-Rank wizard couldn't detect the killer? Such a powerful concealment?
Lynn's chest tightened, though another possibility struck him at once.
No… It's more likely the murderer used some kind of remote method. The caster himself may not even be nearby!
And if it was a long-range technique, it almost certainly required a medium, quite possibly that faint, invisible substance Lynn had discovered earlier.
At that thought, he quietly invoked Serpent Sense. In his heat-vision sight, the frigid night-shrouded Blackstone City glowed blue, with only the nearby wizards and a few lit windows showing warm orange.
He turned his head slowly, scanning the area without betraying his attention.
The First-Rank wizard, Moore, was making quite a scene, enough that distant silhouettes of city-guard wizards could already be seen approaching through the night sky.
But after a thorough sweep, Lynn still found no trace of the invisible substance.
Could it be… I missed it while I moved away earlier. Did it already leave the inn?
His eyes narrowed. Quietly, Lynn slipped away to a nearby clock tower.
From its top, the surroundings lay clear before him.
Moore had returned to the inn, apparently trying to stabilize the unconscious Root apprentice. The city guards had yet to arrive, and passersby hurried away from the disturbance.
The streets were hushed and frigid. Lynn waited with patience.
At last, on a street just south of the Gilt Inn, he spotted it, a faint red blotch hovering in the air.
His eyes narrowed to slits. He descended the clock tower at once.
...
"Damn it! The intel was wrong. They said no First-Rank wizard was accompanying them, but there clearly is one lurking in the shadows!"
In a remote alley, the unfamiliar wizard Tami was muttering curses. He had already changed into a local white robe common in Blackstone City, strolling the street as though nothing was amiss.
After injecting poison with his Aphid Disc, Tami had planned to direct his insects to ransack Lynn Kent's possessions. But scarcely moments later, the targeted apprentice had collapsed, and then a First-Rank wizard appeared.
Abandoning his original plan without hesitation, Tami had chosen to retreat. Now, he was only waiting for the return of his precious Aphid Disc.
As he passed a narrow lane, his steps faltered. He turned, casting a glance toward the sky some distance away.
Nothing was visible. But through his link, Tami knew the disc was right there, on its way back.
Relaxing slightly, he stepped into the alley.
Swish!
Without warning, the air behind him rippled, and a shadow stepped forth.
Tami's reflexes were sharp, but the figure was too close and far faster!
Crunch! Crack!
"AAAHHH!!"
Two arms wreathed in slicing air-currents swept in from both sides, tearing through flesh and bone. In an instant, both of Tami's arms were ripped apart.
Blood sprayed as his screams split the night.
The severed limbs hit the cobblestones. Lynn seized Tami by his shattered shoulders, then drove a brutal kick toward his legs.
Tami was no coward; through the agony of mutilated arms, he still managed to conjure a defensive spell.
A faint red shield shimmered, halting Lynn's kick. The desperate protection bought him a moment to breathe. He was just about to counterattack when he heard the ominous crack of his shield failing.
Crunch!
The next heartbeat brought the same searing agony to his legs. Tami collapsed, a full head shorter now.
With every strike, Lynn's body erupted with razor-sharp White Crow sword-qi. Combined with his new physical strength, each punch and kick was like a frenzied buzzsaw, rending through defenses with terrifying force.
By contrast, Tami's real strength lay in his insects. His defensive spells were crude, barely functional, and at close range, they could never withstand Lynn's onslaught.
Rustle
Pale green vines erupted beneath Tami, twining upward to bind his mangled body tight.
Lynn pressed a hand against his abdomen, channeling mana to disrupt and scatter Tami's magical core. In an instant, the man was left unable to cast spells at all.
Still, he shrieked, hoping to draw attention.
But Lynn's first action had been to lay down a Silencing Barrier. Every sound within a meter was swallowed whole.
Most wizard-apprentices couldn't cast multiple spells at once. A single mind could only hold one model at a time.
Lynn was no exception. But his earlier assault hadn't required a spell at all.
Those had been White Crow Swordsmanship paired with brute flesh. One drawn from his mana cluster, the other from his hardened body, neither counted as a spell.
So in truth, across the whole fight, Lynn had cast only two spells: the Silencing Barrier at the start, and the entangling Green Vines at the end.
The mangled, pale-faced Tami stared at him, gasping:
"Sir… we have no grievance between us. Why attack me like this? If it's money you want, take it, just spare my life!"
Tami realized there was a Silencing Barrier, and when he also felt the spiral of his mana unraveling inside him, despair washed over him. He begged without hesitation.
"Who sent you after me?" Lynn asked evenly, his face shifting back to its original appearance.
Tami froze, then slowly raised his head only for his pupils to contract sharply.
"Lynn Kent…?!"
He had never expected the person standing before him to be Lynn!
The Aphid Disc was tiny, its functions limited to attachment, concealment, envenomation, and retrieval. It couldn't identify the exact host it had latched onto.
So Tami had believed, up until this very moment, that he had successfully poisoned Lynn…
"You discovered the Aphid Disc? Impossible!
"And you actually broke free of its grip, that's not possible!" Tami muttered in disbelief.
Lynn couldn't make sense of that last claim, since he hadn't found the disc particularly difficult to remove.
"When the Aphid Disc touches human skin, it anchors itself. Within the next hour, it silently fuses into the flesh. At that point, detection is almost impossible.
"And removing it… unless I command it to detach, the only way is to cut off that patch of skin…"
Tami went on, perhaps stalling for time.
But his rambling was enough for Lynn to piece things together. He gave a thin smile.
"My skin isn't like ordinary people's."
After advancing his body to First Rank, Lynn always kept his blood-qi armor active.
Its defense was only equal to a typical Tier-0 Intermediate spell, but when not under attack, its consumption was negligible.
