Above the mage

Chapter 62 Sewer

If you give it away, it's no longer a transaction.

Since it's not a transaction, there's no prohibition involved.

That's fine too.

The problem is, why would someone give you something so precious for free?

Gao De was asking himself the same question, and he also wanted to ask Pierre.

To be honest, he already owed Pierre a lot of favors, and he felt he couldn't repay Pierre in any way.

Seeing that Gao De was momentarily stunned, Pierre seemed to understand what Gao De was thinking and comforted him:

"Take it if I'm giving it to you. You'll definitely find these three spells useful."

"That little bit of money is useless to me; it makes no difference whether I have it or not."

After thinking for a moment, Pierre took out a pen and paper from the counter, scribbled down a few lines, and handed them to Gao De.

"What's this?" Gao De took the note, still not quite understanding what was going on.

“This is where I’m staying in Bremen,” Pierre explained. “If you ever go to Bremen and can’t find a place to stay, you can come and find me.”

"Of course, if you go too late, I can't guarantee I'll still be there." The old man laughed heartily.

Gao De remained silent for a moment, then put away the note, patted his chest, bowed his head, and said sincerely, "Thank you."

After seeing Gao De off and watching his figure disappear from sight with his bag on his back, Pierre took a sip of tea, his gaze already wandering and unfocused.

Among Buddhist monks, there is a widely circulated saying:

Magic is a private realm open only to geniuses.

But only those who have actually experienced it know that magic is a private domain that is only open to the wealthy.

Not having high talent doesn't necessarily mean you can't become a high-level mage.

However, without money, it is absolutely impossible to become a high-level mage.

It is often said that practicing the Dharma is difficult, but the degree of difficulty varies greatly.

For commoners, making a living is difficult enough, let alone learning magic. It is hundreds or thousands of times more difficult than for children from wealthy families.

He was also born into a commoner family and managed to carve out a small path through his own efforts.

Now that his path has come to an end, seeing Gaode at this time is like seeing his younger self.

In his youth, he longed for someone to lend him a helping hand, but he never had that luck.

Since that's the case, I'll just be the one to lend a hand from now on.

It's just a matter of doing something simple and effortless.

Pierre remained silent, poured himself another cup of tea, and gulped it down.

"Signs of frequent leyline formations include increased magical energy, a surge in leyline creatures, and population disappearances."

On his way back, Gaode kept repeating these keywords in his mind, feeling as if he had grasped some key point, but had overlooked it.

He couldn't figure it out until he returned to the herb garden.

With a heavy heart, Gao De stepped into the herb garden. Somewhat troubled, he first went to the herb field to check on the growth of the seedlings he had planted some time ago.

Aich and Raymond were tending to the seedlings, loosening the soil and fertilizing them, chatting as they worked.

"Aich, while you were practicing the guidance technique, did you notice that for some reason, the concentration of magic power seemed to have increased a lot?" Raymond asked casually.

"That's right, these past few days, two hours of training have almost equaled three hours of training before, it's so awesome!" Aiqi exclaimed.

"I don't know what happened."

"Why worry about all that? It's a good thing anyway."

The two chatted idly, exchanging a few words.

Gao De stood there, stunned.

"The magic concentration has increased significantly?"

He immediately turned around, returned to his room, sat cross-legged, and quickly entered a meditative state using guided meditation.

As always, countless stardust appeared in Gao De's consciousness, drifting around him.

However, this time he could clearly sense that the amount of stardust was almost 50% more than before.

The next moment, Gao De suddenly opened his eyes.

His eyes were filled with surprise.

During this time, he has been using basic magic potions to practice guided magic.

Because drinking magic potions eliminates the step of guiding magic into the body from the outside, it was only today that I learned from the two apprentices that the concentration of magic in the environment had increased so much over this period of time.

"Why is the magic concentration increasing?"

Before the question could fully form, Gaode had already come up with the answer: "It's magic enrichment!"

The two major precursors to the regeneration of ley lines—the enrichment of magical energy and the increase in ley line creatures—have now been verified.

"The herb garden is located in the suburbs, far from the city center and close to the wilderness, so it can be the first to sense changes in the concentration of magic power."

At the same time, I also wanted to understand why such an obvious change in magic concentration hadn't been noticed by the important figures in the city, including Pierre.

That's because they live in a location that's not yet in the center of Hogan City, where the effects of the concentrated magic haven't reached.

"It's true that a new ley line is about to emerge, right outside Hogan City." Although he wasn't 100% certain, Gao De believed it was a high-probability event.

Gao De got up and walked around the room.

Many thoughts kept flashing through my mind.

"The phenomenon of magic enrichment has already affected the herb garden, which shows that the formation of the ley lines must have started a long time ago."

"Wait a minute." Gao De thought of something else.

Two months ago, at Pierre's grocery store, city guards came to deliver a notice.

At the time, the city guards said that "the number of burrowing worms in the city's sewers has increased dramatically recently, and they are unusually active."

If we replace the Dark Swamp Worm with its actual identity as a "leyline creature," wouldn't that be exactly the same as the anomaly that has been going on outside the city for so long?

Moreover, judging from this perspective, the anomaly actually appeared in the city two months ago.

"The sewer, it's the sewer!" Gao De subconsciously recalled his experience in the sewer, and in an instant, a pair of deep red eyes flashed into his mind.

The question that had puzzled Gaode for so long was answered at this moment:

He might find out where the ley line creatures causing the strange occurrences in the city came from and where they are hiding!

Two months ago, he went into the sewers to help Pierre clean out the swamp worms, and from there he obtained his second source of power.

As I left, I vaguely saw a pair of deep red eyes in the sewer.

At the time, the threat from Master Seda was so obvious that he had no time to dwell on it, and as time passed, he gradually forgot about it until now when he suddenly remembered it.

How did the ley line creatures bypass the outer perimeter of Hogan City and reach its central area?

How did they manage to hide themselves and avoid revealing their presence for so long?

This is something that Pierre and the bigwigs in the city have been unable to understand for a long time.

The answer is actually ridiculously simple.

You can go down the sewer.

With people everywhere on the ground, it would be difficult to sneak into the city center unnoticed, so the best option was to go through the underground sewers.

The city guards searched back and forth, but could not find the possible hiding place of the "ley line creatures".

Because they had never looked for the sewers.

Why do strange disappearances always occur in working-class and commercial areas, while slums remain untouched?

Because Hogan City's sewer system is underdeveloped, only the wealthier areas have rudimentary sewer facilities.

In the slums, there was absolutely no sewage system.

The poor people simply discharged their wastewater into the streets and nearby rivers.

Gaode Maps has been bothered by more than just this; it was also annoyed when passing through slums.

The so-called slime left at the scene was probably just sewage from the sewer, right?

Everything now has a reasonable explanation.

(End of this chapter)