Abe the Wizard

Abel teleported to the central continent through the super teleportation circle during the day. After that, he was so occupied with the fight that he neither had the chance to head into the dark world nor have a good nights’ sleep. As he laid down the mana gathering circle, he meditated for about one hour before he continued to practice the blue dragon “ice crystal breathing technique.” By doing so, he channeled his attention to the pineal glands between his eyes while all his attributes were slowly but steadily elevated.

He forcefully opened a crack with the suppressive power of his world stone fragment. From there, the crystal angel statue was revealed. It was crystal clear before, but a small part of it was already turned to gold. Messenger of prayer was sent to his brain once the world stone fragment was steadily being suppressed.

Abel couldn’t help but murmur to himself, “So that’s what it was. The world stone never separated long-distance prayer messages. It just separated the crystal angel statue from his soul.”

He was starting to get a little hesitant. He wasn’t sure his actions could be considered theft. It might be information theft, in some regard.

He thought, “Whatever. There’s nothing I can’t do about it. Wait, I’m still curious, though. What if this crystal angel statue becomes full gold?”

There weren’t many faithful worshippers in this world, but there was one thing that he knew for sure. The prayers came from humans. There were churches among the humans, but the Wizard Union had been oppressing them. So, if those who were powerful did not support the church, the priests there would only perform low-tier divine techniques such as basic healing. Worse yet, these techniques would hardly work against knights or wizards. Since it was just regular people who would receive the benefits, those who were truly strong didn’t drive to support churches. It made it hard for churches to develop in the region.

In situations such as this, and with tens of thousands of people praying altogether, who were the most faithful of these worshippers? Abel couldn’t explain, but he knew that they must’ve come from the central continent because as soon as he arrived here, tons and tons of prayer messages popped out of his crystal angel statue before he had the time to look at his surroundings. It was a little too much for him, actually. He was already a rank sixteen advanced wizard, but he would’ve never wanted to face a powerful being or spirit that had at least several ten thousand worshippers.

From then on, he had been trying to think of ways to use the world stone fragment to separate the connections between the crystal angel crystal and the worshippers from afar. Yet, no matter how hard he tried, the world stone fragment just couldn’t do that.

After waking up, he got a robe with a hood to cover up his face in the morning. He was heading to the Moses Pawn Shop, and as soon as he opened the door, he saw that Kinglake, the shop-owner, and Alchemist Jose inside.

Kinglake bowed and said, “Good day to you, respectful sir Wizard! I’ve come to send good news to you. We of the Moses Pawn Shop have the materials that you request of us. Please, come inside as we explain the details to you.”

“Oh?”

That caught Abel’s attention pretty quickly. From what it looked like, although the materials for the original “soul-nourishing potion” and the “gecko potion” were extinct on the Holy Continent, it seemed to still be around on the central continent.

Abel nodded his head and replied, “Sure. Should we go talk about it at the Pawn Shop, then?”

Kinglake became quite excited to hear about it after hearing Abel agree to his proposal. Just yesterday, he already contacted the Moses Pawn Shop headquarter that there was an advanced wizard client who tried to hide his identity. As the order he got was to make that advanced wizard stay in whatever ways he could, on the very next day, he came to wait outside of the hotel room that Abel was at. Wizard Jose, on the other hand, came by his own will. He wanted to see the advanced alchemist so much that he even dropped whatever he was doing.

It was the same VIP room once they came into the Moses Pawn Shop. When Abel made his way in, he saw an old man with a ten-year-old boy. There was also an intermediate wizard already been waiting inside.

Old man Garrett came over to bow, “My name is Garrett Moses.”

“Greetings,” Abel replied calmly. He didn’t really care what this man wanted from him. As far as he was concerned, he just wanted the ingredients.

“This, here, is Mervyn. He’s my niece. I didn’t come to see you as this is the first time I came to Silan City. Please forgive me for my rudeness.”

Garrett went on to speak, “I’ve asked tens of our branches yesterday night for the things you request. After asking a friend, I managed to get five portions in total for you. That was the most that I could get.”

Having said that, Garrett turned around and nodded to the intermediate wizard that was behind him. The intermediate wizard took out a portal bag and placed it on the table. Abel went forward to scan with his portal bag. The portal bag wasn’t locked with the power of the Will. so he could inject his into it.

