The hooded figure finally turned around to see the kneeling man presenting the artifact. The figure took the mask and observed it keenly, before speaking.

“Good work. Did you encounter any difficulties?”

“Not particularly my lord… however…” the man in purple hesitated.

The hooded figure stopped observing the mask and tilted its head in the direction of the man curiously.

“Oh? What happened?”

“When returning with the mask, I was attacked… by two people,” the man in purple replied.

“Really?” the figure asked. “Since you’re here, you managed to take care of them I hope?”

The man in purple didn’t reply, and the figure seemed to get angry. A cold aura spread throughout the room.

“You. Left. Witnesses?” it spoke, emphasising each word.

The man started sweating profusely. “Please, I can explain!”

“Good, because you have five seconds,” the figure replied.

“Five.”

“One of them was the dragon boy!”

The figure immediately stopped counting, and an ominous silence filled the room.

“I see,” the figure spoke after a while. “Was the other attacker, someone from the dragon’s party?”

“Yes, it was the boy,” the man in purple replied, breathing a sigh of relief at seeing the figure calm down.

The figure went back to staring out of the window.

“That is indeed troublesome. The dragon boy… is too dangerous to kill directly.”

“Indeed, my lord,” the man in purple agreed. “That’s why I rushed here as soon as I could to inform you and ask you the best way to deal with the situation.”

“How about I deal with it?” came a voice from behind the hooded figure.

“What do you propose?” the hooded figure asked without turning back.

Footsteps echoed from the direction of the new voice as the person moved closer. When the voice was close to the table, the dim lighting illuminated its face to reveal a young man with short, red hair, and a creepy smile.

It was the serial killer who was reincarnated, Theo Vancouver!

“I can just kill both of them,” Theo said calmly.

The figure shook his head. “If you kill the dragon boy, you will become a sworn enemy of the entire dragon race.”

“So?” Theo asked casually.

The figure chuckled. He recruited the boy because he felt real darkness in him. However, after some time, he realised that the boy was truly psychotic, and didn’t care about anything as long as he could live his life killing people.

But this was serious, he couldn’t let the boy mess things up.

“Listen carefully,” the figure explained. “Being discreet has always been our number one priority. If you kill the dragon boy, his tribe will undoubtedly investigate us. It will be the downfall of us all. You cannot kill him.”

Theo shrugged his shoulders unconvinced.

The figure sighed and continued. “It is very likely that the dragon boy’s party will enter the inheritance grounds. When everyone’s fighting, there will be plenty of opportunities to deal with them. There, you can work together with that person, to put an end to all of them.”

Theo became excited.

“Why didn’t you say that earlier?” he laughed. “Guess I just have to wait for a bit then. I can do that.”

“Make sure you do,” the figure spoke seriously. “If you make a move against the dragon boy without my explicit permission, I will end you,” it warned him.

“Tst. Don’t get cocky with me old man,” Theo mumbled to himself but simply nodded in response.

Even though the figure wasn’t facing him, it somehow seemed to sense that Theo had agreed and relaxed.

Theo stepped back and disappeared into the darkness.

…

At the same time, in the Myriad Sword Palace at the Holy Capital.

Sion Hart was hurriedly walking back and forth in his chambers when he heard a knock on his door.

“Come in,” he said aloud, looking relieved.

The door opened and an emerald-haired young man stepped in.

“Ah, Elwin, thanks for coming so quickly,” Sion spoke joyfully.

“It’s my duty, master Sion,” Elwin replied curtly.

After entering the Myriad Sword Palace, Sion accepted Elwin as his personal disciple, due to his incredible martial arts talent, which was one of the best in the sect.

On the other hand, Hazezel did not seem to be very talented. At least, since he had never found a suitable technique and cultivated before, they didn’t know what his talent would be like. Luckily, with its resources, the Myriad Sword Palace did manage to find a martial arts cultivation technique suitable for Hazezel, which he accepted gratefully, and made him an outer sect disciple.

However, due to his relationship with Elwin, who himself had a special identity as the personal disciple of one of the sect's elders, Hazezel was given unique permission to enter the inner sect and visit his brother whenever he wanted.

