Ancient Wizards: A Little Progress Every Day

"Tower Master..."

The boy smiled and nodded to Undine.

Undine spoke softly, her tone a complex mix of relief and worry: "You're finally back."

He then told Dago about renewing the soul contract with the Thorn Ring.

"……&*@……%"

Dago softly uttered complex incantations, each syllable seemingly carrying a tremor of spiritual power, stirring the surrounding free-floating energy particles.

After the incantation ended, he slowly raised his hand, his pale fingertips drawing a complex and mysterious pattern in the air.

This is not an ordinary magical construct, but a resonance from the depths of the soul, a manifestation of the wizard's compromise with the rules.

The pattern froze in the void, the lines turning crimson as if scorched by an invisible fire, radiating a terrifying magical aura, before disappearing deep into the void like a brand, and also into the depths of the boy's soul.

After Dargo finished doing all that, the last trace of worry in Undine's beautiful blue-violet eyes vanished.

The tense mental field finally relaxed, and he seemed to completely relax as he exhaled softly. Then he took the initiative to explain to Dago, "It's not that I don't trust you... After the Old Days Revival, everyone needs to sign a new contract, including me."

"clear."

Dago nodded, his expression calm, as if he himself had not just sold part of his soul's freedom.

In this cruel wizarding world, trust is a luxury; only contracts and rules offer eternal protection.

He then habitually reached out and rubbed his brow, as if the simple process of signing the contract had consumed most of his energy.

The depletion of his mental energy made him feel a series of needle-like stings deep in his mind, a feeling of exhaustion after over-exploiting his potential.

Undine noticed Dargo's unusual behavior; it was the keen insight of a high-level wizard into the state of a low-level life form.

She reached out her hand, her fingertips as smooth as jade, yet containing immense fluctuations of water element, and gently touched Dago's forehead.

Dargo did not resist, letting Undine's hand gently press on his forehead.

A faint fragrance accompanied by the glow of spiritual energy emanated from Undine's fingertips. It was a cool yet gentle energy that seeped into Dago's parched spiritual space like a stream, soothing the restless ripples of consciousness.

A moment later, Undine withdrew her hand, her relaxed expression vanished, her delicate eyebrows furrowed tightly, and a hint of disbelief appeared in her eyes.

"Dago, your condition is terrible. Your mental strength is extremely weak, and your life force is severely depleted. It's like... like someone walking on the edge of a cliff. What exactly have you been through in the past month?"

Dago didn't speak; he remained silent.

Those deep eyes reflected an indescribable darkness.

What should I tell her? Tell her how I, caught between life and death, waged a psychological battle and managed to escape a seemingly inescapable predicament?

The path to becoming a wizard is destined to be lonely; some truths can only be savored alone.

Undine looked at him with a complex gaze, the concern of a mentor for her star pupil, and the scrutiny of a high-ranking person for a potential seedling.

Finally, she sighed softly. Her rationality as a wizard made her realize that everyone has their own opportunities and trump cards, and she shook her head, choosing to let the topic go.

"Fine, you have your own secrets, and I have no right to inquire. As long as you remain a member of the Thorn Ring, and as long as you haven't betrayed the wizarding code."

"Can you tell me what happened in the past month?"

After a moment of silence, Dago looked at Undine and asked.

He needs information and intelligence to revise his assessment of the current situation.

Undine nodded, then began to tell Dago about the aftermath of the battle on the Goblin Plains.

It was a brutal meat grinder, where the brilliance of the elements mingled with the remnants of flesh and blood, and countless souls seeking truth were extinguished on that land.

Undine spoke quickly and in great detail, taking quite a while to cover all the points that Dargo might be interested in.

From the power struggles among major forces to the turning points on the micro-battlefield, she narrated in an extremely objective and detached tone, as if dissecting a corpse.

"Derby has been personally mentored by me more than once during his years in the Thorn Ring, but I didn't know that he had secretly joined the Old Days Revival Society."

Undine's narration ends with the wizard Derby, who "betrayed" the magic ring.

Dago saw a look of shame and self-reproach rising in Undine's eyes. Undine was a woman who was born with a kind of "maternal instinct", or rather, a kind of emotional bond that was not suitable for the cruel wizarding world.

Although she is older and stronger than Dago, in some ways her heart is as pure as that of an innocent girl. She even blames herself for Derby's betrayal, believing it to be a dereliction of duty by her mentor.

Dargo was unsure how to respond, still pondering what Undine had just said.

His brain worked at lightning speed, piecing together these fragments of information into a complete logical chain.

Compared to the other five major wizarding factions, the Thorn Ring is probably the least affected by the Old Ones, with at least none of its seven high-ranking members being "traitors."

Look at the Lava Brotherhood and the Water Palace next door; even a miracle-level wizard has rebelled. That means that the entire organization's knowledge system and resource reserves are facing a huge risk of collapse.

On the path of pursuing truth, this internal collapse is often more fatal than external enemies.