All the materials he asked for were inside. The recipes for the soul-nourishing potions and the gecko potions originated from the Holy Continent, so he had to use ingredients from the Holy Continent. Luckily, before he left the Holy Continent, he took ingredients from the Holy Continent in his Valaya’s ring. If he wasn’t trying to brew too many all at once, he could still use the original recipe to resume his brewing.

The ingredients inside his portal bag had all the ancient ingredients that went extinct back on the Holy Continent. He was quite content about it, actually. While it wasn’t easy for regular alchemists to get even one successful product from five portions worth of materials, as an advanced alchemist, it possible to produce at a much higher success rate. It was only of the reasons why there weren’t so many advanced alchemists around. The alchemists had to promote by crafting potions that were befitting to their current level, but the higher the level, the harder it’d be to find the right materials. Also, because of the increasing difficulty in creating the right potions, it became extra hard for the alchemists to extract the alchemy energy needed to promote themselves successfully. It was especially challenging for humans due to their comparatively shorter lifespan.

Besides, since many humans chose to train themselves to become wizards and alchemists at the same time, they were often distracted. It became harder for them as they were dividing their efforts into two things. It didn’t matter if they had an extended lifespan after becoming wizards. Most regular wizards had to spend their days doing all sorts of insane training, often separating themselves before they even became official wizards.

Abel tapped his portal bag, “These are some good ingredients, Mr. Garrett. How about you give me a price?”

Garrett hesitated and asked, “May I know your name, sir?”

Abel said solemnly, “My name doesn’t matter, Mr. Garrett. You can call me Bennett. Yes, call me Alchemist Bennett, if you will.”

When Garrett heard this strange name, he turned to look towards Alchemist Jose. Alchemist Jose shook his head to show that he had never heard of this. When he turned to look at the intermediate wizard, the intermediate wizard also had the same response.

Garrett couldn’t help but feel quite hesitant. The ingredients he was about to sell were worth plenty. This was basically gambling. If he sold it to the wrong person, it could bring disaster to his entire family. However, it was because of this strange name that he became quite relaxed about what was to come. He already searched up about all three of the Stan Empire advanced wizards beside him before he came here, and he knew very certainly that Abel wasn’t one of them.

If he was giving the stuff out to any of the three very resourceful wizards, he and the family behind him would’ve been in a very big disaster. Actually, he would’ve never taken such a risky move if the Moses Family wasn’t in such an emergent state. Upon hearing from Kinglake, he knew that Abel came here without even having his gold coins to buy things. He had to trade for it. It could even be possible that he didn’t have his own magic card. Rather, he just chose not to because of how dangerous magic cards were.

In fact, it could even be said that Abel was in a very troublesome position. He needed to hide his true identity, and that just made Garrett more confident in targeting him.

“You can all leave now,” he said to the people around him. Everyone knew that he wanted to talk to Abel in secret, so they all left the VIP room. Garrett’s grandson didn’t, though, so it was Garrett, him, and Abel that stayed.

Garratt pushed the portal bag on the table towards Abel, “I’ll give all these to you for free, respectful sir alchemist.”

Abel said in quite a confident tone, “The ingredients that were inside might be worth a lot, Mr. Garrett, but I don’t think it’s enough. I can afford a lot more than this, I think.”

Obviously, Garrett didn’t know about how good Abel actually was as a grandmaster alchemist. If he did, he would’ve changed the ingredients several times more than what was offered here on the table.

Garett went on to introduce his family, “Allow me to introduce ourselves, sir Alchemist. We of the Moses family trade. While we are of royalties’ identity, we’ve had to face isolation from the noblemen of the empire. They’ve been going after my family’s wealth for quite some time already. The third Prince, especially, has been trying to target us due to a lack of funding for expanding his influence.”

Abel couldn’t help but frown upon hearing this. He was being targeted by the Ice Wind clan this very moment, and while he killed one and injured one of them that went after him, things only became messier for him. If things were to escalate from here, he didn’t think that it’d be possible for him to match the wizards on the central continent with his current abilities.

