118: Chapter 118 Familiar Pattern

It was estimated that Ska City hadn't produced a wizard in a hundred years.

On the rare occasion an apprentice appeared, they either left for distant lands to pursue the path of a wizard or sacrificed their life for the city while purging Corruptors.

Since no one had returned in all these years, those apprentices who left had most likely perished.

Audrey likely wouldn't have expected him to reach the peak of the First Ring so quickly.

Even if she had known, she might not have left behind a promotion potion; whether she even had one was a question in itself.

That wasn't even the worst part.

According to Valk, Audrey seemed to have been forced here for certain reasons, so most stationed wizards were different from her.

The most obvious difference was strength; the cities surrounding Ska City were all stationed with wizards below the First Ring.

Despite the high death toll among apprentices, a significant number of First-Ring Wizards had also died.

The order of death in a city was: apprentices first, then First-Ring Wizards, followed by mass casualties among ordinary people.

In such situations, the only option was to seek reinforcements and have the The Federation dispatch stronger wizards to handle it.

Moreover, Witch Apprentices were one in ten thousand, and those who actually became wizards were even fewer; it was only thanks to the Crimson Holy Blade that every city could have a wizard.

If Nie Ning wanted to advance to the Second Rank, his only choice would be to join a wizard organization, though he likely wouldn't be able to obtain the potion in the short term.

After all, wizard organizations weren't charities that handed out potions to every newcomer; it would likely take several years of effort.

In such an extreme environment, the difficulty for Nie Ning to become a Second Ring Wizard could well be imagined.

...

Hervais Manor.

The garden.

Nie Ning was weeding, while in the nearby gazebo, Lilith was playing with the Three-Colored Fox, and Norma was leaning against a stone pillar, staring at Nie Ning.

Feeling the gaze from behind, Nie Ning truly had a bitterness in his heart that he couldn't voice.

Ever since Norma discovered his identity, she always looked at him with a very peculiar gaze.

Fortunately, Norma hadn't done anything out of line, nor had she told Lilith about his identity.

Furthermore, when he slept for a whole day after killing Wade a few days ago, Norma had even helped him ask Lilith for time off, which completely shocked Nie Ning.

Of course, she still didn't miss a chance to taunt him with sarcasm whenever she could.

Nie Ning couldn't help but miss the old days.

At least back then, Norma didn't know he could speak and would at most roll her eyes at him.

Now, she didn't even bother hiding her insults, and she wouldn't stop until she'd thrown a few sarcastic barbs his way.

She also frequently snuck into his room in the middle of the night just to see if he was home, then used her superb Breath-Concealing Technique to hide and scare him.

If it weren't for his strong will, he probably would have been scared into swearing out loud long ago.

As a result, every time he returned now, he had to activate his Strange Beast Body to sniff out if Norma was hiding somewhere.

However, since Norma advanced to the Great Knight level recently, perhaps due to some secret technique of the Yuelan Church or some power of the Moon Goddess, his Strange Beast Body had become less sensitive than before.

Moreover, Nie Ning was very curious—was the Yuelan Sect really this lenient?

From what he knew, the headquarters of the Yuelan Church didn't seem to be in the Wilbes Republic.

As someone capable of summoning the Moon Goddess, would they really just let Norma stay in a place like this?

While Norma might be reluctant to leave Lilith, for a church, this didn't seem to make much sense.

Of course, it was also possible that the sect wasn't as strict as he imagined.

After all, this was an era where people had begun talking about personal freedom, so a more lenient management style wasn't that hard to understand.

...

With the work in the garden finished, Lilith told Nie Ning to go back and rest.

But immediately afterward, Lilith walked over to Norma and gave her a nudge, as she was staring at Nie Ning's departing back.

"What's wrong with you lately? You're always staring at Bronk. Do you like him?"

Lilith asked curiously.

Although Bronk was a bit dull and couldn't hear or speak, he wasn't bad-looking and didn't cause trouble.

Norma used to ignore Nie Ning, but she had changed recently, often staring at him in a daze, and no one knew what she was thinking.

"How is that possible? I was just thinking about something."

Upon hearing this, Norma immediately denied it.

"Liar. If you're thinking about something, why do you have to stare at him? I don't see you staring at me."

Lilith winked mischievously, then put on a look of sudden realization. "It seems like you've been like this since he started blind dating. Could it be..."

Before Lilith could finish, Norma covered her mouth.

"If you keep talking nonsense, I won't deliver your letters next time."

Norma gave Lilith a sharp look and spoke irritably.

"Fine, I won't say it."

As she spoke, Lilith's eyes darted around, and she teased again, "Look, you're angry again. I must have guessed right."

"I'll give you something to talk about!"

Norma began tickling Lilith's waist, making her burst into laughter.

For a moment, the two of them played and frolicked together.

...

After returning to his room, Nie Ning began leafing through the books Audrey had left behind, hoping to find a way to advance without a promotion potion.

Although Nie Ning knew the possibility was slim.

However, if others could make potions, there was no reason he couldn't; perhaps he could try making the potion himself.

But the difficulty was significant; after all, his understanding of pharmacology was only average.

He was good at taking medicine, but making it was another story.

Furthermore, despite being a wizard for so long and having formidable strength, he was actually just a half-baked wizard.

He only had a superficial understanding of the knowledge a wizard needed to master.

He learned half of most things from books and relied on his own guesses and fabrications for the other half.

Suddenly, Nie Ning thought of Wade—more accurately, the spatial ring Wade had left behind!

He had been so overwhelmed by the business with the Sludge Monster earlier that he had temporarily forgotten about it.

Nie Ning took the spatial ring out from a slit in his belt.

Wade's spatial ring mostly contained clothing, followed by some jars and bottles, and a few books.

Without much thought, Nie Ning took out the clothes and headed for the stove.

They were useless to him, so he might as well use them as kindling.

But just as Nie Ning threw the clothes into the stove's opening, he caught sight of a familiar pattern embroidered on them.

At that moment, Nie Ning's expression became very grim.

A Bird-shaped pattern was embroidered on the clothes, identical to the pattern found on the assassins who had kidnapped Lilith!

Only then did Nie Ning realize why Wade had harbored such great malice toward him.

It was possible that Bunir's encounter with the assassins really was related to Lilith.

After saving Bunir twice in a row, it was only natural for Wade to know he was the one who saved him, as he was the only wizard in all of Ska City.

"They truly haven't given up!"

A look of ruthlessness flashed in Nie Ning's eyes.

He had originally thought that sending a Great Knight was their limit, but he hadn't expected this group to be able to mobilize a wizard!

Fortunately, he had killed Wade by chance; otherwise, with Wade's insane methods, Lilith might have actually been harmed.

But now was clearly not the time to focus on that.

In any case, as long as he was in Ska City, no one would ever harm Lilith.

Anyone who touches her dies!

...