"Uh, it was just self-defense. I ran into a lunatic who had lost their mind."
"Don't lie. You don't strike me as some noob who only knows how to slaughter wild boars; your methods were ruthless. I happened to be in town buying supplies this afternoon, and your stellar performance was witnessed by yours truly."
Thorne's hand flipping the book stiffened. He turned his head to look, only to find Sellen gnawing on a fish head, too lazy to even glance at him.
"Your muscles are tensed up. Relax. Everyone has secrets; whether you want to talk about them or not is up to you."
Sellen put down her spoon and let out a burp, her blue eyes clear and peaceful. There was no hint of coercion, perhaps even a touch of pride.
Having spent half a month together, Thorne had long known Sellen was an oddball, yet he still gave a wry smile. "You are very impressive. I was completely oblivious."
There were too many people at the time, and his mind was in a whirl; it was impossible for him to have discovered a sorcerer hiding in the shadows.
"That's why you still have a lot to learn. Don't worry, I'm not interested in other people's secrets. Anyway, our relationship is very simple—" Sellen tossed the empty plate aside and smiled lightly: "You are my disciple. Never mind killing a few people; even if you burned down the Erdtree, that fact would never change."
Thorne had no need to doubt the truth of those words. He met her gaze for a few seconds, then silently got up to take the plate to the kitchen before pouring a cup of Hepa tea and placing it on the table.
"Teacher, have some tea."
Everything went without saying. For intelligent people, a gesture is often enough.
Those who like to get to the bottom of everything are far too foolish and could never have spent over a dozen days together.
Amidst the wisps of steam rising from the tea, aside from the rustling sound of turning pages, the two people, separated by a few meters, just buried themselves in their books, as if the conversation just now had been a hallucination.
Yet, in the silence, the two grew increasingly in sync.
Glintstone lamps lit up, Glintstone lamps went out. Days passed one by one. Thorne was becoming a model among traveling sorcerers.
Not only did he not cause trouble, he was even more enthusiastic about learning than the apprentices in proper classrooms. Every day, aside from staying in Sellen's room, he would go find Thops to study forcefields, to the point where the academy's higher-ups wanted to make him a role model. The academy and the town formed a straight line; life was as calm as water. Thorne only occasionally learned about things outside through the academy's information board. No one in Liurnia was willing to be the first to stick their neck out.
Perhaps because they discovered the academy was on guard, the Cuckoo Knights had quieted down a lot.
Aside from occasional raids by Albinaurics, Caria made no moves, just hiding in the northwest corner, quietly farming. No one even came to contact Thorne, the spy.
Yet the entire The Lands Between remained in constant turmoil. The Haligtree Army, led by the Valkyrie, had finally reached some sort of agreement with the capital, and was rolling down from the Altus Plateau, advancing south. Its vanguard had already stepped onto the Bellum Highway and would pass through Liurnia in a few days.
This finally caused ripples in the stagnant water.
Bang—
The door was pushed open heavily. Thorne, who was flipping through a sorcerer's notes, turned his head and saw Sellen walk in, fuming, cursing as she walked:
"Those brainless professors, what is there to discuss? Just close the gates and wait for the Haligtree Army to pass by; that would be the end of it. What a waste of time."
Before she even had to speak, a cup of tea was immediately placed on the table. Sellen picked it up skillfully and took a light sip; her mood indeed improved quite a bit. Over the last month, she had become increasingly accustomed to this kind of life.
"The academy has its own difficulties. Closing the school gates rashly would cause the Cuckoo Knights to misjudge the situation, but if they don't close them, they are afraid of being wiped out by the Valkyrie along the way." Thorne analyzed calmly from the side. During this period, his dark culinary skills had improved rapidly. "It's just cowardice, being content with the status quo, having long forgotten the vows of poverty."
Sellen smiled mockingly and asked casually:
"You're about to finish reading the collection of theses, right? Any thoughts?"
Thorne had read quite a few articles during this time. This didn't improve his ability to hack people, nor did it increase his intelligence, but theoretical knowledge was very useful. Learning magic in reality wasn't something you could master in a second just because your attribute points were enough. Knowing how to use it, being able to use it well, and being able to modify it—all relied on the accumulation of knowledge.