By the way, come to think of it, things like this wouldn’t happen if it was on the Holy Continent. He thought that his pursuers would give up on him if he showed them some color, but no, here on the central continent, they stopped at nothing to give him trouble. The restrictions here were looser too. The rank eighteen advanced wizards could go after him as he pleased, whereas he’s had to pressure the St. Ellis Emperor himself before a rank eighteen wizard came out to get him directly.

No, it wasn’t easy to go against Wizard Godwin. Wizard Godwin lost his arm because he was overconfident. Even then, the two thousand ballista arrows’ attack did nothing but take away just one of his arms. If more wizards decided to come, he might have been trapped. For now, he just wanted to avoid all sorts of conflict before he could get protection from the lightning clan.

Garrett rushed as he saw Abel’s response, “No need for you to show up, sir alchemist. We, the Moses Family, go way back with one elder at the Land of the Forgotten. That elder made a promise to help us once.”

Abel spoke out, “The elder? Just have him help you, then.”

Garrett explained, “The elder will only help once. Our family has been keeping this for a very long time, but the third prince has been pushing me to use it. Personally, I prefer self-development rather than having sir elder going after the third prince. This is why I’ve asked the elder to take care of my grandson Mervyn.”

Abel was finally starting to get what Garrett was trying to say. The Moses Family was truly a family of merchants. All they thought about was to optimize whatever interests that were present in the matter at hand. If Garett was to ask the elder to do the favor, that would only be one time to prevent others from spying on them. Yet, if Mervyn was to become the elder’s student, they’d have a permanent solution to prevent themselves from being spied upon.

When Abel’s eyes scanned across the little boy Mervyn, who was somewhat nervous, he couldn’t help but feel quite strange. Any wizard could have told Garrett that his grandson didn’t have the potential to become a wizard?

Garrett made a light tap on Mervyn’s head, “As you can see, sir alchemist, my grandson does not possess the potential to become a wizard. It’s not easy to become a wizard. Many families try to recruit wizards by marrying off their daughters. Some even go as far as marrying their children to wizard apprentices, and even that’s considered lucky, given how few wizards would take the chance.”

Abel nodded to show his understanding. Most wizards came out of regular noblemen. Perhaps it had to do with the fact that they were the offsprings of the selected few elites.

Garrett revealed a bitter smile, “The Moses family’s been keeping its promise to the elder for the last one hundred years. Yet, there has not been a single one of our members who’s had the talent to become a wizard. Not even our distant lineage.”

A resolute expression flashed across his face. Ever since he began this conversation, he’s been testing how Abel was actually like as a person. He was starting to get ready to talk about the most important thing.

Garett spoke carefully as he placed a black metal plate on the table, “The Moses Pawn Shop has retrieved one ancient item from one of the adventurers. We’ve discovered that there was an alchemy potion ripe inside. The one who found it was my son. He decided to give this to me, but I’ve never found someone who’s had the ability to brew this potion.”

Abel picked up the metal plate and tried to feel it with his instinct of a grandmaster blacksmith. He could feel how special it was. He had never seen it even on the Holy Continent, actually. There were tiny pen strokes on the plate that recorded some words. This was a recipe. Although there were less than a hundred ingredients featured, the complexity required to make this was more than what advanced alchemists could handle.

This was the recipe for the “talent potion.” It’s meant to increase the talents of its users and make sure that the baseline of their power of the Will increased. As simple as the introduction of this effect was, it’s still quite shocking to Abel that this thing actually existed. The total capacity for the power of the Will was something that was decided at birth. While it could increase along with bodily development, that was only for a small increase. However, the description for this potion seemed like it had the ability to change normal people into wizards. A lot of people would go insane if this was actually the case.

Still, Abel knew that he couldn’t make too much of this talent potion after checking the required ingredients. This was because many of these were rare ingredients he got after checking the new book that he found. Not only did that book teach him the differences between the alchemy ingredients on the central continent and the Holy Continent, but it also taught him just how ridiculously expensive the ingredients were. For example, just three pieces of the beginner’s magic ingredients featured here were extremely pricey.

He wasn’t sure if Garrett actually had an alchemist to check this recipe. Actually, even if he had, that alchemist was probably not very professional at all. The talent potion had a direct effect on the soul. Due to how difficult it was to craft it, even advanced alchemists would have a hard time ensuring that the success rate would remain consistent.

