Chapter 772: The Ancient Court of the Pale Pilgrimage and the Black Wizard Team Leader

Patty drove the carriage with great care, exercising extreme caution for fear of alerting the seven First Circle gasification black wizards, and in her eyes Locke was nothing more than a first-class wizard apprentice.

What she did not realize was that at this moment Locke was paying the matter almost no mind whatsoever.

For he currently had two options before him. The first was to follow this group to the black wizard alliance and, along the way, have a friendly exchange with the leader of the Ghost Sacred Order.

The second option was to simply strike down six of them, leave one alive, and use that one to make his way to the black wizard alliance conference venue.

Either choice was of no consequence to Locke.

Locke exchanged a few brief words with Patty and learned of the current situation in the southeastern quadrant.

A year ago, the southeastern quadrant had still been in a state where the black wizard alliance was being suppressed by the White Wizard Association and was suffering continuous defeats. But a year ago, the situation had suddenly changed.

A mysterious force had abruptly intervened, bolstering the black wizard factions of the southeastern quadrant, and a year ago had organized an operation that appeared on the surface to be an assault on the Four Seasons Garden, but was in reality a sudden strike against Virdantia University.

This operation had subsequently come to be known as the Black Wizard Grand Raid.

Virdantia University's main body of wizards had already departed from headquarters before that assault, and with no means of reversing the situation, the university had been forced to abandon its base and disperse, letting its students and wizard mentors each fight their own way out.

Patty had initially escaped, but half a year ago, because the mundane countries had so little magical tide, her magical power had been declining steadily. She had only recently broken through to second-class wizard apprentice and, in order to prevent herself from dropping back down to third-class, she had sought out some magical resources after her magical energy ran dry.

She had entered a magical market in one of the mundane countries, only to be seized there by people from the Blood Curse Court and subjected to a blood curse.

Locke listened to the account of Patty's ordeal and paused for a moment.

He had only just reminded himself that this was the southeastern quadrant, not the prosperous Cloud Marsh Wetlands.

In the Cloud Marsh Wetlands, the regions of mundane countries were saturated with magical tides, while in the southeastern quadrant the major wizard academies themselves relied on vast arrays of magical formations to gather the surrounding magical tides and raise the local concentration of magic, leaving the mundane countries as near-null-magic zones.

A wizard of weak power who remained in such a place for an extended period would find their strength doing nothing but declining.

Locke looked at his right hand. After using Pinellia and summoning the Lunar Cultivation Method, he had incurred a loss of magic pressure with no way to recover it promptly.

After all, the southeastern quadrant was simply too impoverished for someone like him.

Shallow water cannot raise a large fish.

And a large fish in a shallow pool grows increasingly uncomfortable over time.

'Nearly all the resources here are useless to a Second Circle wizard,' Locke reflected. 'And so Second Circle wizards here are few.'

'Of course, according to the materials I consulted in the Cloud Marsh Wetlands' free library, beyond that, the White Wizard Association also does not want wizards of too high a circle entering a weak wizard territory.'

'Prolonged residence, or carrying out certain major actions here, would attract special attention from the Association's Ethics and Morality Review Committee, as well as visits from the various bureau directors stationed in this wizard territory. Yet I have been in this wizard territory for some time now and none of those bureau directors have come to call on me. Either they are already struggling to keep things together on their own, or they have simply not yet detected my presence...'

Locke turned the matter over in his mind.

In any case, this was sufficient to indicate that the intensity of the war in the southeastern quadrant was escalating.

The local White Wizard Association, which should have been paying close attention to the passenger manifests of wizard floating vessels, had not even sent anyone to make contact with a Second Circle wizard returning home to visit family.

That in itself was highly abnormal.

Locke said to Patty, "Once this matter is concluded, I can write you a letter of introduction to study at Lilith’s Cottage."

Patty paused, a little slow to process what he had said.

Did a first-class wizard apprentice hold such standing at Lilith’s Cottage?

That a single word from him could allow her to study there on loan?

But Patty did not decline. After all, she was currently in desperate straits, and if she could obtain the protection of Lilith’s Cottage, that would be more than she could ask for.

Patty continued driving the carriage as she said to Locke in a low voice, "But Locke, I have already swallowed that cursed blood those wretched black wizards fed me. I am already in a state of being neither alive nor dead."

"In a condition like this, can I still return to the white wizard community?"

Patty's expression was one of complete despair.

Locke furrowed his brow with a slight curiosity, lifted the carriage curtain, and ignited a flame of primordial fire at his fingertip. He then placed his finger against her back, and in the next instant the primordial fire entered her body.

