Chapter 141 : Chapter 141

Chapter 141. Conspiracy

It was already very late at night. The three mages had already left Caleb’s estate.

At that moment, Caleb dismissed the servants, walked to another building on the estate grounds, pushed open the door, and descended below.

He gently closed the door behind him, then turned to look at the intruders he had tied up there.

There were five intruders in total. After confirming their identities, Caleb had also brought over the one who had been caught by the guards at the city gate and bound him here together with the others.

The intruders were all tied to wooden racks. Although their infiltration training had included methods for undoing this kind of binding, and although the knotwork itself was rather crude—

they still could not free themselves.

That was because the ropes on their bodies carried a special magical effect, leaving them with no strength to undo the bindings while restrained like this.

“Spies of the Karai Kingdom—what business would bring you to our Magic Alliance?”

With a light wave of both hands, he loosened the restraints on one of the spies slightly, and immediately Braden was heard gasping for breath in great gulps.

Braden forced his head up and squeezed out an ugly smile as he looked at the mage before him.

As spies, they truly had underestimated the methods of these mages. That miscalculation had resulted in the entire team being captured by this mage in one sweep.

“I’m the captain... Whatever you want to ask... ask me.”

Braden spoke weakly. The magical effect of the ropes had not fully faded yet, and at the moment he could only manage a few simple movements that required little effort.

He knew they had fallen here. The entire team had been tied up by this mage.

Countless thoughts flashed through his mind as he sorted through what intelligence in his head could be spoken and what absolutely could not...

But immediately afterward, he felt somewhat dejected again. No matter how much training he had undergone, it might all be meaningless against a single spell that could force him to open his mouth and spill everything, whether it could be said or not.

Before coming here, he had not taken it seriously. He had merely thought that those mages were nothing more than lords who happened to be somewhat stronger, and that their exquisite spycraft would allow them to uncover everything.

But the moment he recalled that strange door, his scalp went numb.

He truly could not understand why, the instant that door was opened, anyone standing there would fall unconscious at once.

Whether they used a stick to open it from a distance, or shoved an unconscious companion forward to do it, they were all still struck by the trap placed on the door.

That was the part spies could never touch—the spell traps of mages.

Caleb looked at him with amusement, stared straight into his eyes, and said in a deep voice:

“I heard you wanted to steal the territorial token I worked so hard to obtain. Well? Do you still want it?”

Braden’s heart lurched. He froze for a moment and forgot how to answer.

He had not expected his objective to be exposed just like that. Why?

Kate, the one who had been captured, only knew that they were looking for a peculiar object. He did not even know what it looked like.

Braden himself had not brought along the paper that recorded the information either.

So why had this mage before him instantly known their goal?

As if answering Braden’s confusion, Caleb went on speaking to himself.

“Wasn’t it easy enough to guess?”

“A group of the kingdom’s spies obviously would not have come here to steal my magic materials. And those precious ornaments could not possibly have been your target either.”

“Once those were ruled out, only the thing I obtained a few days ago remained. At first, I still did not know what it was.”

“But what you did gave me a clue. Using a related testing item, I finally determined the nature of that object.”

“A territorial token. So long as one holds it, one gains the claim to that land. After truly occupying that land, one becomes a lord.”

As soon as he finished speaking, Caleb turned away instead of looking at Braden. He pulled a ring from his robes and put it directly onto his hand.

Then he turned back and continued speaking to Braden.

“That thing is useful to those lords. Very useful to Duke Theodore, who is stirring up rebellion in Antir. But to me...”

“It seems it can only be used to study a few properties of objects that possess a slight indestructible characteristic. It is completely useless.”

“Because I do not have one of those noble surnames, nor one of those glorious bloodlines. Those people would never acknowledge a mage ruling that land.”

“Am I right? To put it simply, without the bloodline, one cannot truly occupy that land.”

At that point, Braden felt somewhat puzzled instead.

Those words would not have sounded out of place coming from a First-Tier Professional who could not obtain a territory because he lacked the proper bloodline.

Those people had long resented the knightly lords, who could possess no talent whatsoever, yet still inherit a stretch of land and extraordinary power just because of some damned family name.

But why was a mage like him complaining?

Did he not remember that mages were supposed to believe that knowledge itself was power?

“A mage once conducted an experiment and discovered that this bloodline truly is bloodline in the most objective sense. Even if you disguise yourself as a member of that family and earn everyone else’s belief, you still cannot gain the land’s recognition.”

“It is as if there are only two ways to obtain a territory: serve beneath those knights until you render such great merit that one of them happens to be in a good enough mood to reward you with a knightly title, or inherit the title from your own family.”

“So it seems this thing has no use for me.”

Caleb smiled as he looked at Braden, making Braden’s scalp crawl.

Then Caleb did something that made Braden’s pupils quake.

With a wave of his right hand, he removed every rope. Braden landed steadily on the ground, while the other team members, having been bound for too long, collapsed onto the floor.

“What are you trying to do?” Braden looked at him warily and moved his wrists slightly.

“I want to make a deal with your ally, Duke Theodore.”

A frightening expression appeared on his face, as though he wanted to devour something whole.

“I have already handed that token to a mage who is heading to the Antir region.”

“So long as Duke Theodore helps me get rid of a mage named Zeno Harper—he is also in the Antir region—”

“then after I see his severed head, I will provide the information on the mage carrying the token.”

“It would not have been necessary to go to so much trouble in the first place...” His final sentence was spoken so softly that none of the others present heard it.

Braden stared fixedly at the mage before him, unable to understand why this mage wanted to hire killers to murder another mage.

Were not all mages part of the Alliance?

“Well, I...” He had just been about to say that Duke Theodore might find it difficult to act because of the Alliance, hoping to use that point to bargain a little more over the deal.

But Caleb cut him off directly.

“I know Duke Theodore has hired the Bloodwolf Knights. He can simply have them do it. There is no need to haggle with me. If you accept, you may leave. If you do not accept...”

“Why?” Curtis, who had barely struggled up from the floor at the side, asked. He was curious why the man would expend so much effort to kill a mage, and before he could stop himself, he blurted it out.

“Nothing much. I simply want Zeno Harper dead.” Unexpectedly, Caleb revealed a complicated expression and answered his question.