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Three months later, in Vrepridge, a young woman dressed in a simple robe slipped quietly into the city, blending in with the crowd.
She headed straight for an apothecary and sold off some of her Mystic Silver–Leaves.
With the Luster Shards she earned, she traded for Vellum of Inscription, keeping only a handful of broken shards for travel
expenses.
She then found a pasta stand, sat down, and ordered a plate of spaghetti.
Picking up her fork, she began to eat.
The rising steam from the spaghetti wrapped around her, bringing back the comforting warmth and bustle of ordinary life.
Between soft sighs, she tended to the river turtle beside her.
This young woman was no one else but Linda Barber herself, the very one who had leapt into the depths of Glacial Overlook, disappearing for three months.
Glacial Overlook was a place of certain death, but at the very bottom, there was still a glimmer of hope.
She’d escaped from Glacial Overlook in her previous life, so Linda went for it again this time.
Before facing Matthew to own up to her mistake, she had already packed up everything from her hut and harvested all the Mystic Silver–Leaf from the Apothecary Garden; she stashed it all in her Infinite–Expansion Satchel.
At that time, Linda hurled herself over the edge without a second thought.
She was betting everything on it, betting that she could make it out alive.
By some miracle, she scraped by with a sliver of hope this time.
Because she’d risked it all and jumped into Glacial Overlook, Linda broke through the bottleneck of the Foundation Phase right at that life–or–death moment.
She broke through and formed her Gilded Core.
But unlike everyone else, she ended up with five Gilded Cores.
She was back at the Condensation of the Primal Core. But Linda couldn’t make sense of it.
Because in addition to those five Gilded Cores, there were also five tiny streams of mana swirling inside her.
She found herself back in the Mana–Stoking Phase.
Having crashed through the Condensation of the Primal Core all the way down to Mana–Stoking, Linda discovered, to her shock, that the five Gilded Cores within her still thrummed with accessible power.
That meant she now had the power of a mage at the Condensation of the Primal Core.
But her realm was still just Mana–Stoking.
“Weird.” Linda frowned.
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If I could condense these five new streams of mana into Gilded Cores, wouldn’t that mean I’d have ten Gilded Cores?‘ she
wondered.
Linda was stunned by her thought.
Since she couldn’t make sense of it, she decided to let it go.
Finishing her spaghetti, Linda put on her hat and headed out.
Vrepridge was still within the High Sanctum of Archmagi’s territory, so she couldn’t stick around for long.
She’d barely made it down the street when the apothecary shopkeeper, who had just gone back inside, spotted the pile of Mystic Silver–Leaf by the counter and gaped.
He turned to the clerk, asking, “Where’d all this come from?”
“A young mage dropped it off,” the clerk answered.
“Where’d they go?”
“Already gone.”
The shopkeeper dashed out the door, but Linda was already nowhere to be seen. He spun around to the clerk, sounding anxious. “You should’ve told me. Why didn’t you call out?”
“Sir, isn’t this just some regular Mystic Silver–Leaf? You always said we could handle stuff like this ourselves….” the clerk replied.
“Hello? Look at this. So fresh it’s practically still growing. This is supreme–grade. Only a Grandmaster Herbologist, a true artist, could cultivate this. It’s not just valuable; it’s priceless,” the shopkeeper snapped.
The clerk scratched his head. “But… but that mage was just in Mana–Stoking phase.”
The shopkeeper was stunned. “An Mana–Stoking mage?”
Impossible. A Grandmaster Herbologist should be at least in the Astral Sovereign Form. No way a mere Mana–Stoking mage could pull that off, the shopkeeper thought, utterly floored.
**
Linda didn’t waste any time. She headed straight for Summit Peak as soon as she left downtown.
She kept moving, putting the High Sanctum of Archmagi’s reach far behind her.
After thinking it over, Linda figured she’d better find someone who could tell her what was going on with her core.
After dying in her previous life, Linda woke up in this body. She’d never left Azure Spire until she was five, so she barely knew anything about the world.
But after leaving the High Sanctum of Archmagi in her previous life, she’d wandered all over Atrufset and remembered the famous mountains. Now, retracing those old routes, she walked for a stretch, then hopped onto her magical artifact and soared through the air.
Her sudden flight made heads turn and got the crowd buzzing.
“Oh my, check it out! Since when can Mana–Stoking newbies fly?” someone exclaimed.
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Chapter 6
“I thought only Foundation Phase mages could ride flying tools,” another onlooker said.
“Seriously, when did Mana–Stoking mages start pulling off stunts like that?” a third person gawked.
Tuning out the curious stares and whispers, Linda made her way to Summit Peak and slipped into Evord Town.
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Approaching an elderly local, she asked, “Hey there, do you happen to know anyone named Rafael Vaughn around here?”
She tried asking around at seven or eight different spots, but nobody seemed to know Rafael Vaughn.
Still, Linda wasn’t bothered. Patience was her strong suit.
A century would pass in Linda’s previous life before she crossed paths with Rafael.
He would later confess to her his early struggles, scraping by at Summit Peak before finally establishing the College of Lore, which would eventually become the most enigmatic force in all of Atrufset.
Lurking in the shadows, they controlled the secrets of every mage across Atrufset; even the royal clans and powerful forces couldn’t slip past their gaze.
Their web of intelligence stretched to every corner of Atrufset.
But at this point, Linda figured Rafael was probably still struggling to get by.
After asking around all afternoon, Linda called it a day as it grew dark. She walked into an inn, sat down, and ordered some food.
