Chapter 33: Practice

  Ethan now had another letter of appointment from the Duke tucked in his chest.

  He couldn’t figure out why the Duke had entrusted him with rescuing his daughter as if he were the only savior. With the Duke’s power and wealth, a group of goblins should have been no match for him. Those green-skinned rogues would never have dared to kidnap a Duke’s daughter if they had known her identity—she was such a dangerous “cargo” that it could bring an army to raze their entire village to the ground. Usually, they only attacked passing travelers or small caravans, and generally didn’t dare to harm anyone. Moreover, no matter who it was, as long as they brought the ransom, the matter could be resolved.

  But no matter what the Duke was thinking, this was definitely a good thing for Ethan. He had also been hoping to solve this matter alone and secretly. The Duke not only earnestly asked him to rescue his daughter, but also specially gave him a letter of appointment, saying it would facilitate his actions in local areas—just like the Bishop had done.

  Of course, the Duke had no right to directly appoint officials; this letter only proved that he was an envoy sent by the Duke, indicating that he was the Duke’s man and could change horses at the post stations along the way. Besides, the Duke’s reputation and influence had been on the rise in recent years, so even in remote areas, this letter would carry great deterrent power.

  Ethan had wanted to decline this letter at first, but along with it came ten shiny gold coins—exactly what he needed—so he had no choice but to accept.

  It was already getting a bit late. He returned to Sandro’s mansion, planning to set off the next day.

  Ethan had been remembering the matter of that meditation technique all the time. As soon as he entered the house, he found Sandro and asked angrily, “Why didn’t you tell me earlier what that meditation technique in the book was? If I had known, I would never have practiced it.”

  “Why not practice it?” Sandro stared at him.

  “Aren’t those evil arts? The Bishop said everyone who practiced them is dead. Do you want to kill me?”

  Sandro spat on the ground and said, “Those who died were all fools who forced themselves to practice even though they clearly lacked the talent. The thing itself isn’t inherently ‘evil’ or ‘righteous’—it’s all about using it properly. Even drinking too much water can make you die from overeating. I practiced it before too, but I stopped when I reached the limit of my body, and I’ve been fine all these years.”

  When Sandro heard that the Bishop had told Ethan to destroy the book by the way, he froze for a moment and asked, “Did he really say that?” Then he frowned, ran into the inner room, and when he came out, he handed something in his hand to Ethan and said, “Eat this.” Ethan took it and looked carefully—it was two black pills.

  “Hurry up and eat them, quick,” Sandro patted Ethan’s back as if coaxing a child.

  “How dare I eat something I know nothing about? Isn’t this poison?”

  “This is really good medicine!” Sandro put on an expression of innocent anger. “I refined this with dozens of precious medicinal herbs plus magic power. Eating it can strengthen your body and fill you with energy. I’m giving it to you because you’re going to complete a difficult task tomorrow, so I want to help you replenish your strength.”

  “Really?” Ethan smelled it carefully—it had no taste, so he opened his mouth and swallowed it.

  “Have another glass of water to help with digestion,” Sandro handed him another glass of water.

  Ethan gulped it down and found that Sandro was watching him carefully from the side. He felt very uncomfortable and asked, “What are you up to?”

  Sandro glanced into Ethan’s mouth to confirm that he had swallowed the pills and that there was no way to spit them out anymore. Then he suddenly shouted in a panic, “Oh no, I forgot! The medicinal property of this medicine is too strong, and it must be neutralized with another kind of medicine. Otherwise, it will make your intestines and stomach burst and you’ll die in agony.”

  “You… what do you mean?” Ethan stared at him.

  “I also forgot the formula for the other medicine, but it’s recorded in that book. You must get that book back to me as soon as possible,” he patted Ethan’s shoulder, then said innocently, “Why are you looking at me like that? I didn’t do it on purpose. But don’t worry, the effect of this medicine isn’t immediate; it will take a long time to take effect. I believe you will definitely be able to bring the book to me before the poison takes effect. And you must remember not to show the book to anyone else, and only I can understand the formula written on it…”

  Then he seemed to think of something else, and instructed Ethan in the kind tone unique to elders, “By the way, there’s one more thing—I have a bad memory. If you tell this matter to Bishop Ronis, I’ll be so scared that I’ll forget everything.”

  Ethan let out a long sigh, nodded, patted Sandro’s shoulder and said, “Don’t worry, I’ll bring the book to you, and then I’ll tell the Bishop that I’ve destroyed the book. That will work, right?” He really couldn’t believe that this man who played such petty tricks would have any connection with the legendary Necromancer Guild.

