After a bit of haggling, Lena finally gave in to Jack’s demand. It was a little too generous of her, she thought, but the prospect of having the next top Artificer owing her a favor comforted her.

Lena walked to her working desk and proceeded to interact with its seemingly empty surface. Jack wondered if the glasses she was wearing allowed her to see something that he couldn’t.

A few minutes later, Lena returned to the low table, a small black box in her hand. She put it down and pushed it at Jack, signaling him to take it.

Jack picked the box up and opened it. Inside was the three interlocking triangles badge, glittering a silvery light, along with a small golden star above it.

“New members don’t usually get a badge with any star on them,” Lena explained. “There are a total of nine stars to get. I’ll exclude you from this and give you one for a smooth head start.”

“Will this cause you any trouble, headmaster?” Jack asked.

“Oh,” Lena laughed. “Of course, a lot, actually. But that is a small price compared to the Essence Tracer you asked for earlier.”

“So, how will this badge benefit me besides being a symbol of identity?” Jack diverted his questioning.

“Nothing too noteworthy in the near future. I will show you more down the road. For now, the best you’ll get is some discounts on buying material from the guild. Moreover, you have the right to directly consult higher-ranking members, such as myself. But I suppose you couldn’t care less about that since you have such a celebrity of a mentor now. The old man doesn’t accept followers as easily as before.”

A smile popped up on Jack’s face, a prideful one. The relationship between him and the owner of Sword in the Forge was like that of dogs and cats to him, but it somehow worked.

A knock on the door suddenly came, as Howard asked before entering. With Lena’s permission, the assistant walked in and put the Essence Tracer on the table, his eyes full of doubts. According to the information from the inner system of the guild, this one’s assigned name was Jack.

“Thank you, Howard,” Lena said.

She picked up the small circular device, fitting within the palm of her hand like a compass, and gave it to Jack.

“Do you need any instruction?”

“I can figure that out myself,” Jack answered.

Lena’s smile grew wider, gaining a bit more confidence about betting on the kid.

Howard, standing by the side, couldn’t help but watch everything with a pair of bewildered, wide-open eyes. Essence Tracer’s sophistication made mastering it no simple task. Remembering the entrance exam result, he slowly found it quite understandable. Though, finding himself inferior to a new recruit was not a pleasant feeling.

After some final exchanges, Jack finally said goodbye and left. Sophie, seeing her son walking down the stairs, stood up right away, her concern expressed through her every movement. When the bright smile of the boy was in her clear sight, her lips curved up, and her face became even more joyful than that of her son.

Jack had spent a whole day preparing the essential stuff, such as Mana Potions, poisons, daggers, and communication devices.

Putting a small object onto her ears, Velia detailed the information she had gathered for the past two days.

“The clean-up squad had returned with some news about the state of Wildewatch village. The most notable thing is that there are way fewer monsters than initially expected.”

“Does that mean they have already moved to somewhere else?” Jack frowned at the piece of information. This could mean a more troublesome trip than he would have liked.

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“The Adventurer Society figured as much, but nobody could be certain. Except for inside the village itself, no other monster could be found in the ten-mile radius around it. They’re just… gone.”

Jack was unnerved by Velia’s troubled expression. Naturally, monsters could be found anywhere with signs of life. The sewers under Oxdale, for example, were always crawling with Grim Mouses, awaiting their next purge. Therefore, a large area clear of monsters raised even more concern than a densely populated one.

“We have to take this with caution,” Jack said to Velia.

Whatever the situation might be, it was too much of a chance for Jack to ignore. Soul Essence was ultra rare, something that money couldn’t guarantee its possession, much like Time Essence and Space Essence. This was also one of the many reasons that Jack had chosen Artificer as his public occupation. Such materials, as far as he could tell, were most notably available at the grand conferences and projects relating to this extremely technical of a faction. Especially in the case of Space Essence, which was one of the main components during the making of an inventory item.

“Okay, let’s go then,” Velia said.

The girl had on her the usual female adventurer clothing. After having acquired a hefty new source of income from Jack, Velia had equipped herself with a more durable set of armor but was still as light and mobile as her previous one. She also had an additional pair of cuisses.

Jack was still in his usual wear, loose and comfortable. His body was still too small for heavier pieces. In addition, it wouldn’t be very convenient for him to use his Nightblade skill while burdened with cumbersome equipment.

The two went out of Oxdale through the west gate, heading straight for Wildewatch. Velia estimated it would be a six-hour trip, so they reckoned leaving at noon was their best choice.

Traveling at full speed and taking much-needed breaks, the pair found themself on schedule.

As the village started appearing in the distance, Jack couldn’t help but feel a chill running down his spine. The smell of smoke and odor fouled the air, so much so that one could sense it from miles away.

Once they got closer, even Velia had to put her hand on her mouth in dismay. The village was no more than a ruin, its outer wall crumbling and none of its houses intact. A darkened black color stained the ground, a color that could either come from the burning or the blood of the innocents. The cleanup team had done their job, but the body parts of monsters, animals, and men could still be seen lying around. It wasn’t difficult to spot a piece of ear, finger, or eyeball; one of them was even rolling around, just to stop before Jack and stare at him. The chilly wind blew alongside the rising insufferable air, enhancing the sickening experience.

It had been a long time since he had last seen such a bloody mess. Jack couldn’t help but recall the obnoxious war experience he once had in his previous life.

“Jack?” Velia asked, seeing her companion’s moment of distraught.

With a shake of the head, Jack got himself together, then took out two gas masks for Velia and himself. Lands like these were extremely infectious and poisoning. Herald may have better resistance than a normal person, but he could never be too sure.

Jack started using his Essence Tracer to search around. This compass-like device had tiny buttons around it and a screen that displayed a grid of coordinates. It unleashed a scanning wave, which recorded the geographical and structural information of the village, then projected a small floating blue hologram map. The scan radius was only two hundred meters, so Jack reckoned this would take a while.

Thanks to the guide from the System, Jack had no problem using the Essence Tracer at all. Moving his fingers around the control knobs, he established his searching conditions, such as depth, mana concentration, and the object’s size. He cycled through the variables continuously, but the only signal he found on the screen was the red dot that represented himself. Fifteen minutes later, he decided to move on to the next location.

Velia disinterestedly stood around and watched over him, scanning her eyes around. Even though the Adventurer Society had declared the place empty, some things still didn’t feel right to her.

There weren’t many clouds that night, leaving a lot of room for the silvery light of the moon to shine through, giving the two a good vision. The silent night put them on edge, with the howling wind only making things more dreadful. The smell of death and decay burdened their senses.

After an hour of back and forth, Jack finally caught a signal and went straight for it. On a destroyed, unharvested paddy field, the boy started digging down but still didn’t find anything as the signal on the Essence Tracer faded away. He reckoned the spot was an Essence generator, but more likely to be Earth Essence, which dispersed when the environment was disturbed.

Jack continued to change his location, unhinged by the first failure. Soul Essence wouldn’t necessarily appear inside Monster Den, so he wouldn’t risk it heading in that direction, especially when the monsters were still nowhere to be found.

Further to the west of Wildewatch, on an uneven piece of land, a man in a black cloak suddenly appeared. He swung his arm forward, which triggered a small burrow protruding up from the ground. Should the earlier team of adventurers have seen this, they would flee for their life right away, for it was the Monster Den’s entrance, flattened and hidden underground.

Then, the cloaked man walked inside; his eyes were those of a searcher.