Autumn afternoons always carried a warm, lazy feeling from the sun.
Dago carried the crocodile meat he hunted that morning and arrived at Old Marico's treehouse area.
"Is Marico the Wizard in?" Dago called from the open ground below.
"Coming!" Old Marico poked his head out.
A moment later, he slid down the vines.
"You're living a good life, aren't you?" Marico saw the meat Dago was carrying, understood his intention, and said playfully.
"Not bad, just so-so. How many people have joined the mutual aid society recently?" Dago handed him the monster meat.
"Two people have already chosen to join, and this afternoon I still need to talk to two old friends," Old Marico took it.
"Is there anything you need my help with?"
"Yes, Dago. This afternoon, could you take my handwritten letter to an old friend of mine and discuss this matter with him?
Considering I'm an old man, you wouldn't want to see me running around, would you?"
"Of course, no problem."
Old Marico took the chilled monster meat back to his treehouse, and when he slid down from the treehouse, he was holding an envelope, which he then handed to Dago.
"Walk in this direction for about thirty minutes, and you'll see a stone wall. Follow it for a few more minutes, and you'll find a natural cave. That guy lives in there."
Old Marico pointed towards the south of the forest.
Dago took the envelope, nodded to show he understood, and then set off to deliver the letter without further conversation.
The clouds were thinned by the wind, spread white across the sky.
He proceeded in the direction Old Marico indicated. According to Old Marico, his old friend was also a Level 3 Apprentice Wizard who had lived in this forest for a long time, an old man about the same age as him.
However, when that guy was young, his wife and children died in a war, making his personality quite reclusive.
He had always lived in a cave deep in the forest, living a solitary life, unconcerned with worldly affairs.
Old Marico said that in recent years, they had very little contact, and he would only occasionally go to see him, to check if he was still alive.
Dago used a chipped machete to cut through the overgrown vines, and a path could still vaguely be discerned.
Thankfully, he had the protection of his hunting clothes; otherwise, Dago would have inevitably been scratched by branches along the way.
After thirty minutes, Dago finally saw the stone wall and walked along it.
"Boom~~~"
A violent explosion sounded from Dago's front.
He instantly became alert; this was clearly the sound of a wizardry explosion.
Dago's eyes lit up with a halo, activating his Detection Art.
He tried his best to make no sound, crouching low and approaching the source of the explosion step by step.
Gently pushing aside the bushes under a large tree, he saw a messy clearing outside a cave entrance...
Broken and fallen trees, burnt grass, and pitted, sunken ground were everywhere.
On a low stone not far from the cave entrance, a charred, humanoid black charcoal was still burning...
The area around the stone was covered in dark red, thick, sprayed bloodstains, clearly the scene of a battle that had just occurred.
The strong smell of blood and char continued to fill Dago's nostrils, stimulating his blood to flow faster.
The residual elemental traces in the air indicated that a fierce wizard battle had taken place here.
Dago's heart pounded rapidly as he quietly tried to retreat the way he came.
"What a pauper, how unlucky."
A man in a Black Robe Wizard emerged from the cave, cursing.
Dago's pupils contracted; a strong energy particle fluctuation surged around this man's entire body...
His mental power fluctuation was also significantly higher than his own; he was a high-level Level 3 Apprentice Wizard.
He himself had only recently stepped into Level 3 Apprentice Wizard and couldn't defeat him.
Dago carefully moved his deerskin boots, but unexpectedly, when his raised foot landed on the soft, damp mud...
He broke a dry branch, making a faint cracking sound~
Even though the sound was so slight, it made Dago's heart tremble.
"I'm doomed," Dago thought to himself, knowing he had been exposed.
A pale-faced, short-bearded middle-aged man looked over...
His eyelids lifted extremely slowly, and the corners of his eyes were pressed down as if carved by a knife, creating two cold, hard lines.
Like a vulture staring at dying prey, like a venomous snake coiled in the dark, watching passing feet...
Every inch of his gaze was aggressive, making Dago's bones feel cold.
The Black Robe Wizard uttered a rapid short incantation, raised his hand, and a basketball-sized burning fireball appeared out of thin air, carrying layers of heat waves, and flew straight towards Dago's position.
At the same time, Dago muttered the Ice Crystal Technique incantation, and as the cold wind blew, an ice crystal pillar quickly formed.
There were no extra words, only the determination to kill the opponent.
The moment the ice crystal pillar and the fireball collided, a large amount of mist spread...
It obstructed Dago's vision and also the opponent's vision.
In the Detection Art's field of vision, strong fire elemental flow traces surged ahead again, and Dago quickly moved his position.
However, he was still locked onto by intense killing intent, so he decisively threw an Air Bullet in the direction of the surging fire element.
The wake created by the Air Bullet formed a window in the mist...
The Air Bullet flew to within two meters of the Black Robe Wizard before suddenly being blocked and exploding by an invisible barrier.
