Chapter 29: Inheritance and Bestowal

The originally perfectly smooth round bead in his hand now had a distinct crack he could feel; wispy, marvelous things drifted out from the fissure and slowly withdrew, and each time a small portion would thoroughly dissipate — under his perception, that marvelous stuff seemed to be composed of the other party's spiritual power, yet with a slight difference.

"What did you do?" the round bead demanded.

"Does clutching you like a treasure in my hand count?" Luge realized this seemed like it would be a very serious problem for the other party.

Although he didn't know what the other party had specifically wanted to do before, it definitely wasn't anything good, so now he was quite happy to see the other party's panic.

"So stinking! How can you stink this much!"

The round bead suddenly started shrieking.

"Huh? How can I still smell odors?"

Right when a questioning emotion came through the other party's violently fluctuating spiritual power, Luge abruptly flicked his arm, hurling the round bead away, and then his feet didn't stop as he rapidly pulled open the distance. Just now in his perception, the cracks on the round bead had been rapidly enlarging.

The round bead hit the stone wall with a crisp sound, but even after a series of knocks not a single fragment had broken off; in the end it bounced a few times and rolled onto the ground, yet it was cracking open bit by bit on its own.

The voice coming from inside the round bead let out a miserable scream, unknown whether from the cracking or from being smoked into collapse by the foul stench.

A grey shadow darted out from the round bead.

"You could have left originally, but now I can only choose you."

The grey shadow's voice seemed much calmer than when it was in the round bead; the moment the words fell it lunged at Luge like a streamer transformed from a wisp of grey qi.

Luge smiled as he occasionally glanced back, cooperating with his spiritual power to roughly perceive the situation behind him.

He had already pulled open the distance in advance; the grey shadow's pouncing speed was quite a bit faster than his, but a rough estimate showed they could still maneuver for a good while.

From the moment the other party could perceive the stench, he hadn't been too panicked. While running at his fastest speed, he was also following the map in his mind toward the Wizard Corpse Site, killing two birds with one stone without wasting a bit of stamina.

"You actually dare — you actually dare —"

After running a stretch, the grey shadow seemed to see through his movement and intent; for a moment anger actually surged, and its speed increased by three parts.

"Oh? You know where I'm going? That wouldn't be your corpse, would it? Hahaha!"

The kobold laughed hideously with an ugly face, looking more like the evildoer; he perceived that this fellow seemed to have something wrong with his brain because of the reason he had become this form — violent emotional fluctuations at every moment that spiritual power suppression couldn't cover up — an easily provoked good target.

"Ah! So stinking! How can this be! What smell is this... foolish decision, is this the spell you researched by transforming yourself into a kobold?"

One chasing, one fleeing, the distance gradually closed, and both of their speeds were also slowing.

Luge had already seen his destination for this trip.

A corpse brutally embedded high on the cave wall; black blood had flowed down the cave wall and solidified there, like a black, profound door leaf.

The corpse wore a simple black long robe, with only a ring of patterns on the robe's hood; the hat sat steadily on the corpse's head, concealing his appearance. The most obvious thing on the corpse was a horizontal cut mark at the waist — it should have been the final fatal wound.

"As a vulgar kobold, I can still feel that aesthetic sense; it's an artistic aura not deliberately carved — you died too artistically."

Luge turned his head to praise, clapping his hands twice while still running; he discovered the grey shadow already showed signs of slowing down, and he had to encourage it unsparingly.

The grey shadow flickered, but this time it didn't pounce over fiercely.

"We can cooperate." The grey shadow spoke, stopping the meaningless chase.

Luge ignored it, not stopping his steps until he had once again pulled open a considerably far distance; he knew the grey shadow was already extremely weak.

The grey shadow just stood in the distance watching him; actually, all along the chase it had been slowly dissipating.

"You're also here for that, right? I know some things about that city, and I can also help you erase the imprint on the storage bag — anyway I temporarily can't use it either." The grey shadow swayed as it spoke, but never approached again.

"I can tear it open myself."

Luge said, pacing back and forth, seemingly inadvertently stepping a few steps forward at a slant, once again bringing the grey shadow within range of the foul skin.

The grey shadow shook, silently retreating backward.

"I perceive you're a low-rank Apprentice, at most a third-rank Wizard Apprentice — someone who dares touch Niteli Wizard Adult's mission; a brave life-risker, not a brainless person, must inevitably lack some magic stones and spell resources. Forcibly breaking open a storage bag — good luck loses half, bad luck sends ninety percent to the Void Space." The grey shadow seemed full of confidence, speaking unhurriedly.

"I'm a person who's easily satisfied." Luge said.

He carefully stayed on guard, defending against the grey shadow's dying counterattack.

No matter how good cooperation and such might be, he didn't dare touch it — all stemming from self-awareness of his own ignorance. Even if a spell contract were placed before him, he wouldn't know if the other party had tampered with it, or secretly buried some harmful traps. He didn't understand the Ground World, didn't understand spell knowledge, but he understood he only had one small life.

The grey shadow fell silent, swaying left and right like a candle flame about to go out.

"Hand — just let me stay in your palm, that's my biggest concession. You can wrap me with spiritual power, a foot works too — take me back to the Wizard Tower, and I'll give you another reward." The grey shadow finally lost the composure it had maintained all along.

Luge merely shook his head, his eyes already looking toward the passage opening to the side.

A blue-and-white interlaced beam abruptly shot out from his hand!

It disrupted the grey shadow, carving out a hollow, but swaying unsteadily it soon recovered.

"Indeed it's like this." He had long anticipated that against this kind of strange enemy, the spells he currently grasped might have no effect at all.

The grey shadow fiercely pounced over, faster than at any previous time, like an arrow leaving the bowstring.

On the black-grey arrow Luge felt a dense malice he had never seen before, completely detached from the lizardman and kobold's simple instinctive ferocity; that dense malice emitted intense emotional fluctuations under the stirring of spiritual power — spiritual power touching it made one instantly shudder. That sky-reaching anger and despair, endless regret and urgency, bottomless remorse, and seemingly boundless hate.

It was precisely these that made the arrow formed by the grey shadow begin to burn mid-flight; grey flames trembled violently, accompanied by ghostly light splashing in all directions.

Luge still cautiously retreated a distance.

The grey shadow ultimately never reached the position where he had originally stood still, turning into flying ash, and finally leaving a piece of pale grey translucent crystal stone on the ground.

That not-yet-begun cooperation was thus thoroughly ended.

Luge waited in place for a good while; seeing there was thoroughly no more reaction, he only then dared go over. Although the inheritance process was very unpleasant, he still planned to keep his promise — after rummaging through things, he would bury the other party.

(Chapter End)