He applied the Reverse Refining method, drawing out her spirituality, and then set ablaze a vivid red blood bead within the portion of her spirituality that had left her body. The blood bead was instantly burned away by the primordial fire.

Her spirituality then returned of its own accord entirely back into her body.

Locke said, "There. The cursed blood within your body is gone."

"You no longer need to worry about becoming a blood thrall."

Outside the carriage, Patty pulled up her sleeve and found that the blood threads that were supposed to appear on one's arm after swallowing cursed blood had indeed vanished without a trace. This confirmed that she truly no longer needed to fear becoming a blood thrall.

Patty's eyes went wide. After a long moment, she suddenly addressed Locke in a tone filled with respect and said quietly, "Lord Locke, thank you."

By this point, even someone as slow to notice as she was could not fail to sense that Locke was very likely not a first-class wizard apprentice.

That had been a curse placed on her by the Blood Curse Court's apprentice who was closest of all to becoming a formal wizard, and Locke had lifted it in an instant. There was only one explanation: Locke was very probably a formal wizard.

And in the southeastern quadrant, the difference in standing between a formal wizard and a wizard apprentice was as vast as the distance between heaven and earth.

This was something Patty had already come to understand during her time at Virdantia University.

At this moment, her voice carried a reverence and awe she could not entirely suppress.

Locke sat back inside the carriage and let out a quiet sigh.

There was truly no going back to the way things had been.

In the past, he and Patty had been able to walk together along the sun-dappled paths of Aurelius Academy on Corfu, discussing magical texts with easy laughter. But now Patty was a second-class wizard apprentice, and he was a Second Circle wizard.

The gap between them was simply too great.

Even if he personally wished to stay true to where he had come from, Patty on her part could not manage to be the same person she had been in his memories.

As it stood now, this was already the best possible outcome. If she were to learn that he was a Second Circle wizard, the estrangement between them would likely only grow wider.

But one must always look forward.

On the road he had traveled, the number of fellow travelers had only grown.

As long as one kept pressing toward higher institutions, one would always encounter more people who, like oneself, were in pursuit of where truth lay.

Locke sat inside the carriage and asked Patty, "Patty, how many Second Circle wizards appeared during the Black Wizard Grand Raid?"

Patty said, "Tw... two. It was terrifying. The moment they appeared, I could not breathe. I only heard two people on the black wizard side laughing and declaring themselves to be Second Circle wizards..."

"Our Virdantia University's Second Circle wizard bureau director was quickly struck into a serious injury by the two of them working together."

"Although all of this I only heard from others secondhand."

Locke was not surprised by this. He sat inside the carriage, making fine adjustments to all of his botanical spell models.

One day later, the magical carriage convoy arrived at the former site of Virdantia University.

Where once a magnificent cluster of white buildings had stood, everything had now been uprooted and comprehensively destroyed, leaving nothing behind but a heap of ruins and rubble.

Over the course of that day, Locke had used the water hyacinth system to inquire with Wizard Kelt and learned what the skeletal hand banner represented.

The Pale Pilgrimage Hidden Spirit Ground.

That was the emblem of one of the five major black wizard factions of the Cloud Marsh Wetlands.

In other words, the southeastern quadrant had behind it the backing of one of the Cloud Marsh Wetlands' five major black wizard factions, the Pale Pilgrimage Hidden Spirit Ground.

The Pale Pilgrimage Hidden Spirit Ground was itself a place where beings in a state of neither life nor death had gathered.

The White Wizard Association forbade wizards throughout the various wizard territories from studying necromancy, levying heavy fines on any wizard found to be doing so, and branding as black wizards any who refused to pay. The Pale Pilgrimage Hidden Spirit Ground was a gathering place for the fringe elements of white wizard society across the various wizard territories, those who had turned to the study of necromancy.

Having learned this, Locke now understood.

"But the primary black wizard factions of the southeastern quadrant are almost all engaged in the study of necromancy. This indicates that the black wizard alliance of the southeastern quadrant has long been deeply influenced by the Pale Pilgrimage Hidden Spirit Ground."

"Moreover, Patty said she heard that two Second Circle wizards appeared during the Black Wizard Grand Raid, whereas the southeastern quadrant originally only had two Second Circle wizards in total. This means the Pale Pilgrimage Hidden Spirit Ground dispatched a number of new Second Circle wizards here."

"Of course, the southeastern quadrant is not entirely without its own depth. In all likelihood, the White Wizard Association has also invited outside Second Circle wizards into this wizard territory by now."