However, the infiltration of members of the Ring below the higher levels was quite severe, with the number of Ring wizards suspected of being members of the Old Revival Society reaching as high as a hundred.

This also includes the group of wizards from the Thorns of Pain who had previously interacted with Dago. These guys left the Ring of Law the day after the Goblin Plains competition began and have not returned since. They have been included in the six "hunt down" rebel lists.

That guy who always wore a fake smile ultimately abandoned the existing order for the sake of so-called "old power".

In her account, Undine frankly stated that if she hadn't returned in time, she probably would have been labeled a "traitor to the French Ring Road."

After all, in the wizarding world, disappearance often means uncertainty, and uncertainty is an uncontrollable risk.

Even though he has now re-signed the soul contract and proven his "loyalty," the suspicion surrounding him has not been completely cleared because he possesses the World Stone Coordinates, which are highly valued by the Revival Society.

In the eyes of those in power, he might be an unstable factor, a "marker" that could bring disaster.

Dago had considered mentioning to Undine the "Secret Leader of the Revival Society," a powerful figure at the peak of the Third Ring, who had died at his hands, "to prove his innocence."

It was an extreme hunt, utilizing the terrain, traps, and the opponent's arrogance. He danced on the edge of a knife to achieve that seemingly impossible kill.

After thinking about it, I decided against it.

Those who believe in him, like Undine, will choose to believe him no matter what he does, based on emotional judgment; conversely, those who doubt him will remain skeptical of him no matter how he tries to prove himself, based on the logic of self-interest and risk control.

Rather than revealing your trump card, it's better to keep that strength hidden in the shadows, using it as a bargaining chip in the next game.

Put yourself in his shoes. If he were a high-ranking member of the Law Circle, standing at that level of absolute rationality, where he could oversee the whole situation and disregard emotions, in a situation where even a leader of a faction, the Miracle Wizard, could be a "traitor within the Resurrection Society," then what would happen?

It's perfectly normal to question a regular member like him who has the coordinates and disappeared for a month without explanation.

Any sliver of luck could lead to the destruction of the entire legal system.

On the contrary, Undine's almost "emotional" approach to handling the situation seems rather "naive" under the cold rules of the wizarding world, but it is also all the more precious.

"The decision made by the tower masters after discussion is to extract and destroy the coordinates in your possession."

Undine asked Dago in a consultative tone, with a hint of apology in her eyes, as if this were a deprivation of him.

However, Dago did not object to it.

For wizards, knowledge and information are power, but if the covetousness attracted by this information exceeds their own limits, then it becomes a deadly poison.

The wisdom of survival lies in discarding what you cannot control and retaining what is essential.

"Can."

He nodded in agreement after a brief consideration, his face calm and composed, without the slightest hint of greed or reluctance.

Undine breathed a sigh of relief and said to him, "The process of extracting the coordinates may be a little painful. Please try to bear with it. This is not an ordinary memory cleansing, but a forced stripping of the information engraved by the laws from the connection between your soul and body."

After speaking, Undine took out a bottle of unknown black potion from her personal spatial ring.

The bottle itself seemed to be sealed with some kind of eerie aura; as soon as the stopper was opened, a cold and damp smell instantly spread out.

She made Dago reach out his hand, then applied the black medicine evenly to the back of his hand.

Dago stared at the black liquid on the back of his hand, feeling it was very slippery, like a pool of melting asphalt, not only physically viscous, but also carrying a kind of spiritual attachment.

Upon closer inspection, it was discovered that the black liquid was actually composed of countless extremely tiny insects!

They have no eyes, no limbs, only mouthparts that constantly wriggle.

Upon touching Dago's skin, these insects, like sharks smelling blood, frantically burrowed into his flesh, even gnawing at his epidermal cells, trying to find a path to deeper layers.

As the black liquid seeped in, Dago quickly felt a burning pain on the back of his hand, like being branded with a red-hot iron.

It wasn't just physical pain, but the trembling of a soul being torn apart.

The pain seemed to reach straight to his soul, flowing upstream along his nerve endings, stirring up a storm in his mental space, causing him to furrow his brow slightly and cold sweat to seep from his forehead.

The burning sensation intensified, and the tiny insects seemed to construct a complex magical array under his skin. Then, an arrow-like mark slowly appeared on the back of Dago's hand.

Those are the coordinates of the World Stone, the embodiment of the laws, which are now being "lifted" out of flesh and blood little by little by those black worms.

Undine, standing to the side, chanted a low incantation, and the tip of her staff glowed with a ghostly blue light, guiding the insects' movements.

The black liquid that had previously seeped into the flesh seeped out again, flowing like a living thing towards the empty crystal bottle that Undine had prepared beforehand. It carried the faintly glowing mark with it, like worker ants carrying food.

Along with the black liquid, the arrow mark on the back of Dagger's hand also flowed away; this is the so-called extraction process.