Now with some substance in his belly, Thorne pondered for a moment and replied: "Glintstone Sorcery hasn't had any breakthrough developments for a long time. It's just patching things up within a large framework, at most adding a bit of personal experience to modify the magic."
"That is because the starry sky is fixed. Sorcerers can no longer receive inspiration and simply stop seeking progress. But I am not willing to accept this. Since I cannot make the starry sky flow, I might as well trace back to the Origin."
Sellen tapped the tabletop with her slender fingers, her blue eyes narrowing slightly. "Watch your words. Primeval Sorcery is a taboo in the academy. Masters Azur and Lusat were both expelled because of it."
Thorne vaguely felt something was wrong and had to bite the bullet and interrupt.
Sellen looked at him without speaking. That gaze made one's skin crawl.
After a long while, she shook her head: "Sorcerers should discard everything to explore the unknown, rather than stagnating due to fear. By the way, I forgot to tell you something: Master Azur was my first teacher."
Thorne opened his mouth, but there was no way to respond to that. If he didn't fully understand Sellen, he would have already drawn his blade, prepared to resist being silenced.
"Why are you making such a dazed-duck expression?" Sellen laughed instead, resting her head on her hand, and smiled: "Could it be that you're going to run out and report me to the academy?"
"Uh, of course not." Thorne couldn't do that, either for public or private reasons, but he knew that researching Primeval Sorcery was too cruel.
It required turning sorcerers, or even oneself, into a ball, transforming into a 'star seed' to explore the Origin.
"Then that's that. If you're not willing to help, let's consider it even, since we now know each other's secrets." Sellen, of course, didn't know Thorne already had the answer.
She waved her hand nonchalantly, then pinched her rounded chin, her expression conflicted, and muttered to herself: "I'm just missing the method for creating the star seed. Damn it, that old hag Aira is watching me every day; there's no way to get that book."
This was Sellen's little habit; she didn't mean to entice him.
Thorne, who understood her very well, raised an eyebrow. So she still doesn't know how to make a sorcerer ball?? This was like having the answer but not the formula, enough to drive any scholar mad.
Thorne looked at the conflicted Sellen again and suddenly had an idea. Perhaps I can help by sabotaging this? People always have feelings.
Having stayed with Sellen for so long and learned so much, how could he let her become the infamous Graven-Mass Witch, eventually turning herself into a sorcerer ball that causes people's SAN to plummet? And this wasn't defying his teacher. If one wanted to explore the Origin, there was actually another way.
"Teacher, how about I help you with this?" Thorne had an idea and spoke decisively.
"You?" Sellen looked at him, initially somewhat dazed, but upon thinking about it carefully, it couldn't be more fitting.
She had long seen that Thorne was no ordinary person, and his reputation was excellent; the academy would never suspect him.
Even so, she didn't agree immediately. "Think it over carefully. Pursuing the Origin requires discarding everything and taking huge risks. If you just want to repay me, there's no need. Master and disciple can part ways; I don't want to owe anyone."
Sellen's expression was extremely serious, without a hint of joking. This could be considered a form of mental cleanliness. Thorne had long figured this woman out.
He raised the collection of theses in his hand. "Teacher, these things can no longer satisfy me. If you know it's a dead end, why not switch to another path early?"
"How arrogant. But that's true. If you study for many more years, you will only find that this path is already broken." Sellen straightened up slightly and asked, word by word, "I'll remind you one more time: the Origin is a way out, but it is also a taboo. Are you prepared to discard everything? For example, if one day you have to turn me into a seed, I will only admire your choice."
Ruthless enough! Thorne applauded these mad scientists in his heart.
Actually, it wasn't as simple as just helping by sabotaging; theoretical study was about done, and now it was time to put it into practice. "I have already thought it through." "Are you sure? The success rate is almost zero." Sellen was serious to the extreme. Thorne wore a smile; his face, illuminated by the Glintstone lamp, looked incredibly insane. "If you don't try, how would you know?"
Chapter 29: Now This is Called an Assassination
The full moon hung high, and the huge Gothic-style building fell into silence.
Sorcerers were not soldiers; aside from a small number of unlucky ones on night watch rotation, most were lying in bed, fast asleep. They still had to attend classes, conduct experiments, and write theses the next day; who had the energy to go wandering around?