Locke felt now that it was fortunate he had not chosen to remain in the southeastern quadrant and develop his path here. Had he done so, he would certainly have been drawn into this tide of war.

Over the preceding day, Patty had also told him that the Four Seasons Garden was still under siege by the black wizard alliance, and no one knew whether it had fallen by now.

If it had fallen, then the only remaining white wizard faction of any significant size in the southeastern quadrant would be Lilith’s Cottage.

Every remaining white wizard academy would be nothing but a rabble.

Lilith’s Cottage would be bearing the full weight of the war's pressure.

Locke sat in the carriage, tallying up the current situation, and could not help being struck by how far things had deteriorated in the southeastern quadrant.

He would simply have to take things one step at a time.

The trouble was that he had originally come back this time intending to speak directly with Lilith’s Cottage about the Myst’s Power Research Institute project, planning to use Wizard Albert as a model and cultivate a few more formal wizards who had achieved the First Circle through the Forest Sanctuary.

He had not anticipated finding the war here already raging so fiercely.

And moreover, there was now the involvement of black wizard forces from a higher-ranking wizard territory.

Locke murmured quietly, "Strange. Even with things like this, the southeastern quadrant still has not sent a request for aid to the main headquarters."

Outside the carriage, Patty, who was driving for Locke, said nothing, for she could not understand at all what Locke was saying.

The information she possessed and what Locke knew were worlds apart.

For her, the southeastern quadrant was the whole world, and the fall of Virdantia had left a profound wound on her spirit.

She felt as though the sky itself were collapsing, as though the black wizard alliance had truly become some overwhelming force, like the Frankish Empire on Corfu Island that was said to be unifying the six nations.

What she did not realize was that in Locke's eyes, this was nothing more than a minor internal conflict within an ordinary wizard territory.

Never mind the White Wizard Association's main headquarters. Even without the Eastern Border Region branch of the White Wizard Association located in the Star Domain Sea stepping in, if the Cloud Marsh Wetlands' branch of the White Wizard Association were to intervene, this black wizard uprising would be suppressed in short order.

And so, depending on one's perspective, even the same problem could differ entirely in its apparent severity and nature.

At this moment, before the ruins of Virdantia, a headless knight in full black armor stood blocking the convoy's path. The knight held a First Circle magical artifact black spear and was mounted on a hell warhorse, the black armor bristling all over with menacing reverse-barbs.

It had no head. In place of a head, atop the neck burned a circulating soul flame.

"Halt. Permit."

From within the Blood Curse Court's magical carriage, an elder of the blood clan descended with the support of a blood thrall, then walked unsteadily to stand before the headless knight and respectfully presented a skeletal hand emblem.

The aged and venerable blood clan elder, trembling with excitement, declared, "Pale Pilgrimage, embrace eternal dominion!"

Locke, sitting inside the magical carriage, immediately furrowed his brow.

"Eternal life?"

"This Pale Pilgrimage Hidden Spirit Ground is a holy ground of undead magic. It seems they share the same craving for eternal dominion as the lich-kings of the Age of Stars."

A thought passed through Locke's mind.

'I wonder whether these two factions have any connection to one another.'

At this moment, before the convoy, the headless knight, having seen the permit, did not choose to lower its spear and stood blocking the way still.

It seemed to be puzzling over something, for it made no movement at all.

Locke watched this scene with an expression hovering between amusement and indifference. It was fine. If this creature had identified him, then he would simply have no choice but to strike it down.

As the saying went: heaven's gate stands open, yet you will not enter, while hell has no door, yet you come barging through.

Patty gripped the reins, extremely tense, her palms soaked through with sweat, terrified that the headless knight might suddenly move against them.

The headless knight showed no sign of moving aside. Instead it raised its black spear magical artifact and pointed it at the nose of the Blood Curse Court's grand clan elder, yet said nothing and made no further move.

It appeared to be assessing the situation.

In the next instant, a gasification blood clan wizard suddenly burst forward, driving a blood claw through the headless knight's armor and slamming it to the ground, then tearing it savagely apart into four or five pieces.

This action gave quite a start to the other elders of the Blood Curse Court.

This was a high-ranking undead creature set in place by a crystallization wizard.

The young clan elder grinned savagely and said, "Since when do we black wizards follow rules so obediently? That First Circle magical artifact caught my eye. It is mine now."

"I saw it lying by the roadside. I picked it up. Whatever I pick up is mine."

The other clan elders all fixed covetous gazes on the various components of the headless knight.

"Then I want the headless knight's soul flame!"

"I want its body."

"I want its armor!"

