Ethan didn't dwell on it further, turning and plunging deeper into the mountain forest.
Vines shot out from beneath his feet, coiling around tree trunks and using the momentum to swing him forward a dozen meters at a time.
His speed through the woods was staggering, and his feet barely made a sound against the ground.
His current priority was to run.
He needed to get far enough away—so far that the Amons couldn't find him even if they searched a thousand miles in every direction.
Then, he would find a place to hide and wait for the War Fortress to arrive.
After running for over an hour, Ethan came to a halt beneath a sheer cliff.
Vines snaked from his feet into the crevices of the rock face, prying them open to either side.
The stone cracked silently, and soil was pushed aside, quickly forming a cave just large enough for a person to curl up inside.
Once he slipped into the hole, the vines sealed the entrance from the inside, leaving only a few tiny air vents.
Moss grew over the surface of the vines, and within a few breaths, the entrance had blended perfectly with the surrounding rock wall.
Leaning against the cave wall, Ethan closed his eyes and let his consciousness sink into his mental sea.
Thirty-three runes rotated slowly, their emerald-green light suspended quietly amidst the gray mist.
He began to meditate, continuing his cultivation.
...
Meanwhile, at the ruins of the Green Das Tribe, near the edge of the explosion crater.
Thirteen Amons stood at the rim of the pit.
There were eleven Sentinels and two Priests.
Leading them was a four-meter-tall strongman with pale blue skin covered in dark red patterns that stretched from his neck to his fingertips.
He stared into the bottom of the pit for a long moment, saying nothing.
Beside him, a priestess knelt down and pressed her palm against the rubble at the edge of the crater.
Emerald light surged from her palm, sinking into the ground.
A moment later, she looked up.
"Residual wood-element energy. This was blasted out by the Green Das Tribe's city-protecting array."
"Is Priestess Zhuoya confirmed dead?"
"I cannot say for certain."
"Are there any survivors?"
"None. With an explosion of this magnitude, nothing remains."
The strongman remained silent for a few breaths.
"Inform the Sacred City," he said, turning as his amber eyes swept over the Sentinels behind him. "There is at least one intruder, with strength somewhere between a Priest and a Guardian."
He paused.
"Their methods are extremely brutal. Kill them on sight. We don't need survivors."
"Yes, sir!"
The eleven Sentinels bowed with their hands over their chests simultaneously before scattering in all directions.
The priestess tucked away her bone whistle and pulled an emerald crystal from her sleeve.
She pressed the crystal to her chest and closed her eyes.
A moment later, she opened them.
"The Sacred City has replied."
The strongman turned around.
"They are sending thirteen more Guardians and seventy-seven Priests, led by three Protector Priests."
The strongman nodded and strode away.
The priestess followed behind him.
After walking for a short while, she suddenly asked, "Mora, can the Protector Priests catch that intruder?"
The strongman didn't stop his pace.
"I don't know. But I heard the Kemian Tribe caught an intruder. I want to go there."
"But..."
"I know. I'll speak with Aites about it."
...
One month remained until the War Fortress would arrive.
Ethan opened his eyes, waking from his meditation.
He peered into his mental sea, where thirty-six emerald runes hovered quietly in the gray mist, maintaining a delicate balance with one another.
Thirty-six runes.
He had condensed them all.
Over the past few months, the effect of the Spirit-Refreshing Potion had been multiplied a hundredfold under the Glutton passive, compressing what should have been decades of meditation progress into a few short months.
The next step was to fuse the thirty-six runes into a mental crystal and complete the radiation-based transformation of his body, evolving from a mortal into an Official Wizard.
However, this step could not be completed here.
All Wizard Apprentices must advance to Official Wizard within the Wizard World to allow the World Consciousness to provide the final boost.
The Wizard World would bestow a gift upon the newly ascended, imprinting a trace of the world origin onto their mental crystal.
This boost could increase a new Official Wizard's strength by about ten percent out of thin air.
One should not underestimate this ten percent; at the level of an Official Wizard, every shred of difference could mean the difference between life and death.
If one did not advance within the Wizard World, lacking this boost would mean their foundation was a step behind everyone else.
One step behind meant being behind at every step.
The price paid to catch up later would be far greater than simply waiting for this period of time.
Of course, if you were stubborn and insisted that you didn't care about that ten percent and wanted to advance in another world, you could.
It wouldn't be a problem—except that when a Wizard Apprentice advances, their intense focus often makes it difficult to control their own energy, causing a large-scale energy riot.
It tended to cause quite a scene.
If it were a world already controlled by the Wizard World, it wouldn't matter.
But if you were in a state of infiltration during a World War like Ethan, and you decided to pull a stunt like that...
Well, you'd better hope your luck was incredibly strong.
Beyond meditation, Ethan had also fully digested and absorbed the knowledge he had plundered from the Amons World. By combining it with the wood-element energy particle control techniques from the Wizard World, he had significantly enhanced his energy particle control efficiency.
While he couldn't say his raw power had increased massively, he could now easily crush the version of himself from before he entered seclusion.
Casually crushing a plant that had become animated due to several months of meditation, Ethan closed his eyes.
The Green Vine Guards he had left to guard his Wizard Tower were diligently organizing the tower and the small plaza he had set up.
After confirming that no Amons had discovered anything, he withdrew his mental power.
Walking out of the cave, Ethan casually summoned a thin wooden stake.
He carved a mark on one end and tossed it into the air.
Whoosh—thud!
The mark pointed east.
"Alright then, east it is."
He slapped the cave entrance with his palm.
Dozens of wooden stakes shot from his palm, embedding themselves into the cave walls and ceiling.
Rocks shattered, soil caved in, and the entire passage collapsed from the inside out.
Within moments, the cave that had hidden him for months vanished completely, rubble and soil mixing together and being quickly covered by the surrounding vegetation.
Two hours later, the vegetation ahead began to thin.
Through the gaps in the tree trunks, the silhouette of a city emerged on the horizon.
He had barely walked a hundred paces when he suddenly paused.
A familiar energy fluctuation drifted in from the east.
It was the fluctuation of a cantrip.
It was another apprentice who had infiltrated the Amons World from the War Fortress, just like him.
"Who's the unlucky one?"
Ethan turned his head, glancing toward the source of the energy.
Faint sounds of shouting and fighting could be heard, mixed with the characteristic roars of the Amons.
He withdrew his gaze and turned to walk in the opposite direction.
Save them?
That was something White Wizards did.
He was a Black Wizard.
A Black Wizard of the Blood Bone Tower.
Whether others lived or died had nothing to do with him.
Ethan quickened his pace, moving rapidly through the forest.
After running for an hour, the vegetation thinned once more. Another city appeared in his view.
This city was much smaller than the previous one.
The city walls were only seven or eight meters high, built from a mix of dark brown timber and grayish-white stone.
There were hardly any guards visible on top.
"Fine, you'll do. Consider yourselves lucky."
Ethan circled half the city.
There were no warriors.
Not a single one.
Ethan stood near the city gate for a moment.
An elderly Amons woman with a hunched back walked past him, carrying a bundle of firewood and hobbling along.
Two young children chased each other at the mouth of an alley, their pale blue skin stained with mud, their laughter crisp and clear.
An aged Amons man leaned against the base of a wall, eyes closed as he basked in the sun, an old scar stretching from his collarbone to his abdomen.
They were all elderly, weak, women, or children.
Everyone with combat capability had been mobilized and sent away.
The entire city was left with only about ten thousand such people.
Rate on N.U.
