Evelyn walked into the room, removed her veil, and sat down on the bed, her eyes still carrying a trace of exhaustion.

  She had never imagined that forcibly casting the Frozen Crown Staff would come at such a terrible price.

  For more than a month, her entire magical power had been drained; she couldn't even lift her hand, completely at Ryan's mercy.

  During that time, the only part of her body she could move was her head and even turning her neck brought sharp stings of magical backlash.

  Especially when Ryan tried to feed her by force, every time she turned her head away in resistance, it felt as though ice needles were stabbing into her spine.

  "He must have done something while I was unconscious." Evelyn subconsciously touched her leg, frowning slightly. Fortunately, she had been wearing undergarments otherwise, Ryan might have seen something he shouldn't have.

  However, after calming down, Evelyn realized that Ryan wasn't a bad person. The moment she could use magic again, she had scanned her body thoroughly with mana and confirmed that there were no signs of violation.

  Her magic robe was intact, and there was no trace of foreign magical residue on her body. If Ryan truly had any ill intent, he'd had every opportunity during that month when she was completely powerless but he hadn't acted on it.

  The thought eased her tense nerves slightly, and she recalled the injury she had suffered ten thousand years ago.

  Perhaps it was because of that experience that she had become extremely sensitive to being touched.

  After confirming multiple times that Ryan had not crossed any lines, she finally allowed herself to relax.

  If Ryan had truly been like that Grand Magus from ten millennia ago and dared to violate her, she would have activated her final trump card and perished with him.

  "Fortunately, that boy is just mischievous, not wicked," Evelyn murmured softly.

  She reached into her mental storage space and took out a crystal vial containing a high-grade mana potion one of the few potions she had managed to preserve.

  Naturally, anything she kept would not be of poor quality; each vial was capable of rapidly restoring magical energy.

  When her magic rank was still at the level of a Magic Apprentice, her magical constitution couldn't withstand the potency of such high-grade potions.

  Before leaving Shrouded Village for the Misty Forest, her goal had been to find rare magical plants and use their gentle mana as a catalyst to help her advance to Adept Mage.

  But she hadn't expected her plans to be disrupted by Ryan, costing her more time than she had intended.

  Evelyn drained the high-grade breakthrough potion from the crystal vial in one gulp. The potion dissolved as it hit her throat, transforming into a violent yet pure surge of magic that raced through her meridians.

  Her magic cocoon swelled instantly, enveloping the entire room. The temperature plunged to freezing and even the moisture in the air condensed into fine ice crystals.

  Magic battered the bottleneck of her rank from within; each strike sent tearing pain through her body, yet her gaze remained steady.

  An hour later, Evelyn's magical energy shot up to Sixth-tier Adept Mage.

  By midnight her power rose again to Seventh-tier Adept Mage.

  At three in the morning it climbed to Eighth-tier Adept Mage.

  At dawn, when the first ray of sunlight slid through the window, Evelyn's eyes snapped open her magic had surged to Ninth-tier Adept Mage.

  In a single night, aided by the potion and her innate talent, she broke through four minor ranks. Across the entire magic continent, fewer than five mages could match such a terrifying speed of advancement.

  Evelyn exhaled a breath laced with frost and stood up slowly. Now that she had reached Adept Mage, her magical constitution had fundamentally changed; she no longer needed sleep to restore energy.

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  She smoothed her robe, readjusted her veil, pushed open the door, and walked toward the outskirts of town.

  Almost five minutes after Evelyn left the inn, Ryan's door opened as well. He stretched and hummed contentedly, then stepped outside. Immediately he was drawn by a clamor of shouting and the ring of steel. In the middle of the street two groups faced off, one in teal robes and the other in purple robes.

  Weapons in both sides' hands glowed faintly with magic; a clash seemed imminent.

  Ryan glanced over and noticed the highest rank present was only Ninth-tier Adept Mage. He snorted,"What kind of conflict is this? It's just kids brawling."

  Still, curiosity won out; after so long in the forest it was rare to see such a scene. He leapt onto the roof of a nearby shop, settled into a comfortable spot, and refreshed the Grimoire shop in his mind. Unfortunately the newly listed items were either beyond his budget or useless to him.

  "Boring." Ryan propped his legs up and folded his hands behind his head, ready to watch the fight.

  "doris! Stop struggling!" a man in teal robes said with a mocking smile, clutching the corpse of a woman in purple robes."Come quietly back to Void Spire with me; I will treat you well."