The Black Robe Wizard again condensed a fireball in his hand and threw it towards Dago...
However, his body was pushed by the shockwave formed by the Air Bullet's air burst, causing his position to deviate, and it landed about five meters away from Dago.
The sudden burst of fire waves directly ignited the surrounding bushes and grass.
Even Dago felt the heat wave caused him burns.
"This won't do if I keep fighting like this; a distance of five meters can still burn me," Dago was greatly alarmed.
He activated the ice elemental white gloves formed by his cultivated Resonance Art, and began to manually create Ice Crystal Cannons, with a large amount of ice elements gathering in his hands.
With the Ice Crystal Technique as the main focus, and Resonance Art and Air Bullet as auxiliary, a deep blue, large-caliber cannon-like Ice Crystal Cannon, resembling a glacier, slowly formed.
The Black Robe Wizard saw it and smiled dismissively. The usual combat style of wizards was to cast various protective buffs and enhancement buffs on themselves, and then throw spells at each other.
This kid didn't even have a shield; the residual heat of a fireball could burn him to death.
Moreover, ordinary low-level evocation spells shouldn't be able to break through his shield.
He continued to chant incantations, his eyes coldly scanning Dago, filled with coldness and disdain.
"Soon, soon, this kid will be roasted into charcoal," the Black Robe Wizard grew more excited the more he thought about it, and the fireball in his hand grew larger and larger.
Dago's Ice Crystal Cannon was ready to be loaded...
"Fire," Dago thought to himself.
The powerful airflow of the deep blue Ice Crystal Cannon pushed Dago back a few steps...
The deep blue Ice Crystal Cannon, trailing a terrifying whistling, tearing sound, arrived in an instant, causing ripples in a transparent light shield.
The intensely rotating ice crystal warhead and the transparent light shield erupted with strong energy particle fluctuations.
Countless ice flowers were drawn into the ice crystal warhead, forming a spiral wake.
Suddenly, the Air Bullet at the tail of the ice crystal projectile once again burst, propelling the ice crystal warhead forward, piercing through the shield.
All of this happened within a few short seconds, and the Black Robe Wizard stood frozen in disbelief.
Dago looked up and saw that the Black Robe Wizard's chest had been pierced through, leaving a head-sized hole.
The ice crystal warhead passed through his body, and the spiral cold ice wake carried away his flesh and blood.
The cold air froze the torn wounds around the opening, and one could even see his still-beating heart inside.
A moment later, the Black Robe Wizard's arms dropped, and the fireball in the air gradually shrunk...
Finally, it turned into a small flame and disappeared, and his body fell straight backward.
Dago himself was startled, and then he let out a sigh of relief.
He slowly approached, and when he saw the corpse, he bent over and vomited with a "yue" sound.
This was the first time Dago had seen a dead body so up close, and this body was at his hands.
The adrenaline that surged during the battle had now subsided, and his mind returned to clarity, leaving only waves of lingering fear and panic.
He had actually killed someone.
The immense psychological impact took Dago a long time to somewhat recover and review his recent battle.
First was the pleasant surprise at the power of the Ice Crystal Cannon.
He had only used the Ice Crystal Cannon to blast a Bronze Crocodile, and as he progressed and transformed, Dago knew its power had greatly increased.
He hadn't expected even a Level 3 Apprentice Wizard couldn't withstand a single shot.
The Ice Crystal Cannon was not without weaknesses; only the first Ice Crystal Cannon created by activating the ice elemental gloves attached to the Resonance Art had maximum power.
Subsequent Ice Crystal Cannons, if they were merely a combination of Ice Crystal Technique and Air Bullet, would likely have significantly reduced power.
Therefore, his wizardry duels had to be quick; a prolonged battle would be disadvantageous for him.
Dago immediately resolved in his heart that after returning, he would intensely cultivate and improve this wizardry to overcome the problem of insufficient endurance.
Secondly, there was the defensive wizardry; Dago also suffered from the disadvantage of his mortal body this time.
If the Black Robe Wizard's second fireball had landed a little closer to him, he would have been burned by the scorching fire waves to some extent.
With a complex and uneasy feeling, Dago began to search the body of the deceased Black Robe Wizard.
He turned his head away, trying hard not to look at the large hole in the corpse and its unclosed eyes.
He fumbled through his Black Robe Wizard and found a lumpy bag in the inner layer.
Dago took it out and saw that it contained three or four low-level magic stones, which he immediately took out and put into his own money pouch.
Then he noticed the peridot ring on the corpse's hand; Detection Art detected energy particle fluctuations still lingering on it.
Dago casually pulled it off and placed it in his palm to examine, probing it with his mental power...
He sensed a low-level rune engraved on the peridot.
This was the first runic equipment he had obtained; indeed, killing and looting was a path to wealth.