Yet, in the moonlight, a figure was climbing up the outer wall of the majestic building. The wall went straight up, and the wild night wind whipped his clothes into a frenzy. Thorne had his staff clamped between his teeth, climbing up the rope with agility unimaginable for a sorcerer.
Because this place was so high, a single gust of night wind would often send him swaying uncontrollably, and beneath him lay a sheer cliff hundreds of meters deep. Thorne didn't look down; he gripped the rope tightly, eyes locked on the balcony above. The academy was generally tight on the outside but loose on the inside, though that didn't mean there were no defenses within. Especially at night, using the waterwheel to travel between floors required registration.
He didn't want to expose his identity. He jumped from a corner on the second floor, taking a detour along a rope he had prepared beforehand. He hadn't forgotten his goal in coming here. That "model student" persona was just a facade. In the end, he still had to complete his mission as a spy. That was why he had been scouting the area these past few days, sketching out the internal layout of the academy and its defensive forces, and stashing away some small tools.
He climbed to the end of the rope, used one hand to vault over, rolled onto the railing, and leaped inside. Then he wiped the cold sweat from his forehead. "Good thing I learned a few tricks from the Wolf." Samurai weren't known for infiltration, but he was still far more professional than those burly, arrogant Cuckoo Knights in The Lands Between. He crouched on the ground to catch his breath, his mind visualizing the layout of the fourth floor. He was currently in the northwest corner.
He needed to traverse a long corridor, cross the courtyard, and climb over a half-story high wall. That was where the academy's secret archives were kept. Since the Queen of the Full Moon was under house arrest in the Grand Library, some important documents had been moved out. But getting there wouldn't be easy. "There are ten puppet soldiers in the corridor, and lecturer dormitories on both sides, with dozens of sorcerers sleeping inside.
Today, the courtyard duty should be the turn of the Karolos Conspectus, which is easier to deal with than the Haima Classroom, but those magic professors live in the high towers nearby. If they hear even a whisper, they'll come over and blast me to smithereens." Thorne pondered for a moment. The place was filled with magic detectors that would sound an alarm if anything exceeded a certain threshold, so the black magic of Sellia wouldn't work either. It was practically an impossible mission. "Good thing I'm not a sorcerer."
Thorne stood up, put on a mask from the Olivinus Classroom, then tore open his clothes and stumbled forward. The rooms on this floor were quite old, unlike Sellen's, which had its own private bathroom. The communal restroom was at the very end. The glintstone lamps on the corridor walls flickered with a faint light. Puppet soldiers hung from the ceiling; if an alarm were triggered, they would jump down immediately. However, they were so used to seeing sorcerers getting up in the middle of the night to urinate that the puppets didn't react.
Thorne hid his staff in his sleeve and slowed his pace slightly as he passed the entrance to the courtyard. He immediately saw the four sorcerers guarding the spot. They were chatting, and after casting a glance at him, they quickly looked away. There were no shortage of sorcerers who considered their masks to be a part of their bodies, so there was nothing unusual to see.
'I can't get into the courtyard; I can't kill all four of them instantly.' Thorne continued walking forward, actually went into the restroom to relieve himself, and then wandered back, looking dazed.
But this time, he walked extremely slowly and checked the magic clock hanging on the wall. Four in the morning. Number 406 on the left should be getting up to urinate soon. In fact, Thorne had climbed up to the fourth floor many times over the past month, not to do anything in particular, but just to lie on the balcony floor and observe the sorcerers getting up to pee. It sounded a bit perverted, but in reality, it was something the Wolf had taught him. A skilled hunter makes ample preparations before making a move. Click. The sound of a door lock turning came.
Most sorcerers had a bit of obsessive-compulsive disorder, setting their daily schedules with extreme precision. This was where lazy people had an advantage, as assassins couldn't find any patterns to exploit. A trainee lecturer from the Karolos Conspectus opened the door. As someone with severe obsessive-compulsive disorder, even the number of steps he took to the restroom was the same every day, but today, he paused on the very first step. "Hmm?" He groggily saw a colleague standing at the door and subconsciously said, "Ekarlo, your room is in..."
Before he could finish, Thorne lunged at him, slipped under his arm, wrapped his hands around the man's neck, and fell backward, taking the man with him while lightly kicking the door shut. Thud—bang. The sound of his back hitting the floor and the sound of the door closing came one after another without making much noise. But on the floor inside the room, the veins in Thorne's forearms bulged; clearly, he was using his full strength. The sorcerer pinning him down thrashed his limbs, clearly in extreme pain, but his legs, which were about to kick the door, were trapped by Thorne's own legs.
