“Dammit!” Drake cursed, blasting multiple fireballs into the wall, enraged. Images of a ravaging fire, dying villagers, betrayal, and laughing dark mages orchestrating everything appeared in his mind.
After everything that dark mages did to his village, he thought he could finally be rid of them. How could they be operating right in the middle of such a prosperous town? A town with three mage emperors no less! He didn’t know what they were doing, but he was sure that it wasn’t going to be good.
Drake wanted to find out more information about them but didn’t know where to start.
Blaze approached him and patted his shoulder.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
“Yea, I’m fine,” Drake replied. “You?”
“I’m fine as well. He’s gone now, what do we do? Should we report it to the hunters guild?”
Drake paused for a moment. “That’s actually a good idea, let’s do that,” he agreed.
With their resources and connections, they would be able to investigate this matter much better.
The duo rushed to the hunters guild.
In the middle of the afternoon, the sun was high in the sky, providing its natural light to the entire town below.
Drake and Blaze barged through the gates of the hunters guild, before rushing to the receptionist.
The receptionist was talking to some cultivators and was startled to see the young dragon run towards her with his party member. She stopped what she was doing and turned towards them.
“What’s wrong?” she asked concerned, sensing that something had gotten them worked up.
It took a moment for the two to catch their breath before Blaze started to explain.
“We-”
“Can we talk privately?” Drake interrupted him. He didn’t know if the dark mages had any spies in town or in the hunters guild, so he didn’t want to risk anyone eavesdropping.
“Sure… of course,” she replied after a slight hesitation. She instructed someone else to deal with the cultivators she was talking to, before leading Drake and Blaze to a private room. She closed the door before turning towards them.
“Please, tell me what happened.”
Drake and Blaze explained what they saw and her eyes widened in shock.
“Are you sure? Dark mages? In our town?”
“Yes,” they both replied in unison.
“That’s… unbelievable,” she replied.
After all, their town had not one, not two, but three mage emperors! How could any dark mages dare to cause trouble here?
However, it was undeniable that they did. The only question was, what were they trying to do?
“Thank you for letting me know,” she said, and then added, “Actually, I too have something to tell you.”
Drake had a puzzled expression as she looked at him curiously.
“The town lord, Eldric Blackthorne, wants to see you.”
Startled, Drake and Blaze looked at each other in surprise.
An hour later.
Blaze and Drake were standing outside the gates of an enormous mansion. It wasn’t as big as the merchants guild, but for a residential building, it was huge and was just as much of a construction marvel.
The gates opened and they were led through by a couple of armoured guards.
‘I wonder what he wants with me,’ Drake thought.
Soon, the guards took the two up the staircase to the first floor, and just outside a room.
One of the guards knocked on the door.
“Come in,” a stern voice came from within.
The guard bowed slightly towards Drake and Blaze and indicated for them to enter.
Drake pushed open the door to reveal a large and majestic room, decorated with the most expensive, and extravagant furnishings.
Drake’s eyes were drawn to the centre of the room which contained a long and wide, rectangular table. On either side of the table was an equally long sofa. On one sofa, sat a middle-aged man, and a slightly elderly man with a beard who was dressed in white.
On the other sofa, surprisingly, were Helen and Sylvia.
‘What’s going on here?’ thought Drake.
“Please, come in,” the middle-aged man spoke, standing up.
Drake figured that he would get answers soon and decided not to think about it much. Syliva and Helen glanced at him as he walked towards the table. As they came close, the middle-aged man smiled.
“My name is Eldric Blackthorne, I am this town’s lord. Thank you for coming,” his eyes darted between Drake and Blaze as he spoke in a pleasant tone.
“No problem at all,” Drake replied, and Blaze also smiled in return.
The elderly man in white also stood up and greeted them, “I would like to thank you as well. I am Ambrose Everlight, you might have heard about me.”
Ambrose Everlight… Drake thought for a moment and then suddenly remembered.
It was the name of the archbishop of the church!
“Yes I have,” Drake replied and Ambrose smiled in return.
Drake was even more curious now, ‘What do two mage emperors want with us?’
“Please, take a seat,” Eldric indicated while sitting himself down.
After everyone sat down and relaxed, Eldric spoke.
“Since you’re all here, I’ll tell you why you were summoned.”
Everyone focused and listened curiously. Eldric specifically looked at Drake and Helen, who were sitting next to each other at the centre, before speaking with slight concern.
“Could you two tell me, what exactly the dark mages were doing in your village?”
