At first, Roland felt the simplicity in this town.
But now, he felt that something was wrong. People often came to dig things up from that sealed land, and now and then they found something.
For example, pottery. For example, copper coins and other valuable things.
This wasn’t normal.
According to Roland’s mental probing, the sealed land did indeed have these things. However, the sealed land seemed to have been excavated starting decades ago, and it was reasonable to say that the contents within had been fully uncovered. Even the biggest tomb, if it had been excavated for over thirty years, would be empty.
But… this place still had things left.
Moreover, some of the pits in the sealed land appeared to be relatively new!
It seemed that someone had been “maintaining” this place, throwing something down now and then.
Roland felt that this conjecture was unreasonable.
Besides, an elf ran out of here, so it seemed even more unusual.
Had the elf been locked up for so long without anyone noticing?
It was over two months.
But come to think of it, there are ways for a Mage to lock someone up and make it impossible for normal people to find them.
Roland just couldn’t figure out that if this place was where Jabezo was sealedshouldn’t the first thing Jabezo did after he got out be to run away?
What the hell is he trying to do here by throwing things in and capturing elves for longevity medicine?
Is he not afraid that Mystra will come after him?
Or is it that he has no fear?
The more Roland thought about it, the more he felt that something was amiss.
He took out the small stick in his Backpack and stuck it into the ground again.
When in trouble, use Lesser Benediction!
This was an old Mage routine.
Now he finally understood why many books said that high-level, high mental resistance divination Mages didn’t bother to play any mind games. They simply used Greater and Lesser Benediction.
If you weren’t as strong as them, then you’d never be able to beat them.
It was a good thing that there were very few divination Mages, and up till now, the Divination Magic Tower only existed in name.
There weren’t many people who practiced it, only a dozen or so pre-Master level divination Mages.
It was quite pathetic.
But still, few Mages wanted to mess with them and look for trouble.
Once the small stick was inserted into the muddy ground, Roland mobilized his mental power.
“I wish to point out the direction where Mystra’s nemesis Jabezo is.”
Half a second later, the stick suddenly snapped into several parts.
Roland groaned, then spat bloodied spittle very uncivilly to the side.
He bit his tongue.
The backfire from the negative effect of Lesser Benediction.
But it was evident that indeed, as Mystra had said, Jabezo’s strength had been greatly reduced.
Otherwise, the negative effect of Lesser Benediction would not be as simple as biting his tongue.
He was presumably slightly stronger than Roland in mental power.
After all, this was someone who could compete with Mystra for the Divine Spark back then. Even after being sealed for centuries, it was normal to still have that strength.
Just how do I find this guy?
Was he sealed in this place or not?
If not, then who was it that was using Plane Shift before?
That particular spatial spell, even Roland didn’t know how to use it.
The more Roland thought about it, the more his headache grew.
He watched over the sealed land for another night, with no luck.
The next day, he spoke to his guide, Beckrum, about visiting the big towns around the area.
As a guide, Beckrum naturally had to follow Roland and set off.
Before leaving the courtyard, Roland saw the old woman holding a cup of red fruit wine and drinking it joyfully.
What a way to spoil your woman.
Roland was somewhat impressed.
The wine was quite expensive for the average person.
Beckrum didn’t drink it himself but gave it to his old wife.
The two set off again in a carriage.
After nearly seven hours of traveling along the road in a sea of pink flowers, they finally reached a nearby town.
A much larger town than the previous, one that could almost count as a city.
Roland arrived in the middle of town and found an inn to stay in, then he asked old Beckrum to help inquire who had the best information in the city.
He went to the Guild of Mercenaries in this town.
After all, it was a large town with a population of over 100,000 people, and while there was no Guild of Rogues, no branch of the Association of Mages, and no Magic Tower, there was the Guild of Mercenaries, which was the most popular and commonplace among these organizations.
Roland went to the chairman of the guild and was able to read the quest records in the city after paying several gold coins.
Then he asked the clerk to pick out all the quests relating to the nearby towns.
This was a big job, impossible to do within a few days.
For this, Roland paid an additional ten gold coins.
When he returned to the tavern, he found two men with oily-looking faces inside.
Old Beckrum said, “Master Mage, can I go home first? It looks like you’re going to be here for a while, but I’m worried about the old lady at home.”