"I want that hell warhorse..."

In an instant, a high-ranking undead creature that had very nearly reached the First Circle threshold was carved up entirely by these blundering fools and distributed among them.

Watching this scene made Patty even more tense.

Killing their own people!

These people were truly frightening.

Were they really going to mix among a pack of terrifying lunatics like this?

Patty was trembling all over from head to foot.

Locke, meanwhile, sat in the carriage wearing an expression of odd bemusement. He had originally been prepared to step out and kill every black wizard in the convoy along with the headless knight and then proceed directly into the venue.

As it turned out, the moment these black wizards saw the high-ranking undead blocking their path, they were immediately seized by murderous intent, killed the undead creature, and stripped it of all its components in an instant.

One could only say their timing was fortunate.

After killing the undead that had blocked their path, the magical carriage convoy entered the ruins of Virdantia. The ruins were populated by a fair number of wizard apprentices from the various black wizard academies, rummaging through the rubble.

Since this area had only fallen a year ago, the ruins still contained a variety of resources that for those apprentices might prove useful or even precious, ensuring no shortage of black wizard apprentice scavengers here.

Perhaps one day a lucky black wizard apprentice would turn up some truly valuable resource in these ruins, setting off a storm of bloodshed.

Locke pulled on a black robe and followed the Blood Curse Court's people directly to an area of the ruins where a considerable number of black wizards had already gathered.

Wearing a black robe and black hood, and with the magical pressure of several hundred formal wizards creating a chaotic swirl in this place, none of them took any notice of anything unusual about Locke.

Locke immediately caught sight of several old acquaintances.

The first was Witch Stephanie, the high priestess of the Ghost Sacred Order.

The second was the Blood Lord.

He had no personal acquaintance with the Blood Lord, but since he had clashed with a number of Blood Curse Court wizards in the past, he naturally took a closer look at the Blood Lord standing among the crowd in the ruins.

The third wizard was the Golden Skull King wizard of the Bone Cult.

At the same time, Locke also caught sight of Wizard Hammerk, the chief wizard mentor of the Corpse Court, who had in the past overseen the black wizard alliance's entire operation at Lilith’s Cottage.

More black wizards were still converging on the ruins from all directions.

It was evident that this was a black wizard assembly, convened to discuss how to press further attacks against the southeastern quadrant's White Wizard Association.

In addition to the four top black wizard academies of the southeastern quadrant, there were numerous smaller black wizard academies present, some of them composed of only a handful of wizards.

Wizard Hammerk swept his gaze across the formal black wizards who had gathered, his eyes flickering.

"Only the Pale Pilgrimage could possess power of this order."

"A single command, and even black wizard academies hiding in the most remote corners of the southeastern quadrant come converging together. These are all existences that my Corpse Court cannot direct."

The Blood Lord said quietly, "After all, in principle, all of our inherited traditions trace back to the Pale Pilgrimage. This is especially true of our Blood Curse Court, the Corpse Court, the Ghost Sacred Order, and the Bone Cult."

"The founding wizards of these four academies all came from the Pale Pilgrimage. The smaller academies are generally ones established outside by those who graduated from our four academies."

The Blood Lord continued, "Because of this single command, every formal wizard of my Blood Curse Court has come today. Were it not for this, it would be difficult to gather all of our Blood Curse Court's formal wizards in one place at any other time. And not only that, even the formal wizards of the larger academies that trace their lineage from our Blood Curse Court, such as the Curse Tower, the Blood Cathedral, and the Bloody Slaughterhouse, have all come as well. Heh heh... every formal wizard of the Blood Curse Court's lineage has assembled here today."

Hammerk, the chief wizard mentor of the Corpse Court, instructed the old female medium at his side to raise a spirit medium lantern and illuminate the ruins.

As that eerie soul ghost-fire was lit, every face present was cast in a ghastly green by its magical light.

The old female medium said, "Conveying the order of the court minister: before the Grand Sovereign's royal court completes its relocation here, this land must first be cleansed of the White Wizard Association. Therefore, we are to launch a final assault on the white wizards. At present, among the larger white wizard academies, only Lilith’s Cottage has not fallen."

"Today, witnessed by the lord of our black wizard alliance, we shall select a team leader capable of executing the mission to capture Lilith’s Cottage. This leader will guide us in taking the White Wizard Association's last remaining stronghold in this territory. This is the Grand Sovereign's decree, transmitted down through the Pale Pilgrimage!"

Locke was taken aback.

So that was it. Even the Four Seasons Garden had already been taken?