  “So you’re this smart? How come I never noticed before?” Sandro nodded with a little embarrassment, then said with a very serious expression, “But that is really a very powerful poison. You need to feel the pressure, so that you can concentrate. Otherwise, you’ll lose your mind as soon as you see a woman. If that woman rolls around in your arms, acts coquettishly and asks you to destroy that book, won’t you even lose your own life?”

  Ethan nodded impatiently and said, “Okay, okay, I get it. I’ll bring the book to you.”

  With a loud “bang”, the two wooden doors were kicked open violently. A group of people swarmed in, almost all of them burly men holding weapons.

  Only the leader was a thin man with a sharp mouth and monkey-like cheeks. He stared at Ethan for a moment, then said to the others, “This is the guy. The young master ordered to bring him back alive, but it’s okay if he breaks a few hands or feet. The first one to take him down will get five gold coins.”

  As soon as he finished speaking, all the people pounced on the “five gold coins” standing in front.

  “It seems they’re here for you. Take your time.” Sandro turned around and walked away.

  Ethan didn’t understand why these strangers had come for him, but he knew exactly how to deal with people rushing towards him with weapons. Instead of retreating, he stepped forward, stretched out his hand and shot a fireball at the first man who rushed over—this time he used almost all his strength.

  Ethan knew very well the key to fighting against a larger number of enemies. The side with more people often felt they had the advantage and were generally lax in their attitude. As long as you show strength beyond their expectations and take down a few of them at once, their morale will collapse, and then it will be easier to deal with them.

  Although the power of this fireball was not as exaggerated as that in the Whispering Woods, it was obviously stronger than before. After hitting the man’s chest directly, it blew him flying backwards. The people next to him were also knocked down by the aftershock of the explosion.

  “Oh?” Sandro, who had walked to the side to watch the fun, opened his eyes slightly, surprised by the power of this fireball.

  The others didn’t pause; instead, they rushed over more fiercely, taking advantage of the interval between Ethan’s casting of this magic. Ethan could tell at a glance that these people were all battle-hardened veterans. He drew his knife from behind.

  He only parried the two sword strikes from the people coming at him from the front, then Ethan freed his hand again and shot a fireball, knocking down the two people who pounced on him from the side. He now felt that the magic power in his body was flowing freely and endlessly.

  This was his first fight with someone since he escaped from the Whispering Woods, and he felt that he had improved a lot compared to before. The power of meditation and the Sunwell was gradually merging in his body, and it was not only his magic power—even his physical body was showing wonderful effects.

  Ethan held his knife horizontally and knocked down two people with the back of the blade. He didn’t want to kill anyone, so he used the back of the knife, but naturally, his strikes were not light. Every time he struck, there was a sound of bones breaking. But he didn’t expect these people to be extremely fierce. As soon as he turned around, one of the burly men who had been knocked down on the ground struggled to get up despite the pain and stabbed him in the back with a sword. But the sword only scraped against that robe and then slid away.

  Ethan didn’t even look back; he took a step back and struck out with his elbow. The sound of broken cheekbones and a muffled cry rang out at the same time. This time, that man would definitely not be able to get up again.

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  Someone on the side rushed up waving a long sword. Ethan simply stepped forward and blocked the sword directly with his arm, then hit the man’s jaw with the hilt of his knife, smashing it to pieces. He turned around and shot another fireball, sending a man who wanted to sneak attack from behind flying. The man crashed into the shelf with various glass bottles containing organs on it. Internal organs and potions fell all over the ground along with the glass shards. Sandro cursed under his breath from the side.

  Seeing him fight like this, the remaining few people finally felt afraid. They stood there only putting on a stance but no longer came forward.

  “Stop!” A loud shout rang out. The thin leader had quietly run over at some point and was holding a knife against Sandro’s neck.

  “Don’t move, otherwise I’ll cut off this old man’s head,” the thin man shouted with great authority, obviously thinking that he had gained the upper hand.

  The thin man was very proud. He wasn’t good at fighting; although he was basically the one who came up with plans, he usually had no chance to be reused under his master who preferred to watch fights and killings. This time, because his master had been called away by the lord before leaving, and only he had seen the face of the man who had injured his master last time, he was sent to lead the men here. He felt that this was a chance given to him by heaven, so he wanted to grasp it well and perform well.

  “Don’t move. If you move, this old man’s neck will have a hole, and blood will gurgle out. Can you imagine what that scene is like? Have you ever heard the sound of someone whose throat has been cut? It’s not nice at all, especially when it happens to your relatives and friends. Look at this old gentleman—he’s so old, he must not have much blood left,” the thin man described vividly to enhance his deterrent power.