  "Regan, you scum!" a woman in the purple group, her robe more ornate than the others, glared at him with murderous intent."I already told you we Lunar Sanctum did not kill your apprentice! And I gave you the victim's whereabouts days ago what more do you want?"

  Ryan raised an eyebrow and kept listening to find out what had really happened.

  Regan snorted."You say it wasn't us? I saw it with my own eyes. The killer wore your Lunar Sanctum purple robes! And the location you gave was useless; I searched for three whole days and couldn't find that woman!"

  He paused, his mockery growing."But whatever. If I can't find that woman, you'll do. Marry me and you'll be of Void Spire."

  "Besides, the one who killed our Void Spire apprentice was brutal; they could crush a skull with their bare hand, a miserable death. If you don't marry me, how can the dead apprentice rest?"

  Ryan listened to the argument between Regan and Doris and finally pieced together the whole story.

  So the people he had killed on the outskirts of the forest were actually apprentices from Void Spire and Lunar Sanctum had been blamed for it.

  No wonder when he saw the Void Spire mages in teal robes earlier, they looked familiar. They were the companions of those men he had slain.

  "I see. No wonder Regan won't let Lunar Sanctum go," Ryan muttered to himself, rubbing his chin.

  Just as the thought crossed his mind, the standoff in the middle of the street suddenly erupted. Regan made the first move, his longsword bursting into bright teal flames as he swung a blazing arc toward Doris.

  Doris was not one to back down. The crescent-shaped moonlight blade in her hand surged with power, colliding head-on with Regan's strike.

  The moment flame met moonlight, a violent wave of magical energy exploded outward. Roofs were ripped off houses on both sides of the street, tiles and splinters flying through the air.

  Fortunately, the townsfolk had sensed trouble earlier and evacuated, or the aftermath would have been disastrous.

  "So it's started already?" Ryan lay on the rooftop, watching with great interest.

  But then, a shadow flashed past the end of the street so fast that it left only a blur.

  Ryan's pupils shrank as he instinctively lowered his body. That figure was all too familiar it was Evelyn, who had just left the inn not long ago.

  "What is she doing back here?" Ryan thought, startled. Before he could react, Evelyn had already plunged into the battlefield.

  Her ultimate ice sword pierced through two Void Spire apprentices in a single motion.

  Then, with a twist of her wrist, a freezing spell erupted from thin air, turning three Lunar Sanctum apprentices into ice statues.

  Her movements were lightning-fast and utterly ruthless. Whether Void Spire or Lunar Sanctum, none could even lift a hand in resistance before being cut down.

  "She's terrifying…" Ryan whispered, every hair on his body standing on end.

  He had known Evelyn was strong, but he hadn't expected her attacks to be this merciless she moved like a cold, emotionless killing machine.

  Within mere seconds, the fierce battle between the two sides was over.

  Bodies lay strewn across the street some impaled by ice spikes, others frozen solid.

  Standing amid the carnage, Evelyn gave her ultimate ice sword a slight shake; the blood on the blade froze instantly, then shattered and fell away.

  Her eyes swept over the corpses with no trace of emotion, as though she had merely stepped on a few ants.

  Then, without a word, she vanished into the distant sky.

  Ryan waited until her figure disappeared completely before daring to jump down from the rooftop.

  He walked carefully among the bodies, avoiding the pools of blood as he began to search them. Perhaps their storage pouches might contain something useful.

  But the result was disappointing.

  The Void Spire apprentices' pouches held only a few low-grade magic crystals and some basic flame scrolls.

  The Lunar Sanctum apprentices had little more than moonlight berries and minor healing potions not a single item worth keeping.

  "What a waste of time," Ryan muttered, shaking his head. He picked up Regan's storage pouch surely, as a small leader of Void Spire, his loot would be better.

  Yet when he opened it, he found only a few dozen low-grade magic crystals and a beginner's fire magic textbook not even one mid-grade crystal.

  "I don't know what you people did to offend Evelyn, but dying this miserably with nothing of value to show for it? Pathetic."

  Ryan grumbled as he was about to toss the pouch back onto the corpse when suddenly, a weak voice reached his ears.

  "Help… me…"

  He froze, looking toward the sound. At the edge of the pile of bodies, a woman in a purple mage robe lay sprawled on the ground, her chest soaked in blood.

  Her breathing was faint clearly, Evelyn had missed this one.

  "Evelyn, how careless can you be? Killing people and still leaving one alive?" Ryan muttered as he hurried over, crouching beside the woman to check her wounds.