Chapter 1594: Moonshadow

But looking at her daughter's resolute expression, the Moonhorn Patriarch could not bring himself to say the words of dissuasion he wanted to; now, he could only hope that Bulin would die cleanly.

"Go, I will handle things at home!"

"I am sorry, Father, but I truly do not want to miss this last glimmer of hope."

After speaking, Xierdalanna unleashed her power, transformed into her Saint Form, and then vanished directly before the Moonhorn Patriarch.

After Xierdalanna left, the Moonhorn Patriarch finally reacted and hurriedly looked toward an elderly Elf behind him, pleading: "Uncle, I know you have old ties with a Divine Envoy of Arvandor, I would like to ask you—"

"I understand, but the curse here needs to be dealt with as soon as possible. If the Patriarch is not busy, you can come over to help; I will personally make a trip to Arvandor later."

"Not busy, not busy, thank you, Uncle."

The Moonhorn Patriarch said hurriedly.

At the same time.

Within the borders of Yierlan, at a secret base of the Moonshadow Family, several distorted spell Projections were gathered together, their faces indistinguishable.

"What is so urgent? Do you not know we are all busy?"

"A little mouse went to the Xishan camp; did one of you let something slip?"

"Impossible, absolutely impossible. Everyone who knew has vanished into history; no one could have discovered us."

"Then how did I hear that the camp you were running in Langasi was almost found by the Netherese, and you even paid a heavy price for it! Did you let something slip?"

"Impossible, I abandoned that camp long ago, and there is a Binding contract; it is absolutely impossible for the problem to be on my end. Do you know the identity of the mouse?"

"Not yet, the other party is very experienced."

"Then are you going to abandon your camp too?"

"Of course, you all must provide some medicinal materials to support me, otherwise if the higher-ups blame us, you will share the responsibility."

"Agreed."

After a moment of silence, another distorted Projection began to ask: "How is the shipping volume on your end recently?"

"Still the same as before. The higher-ups do not allow public sales; it only circulates among the various Upper Families. Their investigation has been getting tighter recently, and I am worried—sigh!"

"I am doing fine on my end. I infiltrated a magic research circle in Ailintar by posing as an Elf Court Elder; the identity of an Elf Court Elder is very useful, and they have not suspected anything for the time being."

"I have trouble on my end too. That damned Prince Suoha has not inherited any of the fairness and integrity of his father, Yilisier Mianwang. This greedy vermin has been looking for trouble with me, and that Faluo is also spying; even several of Prince Suoha's actions were secretly guided by him."

The several distorted Projections complained incessantly, each recounting their own difficulties. Before long, another Projection appeared in the secret room. As soon as he arrived, the other Projections immediately fell silent.

*Cough*—

"Have you forgotten our original mission? Or have your ambitions and belief in revenge already been corroded by the immediate benefits before you?"

Silence, but the later Projection did not forget to continue lecturing: "Do not forget where your current status and position come from. What the higher-ups can give you, they can just as easily take back!"

"But what should we do about these troubles we have encountered? This is completely beyond our capabilities!" a Projection said in a low voice.

"Stall them. If you truly cannot stall them, give them whatever they want, as long as the pharmaceutical camp is not lost. You may lose a little private profit now, but in the future, you will gain a new world that belongs to us!"

The later Projection's words were impassioned, seemingly accompanied by some mysterious Magic capable of influencing the mind through sound. However, the other Projections were not ordinary characters either; almost every single one of them was a high-level Mage.

While they said "certainly, certainly" with their mouths, one could only guess what they were thinking in their hearts.

But regardless, having already boarded the ship and profited from it, it was a bit too late for them to get off now; they could only walk this path to the end.

As this Envoy said, the future might very well belong to them.

Southern Netheril, Tower of Time.

After once again rejecting the proposal submitted by Huosite and the others, Xia Duo felt somewhat disappointed. The cultivation of engineering design talent could not be accomplished overnight; forcing it forward like this truly felt like getting half the results with double the effort.

But he still had to continue. If he could trade resources for talent, he would wake up laughing in his dreams; his disappointment was mostly regarding the speed of progress of Huosite and the others.

In reality, as long as there was progress, he was not losing out!

Compared to the slow progress of Huosite and the others, Niya gave him quite a surprise. After several rounds of tailored tests, Niya's progress was rapid.

If it were not for her having higher requirements for herself, Niya could become a Senior Arcanist at any time, or even go a step further to touch the ninth layer of the Magic Net.

Today, after the final test was completed, Xia Duo graded it right in front of Niya, and the results came out shortly after.

The error rate was not low, but this was not Niya's problem; it was the problem of the test. Only by having sufficient coverage could he find Niya's weak points.

Xia Duo handed the test to Niya for corrections, while he himself submerged his consciousness into his Subconscious, making marks amidst a scattered starry sky.

This was a Knowledge system map that Xia Duo had specially created for Niya, where every star point was a specific point of Knowledge.

And because the Netheril Magic System itself was imperfect, these points of Knowledge were actually not many—only about three thousand—but there were nearly ten thousand logical connections between them.

Even though Xia Duo had now become a Great Arcanist, he dared not say he had completely mastered this Knowledge; he could only say he had a rough grasp of the commonly used and foundational parts.

In fact, this star map was mainly based on the context and Principles of Knowledge.

Others, such as Spell Elements, were merely a form of transformation of Knowledge; there was no need to memorize every Spell Element. One just needed to know how to find them when they were needed.

Recalling the results of Niya's recent test, Xia Duo continuously made annotations on the star map. The star points and radiant light of the Knowledge points and logical connections that were well-mastered appeared brighter.

Those that were mastered less well were dimmer; those that were not mastered were, of course, dark spots.

Before long, Xia Duo had completed the status update for the entire star map. Looking at it, besides a small half that was completely dark, a considerable portion of the star points and radiant light appeared slightly dim.

"Still need to work harder!"

Comparing it with this three-dimensional star map, Xia Duo also gradually abstracted a more vivid, more concrete, and almost tangible Netheril Magic System.

It was just that this system was not perfect; it always felt like it was missing many key elements.

"Using this Knowledge structure map to guide the emergence of new theories and new Knowledge?"

Returning to a normal state of Perception, Xia Duo shook his head. If one said it was possible to speculate where new theories or new Knowledge might exist through this Knowledge structure map, that was possible, but to say it could guide them, that might still be lacking something.