Chapter 174: The Team (1)

Two months later...

The brown door of the cave opened.

Angele walked out looking tired, his brown hair messy. There were two dark circles around his eyes, and he was wearing a loose gray robe.

'Making the heart bombs is tiring... Although the required mentality is low, I still need to stay focused during the process. It's so boring...'

Angele rubbed his temples and closed his eyes.

He could make three to four heart bombs every day, and each one of them would take him about three hours. Without the help from Zero, it would have been even worse.

The chip could do the simulation and help him during the procedures, however, he still had to make the bombs with his own two hands.

Also, the raw materials could explode at any time during the process, and since Angele had so many of them, he was worried that the explosion could easily destroy the cave

After two months of crafting the heart bombs, he had turned the whole basket of raw materials into enchanted items. The completed heart bombs were about the size of a human's fist, and he could only carry a certain amount of them with him, but he still managed to hide most of them inside his large gray robe.

'Time to go to the wizard area.'

Angele checked the time—it was already noon. The golden sunlight warmed his body up.

He stood in front of the door, and with all the bombs he had hidden inside the robe, it almost looked like he had gained a ton of weight during the two months.

He closed the door, walked down the hill, and arrived at the bridge.

Asuna, Silen, and the group were waiting for him by the small stone house. The girl had already told them that Angele was a formal wizard, and they had visited Angele's cave several times recently.

"This is the map and some metals with high resistance you asked for." Silen greeted Angele and handed the items over to him. "We tried our best but that's all we found in the market areas around here. Are they good enough for you?"

Angele grabbed the map and opened. Detailed information of Nola was all recorded on it.

The map had a light yellow background, and it was divided into three major areas. The Six Ring High Tower, White Tooth Castle, and the Snake Bird Cliff were ruling those areas.

In the middle of the three major areas, there was a long slim line. It was the public area that was not in anyone's control. There were five red dots on the public area which represented the markets owned by the three major organizations, the public market, and the market funded by smaller organizations.

The map's quality was quite high and the notes were clear.

"Nice map."

Angele nodded. Blue light dots flashed in front of his eyes and the map was recorded by the chip. He asked Zero to compare the routes on the map to the routes he had actually traveled on to minimize the errors.

Besides the map, there was also a small black pouch made from leather. Its surface was elastic and smooth.

Angele untied the pouch and looked inside—it was full of metal cubes that varied in colors.

He grabbed a blue metal cube with a blue glint on the surface.

Silen looked at the cube and explained, "It's called the Blue Devil, a special alloy that's made from more than ten different metals with high resistance. The white ones are called White Silver Iron, and they are usually used to build spell labs."

Angele nodded again.

"You guys did a great job."

He threw two mid-level magic stones to Silen.

Silen smiled, happy with the reward. They could only earn about 100 regular magic stones for completing one high-difficulty mission. Working for Angele was much easier and the reward was much better. Angele only asked them to find him various items, and most of the requests could be fulfilled by just checking vendors in the markets.

"Master Green, I assume you haven't joined any organization yet. Why don't you join my school? I'm sure you'll be a great professor. The Riven Arrow is smaller than the three major organizations, but we have a great number of apprentices, and we have a decent selection of materials in the storage," Asuna asked, looking Angele in the eyes.

"River Arrow?" Angele shook his head. "My plan is to join the Six Ring High Tower and I'm not considering other organizations at the moment."

Some of the rare materials Angele needed could only be purchased by the apprentices or wizards that were registered in an organization, and Silen did the job for him. He himself stayed in the cave while selling dozens of low-quality potions. He had made thousands of regular magic stones in these two months, with the help of Zero, his success rate in crafting potions was much higher than an average potion master's.

The River Arrow was an organization with many registered apprentices, however, they did not care about their students' talent levels. They would take the apprentices in as long as they could pay the fees. Members of River Arrow could be found everywhere in Nola, but most of them were weak.

