"Thank you," Su Cheng took it. "...But I still find that question very hard to answer."
She pressed the cold, condensation-covered rim of the glass against her lips for a moment before she couldn't resist taking a sip.
And then her eyes nearly fell out from the sourness.
Su Cheng's face darkened with exasperation. "If you thought you could prank me with this, you're wrong. At least this is still fit for human consumption."
Compared to Camus's hellish potions, this was nothing!
"Oh," Sasha wasn't disappointed. "It's just that this was the fastest to make. They wanted to add sugar at the end, but they ran out of syrup and had to open a new batch—"
He said, glancing at the books in the girl's arms across from him. "You really like buying books, don't you? Is it another poetry collection?"
Su Cheng held up the storybook. "No, I originally thought it was a fairy tale, but..."
Sasha reached out with his long arm and took it. After flipping through just a few pages, he started laughing. "If the people from the Holy Church saw this, they probably wouldn't be very happy."
Even as he said that, he read it with great relish, occasionally making comments. "This is actually written quite emotionally."
"Is the content true?"
"How should I know? I've never paid attention to these people."
"These people?"
Su Cheng wanted to say more, but suddenly heard a commotion outside. It sounded like someone was arguing, followed by the sound of a collision.
She turned her head and saw a group of people standing on the street outside the window.
A young man dressed in luxurious clothes was speaking loudly and arrogantly, followed by a group of servants.
Rowan stood in front of him, only about an arm's length away, arguing with him with a dark expression.
Both of them had booming voices, and as they spoke louder and louder, Su Cheng could hear them clearly from the second floor.
The man seemed to be a distant relative of Rowan's, but the two clearly did not get along.
He had heard that there were still vacancies at the Academy of Blades and wanted to see if he could be admitted, but he was eliminated during the magic test.
Full of pent-up anger, he ran into Rowan in town and couldn't help but provoke him.
The latter naturally wasn't one to swallow an insult, and started shouting back at him right there on the street.
"It's ridiculous—"
Rowan crossed his arms. "Your parents went through so much trouble, spent who knows how much money, and hired who knows how many people, just to raise your resonance level to special grade..."
A very small number of esoteric mages mastered the art of runic engraving, able to raise the recipient's resonance level through permanent or semi-permanent engravings.
In terms of effectiveness, this method might not be as good as a naturally formed one, but it could indeed allow an elemental mage to further their strength or make it easier to learn magic.
However, the cost of such engravings was extremely high, requiring many priceless and rare materials, and the fee to hire an engraver was astronomical.
Let alone ordinary wealthy people, even among the Empire's nobles, not many could afford such an expense.
And even then, they might not be able to find an engraver.
"In the end, it couldn't make up for someone lacking brains. What's the use of just raising your level?"
Rowan sneered. "There are so many prestigious schools gathered around the Imperial Capital that accept people based solely on their resonance level, yet you came to Cross Star. Aren't you being a bit too overconfident?"
The man's face looked quite ugly.
Who didn't know that Cross Star accepted very few students and was extremely strict? Not to mention warriors, but for elemental mages, even special grade resonators faced risks trying to get in.
"You!" the man said through gritted teeth. "You bastard born of a heretic whore, how dare you speak to me like this!"
Su Cheng couldn't help but frown.
She only remembered that Rowan's family was quite wealthy, seemingly minor nobles. She had long forgotten the specific settings, and it seemed the book hadn't explained it clearly either.
But these words were clearly aimed at Rowan's mother.
"...Hah," Rowan's face darkened as he looked at the servant beside the man. "What is that large box he's holding? I think I heard the clinking of gold coins. I remember the testing fee wasn't that high, right? So did you have some special intention bringing a box of gold coins to the school? Oh, I forgot, some people are as stupid as boars, lacking comprehension and wisdom, leaving them with nothing but money, but unfortunately for you, they don't care about your little bit of money!"
The next second, the man lunged forward fiercely.
A strong wind swept up, leaving gouges on the street's stone bricks. The two figures tangled together, enveloped in a violent airflow as they crashed into the tavern's first floor, smashing three oak tables and half a wine rack.
Ale barrels burst instantly, golden liquor mixed with wood splinters spraying everywhere. The air was filled with the strong smell of alcohol and scorched wood.
Su Cheng ran to the top of the stairs to watch the fight below.
The man roared, dark red combat aura boiling around his hands like magma. The floorboards beneath his feet cracked violently inch by inch, sending up tiny sparks.
He threw a punch, his combat aura transforming into a roaring wave of flames. The tables and chairs in its path instantly carbonized and crumbled.