He could only flail his hands around like a drowning man. Hrrgh, hrrgh, hrrgh... The hoarse sounds of struggle grew weaker and weaker. After a dozen seconds, he completely lost all strength. Thorne pushed the corpse with the twisted neck to the side and stood up after taking a few deep breaths. His strength was not inferior to a Cuckoo Knight; a groggy sorcerer had absolutely no room to resist. "My intelligence has indeed improved, though it's a pity such a good thing only happens once." Thorne felt the power he had plundered.
It looked easy. But in reality, if they were on an open plain, he might not be able to defeat this trainee lecturer.
"Too bad I'm an all-rounder!"
With a sinister smile, he looked to the other side of the room, where the window faced the quiet courtyard. Without hesitation, he stuffed the mask and robes into his spirit-calling ring. He changed into ronin armor, hung star-frost at his waist, opened the window, and leaped out.
His toes touched the ground. His body was hidden in the shadows of the moonlight. Thorne moved quietly along the wall. Halfway there, he suddenly stopped.
Ahead, a sorcerer was pacing back and forth, looking up and yawning from time to time. Thorne crawled forward along the damp lawn and lay motionless in the bushes. Time passed, but he wasn't the least bit impatient, waiting until the man walked in front of the bushes.
Swish.
Armor scraped against the bushes, sending a few fallen leaves into the air. The sorcerer leaned back instinctively, his entire face filled with immense terror. Someone jumping out of the bushes in the middle of the night—what the hell, was that a ghost? Only a split second later did reason overcome instinct.
"Ene—"
Pfft!
A foot-long dagger stabbed into the throat, burying up to the hilt, even tearing through the cervical spine. A jet of blood sprayed onto Thorne's face. The word "attack" would never be uttered in this lifetime. He shoved the man forward a few steps and then kicked him in the chest. Momentum pushed the man out, and the not-yet-dead sorcerer felt his legs hanging in the air. Looking down, he saw a bottomless cliff. While the sorcerer was still on his way to becoming meat paste, Thorne, at the edge of the cliff, spun around and sprinted forward without stopping for a single step.
In just a few breaths, he had run over twenty meters, swiped his spirit-calling ring, and drew a loaded light crossbow. There was a gazebo in the garden with another sorcerer standing on top of it. He had heard the commotion and happened to look toward the cliff, then, by the moonlight, saw a dark figure charging toward him.
!?
The academy had never been invaded before, so his brain was momentarily confused. Then he heard the 'click' of the crossbow mechanism, and a cold glint magnified in his pupils.
Pfft.
At a distance of ten meters, the bolt pierced directly through his glintstone mask, freezing all his thoughts in his brain. Momentum took over, and his body fell backward off the gazebo. The last remaining nerves fed him a sensation of gentle touch. Thorne, who had just happened to run to the bottom of the gazebo, caught him. His movements were so gentle, as if he were embracing a newlywed wife, and then he placed the body lightly into the fountain nearby.
"The third one." The slaughter under the full moon was smooth and flowing.
If it weren't for the fact that he had to do something for Sellen tonight, he would have killed every sorcerer on the fourth floor, given such a rare opportunity. There wasn't enough time, so he decided to let it go.
He looked ahead. The courtyard bushes ended, giving way to a flight of stairs twenty meters long. Above the stairs stood two sorcerers, a wooden door behind them. Dawn was approaching. He had to pick up the pace. It was now five in the morning.
The sun had not yet risen, but the Erdtree was slowly brightening. People were at their drowsiest. Thorne took out a fire pot, tied it to the gazebo's rafters with a rope, and then used his dagger to cut halfway through the rope. The hemp rope stretched and tore under gravity's pull. Estimating the time, Thorne climbed to the end of the bushes, crouched down, and held a light crossbow in each hand. He took a deep breath, his gaze turning sharp as a blade. Charge!
With his toes touching the ground, he charged out violently, exposing himself completely on the stairs. The full moon was bright and round; he couldn't hide his figure. The sorcerers, already on higher ground, immediately spotted him.
"Who goes there!?"