Chapter 178: Act 112 – The Legacy of the Traveling Mage (Part 2)
Brendel sighed as he closed the card collection.
Though it was not perfect, it was at least an unexpected gain—a significant unexpected gain. Originally, he had hoped to use the Dark Element Crystal to summon the Silver Elf Maiden Medisa for a short period, help him resolve this battle, and then send her back. To be honest, it was quite an unprofitable action, since showcasing a unicorn card required 15 points of dark element while the maintenance cost was much cheaper. The key problem was that his elemental pool was pitifully small; once the dark element crystal was consumed, he estimated that he wouldn’t see this formidable Lady Knight again for a while.
But with the arrival of the Rogen Marsh and the market of Roshar, he could barely maintain Medisa’s presence permanently. Having a gold-level ally made the risky adventure in the Southlands and exploration of the territories look much less daunting.
Moreover, he managed to acquire some grave-robbing cards, even if he couldn’t use them right away. Brendel thought that as long as he had determination, could a traveling mage really not find a land card? Husher had also mentioned that compared to land cards, grave-robbing cards were much rarer—of course, provided he wasn’t just talking big. For that reason, Brendel remained cautious and planned to find time to gauge Charles’s thoughts about Husher.
After all, that young attendant seemed much more endearing compared to this not-so-reliable middle-aged mercenary captain.
However, the true long-term benefits of this card collection had begun to form a rough plan in Brendel’s mind as he browsed through it. The other seemingly easy-to-obtain cards, such as Blood Vanguard, Black Earth Lion, Kazan Master, and Halarl Guardian—as elite and non-elite summons between level 20 and 30—were indeed tempting. But for Brendel, his short-term objective was not that. Instead, he planned to accumulate enough Wealth Points to obtain the remaining two Fire Element cards and one Wind Element card from this collection.
Without basic land and mana, even the strongest summoned creatures would be powerless, and conversely, food must come before the soldiers—this basic principle was clear to anyone.
His mid-term goal was the Sea Wave Gem worth 60 Wealth Points and the Silver Tail Flag worth 100 Wealth Points. One provided a wealth boost while the other provided a prestige boost, laying the foundation for the further strengthening of his power. Once he had enough Wealth Points and prestige, he could consider those advanced cards afterwards.
For instance, the Platinum Angel, a level 60 elite artifact creature, along with that incredible ability. Once summoned, he could dominate the lands of Erluin, at least in the southern region of Rendener; he could walk straight without restraint.
But a beautiful future was still a future; Brendel understood that this was not the time for daydreaming. Instead, he had to seize every moment—though the Dark Priest was now dead, Conrad and the lizardman commander Hyeugil should be alerted by now; and according to the information he had gathered from the captives, Medisa’s necklace should be on that damn lizard. The remaining battle would likely be a real tough fight.
With those thoughts, he put away the card collection and turned to Husher and asked, “What about the other items?”
“What other items?” Husher asked, confused.
“The Dark Crystal, of course.”
“Oh,” the mercenary captain finally understood, “the black fire priest left behind a bunch after self-destructing, but they’ve all solidified and cooled down. I’m having my men break them apart.”
Brendel realized he wouldn’t need to worry about the quantity of dark element crystals in the short term. He thought to himself that players usually dropped four or five pieces when killing dark priests. As a result, dark crystals became one of the cheapest elemental crystals on auction sites, along with their equally numerous counterpart, fire element crystals.
“Is there anything else?” he asked again.
“Right, there’s this,” Husher nodded and pulled out a dark, shuttle-shaped stone from his pocket. “This was also found by Flour.”
Brendel wasn’t surprised upon seeing the blood-stained stone. He recognized that the item in Husher’s hand was a vessel for Divine Blood. Once divine blood was injected into a target’s body, the Arborist could control the divine messenger through this container referred to as the ‘sheath’. However, Brendel had no intention of using it this way. Once a creature became a divine messenger, it would lose all semblance of humanity and become a monster.
He could indeed control the creature with this item, but as he watched the girl named Xi slowly lose herself and transform into another being, Brendel believed he was not cold-hearted enough to do that.
He took the stone shuttle from Husher and with a gentle force, snapped it in half with a ‘crack’—
“Lord?” Husher was taken aback.