Rowan neither dodged nor evaded. A similar red light surged between his arms, condensing into scale-like patterns of light outside his sleeves as he met the opponent's attack head-on.
The combat aura scattered like waves crashing against a reef.
Su Cheng noticed a few clues.
Combat aura manuals were things where the higher the grade, the rarer they were.
Whenever someone couldn't find a better one, they would mostly pass down what they had learned to their children—their ancestors were probably like this, so even if the two weren't close relatives, they might have practiced the same combat aura.
In this situation, what they were comparing was purely skill and intensity.
That man was a few years older than Rowan, and the two fought to a standstill. It seemed he might be a terrible mage, but he wasn't too bad in the way of combat aura.
The hall's floor let out groans of being overwhelmed, load-bearing pillars were shattered by the combat aura, and they crashed into the counter together, causing the oak counter to collapse instantly.
Then they leaped up simultaneously, fiercely exchanging punches amidst the flying debris.
The dark red combat auras intertwined into a spiral, forming a wind vortex several meters in diameter.
The remaining copper nails of the counter were uprooted, embedding themselves into the crumbling walls like bullets. The chandelier's chains snapped inch by inch, and the crystal lamp crashed down and shattered.
The liquor suspended in the combat aura vortex evaporated, white mist suddenly rising before being shredded by the airflow.
Even the floor of the second story was blasted through.
Su Cheng looked at the huge crater in the distance, then looked down at the two blood-soaked people below.
She turned her head again to look at her teammates.
The rest of the guests in the tavern had almost all run away. She didn't know about upstairs, but at least the first and second floors were practically empty.
Sasha was still reading, looking as if all was right with the world, and occasionally took a sip of wine.
Kai, on the other hand, had been eating non-stop.
The commotion downstairs seemed like mere children's play to them; neither paid it any attention from beginning to end.
"Hmm?"
Sasha suddenly turned his head, seemingly sensing her gaze. "If you'd like—"
The vampire said with a smile, "You can use that thing to practice your combat aura, though it might be a bit uncomfortable. It's up to you."
Su Cheng: "?"
That thing?
Was he talking about Rowan's brain-dead cousin?
She instinctively looked at Kai.
The black-haired man tilted his head slightly, thinking for a moment before saying, "If you want to... you can give it a try. But if the worst-case scenario occurs, your recovery time will probably be a bit longer."
Su Cheng tilted her head. "You mean getting hurt?"
"I'm talking about overdrawing," he said gently. "He doesn't have that kind of ability yet."
"To be honest," Sasha said, resting his chin on his hand, "I would suggest you give it a try. Sometimes, if you want to make rapid progress, you have to put in a little more effort and challenge those troublesome opponents."
Su Cheng turned her head to continue watching the situation downstairs.
Rowan knelt on the ground, panting heavily. Her sleeves were mostly torn, and her arms were covered in crisscrossing wounds.
The man, meanwhile, had already fainted and was currently lying in the distance, covered in blood.
The ruins on the first floor fell into a dead silence, leaving only the sound of dripping liquor and the heavy panting of the red-haired youth.
The servants rushed over in a hurry, surrounding the man. As they checked his condition and tried to wake him, someone had already pulled out a healing scroll.
However, before it could be used, the man suddenly sat up and pushed away the people around him.
The servants tumbled into a heap beside him.
Su Cheng heard laughter.
Low, hoarse, like an echo from hell—
The man sat on the ground, his limbs twitching continuously. Then, his body began to tremble. It was not a spasm of weakness, but rather a tremor of some kind of excitement.
It was as if some power was bursting forth from within him.
His shirt tore completely, the fabric seemingly sliced by invisible blades, turning into fragments scattered across the floor.
On his pale chest, a dark purple mark slowly emerged, writhing continuously like a living creature.
It was a twisted symbol, like an irregular pattern formed by the entanglement of countless lines with no fixed shape.
Just looking at it made one feel dizzy.
Su Cheng gasped.
It looked like the mark of a God's Favored, but it probably wasn't.
Because no matter which deity it was, their mark was always a clear pattern—a certain object or action. Even the marks from the God of Darkness were like that.
In the original novel, when Lin Yun became the Favored of the God of Filth, it was the same.
It wouldn't be a lump of something like this.
"Hah—"
The man slowly raised his head, his mouth breaking into an almost frantic smile.
His eyes turned purely pitch-black without a trace of white, and the expression on his face was stiff yet ferocious.
"My turn."
The man walked forward slowly. His speed wasn't very fast, and then he smashed down with a punch.
