Chapter 63 - 62: Sewers

Chapter 63: Chapter 62: Sewers

"If it’s a gift, it’s not a trade. And if it’s not a trade, it’s not contraband. Put that way, it makes perfect sense. But the problem is, why would someone give away something so precious for free?" Gaode asked himself this, but he also wanted to ask Pierre.

To be honest, he already owed Pierre a great deal, and he knew he had no way of repaying him. Seeing Gaode freeze up, Pierre seemed to understand what he was thinking and offered a comforting smile.

"If I’m giving it to you, just take it. You’ll definitely find a use for these three pieces of magic.

"That little bit of money is useless to me anyway. It makes no difference whether I have it or not."

After a moment of thought, Pierre took out a pen and paper from the side of the counter. SCRIBBLE SCRIBBLE SCRIBBLE. He wrote down a few lines and handed it to Gaode.

"What is this?" Gaode took the note, still not quite processing it.

"This is my address in Bremen," Pierre explained. "If you ever go to Bremen one day and can’t find a place to stay, you can always come find me. Of course, if you take too long, I can’t guarantee I’ll still be around." The little old man laughed heartily.

Gaode fell silent. After a moment, he put the note away, placed a hand over his chest, and bowed his head sincerely. "Thank you."

***

After sending Gaode off, Pierre watched his back as he disappeared from sight with his bundle. He took a sip of tea, his gaze becoming distant and drifting.

Among Mages, there was a widely circulated saying: Magic is an exclusive domain open only to geniuses. But those who had truly experienced it knew that magic was an exclusive domain open only to the wealthy.

Someone with low talent might still become a High-tier Mage. But without money, it was absolutely impossible to become a High-tier Mage. People often said that studying magic was difficult, but there was a world of difference in the degree of difficulty.

For commoners, just making a living was hard enough. The difficulty of studying magic was thousands of times greater for them than for the children of wealthy families. He, too, was born a commoner. Relying on his own hard work, he had barely managed to carve out a narrow path for himself. Now, his path had come to an end. Seeing Gaode at a time like this felt like looking at his younger self.

When he was young, he had desperately hoped someone would reach out and give him a hand, but he never had that kind of luck. Since that was the case, he would be the one to reach out now. After all, it was just a small favor that cost him nothing.

Pierre sat in silence. He poured himself another cup of tea and downed it. GLUG GLUG GLUG.

***

"The precursors to an active Earth Vein... accumulation of Magic Power, Earth Vein Creatures multiplying... missing people..."

On his way back, Gaode kept repeating these keywords in his mind. He felt as though he had grasped a crucial detail, only to overlook it. He still couldn’t figure it out by the time he returned to the Medicinal Garden.

Stepping heavily into the Medicinal Garden with a lot on his mind, the troubled Gaode first headed to the field to check on the seedlings he had planted a while ago. Aitch and Raymond were tending to the medicinal seedlings, loosening the soil and applying fertilizer while chatting idly as they worked.

"Aitch, when you’ve been practicing the Guiding Technique lately, have you noticed that for some reason, the Magic Concentration seems to have increased a lot?" Raymond asked offhandedly.

"Yeah, absolutely. Practicing for two hours these past few days is almost as good as three hours used to be. It’s awesome!" Aitch exclaimed.

"I wonder what’s going on..."

"Who cares? It’s a good thing anyway..."

The two of them continued their casual banter.

However, Gaode froze in his tracks.

"The Magic Concentration has increased a lot?"

He immediately turned around, went back to his room, sat cross-legged, and quickly entered the Meditation State of the Guiding Technique. Just like usual, countless motes of Star Dust appeared in his consciousness, drifting around him. Only, this time, he could clearly sense that the number of these Star Dust particles had increased by almost fifty percent.

The next moment, Gaode abruptly opened his eyes, which were filled with astonishment.

Lately, he had been using Basic Magic Potions to practice the Guiding Technique. Because drinking Magic Potions skipped the step of guiding Magic Power into the body from the outside world, it wasn’t until today that he learned from the two apprentices that the ambient Magic Concentration had inexplicably risen so much.

"Why would the Magic Concentration suddenly increase..." Before the question could fully form in his mind, Gaode already had the answer. "It’s the accumulation of Magic Power!"

The two major precursors to a new Earth Vein—accumulation of Magic Power and an increase in Earth Vein Creatures—had both been verified at this moment.

"The Medicinal Garden is located in the suburbs, far from the city center and close to the wilderness, so it can detect changes in the Magic Concentration first." At the same time, he also figured out why such an obvious change in Magic Concentration hadn’t been noticed by the big shots in the city, including Pierre. It was because they lived closer to the center of Hogan City, where the effects of the Magic Power accumulation had yet to reach.

"A new Earth Vein really is going to be born... right outside Hogan City..." Although he couldn’t be one hundred percent certain, Gaode believed it was highly probable. He stood up and paced back and forth across the room, numerous thoughts constantly flashing through his mind.

"The accumulation of Magic Power has already affected the Medicinal Garden, which shows that the formation of the Earth Vein must have begun a long time ago," he deduced.

"Wait..." Gaode thought of something else. Two months ago, at Pierre Grocery Store, a City Guard had come to deliver a notice. At the time, the City Guard’s exact words were, "The number of Dark Swamp Crawlers in the city’s sewers has recently skyrocketed, and they’ve been unusually active."

If he replaced "Dark Swamp Crawlers" with their actual identity as "Earth Vein Creatures," didn’t that match perfectly with the anomaly that had been persisting outside the city for so long? And if he looked at it that way, the anomaly had actually appeared in the city two months ago.

"The sewers! It’s the sewers!" Subconsciously recalling his experience in the sewers, a pair of deep red eyes suddenly flashed through his mind. The puzzle that had troubled him for so long was finally solved. He might have just figured out where the Earth Vein Creature causing the strange incidents in the city had come from, and where it was hiding!

Two months ago, he went into the sewers to help Pierre clear out the Dark Swamp Crawlers, which was where he had obtained his second strand of Origin. As he was leaving, he had faintly seen a pair of deep red eyes in the gloom. However, the looming threat of Mage Seda had left him with no mind to dwell on the matter. As time passed, he had actually forgotten about it, only to suddenly recall it now.

How did the Earth Vein Creature bypass the outskirts of Hogan City and reach the central area directly? And how did it hide so well that it never exposed its tracks? This was what Pierre and the big shots in the city had been unable to figure out.

In reality, the answer was ridiculously simple. It just traveled through the sewers.

The surface was full of people. If it wanted to sneak into the central district silently, it would be extremely difficult—so it took the underground sewers. The City Guards searched back and forth, yet they could never find the hiding place of the suspected Earth Vein Creature. That was because they had never searched the sewers.

Why did the bizarre disappearances always occur near the commoner and commercial districts, while the slums remained completely safe? Because Hogan City’s sewer system was underdeveloped; only the wealthier areas had rudimentary drainage facilities. The slums had no sewer system to speak of. The poor simply discharged their daily wastewater directly into the streets and nearby rivers. More than once, Gaode had felt utterly disgusted by this when passing through the slums.

The so-called slime left at the scenes was probably just sewage from the sewers, right?

Everything finally had a reasonable explanation.