  He saw that his opponent really didn’t move, as if he had really been caught by his weakness, so he became even more complacent. He was very confident in the effect of this trick he often used. He had always looked down on those companions who fought head-on with their opponents using brute force, and was proud of his own superior intelligence.

  As long as they are human beings, they have relatives, friends, and people they care about. Instead of wasting energy and effort fighting with others, it’s better to easily grasp these weak points, and you can make people submit without shedding a drop of blood.

  He smiled proudly. This was a typical example of his wisdom being better than those brute forces. When the situation was about to collapse completely, it was his wisdom that took control of the situation. He could already imagine how his master would look at him with new eyes and entrust him with important tasks after he went back, and then he would become the number one subordinate, a military advisor-level figure. He was full of ambition and ordered the few companions standing there in a very authoritative tone, “You go up and cut his hands and feet a few times first. Remember, you must cut the tendons on his flesh so that he can’t move anymore, but don’t hurt the important blood vessels. The young master said he wants him alive.” He looked at Ethan and said, “Don’t move. My knife is very sharp.”

  Two burly men stepped forward, raised their weapons and slashed at Ethan’s feet. They were all veterans, slashing directly at the position of his heels.

  A scream rang out, but it was the two burly men who fell down. Ethan not only moved, but also moved very drastically. He suddenly jumped aside, reached out and pulled the two burly men over. Their weapons cut into each other’s bodies, and then their heads were smashed hard against each other. With a dull thud, they collapsed to the ground and didn’t move.

  The thin man was both shocked and angry. He decided to show his authority—to tell that man who ignored his threat that he wasn’t just talking tough, but really ruthless. He raised his knife and was about to cut at the face of the old man in his hand. He had encountered such situations before, but as long as he cut off the hostage’s ears, nose or made a few cuts on their body, the other party would immediately stop resisting as soon as they saw the tragic situation of their friends and relatives and heard their screams.

  He had just raised his hand when he suddenly found that he couldn’t move. The old man’s white, aged hand covered with wrinkles just reached over and touched his other hand, and his body suddenly became as stiff as wood.

  The old man turned around and sighed with a hint of nostalgia, “It’s been a long time since someone held a knife against me.” He looked at the knife in the thin man’s hand and said, “A knife isn’t held like this…” Then he reached out and pried open the thin man’s fingers one by one, changed the way he held the knife, and then bent his fingers back one by one. He held the thin man’s wrist and led his knife to cut towards his own face.

  Every feeling in the thin man’s body was normal and clear, and his joints were also flexible, but all his muscles were stiff. He watched helplessly as the knife cut into his left cheek. The muscles were cut open under the severe pain of the blade, and blood gushed out from the cut. Then it gathered into a small stream on his skin and flowed down his chin. He couldn’t even blink his eyes; only tears of pain flowed out of his wide-open eye sockets and mixed with blood, dripping down.

  The knife cut out from the thin man’s ear, almost cutting off half of his face. His crotch was already completely wet, but he still maintained that posture of raising his hand to swing the knife, and even the remaining half of his face still had that fierce expression. Sandro was still talking to him like teaching a child, “You see, how good this cutting line is. This is how you should hold a knife… Oh, I forgot you can’t see it… Next time you take a knife to kill someone, you must hold it like this. Oh, sorry, I forgot again—you don’t seem to have a next time…”

  The few burly men over there had already started to back away towards the door. Sandro said to the thin man with emotion, “Why are your companions leaving you and running away by themselves? That’s not okay. You go and stop them.” That pale and dry hand easily dug into the thin man’s body. Under that hand, it seemed that there was no skin and muscles, but just a pile of mud.

  The thin man immediately felt a very strange feeling spreading rapidly in his body. To be precise, this was not a feeling, but a feeling of losing feeling. Centered on that hand, all the feelings in his body were disappearing rapidly. He didn’t even have time to think about what was going on before he even lost the feeling of being able to think.

  Sandro just threw the thin man’s body, which weighed more than a hundred pounds, and it flew straight out and hit the few people who wanted to escape, then exploded with a “pu” sound like a fart. Such a small explosion wouldn’t have any lethality; it just splashed the things inside the thin man’s body out.

  What splashed out was not red flesh and internal organs or anything like that, but a stinking paste-like substance similar to the sludge that had accumulated in a smelly ditch for a lifetime. This man who was still alive just now had his body inside rot like it had been decaying for decades in just the blink of an eye.