Rowan was injured and couldn't dodge quickly, so she could only grit her teeth and take it head-on.
Su Cheng heard the crisp sound of bones breaking.
The floor beneath their feet was already shattered, and now, subjected to heavy pressure, it directly collapsed downward into a pit.
The entire tavern began to tremble slightly. Rowan barely managed to block her opponent's strike, only to be met with a storm-like offensive.
She had clearly suffered broken bones, and sweat continuously rolled down her forehead.
Su Cheng knew she must also be a magician, otherwise she wouldn't have been admitted to the Academy of Blades. But under these circumstances, it was probably really hard to cast magic.
Not to mention, she might have originally been more accustomed to fighting with battle aura.
Compared to his initial state, the man's attacks seemed completely disorganized, as if he was solely dominated by a pure desire to destroy.
However, the intensity of his battle aura had likely increased. With Rowan injured, she was having a very difficult time coping.
Upon hearing the sound of bones snapping for the second time, Su Cheng finally couldn't help but form a wind blade.
Her neighbor was quite nice to her.
Besides, that man inherently disgusted her.
"...Don't come over!"
The red-haired youth seemed to feel the flow of elemental spirits. While taking a beating, she raised her head and shouted, only to realize it was her neighbor.
"Damn it—why are you still here? Don't come over! It's none of your business!"
As Rowan said this, she took another punch to the shoulder and was sent flying, crashing through and collapsing a wall.
Just as the man was about to go over, dozens of vines suddenly sprouted at his feet, firmly trapping his legs.
He channeled his battle aura to shatter the vines, but more kept emerging from the ground, locking his legs tightly in overlapping layers.
The speed of destruction couldn't keep up with the proliferation. In just a few seconds, his entire body was locked by the vines, and the thorns on them pierced his skin.
Dark purple blood welled up from the wounds.
"...I can handle it," the red-haired youth gasped as she climbed up. "Don't interfere in my battle."
Su Cheng made no further moves.
She did know that followers of the God of War seemed quite stubborn in this regard. Especially in one-on-one duels, there was a sense of honor that shouldn't be interfered with or ruined by outsiders.
But this wasn't a proper duel to begin with.
Furthermore—
"What is going on?!"
Several figures of magicians appeared on the street. The leader took one look at the crest on the man's chest and her expression changed drastically.
"Heretic!"
She said sharply. With a flick of her finger, dozens of blue-purple lightning bolts appeared in the air. The howling lightning struck like a rain of swords, instantly pinning the man's body down.
Amidst the hissing sound of electrical currents, the man let out an agonizing scream, his body scorched black.
The pattern on his chest writhed continuously, stimulating the battle aura within his body, but it was unable to break this overwhelming disparity in power.
"Do you know who he is—"
The man's servants exclaimed in shock. One of them tried to step forward to stop it, but was swatted away by another magician with a wave of a hand, crashing into the wall with their brains bursting out.
A strong gust of wind dissipated into the air.
The rest of them instantly fell as silent as winter cicadas.
"I don't know who this is," a wind magician said coolly, "but from the looks of it, there is a very high probability that both he and his family will be turned to ashes together."
Rowan closed her eyes and collapsed in the ruins.
Su Cheng hurried down and confirmed that her breathing was steady; she was probably just injured and overdrawn.
"What is going on here?! Who are you?" The lightning magician's face was as grim as still water. "Are you with her?"
Guessing that they were people from the guild, Su Cheng told the truth about what she had seen. There were other bystanders on the street, and everyone could testify.
The magician's expression softened slightly as she looked at the completely unconscious man. "We need to take this person to the temple and hand him over to the Church for processing—"
She paused for a moment. "Your neighbor will have to go along as well. They will most likely want to question her. However, she is heavily injured, and since it involves heretical power, ordinary methods may not be able to heal her. Only a trip to the temple can eradicate it completely and leave no hidden dangers."
Su Cheng nodded. "I understand."
Rowan should have had servants too, but the Cross Star did not allow entourages. So, ever since she moved in, she had sent the people who followed her back home.
At this moment, there was no one else by her side.
Su Cheng thought about it carefully. This plot did not exist in the original novel, and logically speaking, it wouldn't happen either.
Because Lin Yun departed late from Golden Amber City, by the time he arrived at the school, it was already the eve of the new semester.
Judging from their previous conversation, if it weren't for the fact that she herself wanted to come to the Magic Guild, Rowan most likely wouldn't have come to White Dew Town at this time, even if she had business here.
She would have come a bit later.