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Drake glanced at both Eldric and Ambrose, but they both looked extremely serious.
‘Is this what they wanted to know?’ Drake wondered but decided to tell them everything.
Drake and Helen both explained the story from their perspectives. Drake, as the village leader’s son, knew more inside information than Helen, which Eldric and Ambrose were glad to hear. However, he didn’t mention anything about Hazezel’s betrayal as usual. Drake and Helen just told them the same story they had said to Blaze and Sylvia.
Eldric and Ambrose listened intently, occasionally asking some questions when things weren’t clear.
Finally, they finished.
“I see,” Eldric sighed, and Ambrose relaxed back into his sofa.
“Actually, there’s something else too,” Blaze added.
Everyone looked at him curiously. He glanced at Drake who nodded for him to continue.
He then explained the dark mage they encountered today and their brief clash before his escape.
Ambrose furrowed his brows and Eldric sighed.
“I see, actually this is the main reason why we summoned you here,” he explained, but looked at everyone’s confused expressions and continued. “Actually, dark mages have been operating in our town for a long time. The ordinary folk aren’t really aware of it, but the higher-ranked cultivators in the city do know about them. We have been trying to fight and get rid of them for a long time but… they’re slippery. It’s been hard.”
Drake and the rest were quite surprised that dark mages were able to operate under the noses of so many powerful individuals.
‘Did the dark mages also have some powerful cultivators protecting them?’ Drake wondered.
“That’s why we are keen to receive any information about the dark mages,” Ambrose explained. “Every little bit helps.”
“Indeed,” Eldric agreed and then changed topics. “Since you responded to our summons so quickly and answered all our questions, we’d like to return the favour.”
The party glanced at each other, slightly excited.
‘Were they going to give us a cool reward?’ Drake thought, but Eldric interrupted his imagination before it could run wild.
“We are going to tell you something, but the information I’m going to share with you hasn’t been revealed to the public yet, so we’d like you to keep it a secret for now.”
Eldric looked at Drake’s party sternly who all nodded one by one. Satisfied, he continued.
“Some time ago, a new inheritance grounds was discovered close to town.”
“Inheritance grounds?” they all gasped.
Drake had a short flashback to a maze he explored with Elwin before his mind quickly returned to the present.
“Yes,” said Ambrose. “Specifically, it is the inheritance grounds of a twin, astral body martial artists.”
Everybody gasped once again. Being an astral body martial artist was equivalent to being a mage emperor – it was the peak of the mortal realm! And this was the inheritance grounds of two of them?
Seeing their excitement, Eldric added. “Several centuries ago, there was a powerful martial arts cultivation sect, led by a twin brother and sister, who had cultivated the astral body. Based on its size, it is likely that, along with the twin astral body martial artists, this is the inheritance of their entire sect!”
The party gasped in surprise once again.
Drake smiled to himself. Unlike the others, he had actually encountered the inheritance of a mage emperor before, that of his village’s founding ancestor. He had encountered the inheritance entirely by luck, and also lost it entirely by luck as it was taken away by Henry at the last moment. Although he still gained the second part of his Twelve Star Supreme Body Transformation Arts, along with the spells to summon a few spirits and artifacts, there was no doubt that the real inheritance would have been a true treasure trove.
There would have been spells for summoning hundreds of spirits, including the extremely rare rank four and rank five spirits, guidance on how to summon higher ranked spirits, insights into cultivation, and a whole lot more. If the ancestor had practiced alchemy, there would have been invaluable insights about those too. There might have even been high ranked artifacts! As a mage emperor, he must have at least had a number of rank three and rank four artifacts.
All of that was taken by Henry. Although Drake tried to be happy for what he had and not worry about the past, he couldn’t help but feel pity whenever he thought about that day.
But now, this might be his chance to make up for that. It was the inheritance of not one, but two astral body martial artists, along with their entire cultivation sect! It was bound to be even more valuable than the inheritance of his founding ancestor. With his experience of clearing a similar inheritance before, surely he would have a good chance of obtaining this one!
However, Drake became concerned. If it was such a valuable inheritance, even mage kings would be interested in it. Then what hope would they have of getting it?
As if reading his mind, Eldric’s next words answered his query.
“They seemed to have placed a powerful restriction on the inheritance grounds, making anyone at the grand mage realm or above, unable to enter.”
“I see,” Drake responded with a sigh of relief.
That’s good. This will give us a good chance to fight for it.