Elwin and Hazezel had been chatting and walking through the inner sect gardens when Elwin received an urgent summons from Sion Hart.

Hence, Elwin rushed here.

“I have something important to discuss with you,” Sion explained.

Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.

“What is it, master Sion?” Elwin asked curiously.

“It’s about an inheritance ground that was recently discovered. Our sect has received the right to send a group of disciples to explore it, along with some others.”

Elwin’s ocean blue eyes sparkled with curiosity. He listened intently as Sion explained all the same details that Eldric and Ambrose had told Drake’s party.

Finally, he finished with this.

“You must be aware that we recently clashed with the Order of the Blood Raven, correct?” Sion asked.

“Yes, master Sion,” Elwin replied. Though he didn’t participate in the battle, most people in the Holy Capital knew about it, let alone Elwin who was part of the sect.

“Our sect took quite a loss from that clash. So, this inheritance appearing now might be a blessing in disguise for us, from the goddess Iva herself.”

Even though there was no way of knowing if that was true, Sion’s expression suggested that this was extremely important, so Elwin didn’t argue.

“Very well, what does this have to do with me, master Sion?” Elwin asked.

“I’m glad you asked,” Sion smiled. “Our sect will hold a competition among the disciples to find the strongest six cultivators below the grand mage realm to enter the inheritance. I want you to participate and gain a spot in the final grouping.”

“Oh?” Elwin asked curiously. He would have wanted to participate even without Sion specially informing him, so he was sure there must be more to why he was called just now.

Seeing his disciple’s curiosity, Sion smiled again. “You’re a sharp one. The reason why I summoned you now was to give you this.”

Sion took out a sword and handed it to Elwin. Elwin took it gratefully and was surprised at how light it felt. He unsheathed the sword to find a beautifully crafted, silver sword. Engraved along the length of the blade, were three different runes.

It was a rank three artifact!

Elwin was shocked at realising this and stared at Sion.

“It’s incredibly rare,” Sion said. “Not only is it a rank three artifact, but the sword is crafted entirely from mythril.”

Sion was waiting for the amazed response from Elwin but it never came. He instead looked confused.

“You’re kidding me, you don’t know what mythril is?” Sion gasped.

Elwin shook his head.

Sion sighed disappointedly.

“It’s a rare metal that is only found deep in the Beast Woods. Not only is it much lighter, sharper, and more durable than ordinary metals, but it also has slight anti-magic properties. In other words, you could use this sword to literally cut through spells!” he explained, before adding, “Although, only lower ranked ones.”

This time, Elwin was truly astonished. His jaw dropped as he observed the sword with this new information. As he tilted it left and right, the sunlight reflected from its blade, making it sparkle mystically.

Satisfied with his disciple’s amazement, Sion rubbed his nose and continued.

“It is not easy to come by equipment made from mythril. Most of them only exist in the elven kingdom of Eldanor located deep within the Beast Woods. I managed to obtain this sword by chance, and I’m giving it to you now. Make sure you win this sect competition and obtain that inheritance!”

“Thank you very much master Sion!” Elwin exclaimed, bowing respectfully. “I promise that I won’t disappoint you.”

…

Meanwhile, back in Basindale, inside an inn.

A young boy was seated cross-legged in a room, surrounded by various herbs, ores, and other materials. He was reading through a book titled ‘Advanced Alchemical Techniques.’

Although the book was thick, the boy was near the end, and he was reading quite fast, flipping to the next page every thirty seconds or so. Despite reading so quickly, he wasn’t skim-reading. One could see the boy’s eyes scan every detail on the page, and his mind was working at lightning speed to process the information.

About half an hour later, Drake finally put the book down with a sigh.

‘That was well worth the investment,’ Drake thought to himself.

The book explained various techniques on different ways to prepare refinement materials, as well as combining them, how to combine them correctly, and more. It also talked about ways to analyse a failed pill and identify what had gone wrong with it, to fix and improve the refinement method. It was incredibly useful for Drake, who had previously struggled on these, exact points.

Drake looked at all the materials scattered around him and then at the cauldron in front of him which Helen had previously bought. He thought that he had enough for several hundred tries. He closed his eyes, took a deep breath and recollected the pill recipe for the rank one mana recovery pill he had tried to refine so many times yesterday.