“All right.” Roland nodded.
When Beckrum left, Roland gave each of them a silver coin and asked them about the neighboring town.
These two men were not young, both over forty, and they answered every question.
Of course… they wouldn’t dare lie to Roland.
Ordinary people wouldn’t dare lie in front of a Mage. For in the folklore of all nations, Mages were able to screen lies.
Both of these men had information that was mostly gossip.
For example, the town’s so-and-so and the neighboring town’s woman had some kind of adulterous affair or something like that.
Or some unusual ghost stories.
But what one of the men said caught Roland’s attention.
“I used to hear when I was a kid that every year there were always a few outsiders who disappeared in the neighboring towns, and the legend was that there were vampires there. But, there hasn’t been any sign of that in the last few years.”
After listening to this, Roland looked pensive. “Oh, how many years ago exactly?”
“Seems like there’s been a similar rumor since I lost my wisdom teeth.” After that, the two people talked about some nonsensical rumors, and although he didn’t get any more important clues, Roland still gave the two people another silver coin as a reward.
After that, Roland stayed here for two days.
On the third day, the Guild of Mercenaries sent someone to invite him over.
It turned out that the quest records about the neighboring towns had been picked out.
Roland thanked the hardworking staff, then turned page after page of these newly copied records.
He found that the quests related to the neighboring town, who were looking for people. There were three or four orders every year.
The number didn’t match with the one provided by the intelligence peddler from before.
The intelligence peddler said that there were at least ten people every year.
Perhaps there were many relatives of the missing that didn’t have enough money to hire the Guild of Mercenaries.
None of these search missions were ever completed.
Roland read each one, carefully comparing the times.
Finally, he found a request from ten years ago that said a male elf had disappeared around here and wanted the Guild of Mercenaries to help find him.
And of course… this quest wasn’t completed.
Roland looked at the time… June of Fareins’s Starfire Year.
Starfire year?
Roland’s eyes snapped open.
The calendar in Fareins was a ten-year cycle, and the male elf he had met had been captured in the year of Starfire.
He wasn’t trapped for two months, but a whole decade?
Roland contemplated again; the intelligence peddler said that the number of missing people in neighboring towns had become fewer in recent years.
He read the records one by one.
This guild made a very detailed record.
There were probably about seventy years of records.
Roland found that the records that started to appear more frequently about quests searching for people in neighboring towns were from fifty years ago.
Then it tapered off by the end of the decade.
This matched up with the intelligence from the peddler.
Roland’s mind raced.
If these figures were correct, Jabezo was freed from the sealed land fifty years ago.
Why was it earlier than expected?
Because a town appeared near the sealed land… It was supposed to be a village at first and slowly developed into a town later.
Roland had inadvertently discovered this while looking for clues in a neighboring town earlier; that town was just under seventy years old.
Rural farming activities, or other things, caused the seal to unravel, and then Jabezo escaped from it.
As for why people were disappearing one after another at that point?
Roland took out the Magically Modified Elven Blood from his Backpack.
The effect of this thing was to increase the lifespan of people. Since elven blood could, then human blood could probably do so as well… but it probably didn’t work very well and needed to be collected and refined in large quantities.
This was why a lot of outsiders went missing every year.
The killer didn’t go after the town.
Then in the last Fareins’s Starfire Year, Jabezo inadvertently caught an elf, so there was no need to use human blood.
The male elf was in a semi-sealed state and was rather insensitive to time perception, which was why he thought only two or three months had passed.
He even misled Roland.
But now that the intelligence was in front of him, a lot of things could be deduced.
Roland closed his eyes for a few moments in thought and finally opened them; he had settled on a potential suspect.
Teleporting back to the previous town, Roland once again came to the front of old Beckrum’s yard.
This old guide was pouring red fruit wine for his old lady.
Roland pushed the door open.
Old Beckrum turned his head to see Roland and laughed cheerfully. “Master Mage, what brings you back so quickly-didn’t you say you were going to stay a few more days?”
“It’s almost done; it’s about time to go back.” Roland laughed as he looked at the wine jar in old Beckrum’s hand. “There’s wine-I just happen to be thirsty, can you give me a
glass?”
