From Hogwarts to Strixhaven.

Chapter 546 Mystic Advisor
The sorcerer Carion has been inside Baldur's Gate for a long time, and no necromancy practitioner in the city can escape his senses.

What spellcaster could be more sensitive to necromancy than an undead?
Therefore, when Ivy asked his question, Carrion immediately categorized him as a mage who studied necromancy. However, from Carrion's perspective, Ivy's necromancy skills could not be considered very high.

"Perhaps it's because of your poor skill... you even mistook my identity." Grayish-green spirit flames danced around Carion, whose dilapidated exterior was filled with the howls of ghouls and ghosts. "I am a mummy lord, not some lich."

"mummy?"

As a young person who experienced the bombardment of various entertainment products during Generation Z, Ivy had naturally heard of this method used by Egyptian pharaohs to preserve corpses.

The Upper and Lower Egyptian civilizations, which arose from the periodic flooding of the Nile River, viewed the cycle of life and death as a natural law with the same status as the rotation of the sun and moon.

Therefore, after the death of the pharaoh, who was regarded as the embodiment of a god, the Egyptians would often build huge pyramids, using the mysterious power brought about by celestial changes to enable the pharaoh to be reborn in the world after his death, and thus rule the world again.

To ensure that the pharaoh's body would remain intact after his resurrection, rather than decaying into a skeleton, the priests would dissect the cleansed body, remove the internal organs and bottle them separately, mash the brain into a paste with an iron hook and extract it through the nose, and even seal and preserve the marrow from each bone.

After the pharaoh's body was cleansed, the priests would fill the abdominal cavity with spices, use tree sap to isolate it from air and other bacteria that could cause decay, then wrap the body in thick linen, and place it in an elaborately carved and luxurious sarcophagus, thus completing the mummy process.

However, in a world without magic, no pharaoh could be reborn through such a ritual.

Therefore, Ivy was genuinely surprised when the mummified corpse in front of her revealed its identity. However, upon closer inspection, its appearance was indeed no different from that of a mummy freed from its coffin.

Beneath the jewels strung on the gold chain was a mummified corpse wrapped in half-black and half-white bandages. Even beneath the slightly faded crown was a face composed of only a few dents.

“Although both involve turning the living into the dead, upon closer inspection, your mode of existence is indeed quite different from that of the lich.” Ivy moved her feet with interest, bypassing the ghosts flying in front of her, and examined the mummy lord in front of her from another angle. “The lich’s phylactery preserves the soul, and their bodies are merely temporarily formed by the power of death, so they don’t feel any pain even if they discard them.”

"And you-"

Avia's gaze, devoid of any hostility but filled with intense research interest, sent chills down Carion's spine. As an undead being, he shouldn't have any consciousness at all.

"Your soul and mind are bound to this body by necromancy, while the life essence mixed with necromancy is preserved elsewhere." Ivy's finger wrote a twisted rune in the air, which disappeared into the mummy lord's body before he could react.

"What did you do to me?" The scepter in the mummy lord's hand blazed brightly, and Rugan, who had been following behind Ivy, felt a chill run down his spine. The ghouls and ghosts inside the villa roared and launched their attacks.

"Quiet." With a slap of his palm, Ivy's eyes flashed with a ghostly light. The ghouls and ghosts that rushed towards him fell to the ground like puppets whose strings had been cut, or vanished without a trace, without even having time to utter a sigh.

“You’ve divided the essence of your life into three… no, three groups of four parts,” Ivy said confidently. “From a location perspective, there’s one group of two underground, in your tomb? The other two are on the surface, also in different locations… and there’s even one that’s still in motion…”

The rune Ivy released earlier was a curse mark; enemies marked by this mark would appear as a dark green cross in Ivy's vision.

Enemies marked with the cursed mark can not only be located at any time, but Ivy can also use this mark to remotely transmit other types of curse magic. The chain of the Killing Curse and the Crucifixion Curse is achieved through this mark.

