Chapter 5: Uninvited guest
Translator: Nyoi_Bo_Studio Editor: Tennesh
Anfey drew more than seven hundred lines on the walls of the mansion. His physical capability finally reached its best condition yet. Every line represented one day. There wasn’t a clock on the island, so he could only use this most primitive way to record the passing of time. More than two years had passed, and Anfey had lost patience several times, trying to cross the strait to find someone to talk to and ease his loneliness. But each time, after swimming about ten miles, he gave up and returned to the island. The one who was not able to endure loneliness could not win big! Rather than going out now, it was better to continue waiting, because the outside world was unpredictable!
Anfey's training method was systematic. Since the original owner of his body was too weak and cowardly, the progress was slow. The first step of combat training was improving his eyes and movement. More accurately, it was to control the instinct to blink. When an object flew towards a person's head, ordinary people would involuntarily blink to avoid their eyes being damaged. This was the main difference between ordinary people and people who had undergone training. When boxing, no matter how heavy the blow was, and no matter what part of the body was hit, the boxers would not blink. Those who didn’t train for it couldn’t do it.
It seemed like eye blinking was irrelevant, but it was actually the most important step! For example, if someone standing three meters in front of you was ready to hit you with a brick, it wouldn’t take more than 0.5 seconds to reach your body. Blinking would normally take 0.2 to 0.5 seconds. For ordinary people, it could take even longer than a second to blink, such as if they were afraid. If the eyes weren’t fully opened after blinking, they would already be hit without any time to react. The boxer would observe the attacker from beginning to end, and 0.5 seconds was enough time for his brain and nerves to respond.
Anfey vividly remembered when he first began his training on controlling his blinking. He was hit hard during a snowball fight with his peers. The next day he spent half of the night completing the entire training regimen, followed by more practice to reinforce the results. Three days later, he had another snowball fight with his peers, but this time he could easily deal with more than a dozen peers. He won the game by using only his natural human reactions to avoid being hit by the snowballs, instead of using his superior physical strength. That day, he was crowned as the Snowball Prince. The fun experience made Anfey more and more interested in combat training. Since that time, he had trained for more than ten years.
In the Evil Abyss, it took Anfey only a few days to complete the eye training. However, due to the weakness of his current body, it took him half a month to finish it here. The other trainings were progressing slowly as well. It took Anfey two full years to complete all of his training goals.
Although Anfey had Yagor's diary, the mage’s training was also very difficult. The diary could be very valuable to top archmages, as it held a lot of Yagor’s thoughts and experiences, but Anfey felt it was temporarily useless when it came to learning spells. Anfey needed to heavily rely on himself to explore magic.
But Anfey was pretty talented. After practicing by himself for two years, he could finally release a small fireball, although he didn’t know how to do any other spells yet. Normally, it would be shameful for an apprentice to take two years to only learn how to release a small fireball, but Anfey was satisfied because it was very handy. No need for a flashlight when exploring in the dark, no need to prepare firewood in winter, and no need for a stove to bake sweet potatoes… How great it was!
The majority of magic apprentices thought that releasing small fireballs was an offensive skill, but Anfey transformed it to handle his daily needs. Sometimes he ran holding a small fireball during his morning exercise, looking like an Olympic torch relay.
Although the transformation was pretty good, Anfey’s magic power was never enough. Anfey had to extend his mediation time in order to gain more power. Fortunately, he had enough endurance, as he regularly practiced holding his breath as a child.
One day, Anfey was practicing his breathing while sitting on a rock alongside the ocean. He felt that he had made rapid progress in his breathing, perhaps because of his hours and hours of training. Within two years, he had already transformed this weak body into one that was much stronger than what he’d had in the Evil Abyss.
In October, the sea breeze had brought a little chill, but a person who was good at breathing techniques could easily handle winter chill and summer heat. Anfey enjoyed sitting barechested in the sea breeze.
Suddenly, he felt something approaching him. He took a deep breath, counting up to twelve and then slowly down to one. Opening his eyes, he saw two small black spots appeared on the ocean.
Someone was coming! Anfey was not just surprised, but also delighted. This was a fantasy world with mysterious tricks, magical vindictiveness, various branches of magic, and even dragons. He didn’t know how well he could survive in such a world, but either way, since the opportunity had emerged, he couldn’t find any excuses to escape from it!
Anfey jumped off the rock, rushing to the mansion. As an assassin, his thoughts were much more complicated than those of an ordinary person. For an ordinary person, he would most likely stay in one place waiting for the vessel, but Anfey thought totally differently. Visitors could be divided into two types. One type of person came to visit Yagor or the island. The other type was coming to take revenge on Yagor, or perhaps they were evil pirates. Anfey didn’t want to test his luck, so he was well prepared!
Rushing into the mansion, Anfey grabbed a bag and rapidly ran to the woods in the back of the mansion, where he had dug a deep pit a year and a half ago. Without thinking too much, Anfey immediately threw the bag into the pit and pushed a rock from the edge into the pit. He then used his feet to sweep all the sand and soil on the side into the pit, after which he spent a few more minutes doing some final touches. He didn’t want anyone to find anything unusual here.