‘Let’s see how this goes,’ he thought to himself.

Drake took one batch of materials and poured his mana into them. This allowed him to study the individual material in detail, observing all of its unique features and, most importantly, its impurities.

Once he identified the impurities within each material, he then recollected the information in his book on how to purify these specific types of impurities.

Drake began the most important step which he had often skipped or done improperly before – preparing the materials.

He spent about ten minutes purifying and preparing each and every piece of material to make sure it was perfect for the refining process. Once he was happy with them, he began the refinement.

He took the batch of materials, which was enough for five mana recovery pills, and placed them into the cauldron. He poured his mana into the cauldron which allowed him to sense the contents inside and control them with wind magic. He started combining them according to the recipe, using the techniques he had learnt.

The process lasted around twenty minutes. After that, the mana in the room settled back to normal as Drake finished the refinement process.

Drake carefully opened the cauldron and took out five pills.

As soon as he saw them, Drake became uncontrollably excited.

Out of the five pills, four of them were burnt and not formed properly. However, one of them was perfectly intact. A small, blue pill flew into his hands, making Drake uncontrollably excited.

He had refined his first pill!

Drake had tried many times last night but failed in every single attempt. Now, he finally managed to refine a pill for the first time in his life.

He was elated!

If it was possible, Drake wanted to scream out in joy, but he was still in the inn and didn’t want to cause a disturbance. So, he calmed himself down and returned to work.

He analysed the four failed pills closely, studying what went wrong with each of them. Each one gave him a new insight into something that he did wrong, which he would keep in mind for the future.

In this way, Drake didn’t consider these failed pills a waste, but rather, valuable lessons.

After thoroughly studying them, Drake took out another batch of materials and repeated the process.

In order to be considered a rank one alchemist, one had to be able to create any pill of that rank with a 60% success rate in their first attempt, which should be pushed to at least 80% for pills of that rank that they had practised previously. The same was true for rank two, three, or any other ranked alchemists.

No one could reach a 100% success rate with any pill, because there was a small degree of uncontrollable randomness to the process and the way the materials combined, so there was always a chance of failure. The higher the rank of the pill, the higher the random chance of failure.

So, in order to become a rank one alchemist, Drake would have to practise refining a bunch of rank one pills, reaching at least an 80% success rate with all of them, and garner enough experience in the process that he could realistically refine any new rank one pill with at least a 60% success rate.

Drake looked outside. It was late in the evening now, and the sun was beginning to set.

‘I could practise this for a few hours. Then, later in the night when everyone’s asleep, I can practise the rank two martial techniques,’ Drake thought to himself.

Thinking so, he took out the next batch of materials and restarted the process.

Later that night, Duskville.

Duskville was a smaller town compared to Basindale, but it was still led by a mage emperor. He was Cedric Ironheart, and came from another noble earl family of the Holy Kingdom. He was the only mage emperor in the city. The branch of the Church of Iva in this town had only stationed a bishop – a mage king – instead of an archbishop like within Basindale. Similarly, the head of Duskville’s branch of the merchants guild was also only a mage king.

These powers were not usually willing to send their precious mage emperors to a location so far away from their headquarters in the Holy Capital, and only made an exception in the case of Basindale.

Duskville also received fewer resources and funding from the Holy Capital compared to Basindale, which consequently made it harder to govern. That meant law enforcement was weaker, and shady individuals and organisations could operate more easily within its borders.

That’s what allowed three dark mages to sneak into town.

At this moment, they were standing next to a large wheatfield. Due to its size, not only was it a major resource point to generate wealth for the Ironheart family, but it also provided a significant amount of food to the population of Duskville.

Saying that if anything happened to the wheatfield, there would be a major food crisis in town, would be an understatement.

But that’s exactly what these dark mages seemed to want because one of them silently summoned a spirit.

“Sunbird!” he whispered, and a dozen pigeon-shaped spirits made completely out of fire, appeared in the air.

“Go!” he ordered. The birds obeyed and flew low in different directions, across the field, lighting everything they touched on fire.