“Furthermore, the inheritance grounds require four shadow body martial artists to open. Four forces have agreed to send a shadow body martial artist each to help open the inheritance grounds, in exchange for being able to send a group of half a dozen of their disciples to enter. It will take them several months to prepare everything. It will also be open to the public who will be informed after some time.”
‘That makes sense,’ Drake thought, before asking a question.
“What are those forces?”
“First is my Blackthorne family,” Eldric replied, slightly proud. “After that is the Ironheart family, the Silver Crane Sect, and also the Myriad Sword Palace.”
Drake nodded. He didn’t recognise the other names, but he understood the general situation.
“We told you earlier than the public announcement, so you can start preparing sooner,” Ambrose explained with a smile.
“Thank you,” Helen replied, and everyone else smiled gratefully as well.
“In that case, I won’t keep you any longer,” Eldric said, standing up. “You are free to leave now. I am sure you’re all busy as well, especially now that you are going to be preparing for the inheritance.”
“Indeed, thank you for coming once again,” added Ambrose. “May Iva be with you.”
Everybody stood up and bowed to the two mage emperors, before turning around and starting to leave.
“Also,” Eldric interrupted. “If any of you encounter any more information about the dark mages, feel free to reach out to us.”
“Sure,” they nodded in response.
They soon left the manor.
“Phew!” Helen sighed, once the group were outside. “The mage emperors were much more cordial than I expected!”
“Indeed,” Drake replied, before adding, “Though it might be because of them,” staring at Blaze and Sylvia.
Both of them stared back at Drake innocently, as if they had no idea what he was talking about.
Drake chuckled. Everywhere they went, they were receiving special treatment from all sorts of people. He was sure that the reason for that was because they wanted to be on friendly terms with the dragon and faerie tribes, and, by extension, Drake and Helen who were in their party.
Otherwise, were Drake and Helen to be alone, they would be treated quite differently.
The party decided to move on and started walking as a group.
“Did you guys manage to complete your tour and shopping?” Blaze asked Sylvia and Helen.
“Yes,” they smiled.
“Though, there’s still a lot more to explore,” Sylvia added in a mildly excited tone, though Drake felt that, given her reserved personality, she was likely much more excited than her tone would suggest.
“Yup, it will take a couple of days to see everything,” Helen replied, much more cheerfully.
“Cool, then what do you guys plan on doing now?” Blaze questioned further, casually holding his hands behind his head.
Sylvia thought for a moment then replied, “Since we’re all together and it’s already late afternoon, how about we have lunch together, and then we can continue as a group?”
“Yea,” Helen agreed. “There’s a new hot spring place I heard about, maybe we could check it out?”
“That sounds really cool,” Blaze replied, excited at exploring something new.
“Sure but,” Drake interrupted. “We can have lunch together but I’m quite tired and not very interested in exploring for now. You guys can go ahead without me, I’ll be returning to the inn.”
“Are you sure, master Drake?” Helen asked.
“Yes,” he replied, determined.
Deciding not to pressure him, they all agreed and made their way towards a restaurant.
In Drake’s mind, if he was going to the inheritance, he needed to raise his battle strength as much as possible. This involved mastering the rank two martial techniques he had learnt from the second half of his Twelve Star Body Transformation Arts, preparing better artifacts, and, most of all, healing his mana core, or at least becoming a rank three alchemist. And for that, he had to practise alchemy… a lot.
So that’s what he planned to do. Both Drake and Sylvia, with their higher cultivation, powerful artifacts, and unique skills they had due to their race, were stronger than him. He didn’t want to drag them down on the inheritance grounds, and he also didn’t enjoy feeling like one of the weaker members of the group.
‘It’s time to raise my battle strength.’
At the same time Drake’s party were informed about the inheritance grounds, several other powers were also on the move.
In a dimly lit room, somewhere in Basindale.
A figure dressed in black and hooded robes was sitting on a chair next to a table, which was placed close to a window, and was looking outside. A single lantern on the table provided a few streaks of light to barely illuminate the surroundings. As the figure calmly admired the view, a breeze came through the window, slightly lifting the hood near its neck to reveal the tattoo of a black and white snake, coiling around each other.
At this moment, there was a knock on the door.
“Come in,” the figure ordered, still glancing out the window.
The door opened, and footsteps could be heard. When they reached the table, the dim light shone on the guest to reveal a man dressed in purple robes. Once he was close, the man fell to his knees, took out a mask-shaped artifact with both hands and presented it to the hooded figure respectfully.
“I have obtained the artifact you requested my lord,” the man in purple spoke.