The bag was filled with Yagor’s diary, magic books, and a lot of magic tools which Anfey couldn’t understand. Anfey had already hidden some larger tools in other places. Even if someone was Yagor’s old friend, when they found out that Yagor had died, leaving behind his most valuable diaries and magic books, they might try to steal them.
Of course, Anfey was smart enough to leave behind some props in the mansion. As Yagor was a top archmage, if nothing was left, it would make people suspicious.
Anfey did not touch the gold and silver artifacts in the mansion, which were prepared for any bad guys. The money was insignificant compared to his life. If the visitor was a robber, he could give out money in order to protect himself. Anfey was willing to surrender all the visible treasures, plus some hidden gold coins. Hopefully the robber was kind enough to let him go. However, if he was unfortunate enough to meet some really cruel guys utterly lacking in humanity, then he would fight without any hesitation!
Back at the mansion, Anfey put on his self-made mage robe. He had made some alterations to Yagor’s robe. No matter what level a mage was at, their robes would all follow similar styles, just like a soldier’s armor followed a particular style, unless they were made of special materials. The only difference was that the top archmage’s robe was inlaid with golden lining, the middle level’s was inlaid with silver lining, and the beginner level’s was inlaid with silk lining. An apprentice was not even qualified to wear any mage robes. It was rare that someone would fake wearing the wrong level robe. If someone did that in order to draw attention, he could lose his reputation or even be killed by the Mage Union, if discovered.
Anfey removed the golden lining without putting silk lining in the robe, so that others couldn’t guess his level. Another purpose for him to deliberately wear the robe was to hide his power to confuse others! When speaking of magic spells, Anfey was only able to release a small fireball, but he had confidence in fighting with his physical strength. If others saw him in the mage’s robe and tried to use a mage’s way of fighting against him, he would definitely take advantage by using his own strength!
Anfey readjusted his robe. He slowly walked out of the mansion and towards the beach. There was a warm and sincere smile on his face. The pace of his walking was unhurried, firm and confident. Sometimes, dealing with humans was like dealing with dogs. If one approached the dog with confidence, the dog would not dare to act recklessly. On the other hand, if one showed fear, or wanted to escape, the dog would bark, or even bite one’s feet.
The ship getting closer and closer, Anfey was able to see the appearance of the sailors on board. Two figures from the ship flew up. The difference was, one flow above Anfey like a ray of smoke and landed slowly, while the other one drew a nice parabola in the air and landed on the beach, splashing some sand and gravel.
Anfey felt shocked that one was a mage, using middle-level levitation magic. The magic could make people fly in the air, moving up and down, or even turning around, but they couldn’t fly freely. This mage could fly freely like a bird. He had reached at least the middle level, based on Anfey’s evaluation! The warrior did not use all his power, instead depending solely on the force of his leap to achieve the same effect as the levitation magic, without splashing too much sand and gravel when landing. That completely violated the rules of gravity as Anfey knew them. It seemed that the warrior’s level was not low either!
Despite being shocked, Anfey still had a warm smile on his face. "My honored masters, how are you?" While talking, Anfey observed the two's appearances carefully. The mage was in his fifties with two slightly-drooping longevity eyebrows and light-blue eyes as deep as the ocean. His high-bridged nose and light-blond hair made him a little bit charming. The warrior was more than forty years old, looking very ordinary. He was very tall, eyes brown and filled with calmness, as if he didn’t care about anything.
"My little boy, how are you?" the mage smiled and asked. "Does Archmage Yagor live here? "
"You are...?" Anfey neither confirmed nor denied the question.
"My little boy, please tell Archmage Yagor, just say... His old friend came to visit him," the warrior continued.
"My name is Saul, and his name is Ernest. Just tell Archmage Yagor our names, he will know who has come." The mage laughed.
Anfey looked Saul up and down, feeling a little bit confused. To his knowledge, a mage's robe should have some signs representing his level. Anfey’s robe was made specifically to confuse others. He couldn’t believe that the mage in front of him was wearing a nice, clean robe without lining, just like him. Anfey couldn’t figure out the mage’s identity and level of power.
It was normal that Anfey couldn’t figure it out, because he hadn’t reached that level of understanding yet. A newly rich person always liked to show off by dressing up in a lot of jewelry, while a truly wealthy man never needed to prove himself with those things. The same theory applied to the world of mages. A lower level mage might like to use the robe with linings to win the respects from others, but the top ones didn’t even bother to have any linings on their robes, since they had real high-level power and strength.
It was Anfey’s mistake to judge others based on Yagor’s habits and behaviors. Because Yagor was a unique individual, he put all of his time and energy into studying magic. He had such a casual life, not even caring about what he wore. All the clothes were given to him by the Mage’s Union. The golden lining of the robe was so shiny…
"Please follow me, dearest guests," Anfey turned aside and said with a smile.
"Don’t you need to notify Archmage Yagor first? As I know, he doesn’t like being bothered by people. He will blame you if we do that," Saul said to Anfey with wonder.
"Oh…" Anfey sighed with the right volume. He knew that sighing too loud would be too fake, but sighing too weakly would be hard to hear. "Archmage Yagor will not blame me."
"OK." Saul smiled and walked behind with Anfey. Ernest then hurried and caught up with them. He seemed very calm, but was still cautiously observing the surroundings.