The four life essences of the Mummy Lord preserved elsewhere are his internal organs contained in jars. As long as these life essences, which are constantly imbued with the power of death, are not destroyed, they can greatly enhance his main body.

However, these internal organ containers still maintained a vital connection with the mummy's body, so Ivy could use the curse mark on Carion's body to trace back to his internal organ containers.

"You know where my internal organs are?" The mummy lord didn't even have time to express his feelings about the ghouls lying on the ground before he was gripped by extreme terror. "No... this is impossible. Even I... can't detect their location through this kind of connection..."

Although the Mummy Lord and the Lich are fundamentally different, the viscera jar is a fatal weakness just like the Lich's life casket, so how could it be known to a stranger so easily?
The mummy lord raised his withered arm once more, wielding the scepter of spirit fire. He had discerned that the young mage before him was highly effective against undead creatures, so this time he planned to use magic from other schools to deal with the enemy.

Along with the chanting, an unsettling buzzing sound echoed in the room, emanating from the mummy lord's body, within its shriveled form wrapped in shrouds.

Countless tiny bumps darted beneath the shroud, spewing out from the gaps in the filthy bandages. They were swarms of stinging locusts, scarabs thirsting for flesh. Like black smoke obscuring vision, like sewage engulfing the ground, they hurtled toward Ivy at breakneck speed.

“It’s not just about knowing the location—” Ivy showed no concern for the approaching swarm of plague insects. He slightly raised his loosely clenched hand, then squeezed it hard, and the sound of shattering pottery immediately echoed from the void. “I can also destroy your viscera right here.”

The mummy lord, who was maintaining the incantation posture, suddenly coughed violently. He could no longer maintain the incantation, and even the spirit fire scepter in his hand was difficult to control for a moment.

The shriveled mummy knelt on the ground, its claw-like hands frantically digging into its face until it tore a huge gash in the shroud covering its mouth and nose, revealing two black holes of different sizes. Only then did it gasp in terror.

Ivy understood and chuckled softly, "So it's the lungs, huh?" All undead creatures are immortal, so they shouldn't need to breathe or eat, nor should they drown. In fact, a large number of undead float on the water because of their light weight.

The mummy lord before him not only interrupted his spell because the burial flask containing his lungs was destroyed, but also triggered a series of coughs and suffocation.

Although Ivy couldn't see the expression beneath the mummy's shroud, she could still infer his state of terror from his movements.

Watching the kneeling mummy lord frantically pick up the Spiritfire Scepter, Ivy calmly threatened, "Want to continue? Next time it'll be a one-in-three chance, won't it? Are you betting you'll kill me first, or betting I won't find the jar containing your heart? This jar that keeps moving around the Gray Harbor looks good, how about we use it?"

"No!" Carrion, panting heavily, reached out to stop him. "Let's talk this out! I... I'll agree to anything you ask!"

"Is that your heart in that jar?" Ivy asked in astonishment. He had only intended to threaten the mummy in front of him again, but he didn't expect the guy to back down. "Your heart has been stolen, and you're still here? You're really... thick-skinned."

The mummy lord's internal organs, brain, and bone marrow were all preserved separately, providing various benefits to his body. Among them, the most important was naturally the heart, representing the source of life.

Although Carrion's other organ vials weren't well preserved, leaving only four vials before Ivy met him, Ivy still hadn't expected him to allow his heart to be out there.

"That was a carefully prepared protective measure!" The sorcerer Carion stood up again, trying to defend himself. "I thought it was safer to put the funerary urn inside the guardian's living body than to lock it in an ancient tomb where it could be visited by grave robbers and adventurers at any time! He himself didn't even know that!"

"Insurance?" Ivy shook her head dismissively. "The existence of thinking beings means accidents. You should have learned that lesson by now, shouldn't you?"