And Niflheim University had also failed to hold out against the black wizard alliance's assault?

Patty had spent half a year as a slave to the Blood Curse Court's wizards, and the intelligence she knew was likely already outdated. It appeared that within this past half year, both the Four Seasons Garden and Niflheim University had fallen.

He himself had been so occupied with the Silent Chalice that he had not been in contact with any wizards of the southeastern quadrant at all.

The old female medium spoke in a hollow, chilling tone, "We must compel the local White Wizard Association to reach an agreement with us. To that end, an operation to capture Lilith’s Cottage must be organized, forcing the White Wizard Association to negotiate with us and consent to the descent of the Grand Sovereign's palace."

Locke furrowed his brow.

For whether it was the Grand Sovereign, the palace, or the royal court, these were all extremely ancient things. By rights, after the Enlightenment Era, no wizard should have dared to proclaim themselves a king or emperor. With the White Wizard Association in existence, any wizard in this world who fancied themselves an ancient wizard monarch would surely be set upon by everyone.

The Pale Pilgrimage spent its days mired in the murky gloom of necromancy, and to Locke's surprise, even its political system was something entirely behind the times, a pre-Enlightenment Era relic in every sense.

A court minister?

If a Second Circle wizard served as a court minister for the Pale Pilgrimage, then the Pale Pilgrimage almost certainly had Third Circle wizards.

Locke used the water hyacinth system to ask Wizard Kelt which academy of the Cloud Marsh Wetlands was sponsoring the Pale Pilgrimage.

Wizard Kelt replied quickly.

'The Rose Council and the Storm Tower.'

'Locke, before this I very nearly lassoed a Sun-Herding Dragon. I was originally going to send it to you as a gift to celebrate you becoming a Second Circle wizard. Alas, the dragon died in the end.'

Locke blinked, his face twitching slightly, and asked, "How is it that the Storm Tower is backing so many black wizards? Team Leader, which faction does our Golden Crown Mountain support?"

Wizard Kelt replied, "The Storm Tower has a lot of grey-area operations, so they have greater need of black wizards to provide cover. Whenever someone is close to gathering evidence against them and is about to file a complaint, they can contact those black wizards."

"Golden Crown Mountain backs the Chaos Mothership."

"Why are you asking about all of this?"

Locke replied, "Nothing in particular. I just ran into the Pale Pilgrimage here in the southeastern quadrant."

Wizard Kelt sent back a string of, "???"

'How is it that you go to visit family, Locke, and still manage to run into black wizards causing trouble. You could report it to the Cloud Marsh Wetlands' White Wizard Association. Our Cloud Marsh Wetlands' White Wizard Association is only a single wizard territory's association, but because of its economic standing, it sits a rank above the ordinary wizard territory associations purely on that basis.'

'Though there is not much to gain from reporting it, just so you know.'

'Of course, you could also handle it yourself. In any case, this sort of thing is not really our concern. The Pale Pilgrimage's current opponents are the Storm Tower and Cassirose Arts University. The Pale Pilgrimage defeated the Storm Tower and lost to Cassirose Arts University. According to the rules, the Pale Pilgrimage harvested a portion of the living from our Cloud Marsh Wetlands, and as a result their power in the wizard world has grown considerably.'

'I expect that is why they have the capacity to stir up trouble in the southeastern quadrant.'

'Even if you let them be, as long as they dare to make too large a scene, the Demon Hunter forces will come to suppress them.'

Locke was speechless. The Storm Tower was truly that useless?

Good grief, there was something wrong with the Cloud Marsh Wetlands' competitive system. The reason there was no academy capable of replacing the Storm Tower in its region was entirely because the Storm Tower had been forcibly suppressing every wizard academy in its entire region.

Locke thought it over.

This top-ranked weather wizard academy, perennially at the bottom of every ranking, appeared to be in a rather precarious position lately.

Always bringing up the rear in the Silent Chalice, and now having lost one of the five great wars as well.

Even setting aside any temporary advantages from exploiting loopholes in the rules, the Cloud Marsh Council had most likely been dissatisfied with it for a long time already, and was very possibly already scheming in the shadows about how to phase it out, simply holding back for the right moment.

One had to keep in mind that the Cloud Marsh Wetlands had ten regions in total, of which only seven possessed a top-tier wizard academy. The remaining three regions each had a large number of mid-to-large-scale wizard academies.

Those academies could very well leave one region and move into another. Or they could remain in their own region and challenge the Storm Tower to an academic contest, seeking to have their entire region supplant the Storm Tower's region in standing. Any of these outcomes was within the realm of possibility.