And then she wouldn't have run into this brain-dead relative.
Just as Su Cheng was pondering whether she should tag along to take care of her, she suddenly heard screams.
The man who had been lying on the ground unexpectedly broke free from his bindings once more and violently sprang up.
His body was burned black and festering, with hardly an inch of intact skin to be found, yet it didn't seem to affect his movements.
That twisted mass of dark purple markings suddenly swelled, the patterns writhing and spreading apart like thousands of trembling nematodes creeping along his veins.
His body began to mutate.
His bones let out a teeth-achingly sharp cracking sound as muscle fibers tore and restructured. The joints in his shoulders and back continuously bulged, as if something was frantically growing beneath his skin.
His skin cracked, and more dark purple liquid poured from the fissures, mixing with his flesh and blood to swell into a grotesque mass.
In the blink of an eye, a monster standing at least three meters tall, dripping with black blood, stood up with a deafening roar.
His spine curved and his back hunched as several sharp bone spikes pierced through his skin. His lower jaw continuously split open, his teeth turning slender and razor-sharp while the corners of his mouth tore almost all the way to his ears.
Those eyes split apart with the pulling of his muscles, transforming into three pairs of crimson, vertical pupils. Each eye darted around madly, as if peering into different dimensions.
"Die—"
The several mages were thoroughly horrified.
The leading one, who was clearly the most powerful, showed no fear at the sight and appeared ready to meet the attack.
The monster's figure flashed, and the mages moved simultaneously.
They were orthodox elemental mages who had not cultivated battle aura at all. However, due to their high rank, their physical fortitude was far beyond that of ordinary people.
Even so, they had no desire to use their flesh and blood to take the hit head-on.
Especially when facing such an opponent, everyone would choose to maneuver around the enemy rather than clash directly from the start.
This seemed to be exactly the moment the monster was waiting for.
He feigned an attack on the mages, but suddenly whipped his head around and lunged at Su Cheng.
Or rather—
At the red-haired youth beside her.
At almost the exact same time, the mages watched as the black-haired young woman scooped up her unconscious friend and darted away.
Su Cheng had already picked up Rowan the moment the monster began to transform. She moved the very instant he roared.
Otherwise, given her speed, it would have been absolutely impossible to evade.
But by acting ahead of time, she was able to just barely dodge that first pounce.
Holding Rowan, she rolled across the floor, snatched up a longsword dropped by one of the servants, and swung it with gritted teeth. Billowing black flames ignited along the blade.
Layer upon layer of wind shields materialized in the air, only to be torn apart by the monster's claws.
Ding!
Amid the ear-piercing screech of clashing metal, the claws met the edge of the sword. The resulting shockwave surged outward like a tidal wave, shattering nearly all of the remaining ceiling.
Pieces of the broken walls and ceiling crashed down with a clatter.
Su Cheng's blood roiled; she felt dizzy and her vision blurred, while a deep, aching pain spread from her arms all the way down to her waist and legs.
Those mages stared at her in absolute shock.
"A warrior—"
"What attribute of battle aura is that..."
The monster's claws were barely parried. He was just about to launch another attack when his entire body suddenly stiffened.
The veins beneath his muscles began to violently spasm, like countless venomous snakes writhing under his skin. The emblem on his chest flickered erratically, like a candle about to be snuffed out.
"No—"
His voice suddenly became broken and hoarse.
His muscles contracted unnaturally, his joints twisted and dislocated, and his bones let out agonizing groans as they buckled under the strain.
Immediately after, the monster's right arm was the first to burst. Flesh and shattered bone sprayed out like rain, the fragments combusting in midair and turning to ash before they even hit the ground.
His chest caved in as all of his ribs snapped. His torso quickly shriveled up, as if all the moisture had been drained from him.
And then, his entire body exploded.
Dark purple blood rained down like a curtain, and a foul, metallic stench permeated the ruins of the tavern.
Su Cheng had dodged out of the way early on, even grabbing a piece of a tabletop to shield herself. Sure enough, she heard a sharp sizzling sound.
The thick wooden tabletop was eaten away, pitted with holes by the corrosive black blood.
Gasps of shock rose and fell from the surroundings. The mages quickly hurried over, and a series of obscure, whispered incantations began to ring out.
She sat off to the side, utterly exhausted. In her daze, she saw a figure approaching, and a familiar presence enveloped her in an embrace.
"Captain—"
Su Cheng leaned into his chest with a sense of total relief. "I'm going to sleep for a bit."
The person beside her gave a deep, steady hum of acknowledgment.