"...Who exactly are you?" Few can remain calm when their mistakes are pointed out to their face, not even a dead person. Carrion struggled to control his tone. "Intruding into my territory...launching an attack on your own! What do you want?"

"You started it? Remember?" Ivy knew exactly how to provoke someone's anger and use that anger to gain an advantage in battle, whether psychologically or in actual combat. "I just used a harmless little spell to probe your situation."

The mummy lord's deep breaths, taken to calm himself, were audible even to Rugen, who was hiding a good distance away.

“That was indeed my fault, Master.” The spirit fire on the Mummy Lord’s staff burned quietly. Carion could weigh the pros and cons. He had no chance of winning until Ivy’s curse mark disappeared, and the magic that the Mummy Lord relied on for resurrection would not work. “Is there anything that the sorcerer Carion can do for you?”

The Mummy Lord adopted a very humble posture, and Ivy cast a spell to pull over a chair, sitting down steadily: "Ivy Doom. I just wanted to visit the magical advisor of the nobles in the city, and have a chat."

Carion felt a little relieved and waved his Spiritfire Scepter to revitalize a ghoul on the ground, causing it to move another stool for him.

“You accepted Zonggui’s offer of employment? We can resolve this peacefully. Gold coins? Magical items? I have a rich collection; I can offer some of it as compensation.” Carrion asked tentatively. This was his way of surviving in Baldur’s Gate. Putting himself in others’ shoes, he naturally assumed that Ivy was acting for the same reason.

Ivy waved her hand and continued, "An immortal mummy lord would want gold and treasure? How long have you been doing this?"

Ivy's words seemed to stir up memories for the mummy lord. His eyes, still covered by the shroud, surveyed the dilapidated seaside house, and he slowly replied, "I abandoned my tomb a long time ago... Perhaps you would say I abandoned the tranquility of being an immortal... But I have also gained much—the melodies of elegant music, the lyricism of beautiful poetry, the cries of seagulls at sunset, and the finest wines whose flavors can be savored even without a nose..."

“Of course, there’s also the profound knowledge of the art of death, rare alchemical ingredients, and even distillation apparatus and magical tools.” The mummy lord’s empty mouth opened and closed. “All of these require enormous amounts of money to support them, very enormous amounts of money. So I chose a new profession for myself: to provide exclusive arcane consulting services to the wealthy within Baldur’s Gate.”

"Does that also include watching them mess up the psychic rituals and then taking the opportunity to charge even higher consultation fees?" Ivy asked with a smile. He was almost certain that the paranormal phenomena that occurred at the Ganas mansion were the work of the mummy lord in front of him.

The mummy let out a hollow laugh: "This is nothing more than a redistribution of wealth, letting gold flow out of the pockets of those fools to promote the commercial prosperity of Baldur's Gate. This stinking puddle is called the Pearl of Sword Coast only because of those constantly bankrupting fools."

Few people in the Middle Ages recognized the monetary value of gold.

Ivy showed renewed interest: "Work for me, Carrion. What you're after are things that don't require gold. I have a sizable territory east of Baldur's Gate. Become my exclusive magical advisor, and I'll provide you with everything you desire."

Governing a territory is never a task that one person can handle alone. Ivy plans to implement an offline monarch system in Morningstar City to free up time for magic research. However, this cannot be done without a strong advisory group.

"I don't seem to have much of a choice," the mummy lord said sarcastically, glancing down at the dark green curse mark on the ribs.

“Since we can’t resist, let’s enjoy it.” Ivy rose leisurely from her chair and instructed Rugen, who was trying his best to keep a low profile among the undead, “You can discuss the painter’s matter with my advisor, Rugen. After that, go to the beach, find his heart, and then bring him to my palace to report.”

"Your salary will be calculated from the moment you report for duty, is that alright?" Although it was a question, Ivy didn't give the Mummy Lord a chance to refuse. He opened a portal and returned to his study.

(End of this chapter)