Brendel shook his head to signal him not to ask too many questions. He only replied, “Once the sheath is gone, the divine blood will fall into a dormant state temporarily. Go tell those Gray Wolf mercenaries; if the girl wakes up, have her come to me for a private talk.”
Husher took in the meaning of this sentence and nodded, preparing to leave, but Brendel called him back, “Wait a moment.”
“What is it?”
“Charles said you live in a territory built from land cards?”
The mercenary captain nodded.
Brendel searched his land cards. At the edge of the forest made up of the Sacred Tree Secret Area, a dark swamp appeared—and in the transition zone between the swamp and the forest, there was a small town. Brendel viewed everything from above as if he were a giant—he could guess that this small town was probably the embodiment of the market card of Roshar.
Then he snapped back to reality and asked, “What can you build there?”
“Of course,” Husher replied, “but the core still relies on land cards. All resource cards are tied to land cards to develop the wealth and resources present on the land cards. Summoned creatures can also delve into the resources on land cards, but not at this moment. In general, Lord, you as a traveling mage still have too much… inexperience…” He chose a more tactful way to point out Brendel’s shortcomings: “Of course, it also relates to the fact that your card pool isn’t mature enough—indeed, the subspace of a traveling mage forms its own world; Mr. Charles just asked me to let you know about this. That’s why traveling mages are keen on collecting more cards. Mature cards will expedite the shaping of this world, and in turn, a mature world allows traveling mages to gain stronger power. This is the foundation; they complement each other.”
“I see.” Brendel murmured to himself.
“Is there anything else you need, my lord?” Husher asked.
“Certainly,” Brendel nodded. “Tell the others to prepare to set off; this is merely a victory, and our battle is far from over—”
“As you wish.”
…
By the time Conrad met with the lizardman bandit leader Yuhjiker, it was already noon the next day. Although the leader of this card mercenary group had detected something was amiss early in the morning, Yuhjiker clearly lacked his vigilance. He had pressed too far ahead, so much so that it was only by the morning that the Dragon Knights sent out by Conrad caught up with the bandit leader.
On the other hand, he had dispatched Dragon Knights to the black fire cult’s associates, but they still hadn’t appeared.
Conrad anticipated that things might be getting a bit worse than he expected. He continued to send out Dragon Knights towards Yuhjiker for contact while hurriedly returning. He feared that Brendel and his group had taken advantage of the gap after defeating the Dark Priest to break through the defenses of the few lizardman bandits left at the Balogan Ruins and had fled far beyond their controlled area.
If that were to happen, it could be said that their entire mission would be wasted, and they would incur heavy losses. However, he could never have imagined that Brendel’s current intention was to take over all the powers of the Arborists here.
Thus, when he returned with the lizardman leader Yuhjiker and saw a quiet Silver Elf ruin, he couldn’t help but breathe a sigh of relief.
They saw that there were still several lizardmen patrolling the ruins, indicating that the enemy had been a step late; the flames of war had not yet reached this place—
Or rather, it was fortunate that they had reacted in time.
“Donald, the plan—was this yours?” the lizardman bandit leader sighed in relief but then turned. His elongated face seemed to suddenly magnify in front of the mercenary group leader. The lizardman stared at him with its jade-green rhombus-shaped pupils, coldly fixated: “Many of my men—I’ve lost. After this is done, compensation—double.”
Conrad coldly snorted, too lazy to deal with this fellow. Known for its cold-heartedness, when had Yuhjiker ever truly cared about how many of his subordinates he had lost? It was merely trying to extort him. However, Conrad was not in a mood to haggle over this; a vague uncertainty gnawed at him. The Dark Priest seemed to be in dire straits, but according to the news received, none of the three of them should have encountered any issues.
Unless that white-haired guy dared to deceive him?
But that was impossible; he trusted his means. That young man had definitely not lied. Furthermore, the scouting results from those lizardmen scouts corroborated this point. Conrad shook his head as if intending to rid himself of the uncertainties in his mind—
But what he did not know was that, not far away in the ruins, someone was also watching them.
…
Amidst the remnants of the once-majestic Silver Elf buildings from ages past, the Lubis mercenaries, Gray Wolf mercenaries, and the former elite infantry of the Silver Elf’s royal guard quietly hid in the shadows.
They awaited an opportunity.
Or perhaps a command.
All eyes turned towards the back, where Brendel was explaining his final plan to his subordinates. His goal was simple—take the initiative and strike decisively.
…
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