Hearing this, Lynn was in no hurry to leave. He simply asked politely:
“Our only goal on this trip is to ask Mr. Moni where the moon dust fungus used to grow. If we are fortunate enough to harvest some, we will purchase it from you at market price.”
Theoretically, the barony no longer belonged to Moni, so he naturally had no right to its products.
But this was Moni's territory after all. If they did find any moon dust fungus, Lynn was willing to pay a sum for it.
Hearing Lynn's request, Moni fell silent for a moment, seemingly weighing whether to agree.
Without hesitating for too long, Moni decided to tell the adventurers where the moon dust fungus grew.
He wasn't lying to them; indeed, no moon dust fungus had been found in the domain for many years.
If Lynn and his party could find it, it would also be a good thing for the Grote family.
“The moon dust fungus once grew in the Graveyard. After you complete the commission, you can go search for it.”
The Graveyard...
Lynn and the others politely thanked him and left the Grote family's castle.
Once Lynn and the others left, Moni lost his appetite. He lightly tapped his knuckles on the table, his expression indifferent.
After a moment, he instructed the elderly butler standing behind him:
“Find someone quick-witted to keep an eye on these adventurers. If they actually harvest any moon dust fungus, make them hand it over.”
“Yes, Young Master.”
The butler didn't ask why. He simply turned and left to carry out the order.
In fact, he understood his young master's thoughts well enough.
Moon dust fungus was a priceless commodity with no set market value. This meant that even if Lynn and his party were willing to pay market price, the young master would never sell it to them—so Lynn and his party's trip was bound to be in vain.
After the butler left, sunlight streamed through the tower's skylight, casting flickering shadows across the Grote family crest behind Moni.
...
Meanwhile, Lynn and the others had arrived at the Public Cemetery by carriage, intending to complete the commission first.
The Public Cemetery and the Graveyard were very close, separated by only a single wall.
Once they reached the entrance, the driver refused to go inside under any circumstances, deciding to wait for them outside.
The gates of the Public Cemetery were made of raw timber. Having been neglected for a long time, they had begun to dry out and peel.
Lynn pushed the gates open. The decaying wooden doors let out a long, creaking groan of age, revealing a desolate and barren scene before the adventurers.
Inside the Public Cemetery, the raised burial mounds were arranged in a semi-orderly fashion. However, a closer look revealed a careless messiness, suggesting that little care had been taken when choosing the burial plots.
The wooden stakes acting as tombstones, which bore the names and life stories of the “clients,” were driven into the ground at crooked angles, their inscriptions worn away by the wind and sun.
Quite a few tombstones had even been overturned, discarded directly onto the ground nearby.
This was likely the handiwork of those “clients” who had crawled back out from underground.
Lupa suddenly spoke up, “Do you guys feel a bit cold?”
Lynn looked up at the glaring midday sun.
Cold?
If it were anyone else, Lynn would have assumed they were just physically weak. But for Lupa, who possessed half-beastkin blood, Lynn felt it was highly unlikely to be an issue with her constitution.
Perhaps this place really was a bit strange.
The Monk, however, seemed entirely unfazed. He analyzed, “It's likely because the negative psionic energy here is too heavy. If one's mind isn't resilient enough, they might feel a chill.”
Lynn came to a sudden realization.
It seemed his and the Monk's Charisma attributes were too high, which was why they were unaffected by the negative psionic energy here.
This also made Lynn increasingly certain of one thing.
The underground area of the Public Cemetery might truly be the location of Art the Wererat's cave dwelling.
Previously, he had suspected that the specters were spawned in the Public Cemetery and had wandered underground.
Now, having confirmed that the concentration of negative psionic energy in the Public Cemetery was very high and had even given rise to a large number of zombies and skeletons, there was a high probability that the specters were born in the Public Cemetery rather than the Graveyard.
Otherwise, why would only this place experience trouble while the Graveyard remained perfectly fine?
It was highly likely that some junior Priest had slacked off, performing the purification rituals too half-heartedly, which led to the current phenomenon of corpses rising.
The three of them found a relatively safe spot where they wouldn't be ambushed by monsters suddenly appearing at night. They sat down to rest while waiting for nightfall.
Lynn didn't idle away his time either.
With less than a month left before the Autumn Hunt, he had to seize every moment to increase his strength.
He pulled a book from his breast pocket—the copy of 《The Encyclopedia of Cantrips: Sixteen Cantrips Every Mage Apprentice Must Learn》 he had bought from the Mages' Association shop—and began to flip through it carefully.
The beginning of the book was a short autobiography of the author.
The author claimed to have been raised by a bard. After the bard's death, he inherited the bard's estate and discovered a spellbook, which set him on the path of a rogue mage.
However, due to his limited talent, he had been unable to solidify his Mage class. In his twilight years, lamenting the rapid passage of time, he had penned this book.
And the “sixteen cantrips” in the title wasn't just a vague figure of speech; the book truly recorded exactly sixteen different cantrips.
These were broadly divided into three categories—
Offensive spells: Acid Splash, Booming Blade, Fire Bolt, Eldritch Blast, Thunderclap, Burning Hands.
Defensive spells: Blade Ward.
Utility spells: Friends, Prestidigitation, Infestation, Light, Taunt, Shape Water, Control Flames, Gust, Weather Prediction.
According to 《An Introduction to Spells》, the book given to him by his Mentor Gray, there were only about eighty common cantrips across the entire continent.
Yet this rogue mage who wrote the book could use sixteen of them all by himself.
If one were to call him exceptionally gifted, he hadn't even been able to solidify his Mage class.
But if one were to say his talent for magic was poor, he had somehow learned so many cantrips and had even mastered them to the point of being able to teach them to future generations.
Furthermore, because the logical principles of magic differed among various schools, most mages chose to selectively specialize in only one or two schools of magic.
Yet this fellow knew one or two spells from each of the six major schools of magic: Evocation, Abjuration, Necromancy, Enchantment, Conjuration, and Transmutation.
If there was one thing this guy wasn't good at, it was likely Abjuration spells.
But that wasn't entirely his fault.
The reality was that there were simply very few cantrips in the School of Abjuration.
Abjuration cantrips were generally divided into only two types. One was for defending against physical damage, which was the “Blade Ward” this rogue mage had learned.
The other was “Resistance,” which defended against mental shocks, but this fellow hadn't learned it.
Other Zero-Circle Abjuration spells were rather useless.
Because for apprentice-level spellcasters, both their mana capacity and mana control were highly limited.
Expecting them to cast various shields to block magic was simply unrealistic.
Thus, most of the flashy Abjuration cantrips had been phased out, leaving only “Blade Ward” and “Resistance.”
Now, Lynn planned to select two or three cantrips from these dozen or so options to study and master.
On one hand, his current offensive options were too limited. His only ranged option was Magic Missile, which had a severe limit on its daily uses.
On the other hand, to solidify his Mage class, he needed to learn at least three spells.
...
The Six Major Schools of Magic:
Evocation: Primarily controls elements, force fields, and other forms of energy for offense and defense (mostly offense).
Abjuration: Various defensive spells.
Necromancy: Toys with life and death, blurring the boundary between the mortal realm and the Underworld.
Enchantment: Controls the minds of others through direct (mental shock) or indirect (creating illusions) means.
Conjuration: Summons and manipulates physical matter (such as Summon Swarm, Create Bread, and Conjure Feast).
Transmutation: Predicts and controls change.
Rate on N.U.