“Of course, there’s no problem. It’s my own home-made wine. I wouldn’t say it’s particularly good, but it’s not much worse than what’s out there.” As he spoke, he poured a glass and placed it in front of Roland.
Lifting the glass, he looked at the clear red wine inside, so brilliant it seemed like blood.
Roland opened the system view, and then saw the description of this glass of wine.
Item: Potion heavily diluted with wine (Excellent)
Description: A magically improved elven blood potion, diluted with wine to mitigate the potency and effects as to be suitable for the average person’s consumption. Tastes no different from normal wine.
Effect: Slightly increase the lifespan of the drinker.
After reading this, Roland smiled faintly, then pointed his finger at old Beckrum.
“Prismatic Spray!”
A ball of rainbow light instantly took shape in front of his fingertips.
Old Beckrum stood frozen, as if stunned.
But Roland was completely unfazed and unconcerned that he would kill the wrong person.
A jet of rainbow light fired out and was blocked by a blue film of light the moment it was about to hit old Beckrum.
old Beckrum then disappeared in a halo of light.
Teleportation!
Roland immediately turned around and teleported after him.
Then all that could be seen were two halos of light flashing about, and in the blink of an eye, they had disappeared into the horizons of the grassland sky.
Both men flashed a long distance, and the jug, which old Beckrum had been holding before, finally fell to the ground.
The wine inside spilled out and splashed everywhere.
The old woman walked over and picked the jug up, stroking it gently with a gentle smile on her face.
On Roland’s side, the two of them flashed at great speeds, and not much later, they were more than fifty kilometers away.
Seeing that he couldn’t shake Roland off, old Beckrum stopped where he was and his body began to fade.
It was the spatial spell Plane Shift again.
But Roland was prepared this time—the same trick wouldn’t work twice against a Golden Son!
In reality, Roland was tempted to shout that but held back.
He quietly threw out the Dimensional Anchor scroll.
Several transparent spatial chains appeared from the void, rooted in the earth, and locked the space around them.
old Beckrum was forcibly suspended from his Plane Shift, his body going from translucent to solid.
He even suffered a certain amount of magic recoil.
Covering his chest and looking at Roland, his face turned a little white.
“If you keep using Teleportation, I may not be able to catch up with you.” Roland looked at the old man indifferently. “Jabezo, I didn’t expect you to take the form of an old man and give yourself a powerful illusionary appearance. Not to mention ordinary Mages, even I can’t see through it.”
Old Beckrum looked at Roland, then the space around his body distorted slightly, and the entire man changed.
The aged appearance vanished and turned into a handsome blond.
“Looks like you’re the hound Mystra sent.” Jabezo chuckled. “I thought she had forgotten me as an enemy.”
Roland quirked his eyebrows, not retorting.
Instead, he asked curiously, “You should have woken up fifty years ago, so why didn’t you escape from this place? If you escaped, with your illusion skills and hiding ability, I predict no one could find you again.”
“The most dangerous place is the safest place,” said Jabezo, looking at Roland. “I was tempted to say that, and thought so before, but now it seems to be a mere pestilent joke.”
Indeed!
A truly smart prey never returned to a dangerous place; the best thing to do was to stay as far away from the predator’s range as possible.
So what Jabezo did was stupid and completely unbecoming of what a powerful and wise Mage would’ve done.
“A lot of people have disappeared in this town before. You did it didn’t you?” Jabezo froze, and then finally realized something. “I wondered how you’d find out about me—so it was by this clue. I have assimilated into this town. It’s reasonable to say that I wouldn’t be discovered, but… one mistake was all it took.”
Inwardly, Roland admitted that without those missing person figures, he wouldn’t have suspected old Beckrum at all.
“So you admit it?” Roland’s clothes began to sway in the wind.
“Let’s make a deal,” Jabezo said with a smile. “Let me go, and I will give you all my spell models, as well as magic insights from the past few decades. I will get the hell out of here and never appear in front of you again.”
“No less than a hundred and fifty people have been ‘eaten’ by you over the decades, most of them teenage girls,” Roland said coldly. “Go make a deal with them in the Netherworld, you scum.” Countless Hands of Magic descended from the air.
The ice domain spread out extremely fast.
The surroundings soon turned silvery-white and blank.