Since she’d dropped back to Mana–Stoking, she had to eat.
“It’s getting dark. That thing’s about to come out again,” someone said.
“Quick, everyone. Shut the doors!” another voice shouted.
With a bang, doors and windows slammed shut all at once.
Just as Linda picked up her fork, every door and window in the inn and the shops nearby slammed shut, plunging the whole street into sudden silence.
Linda just sat there, totally unfazed by the sudden hush.
The innkeeper reassured her, sounding casual. “Don’t mind it. Take your time.”
Linda didn’t say a word and quietly dug in.
But those eerie creaking noises sent shivers down everyone’s spine in the inn.
The innkeeper could no longer hold back and asked as politely as he could, “Uh, I wonder if you might… stop eating for a bit,
ma’am?
Linda just looked up, totally unfazed. “It’s not me.”
The three of them turned and saw the source of the noise–a table by the window, loaded with empty bowls stacked two or three rows deep.
The top row had more than a dozen bowls, stacked so high they hid the woman’s face from view. The guy next to her had his face buried in his hands, clearly hoping no one would notice him.
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“Hey, Laura, they are staring at you,” the man muttered.
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“Umhmm.” Turning her head, the green–robed woman gave them a look. Then she took a loud, deliberate slurp of her spaghetti, a provocative, almost graceful sound meant to needle them.
But she wasn’t the source of those creepy noises.
Linda looked over and realized the weird creaking was actually coming from the next table. At the corner, there was something tied up with a rope.
It was a tiny creature with a human face and the body of a sheep, wriggling and trying to break free.
But the woman in green just gave it a casual kick, sending it right back under the table.
Linda’s gaze locked onto it.
It was one of the infamous Four Fiends, a descendant of the legendary Behemoth.
Even though it was just a hybrid and nowhere near as strong as the real deal, it was not to be messed with.
Plus, this little monster devoured gold for every meal. Feeding it was all about tossing treasure down its throat.
It’d get seriously cranky if it didn’t get fed.
The two at that table couldn’t have been older than twenty, but they’d actually managed to capture a baby Behemoth.
Linda looked them over. Their clothes looked like some coven’s uniforms, but she couldn’t place which one.
She was sure she’d never seen them before.
No way someone who could wrangle a baby Behemoth at such a young age would go unnoticed by any major force.
While Linda was sizing them up, Laura and Craig were checking her out, too.
Laura snorted, “She barely eats anything. Bet she can’t fight at all.”
Craig eyed her sleeve and muttered, “That Mystic Silver–Leaf looks top–notch. Is she a Botanical Magus or something?”
The three of them exchanged glances, then quickly looked away.
Things quieted down inside the inn.
Meanwhile, the ruckus outside was only getting worse.
A biting wind howled straight for the inn. With a thunderous crash, it smashed right into the doors, windows, and even the two folks huddled in the corner.
“Give me back my Maelstrom!” someone bellowed.
The roar was so thunderous it shook the whole inn.
As the doors and windows exploded inward, a white blur barreled into the room, heading straight for the long table. Craig didn’t even think twice. He was out of there in a flash, leaving Laura standing her ground, ready to throw down.
The innkeeper, the clerk, and Linda all looked totally baffled.
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Craig shot them a “you wouldn’t understand” look and said with a smug little shrug, “It’s our coven’s tradition. You wouldn’t get it.”
The guys ran away, and the girls fought. That was just how it went.
Laura and the white blur went at it, but the fight was over almost instantly. The white blur tried to sneak in an attack, but Laura just threw a punch and sent them flying right out of the inn.
The white blur stomped at the window, yelling angrily, “I never messed with anyone from First Unity Coven. Why’d you have to go and grab my precious?”
Linda paused, lost in thought. ‘First Unity Coven? They’re actually from one of the Ancient Triumvirates?‘
Word was, this sect was packed with geniuses; if you weren’t a prodigy, they wouldn’t even bother with you.
Other covens always talked smack about them for that, but over the past few decades, their ranking in the tournaments kept sliding–from first, to third, to seventh, to tenth, and now they’d dropped out of the top twenty altogether.
After that, it was like the sect just vanished.
Rumor had it their legacy was cut off for good.
Nobody ever heard a peep about them in the generations that followed.
Linda couldn’t recall ever hearing about them again. ‘Did this coven just vanish into thin air?‘ she thought.
The white–clad guy, totally outmatched, was fuming outside, stomping his feet and cursing up a storm.
As he yelled, his words got nastier.
But Laura nonchalantly wiped her mouth and got to her feet.
Craig’s eyes went wide with panic. “Laura, don’t! We can’t afford to-”
He didn’t even get to finish when Laura slammed her palm down on the long table, shattering it instantly.
Then she charged straight for the doors and windows. She might’ve been small, but her movements unleashed a fierce wind, shaking the entire inn to its foundations.
The whole row of doors and windows crashed down with a thunderous roar.
The young guy at the window ended up standing right there on the ruins with her.
As the force of Laura’s punch swept over him, his face went blank with shock.
“Pay-” Craig uttered his last word.
Laura paused, glanced back at the half–flattened inn, then just said, “Oh, right. I forgot.”
Linda caught every detail.
Laura leveled the whole inn with nothing but sheer physical strength.
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Sara Lili is a daring romance writer who turns icy landscapes into scenes of fiery passion. She loves crafting hot love stories while embracing the chill of Iceland’s breathtaking cold.