  The black paste that exploded from the corpse splashed onto the few burly men who wanted to run away. They immediately screamed as if scalded by red-hot iron and fell to the ground rolling around. But they only screamed a few times before their voices died down, and then they lay there motionless, their whole body’s skin showing the gray color of pork that had been left for several days.

  Ethan stared dumbfounded at the scene in front of him. He had known for a long time that Sandro wouldn’t need his help, but he really didn’t expect it to be such a scene.

  Sandro clapped his hands easily. His hands were still as pale as before, and the deaths of those people just now hadn’t left any traces on him. He seemed as relaxed as if he had just gone to the toilet and drunk a glass of water. He turned around and looked at Ethan and said, “Do you know that you should have died several times just now?”

  Sandro’s tone was rarely serious. “I know that killing people is not a simple thing—it’s much harder than those inexperienced guys in the taverns brag about. After I killed someone for the first time, I vomited for a whole day and couldn’t eat anything for three days.” He spoke like a responsible teacher instructing his student. “But if you don’t want to be killed, you have to get used to the feeling of killing. Obviously, those people want your life, but you still hold back and use the back of the knife to hit them—are you eager to die? Let me ask you again: if I really had no ability to resist just now, would you really have had scruples?”

  “…Probably… I would have,” Ethan said honestly.

  “Then you would just wait for others to cut off your hands and feet, and then drag you away like a dead pig? Once you have no threat, do you think others will treat the person who was used to threaten you well?” When Sandro was serious, Ethan finally realized that this old man was actually someone with great dignity, presence, and even a menacing aura.

  Ethan said nothing. It didn’t take much thought to understand these things.

  Sandro shook his head, as if he wanted to say something but held it back. He only left a sentence: “Take your time to think about it.” Then he walked over to a burly man lying on the ground. This man’s collarbone had been broken by the back of Ethan’s knife and was huddled up, moaning. Sandro bent down and reached out to touch the man’s face. The burly man let out a sigh that sounded like one of relief, then stopped moaning. His hands, feet, and body, which had been curled up, suddenly went limp. Anyone could tell he was now completely at peace—dead.

  Sandro walked toward another burly man on the ground. Ethan quickly stepped forward to stop him: “Enough, they can’t resist anymore…”

  “Do you remember that boastful butcher?” Sandro asked. Ethan froze—he had no idea why Sandro was bringing this up now.

  “One of his daughters was raped last month. He went to ask for justice, but someone slashed his face with a knife. Now he’s still lying at home, half-dead,” Sandro gestured at his own face with his hand—right at the spot where he had cut the thin man earlier—then pointed at the large pool of black slop that had exploded out. You could still see fragments of bones dissolving in it, and it was completely impossible to tell that this mess had once been a human being. “That thin man did it. These guys are all house slaves raised by some high-ranking official. Let me tell you, every one of them does this kind of thing all the time—hardly anyone on the street doesn’t know them, and everyone is afraid of them. Do you think they’re the ones who deserve pity, or the people they’ve bullied?”

  Ethan watched in silence as Sandro went up to each of the moaning burly men lying on the ground and touched their faces one by one. These strong men were no match for this frail old man—they all died almost without a sound.

  Sandro walked back and said in a lecturing tone: “Let me tell you one more thing—I would have done this even if none of them deserved to die.”

  “If we let them go, they’ll go back and tell their master, and then more people will come—maybe even the Capital’s Imperial Guards or the Church’s Priest Corps. Do you think I can kill all of them? And if word gets out that there’s someone who knows the Necromancer Guild’s dark magic in the Magic Academy, and that the Bishop even associates with this person—what kind of trouble do you think that would cause? Tell me, how else should we handle this?”

  Ethan nodded silently. He knew there was no easy way to deal with this. He asked: “Then what do we do about the mess now?”

  “What mess now? What’s ‘the mess now’? I don’t know anything about it. I’ve been discussing things with the Bishop all evening—he can vouch for me. I have no idea how these people ended up dead here, and I don’t even know who to ask for compensation for my broken things,” Sandro said.

  Ethan stared in astonishment, then nodded. He had nothing to say.

  “Don’t be swayed by those simple emotions. Think more about the consequences of what happens next, and then act in the direction you should. Remember—your head isn’t just for growing hair. You’re leaving tomorrow to get that book back, and with the way you are now, you might not even make it back alive,” Sandro’s lecturing tone gradually softened. “A lot of things feel uncomfortable at first, but if you want to survive in this world, you have to practice getting used to them. You need to know that the world doesn’t revolve around how you feel.”

  Ethan let out a sigh. He wanted to nod, but also wanted to shake his head.