Running it constantly cost him nothing more than a few extra meals a day, not a burden at all.
So Lynn maintained it at all times. Which meant that the Aphid Disc had never actually managed to penetrate his skin in the first place.
"Who sent you?" Lynn pressed again, his tone firm.
Tami's eyes flickered. "If I tell you… Will you let me live?"
A cold snort was the only reply. Lynn's foot lashed out, slamming into Tami's abdomen and scattering the faint mana he had been secretly gathering.
Tami groaned, staring up at the boy's cold expression, and despair gripped him.
When Lynn attacked, he had already been at arm's length. Most of Tami's techniques were long-range; at such close quarters, he had only managed to cast a single defensive spell before being utterly crushed.
Such concealment… such detection… such terrifying offense…
Regret welled in Tami's chest. He gave a bitter laugh.
"I'm from the Scarlet Syndicate, a hired killer. This was just a job. I don't know who the employer was."
Lynn's brows furrowed. He knew of the Scarlet Syndicate Anderson had mentioned in his final lecture. They were a large and highly secretive assassins' guild.
He continued questioning Tami. The man, wracked with pain, could offer little more.
It seemed he truly was only a contracted killer, with no knowledge of the one who had ordered the hit.
The trail abruptly ended there. Lynn frowned deeply, mind racing over who might want him dead.
After a moment's silence, he asked again:
"Tell me the full details of the contract."
The killer might not know the mastermind, but perhaps the specifics of the job would provide clues.
"The details…" Tami's face was pale, his voice weak from blood loss. But haltingly, he recited them.
And in that account, Lynn caught a crucial point.
"The description said I possessed a powerful stealth spell?"
"Y-yes… Please, spare me, I'll pay compensation in stones…" Tami begged, voice faltering as blood poured from his ruined limbs. He was already at death's door.
Expressionless, Lynn pressed him again until the man could no longer speak. Then, drawing his silver-wrist sword, he finished it cleanly.
Only three people know about my mastery of stealth techniques, Lynn thought grimly.
Three fellow apprentices, who had worked with him on the arcane nexus installation task.
Wilfrid…
The name surfaced in his mind as he wiped his blade and began searching Tami's body.
He found the brood insect lodged in the killer's chest, as well as the returning Aphid Disc, but with Tami's death, both swiftly lost all vitality.
All Lynn gained in the end was five Intermediate stones, a handful of basic ones, and a few worthless trinkets.
...
"Stay close and don't fall behind."
Beside the teleportation array, Morrison's voice rang out.
The Goldthorns were stepping into the formation in order.
Their next stop was the Thousand Lakes Wizard Territory. They would not remain there for long before teleporting again straight to the Silverring Academy.
Lynn stood calmly on the array, his expression composed.
Because the Gilt Hotel wasn't far from their last stop, word of last night's incident had already spread among the apprentices, and some were discussing it in hushed tones.
"Lynn, I heard the unlucky apprentice who was attacked last night was one of those five we ran into yesterday. Isn't that great news?" Caroline whispered gleefully beside him.
"Is that so? I slept soundly last night. I didn't hear a thing," Lynn replied with a faint smile.
"Given their attitude yesterday, I'm not surprised in the least someone went after them. Only a pity I couldn't see the look on his face when it happened," Caroline went on, looking very pleased with herself.
Lynn chuckled softly. "Perhaps they aren't that way to everyone…"
Caroline nodded, and beside her, Leah seemed eager to join the conversation when Morrison's voice cut in from ahead:
"Enough chatter. Back to your places. The array is activating."
A flash of white light engulfed them, and in the next instant, the Goldthorn apprentices vanished.
...
In a waiting hall elsewhere:
"…You mean to say, you suspect the killer was one of those apprentices who clashed with you yesterday, the ones wearing the Thorn badge?"
First-Circle Wizard Moore frowned at the just-awakened Hernant, then shook his head.
"Impossible. You're mistaken. Last night, the city wardens of Blackstone found a corpse in an alley near the Gilt Hotel. I suspect the killer was tied to that body.
"Unfortunately, we're bound for the Silverring Academy. There's no time to investigate further. For now, we let the matter rest."
Hernant opened his mouth to protest, but Moore cut him off with cool indifference.
"Focus on recovering. This exchange at the Silverring Academy is what truly matters for you."
Hernant's face shifted between frustration and resignation before he finally gave a stiff nod.
...
High above the earth, thousands of meters in the air.
Dark clouds churned overhead, heavy with rain.
Violet-blue lightning flickered across the mirrored surface of a towering silver spire, one of the tallest buildings in the Silverring Academy, swallowing and disgorging endless streams of travelers.
On the eighty-ninth floor, Lynn followed Morrison out of the teleportation circle, his gaze caught by the view through the massive windows.
The skies above the academy were oppressive, the plains below dim and crowded with towers and castles packed so tightly together that only faint silhouettes and the glimmer of windows could be seen.
It carried the suffocating density of a cyberpunk city from his past life, teeming with movement and prosperity, yet here there were no neon lights, only strange architecture and stranger beings flitting between the spires.
Crack!
A jagged bolt split the heavens, driving back the darkness for a heartbeat.
Lynn's pupils contracted. In that flash, he glimpsed the edge of something colossal.
Silver-gray, looming above the clouds…
He craned his neck. Another lightning strike tore through the sky, and this time he saw it clearly.
A massive ring-shaped fortress, suspended high in the air, wreathed in storm clouds and lightning, with only a portion of its vast, curved body visible through the gloom.
The emblem of the academy itself
The Silverring Fortress.
At last… he had arrived at the Silverring Academy.
-support me in Patreon for more chapter, 145+ chapters in there
patreon.com/AetherTL