There were two other organizations that were close to the area. The first one was named Seagull Alliance. It had about 50 wizards, and the strongest one was a Crystal stage light wizard.

The second organization was called The Bronze Torch, and it only had about 10 registered wizards. The leader of the organization was a light wizard at the Liquid stage. They were famous for their huge library, and it was also their main source of income. Without the books, The Bronze Torch would run out of money within a week.

There were about 20 organizations like those in Nola based on the information Angele had gathered from the people in the markets.

Some of the organizations only had one or two registered wizards. They just stayed in their territories and kept doing research using the resources purchased from the market.

"I'll think about it later. There's someone waiting for me right now, so I must go. Asuna has my communication sigil. I'll contact you later."

Angele refused their invitation and walked to the bridge.

Silen and Asuna looked a bit disappointed but they did not say anything. Angele suddenly saw a black distorted rune moving around on his right wrist while stepping forward.

"It's about the time."

He pointed at the rune and it turned into a sentence that floated over his palm.

'Come to Melissa's house before two o'clock.'

Melissa contacted him through the black dot Angele had left to her. The black dot contained Angele's communication sigil so she could send messages directly to him.

*********************

Inside the wizard area, Melissa's house.

It was dark inside. The long table beside the windows was already cleaned up and covered by a white lace blanket. There were three light wizards sitting around it.

A thin old female wizard was sitting in a long chair, carefully wiping the edges of her glasses.

Ainphent had a white-feathered pen in hand, and he was writing something down on a piece of leather paper.

There was also a young female wizard beside him. She had no expression on her face, and her eyes were closed. It seemed like she was thinking about something. Her body was surrounded by a freezing aura.

Ainphent put down the pen and shook the paper slightly.

*CHI*

The ink on the leather paper vanished into the air and lines of sentences disappeared within seconds.

The feather pen on the table turned into countless white light dots and slowly disappeared as well.

"I already notified Green and the other two wizards. They'll be here today."

Ainphent smiled.

"So, Green was the last wizard you needed?" the female wizard asked in a cold tone. There was no emotion in her words.

"Yeah. He's at the Gas stage, but we believe he can assist us during the mission."

Ainphent nodded.

"Oh wait, Green asked me for the formula of the Tree Killer Potion. I think he wants to ask someone to craft the potion for him. Isabell, I remember you still have a bottle of Black Rose oil, right? I think the chance of successfully crafting that potion is extremely low, but why don't you make a trade with him?"

The light wizard named Isabell nodded and said, "Sure, I don't mind trading with him if he has the items I need."

*Knock-Knock*

Someone was knocking on the wooden door.

Melissa slowly put on her glasses and pointed at the door.

"Come in, please," she said in a loud voice.

The wooden door glowed for a second. It seemed like Melissa removed the energy particles she had applied on its surface.

*Creak*

The door was pushed open.

A ruthless man in green robe walked in. The man had a pair of dark green eyes and an aquiline nose. Although it was sunny outside, the man's hair looked wet for some reason.

"Kuirman, have a seat, please."

Melissa pointed at a chair on the side.

Kuirman forced a smile on his face.

"So, I'm not the last one."

His voice was deep and hoarse.

Kuirman walked to the chair and sat down. He stopped talking and closed his eyes. Ainphent did not expect to see Kuirman in the team; he looked surprised.

The room remained in silence.

Wizards all had long life expectancies and most of them were patient. There was still some time before two o'clock, and they were willing to wait.

The four just sat there until someone knocked on the unlocked door again.

A muscular man with short brown hair opened the door and entered the room.

The man had an average looking face, but his eyes were sharp and deep. He was covered in a long gray robe, only his neck exposed to the air. The man glanced around and Melissa noticed a silver glint on his neck.

"Green, here you are."

Ainphent turned around and greeted Angele with a smile on his face.

Angele nodded.

"I started moving as I noticed the message. It seems like I arrived on time."

He glanced around, the presence of Kuirman and Isabell catching his attention.