Magus
patreon
Chapter 73: The Bigger the Storm, the Higher the Price
🕑 Added 2025-08-05 22:52:45 +0000 UTCUnder the old village chief's watchful gaze, Ignaz climbed out through the window, his figure gradually disappearing into the darkness.
Less than half a month later, in Fasno Province, Emerald Vale Village.
Ignaz, now in a completely different disguise, followed the village chief of Emerald Vale Village to an empty house.
"This place looks pretty good. I'll take it!"
In such a small village, as long as he kept a low profile, neither the Blue Lightning Tyrant Dragon family nor the Spirit Hall would be able to track him down—unless they specifically went looking for him.
"Guest, judging by the calluses on your hands, you must be a blacksmith!"
The village chief was quite respectful toward Ignaz, who had half his face covered. After all, a blacksmith could help villagers harvest more crops during good years and catch more game, boosting the entire village's economy.
Ignaz looked around the wooden house and said unhurriedly, "That's right, I'm a blacksmith. I plan to stay in your village for a while. If you don't mind, I can help repair your iron tools for free."
"I knew it! You really are a blacksmith—and you're willing to help us without charge. That's wonderful!"
The village chief studied Ignaz, who was dressed decently despite covering half his face. There was a good chance his face had been disfigured, but since that would be someone’s most shameful secret, he couldn't bring it up.
"Our village has been without a blacksmith for ages. Every time we need metalwork done, we have to travel a hundred miles to Nuoding City, which takes forever. Now that you're here, it's truly Emerald Vale Village's good fortune."
"This house has been sitting empty anyway. You can stay here free of charge—consider it payment for repairing our villagers' iron tools. If that's not enough, the villagers wouldn't mind paying a little extra."
"Village chief, since you put it that way, it would be rude of me to refuse."
The village chief was so moved that his heart was practically overflowing. He gripped Ignaz's hands tightly, knowing that good people like this were rare in the world. His willingness to repair iron tools for free was already incredibly generous.
From then on, Ignaz continued helping the villagers, researching soul devices while discreetly gathering information about the situation in Nuoding City.
A year later, seventeen-year-old Ignaz stood deep in the dense forest where he often practiced with his soul devices. He arranged six golden soul devices shaped like armored beetles into a six-pointed star formation.
In an instant, the six soul devices began floating in mid-air, and a blue energy shield suddenly activated.
"Come on, let me test the combined power of these six fourth-level soul devices."
A Blood Thunder War Spear suddenly appeared. Ignaz immediately used his first soul skill and rapidly fired his second soul skill in quick succession.
"Bang bang bang..."
After Ignaz unleashed the ninth triple strike—
"CRACK—"
The soul device defense shield completely shattered, and the six floating fourth-level defensive soul devices all began smoking and fell to the ground.
"This effect is pretty good. It can at least withstand two attacks from a Soul King's ten-thousand-year fifth ring."
Ignaz was very satisfied with the result. These soul devices were created after he collected defensive soul devices, studied their inscribed formations and structures, and improved them through multiple iterations.
With these soul devices, his killing spree would now have an added layer of defense. Against soul masters who couldn’t use soul skills and could only attack with soul power and brute force, their techniques wouldn't even match the power of ten-thousand-year soul skills.
Ignaz stood up and had just walked to the village center when he saw a man pulling an ox cart back to the village. The man enthusiastically greeted Ignaz and said:
"Good morning, Master Ji! I just got back from Nuoding City today with some good news—the best blacksmith shop in Nuoding City suddenly dropped their prices!"
"Master Ji, are you planning to open a shop in Nuoding City? If you do, your ironwork would definitely be really popular."
Hearing this news, Ignaz was extremely excited. His reason for opening a blacksmith shop wasn’t just to better hide his identity as a soul master, but more importantly—and this was the most crucial point—he could gather information about Tang San.
But he didn’t dare go to Nuoding City for fear of being discovered by Tang Hao, who might kill him on the spot. So he had people indirectly inquire about the blacksmith shops in the city. Sure enough, any blacksmith shop with Tang San would have booming business.
The ironwork Tang San crafted was even better than Ignaz’s own. The chosen one really was different.
"No, I'm just here to rest for a while. Do you know why that blacksmith shop suddenly lowered its prices?"
Faced with Ignaz’s question, the man answered proudly:
"Well, it's because the only master blacksmith in their shop, one of only two genius soul masters at Nuoding Academy, left Nuoding City!"
"That really is bad news."
Later, Ignaz returned home and spread out a detailed topographical map of the area around Nuoding City. Based on his understanding of that arrogant and quite conceited Tang Hao, while the man had many flaws, his feelings for the Blue Silver Emperor were genuine. Even though he had given up on himself for six years after the Blue Silver Emperor’s death, he absolutely wouldn’t have placed her remains somewhere far away. The waterfall where the Blue Silver Emperor was stored had to be near Holy Spirit Village.
Looking at the detailed topographical map around Nuoding City, there were no fewer than forty locations with waterfalls. Now that Tang San had already left Nuoding City with Xiao Wu, based on their walking speed, it would take at least half a month to reach Soto City. If that rabbit decided to do some shopping and visit local taverns along the way, it would add another three to four days.
"At least fifteen days, at most eighteen days. About half a month should be enough time for searching."
As for whether Tang Hao was carrying the hundred-thousand-year Blue Silver Emperor soul bone with him, Ignaz wasn’t entirely sure—but he had to investigate. If that crude man, Tang Hao, wasn’t carrying the Blue Silver Emperor soul bone, then he could get his hands on this premium soul bone.
Time was of the essence. To ensure Tang Hao hadn't left yet, Ignaz waited another two or three days before bidding farewell to the Emerald Vale Village chief. He rode hard day and night toward Holy Spirit Village.
Finally, after two days, Ignaz arrived at a forest near Holy Spirit Village. He immediately began searching quickly according to the markers drawn on his map.
"The bigger the storm, the higher the price. This is the second time I'm taking such a risk."
Ignaz now held the Blood Thunder War Spear in his right hand and three small porcelain bottles in his left.
...
After five days of careful searching, Ignaz came to a new two-tiered waterfall. The water flow here was more turbulent, and it was also the waterfall closest to the Blue Silver Forest, with less than a hundred miles between them.
Ignaz spotted a protruding cliff in the center of the waterfall and released a soul device grappling hook. He was quickly pulled up, used the cliff face to push off with his legs and grab with his hands, perfectly climbing up to the first waterfall.
Looking ahead, the view suddenly opened up. A medium-sized azure lake came into view, with a hundred-zhang-high vertical waterfall above it. A massive stone stood upright below the waterfall, its top worn perfectly smooth by the vertically falling river water.
This scene looked exactly like the waterfall where Tang San had practiced his Disorder Splitting Wind Hammer Method.