Abel asked as he played with the metal plate, “Are you planning on having your grandson consume the talent potion, Mr. Garrett?”

Upon scanning Mervyn with his power of the Will, Abel could tell that the child was quite gifted. Still, that was not to say that the talent he harnessed was enough to become a wizard immediately.

Garrett said somewhat anxiously, “Yes. Will you help me?”

It was not an easy choice to begin with. Even if he had the elder’s connection to prevent getting spied upon, others might still try to know about all this. Abel was a safe choice in this regard. The fact that he needed intermediate gemstones to trade gold coins showed that he had no organizations or connections behind him. It was a rare chance to find such a good advanced alchemist like this. As a merchant, Garrett loved taking risks, and after seeing the person that Abel, he became more trusting of the mysterious advanced wizard in front of him.

Abel agreed to Garrett’s offer, except he asked for more, “I just need the ingredients, as far as I’m concerned. Also, you’d have to pay me more if you want to ask favors from me.”

Garrett said with joy, “I’ve already prepared the ingredients, sir alchemist. If you’re talking about reward, I’ve got a mansion in Silan City and Berkin City. You’ll be free to choose whichever one you wanted. We’ll also give you the metal plate that has the recipe on it.”

Abel nodded, “Yes, give the ingredients to me and gave an alchemy lab prepared. Also, clean the mansion in Silan City.”

Garrett took out a portal bag and asked concerningly, “Yes, sir, alchemist. We’ve been getting the ingredients secretly ever since we got our hands on the recipe, but only six portions are there in total. Would you mind having a look?”

Abel replied calmly, “That is quite the price you’re offering. Sure. I’ll do my best to give you one portion of the talent potion in return.”

He put back the portal bag and saw that the portal bag here was far worse than those on the Holy Continent. He wasn’t looking down on the Moses Family, though, since they had multiple shops here in the empire. By this point, he’s already guessed what the elder’s level at the Land of Ice Frost was. It shouldn’t be hard for the Moses Family to get an advanced wizard to help, so if the situation at hand required the direct favor of an elder, that elder must’ve been a very, very terrifying person to mess with. This made it harder for him to reveal his identity to Garrett because he wasn’t sure if the Moses family would tell the elder about him.

Whatever the case was, even he was feeling like having the talent potion to himself. It’d be great if he could turn his relatives into wizards so that they enjoyed the longevity that came along with it. Still, if Garrett was to leak out this potion’s information, his entire family would be in very big trouble. The ingredients were extremely precious, and he needed to assure Garrett that the purchase was done only at the Moses Pawn Shop.

The alchemy lab belonged to Alchemist Jose. There was a lot of available equipment inside. As troublesome as it was to brew the talent potion, Abel could still manage to do quite some work with just his world stone fragment switched on. No, it didn’t matter if he was using any other of his abilities. He didn’t need to use Akara’s alchemy bottle for this because he knew he could get it right the first time, just with the tools in the alchemy room.

For the other five portions of the material, he decided to put them inside his Valaya’s ring. He didn’t want to waste them so easily because he knew he could create potions that were above gold if he just tried it. He’s had to really save the materials. If it took the Moses Family so many years to get so little of them, it would be kind of him to actually want to use them without the right reasons.

As it didn’t take him too long to get the potion brewed, he came out of the lab after half a day.

“So what is it like, sir alchemist?” Garrett came forward and asked, his eyes fixed dead onto the potion in Abel’s hands.

Abel handed the potion over, “We got it, luckily.”

“Yes, the Moses Family has hope now!”

To make sure that no one was watching, Garrett immediately went ahead to open up the talent potion.

“Drink it, Mervyn!” He passed it to Mervyn, and Mervyn immediately gulped it down like the good boy that he was. Abel’s been keeping a close watch on this boy. Despite having analyzed his finished product, he needed to actually see how it would work on the boy to see how it would increase his baseline of the power of will.

Not long after drinking the talent potion, Mervyn had his entire face red and body drenched in sweat. Still, the boy was firm despite his young age. He never made any sound with all the pain that he was experiencing. Abel noticed the slow increase in his power of Will. This just confirmed that the potion did work.

Still, after half an hour, Mervyn fainted. The effect stopped the moment he lost consciousness.

