Wizard: Starts with Advanced Meditation

At this point, Cyrus's eyes inexplicably held a hint of lingering affection, and even his originally calm voice took on a touch of kindness.

"I disguised myself and stayed there for twenty years, as Hughes's apprentice."

Cyrus spoke slowly, as if he were a traveler who had just arrived and was taking a short break, telling his apprentice about his journey.

"Twenty years is a short time for a formal wizard, so short that it feels like I just met Booth in the Misty Valley yesterday."

Booth seemed to hear Cyrus talking about him and looked over in confusion.

"But I lived a very fulfilling twenty years. The Blood Domain was a completely different civilization, and everything in it was new and exciting to me, like I had come to a different dimension."

"Of course, this might be what the Oren plane looked like before."

"Unfortunately, I was so engrossed in studying their magical language for those few years that I missed the opportunity to explore it in detail."

"Only by truly living among a race and experiencing their culture firsthand can one truly understand them, Hughes."

"The vampires are not the bloodthirsty madmen that the Golden Crown spreads. Of course, this may be because they are afraid of us, but I reserve my opinion on that."

Upon hearing this, Hughes couldn't help but recall two books he had read before.

The Golden Ring Crown has published a book called "Bloodthirsty Humanoid Monsters: The Blood Clan," which mainly describes their research on the habits of the vampires.

Hughes had read that book, which completely portrayed vampires as mindless blood-sucking beasts and described their crude and despicable civilization.

Of course, Hughes had also read the book that Star Insight would follow up with, "The Elegant Rational Aristocracy: Vampires".

The contents are completely opposite to what the Golden Ring Crown tells us. In fact, all of these records are from a report compiled by a wizard from the Starry Insight Society after he personally observed the vampire camp during the war between the two factions.

In the scenario he described, vampires were no different from highly intelligent human races; they had their own order, and some vampires would even drink the blood of magical beasts to preserve their strength.

In other words, they can also survive by eating ordinary food.

These two books caused quite a stir, mainly because of the question of whether vampires necessarily need blood to survive.

It wasn't until someone specifically captured a vampire for experimentation that the conclusion was drawn—the main purpose of vampires drinking blood was to enhance their strength, that is, to increase their blood energy.

This has plunged the Golden Ring Crown into controversy, as it involves a degree of forgery.

Countless wizards who did not participate in that battle believed that vampires were a kind of humanoid monster that could only survive by drinking blood.

Of course, the wizards were still divided on the question of whether vampires were inherently bloodthirsty and cruel, and the debate raged for years.

The use of the Golden Ring Crown is actually a major taboo among wizards, since wizards revere truth, and even the characteristics and culture of hostile races must be truthfully presented to everyone.

The Golden Crown halted the publication of the book, but because they were administrators of the Oren Plane, the news did not reach the Wizarding Plane, and the Golden Crown thus fell out with the Star Insight Society.

"I want to go back there and spend the rest of my life there..."

Cyrus's next sentence shocked Hughes. He hadn't expected that Cyrus's departure meant not just leaving the eastern part of Maranther, but leaving the entire continent of Maranther.

"Because... my life is indeed coming to an end, perhaps... I will choose to try to transform into a vampire there to prolong my life," Cyrus said self-deprecatingly.

He despised bio-modifiers the most, but he never expected that he would eventually have to rely on bio-modification to continue to survive in the world.

"As for why the Tunotianhai tribe is hunting me down, it's because—I intend to take this knowledge with me."

Changing the subject, Cyrus said seriously.

"Twenty years later, I bid farewell to everything I left there, returned to the continent of Maransel, and translated the knowledge of magical language contained in this book."

"However, to my surprise, after tasting the benefits of vampire magic, our family became so crazy—they even incorporated vampire knowledge into the meditation methods passed down through generations of our family."

"What a bunch of idiots! They change their meditation methods so easily, aren't they afraid of turning themselves into real bloodthirsty monsters?"

Cyrus slammed his fist on the table, making even his beard tremble.

"The entire Tunotian family is now practicing a distorted version of their family meditation method, all for the sake of that blood-red aura that can quickly heal the body!"

Cyrus scoffed, feeling ashamed of his family's behavior and even considering dropping the family name.

"Fortunately, I deliberately slowed down the translation of that book, stopping the translation and research after only half of it was completed due to difficulties encountered, which prevented them from being completely tainted by bloodshed."

"Of course, those lunatics will eventually master all the knowledge in this book. To prevent another blood witch family from emerging in Maranthel, I need to take this book with me, or even destroy it!"

At this point, Cyrus's aura suddenly intensified, and he even increased the force in his hands, attempting to crush the book.

Unexpectedly, a red light flashed between the pages, and the next moment, a layer of blood-red light membrane emerged from the cover, firmly protecting the entire book.

"If you are willing to stay until I leave the continent of Maransel, I can copy some of my knowledge for you."

Cyrus spoke calmly to Hughes, his right hand stroking the blood-red book.

"I'm willing to continue learning Elvish..."

Without hesitation, Hughes immediately accepted Cyrus's terms.

--and

Hughes glanced at the red storage pouch at his waist, which contained Imos's corpse and the gloves with the black crown—perhaps this time he could find out some things about vampires.

……

Cyrus's hideout has been exposed, and they must evacuate before the next wave of enemies arrives. Of course, Cyrus has already made plans, and their destination three months from now is the edge of the continent of Maransel.

At this moment, Hughes and Cyrus stood on the roof of "Starlight and Manuscript", surrounded by a group of cloud puppets.

Hughes then saw the overall structure of the wooden house clearly. The two-story wooden house was actually shaped like a regular boat, resembling a small airship.

Seeing that everyone was ready, Cyrus waved his hand, and with a flash of blue light, the old wooden planks outside the cabin suddenly became smooth and brand new, and even the wooden sign on the front door turned into a metal sign engraved with blue runes.