“It’s a shame,” Abel shook his head. Mervyn would’ve lasted longer if he underwent some sort of endurance training. He did manage to reach the baseline required to become a beginner wizard, but that was pretty much it.

Garrett called as he had Mervyn in his arms, “What happened to you, Mervyn?”

Abel replied, “He’s alright, Mr. Garrett. He’s already reached the threshold to become a wizard.”

Garrett relaxed, “Thank you so much, sir alchemist! Here, I’ll have Kinglake bring you to the estate right away. Don’t worry. He’s going to handle all the procedures for you.”

“I’ll be off, then,” Abel made a light bow.

Garett took out a black card before Abel was about to leave, “Wait here for a bit. Take this. It’s an anonymous magic card.”

Abel took it without hesitation. As he skimmed through the black card, he could see that there was a number on it. The number was fifty thousand gold coins. While it didn’t matter to him how much was inside, he really liked that the card was anonymous. On the Holy Continent, only some commercial or large organizations would have possession of anonymous cards. They were seldom for individuals.

The mansion Abel got was quite large in size. A bit larger than what he expected, actually. There were about twenty-something servants in total and even a professional butler called Kern. The mansion was located on the outskirts of Silan. Whether he was looking at it from the perspective of environment or safety, it was probably the best of the best the city had to offer.

Kinglake helped Abel take care of all the procedures. The name that was used was Bennett. As a wizard, even if they owned the mansion anonymously, Silan City wasn’t going to stop them with laws or whatnot because that’s the privilege of wizards. Abel didn’t choose to live here, though. Instead, he just gave out some gold coins to Kern, and not long after that, he headed straight towards the Wizard Union branch of Silan City and prepared himself to leave the teleportation circle over there. He was planning to use this building as a back-up residence, a sort of sanctuary if he needed to hide away from something.

As large as the Wizard Union of Silan City was, there weren’t actually many wizards inside. There was actually more working staff inside the Wizard Union, and most of them were just regular people rather than real wizards.

“Don’t get in the way!”

Just when Abel stepped in to check around him, a loud voice came behind him. A giant hand reached over to him at the same time. He took a step forward, and as soon as he did, he turned around to see that a worgen was standing right behind him. The worgen seemed quite confused as to how the human in front of him managed to dodge the push.

From Abel’s perspective, it wasn’t all that surprising that a worgen just appeared. He’s already seen all kinds of races ever since coming to Silan City. Still, he was quite surprised when he saw the beginner wizard crest hanging on the worgen’s chest. He knew that the central continent was very good to the orcs, but he never thought it would even allow them to become wizards.

Seeing that Abel was still standing in front of him, the worgen decided to reach his hand over again. Abel responded by activating the essence of his wizard crystal body. He unleashed a terrifying presence that entrapped the worgen’s small crystal body, and at the same time, the worgen’s body became so overwhelmed that he was finding it hard to stand and even breathe. The worgen was a beginner wizard, but even if he was an intermediate wizard, Abel still had the confidence to get him down in the same manner. That’s the good thing about having a high concentration of wizard crystal.

The worgen’s face was full of fear. He knew that he made an enemy that he should’ve never tried to mess with, but also, he was kind of frustrated with the man in front of him as well. He would’ve never tried anything if Abel didn’t have the hoodie over his face.

Abel didn’t take any more look towards the worgen. He was just trying to target him, so the others weren’t affected at all. Once he left, the worgen was finally capable of breathing.

After reaching the first floor of the Wizard Union building, where the teleportation circle was, Abel scanned the wizard crest on his clothes. It was to confirm that he was a member of a Wizard Union. If he wasn’t, he would not be authorized to use it. He connected his power of the Will and chose to connect to the Land of Lightning Fall. His face began to look quite sour when he saw that teleportation was banned there.

Simultaneously, an advanced wizard over at the Land of Ice Frost was notified that he was using the teleportation circle at Silan City. He then forwarded it to Wizard Godwin, who was just heading straight to Frost City. Abel didn’t know about any of this. By the way, the advanced wizard didn’t know Abel was a rank sixteen sixteen wizard prodigy. He only came because he wanted to do a favor for his good friend Wizard Godwin. As far as he was concerned, there was no better trade than the do favors for a rank eighteen wizard, especially when the favor was just to get a piece of information.