Hello, is this a letter addressed to Demon Fortress?

Elvia frowned.

"She's actually the Soul Tower Master who's never appeared in the newspapers. You just said you wanted to kill her."

"You killed the Soul Tower Master of the Thousand Towers?"

Why?

Lin Gui smiled and patted Elvia on the shoulder.

"I think I've already given you the answer."

"But don't worry, I won't lay a hand on her."

"Even now, I have the ability to twist her head off without anyone noticing."

"It's just a pity that I can't bring back any souvenirs on the way back."

After leaving behind this strange remark, Lin Gui left Elvia's side.

Elvia watched Lin Gui's departing figure, lost in thought.

Lin Gui stepped out the door and stood in the afternoon sunlight.

He lowered his head, his fingers gently stroking the smooth oak staff.

The rough shaft of the staff had been washed countless times, yet it still gleamed with the dark luster accumulated over the years.

His robes were faded from washing, the edges were frayed, and there were several fine stitches on the cuffs.

Rough, old, and out of place on the whole street.

His attire now was exactly the same as when he first stepped into the magic city and the Thousand Towers.

This place is exactly the same as it was back then; nothing has changed.

He slung his staff over his shoulder, pulled his hat down low, and joined the sparse crowd on the street.

The post office that Qianta gave him was located in the most central and prime area of ​​the commercial district, the first district.

The surrounding area is filled with the most famous magic item shops, magic book libraries, and meditation rooms for high-level mages to practice.

There are very few people, but those who come and go are all powerful and wealthy.

Mages in expensive custom-made robes, nobles with family crests, and guild members wearing gold-rimmed medals.

Lin Gui's tattered robes stood out conspicuously here.

It was like a piece of coarse linen being thrown into a pile of silk.

But when the city defense troops who had been notified to patrol the first district glanced at him, they only paused slightly before looking away.

No one came forward to question them.

No one said a word.

Lin Gui pulled down the brim of his hat, sat sideways on his oak staff, and flew forward along the street with the goods.

He arrived at the Silver Silk Merchants Association, which was also located in the first district.

The shopfront wasn't large, but several exquisitely decorated horse-drawn carriages were parked in front.

The guests coming and going were dressed in fine robes, clearly indicating that they were members of the upper class in Qianta.

As Lin Gui entered the shop, a manager in a gray robe came up to him from behind the counter.

Upon seeing Lin Gui's black hair, the manager immediately recognized him and his attitude changed instantly.

"Captain Lin Gui, you've arrived."

He quickly stepped aside and led Lin Gui towards the backyard.

The handover process was simple. Lin Gui put down the wooden crate, the manager checked the delivery note, signed it, and thanked him repeatedly.

Lin Gui didn't linger and turned to leave.

Instead of going straight back to the post office, he turned into a quiet alleyway.

Look around.

nobody.

Unmonitored magical fluctuations.

Immediately, a dark, gauze-like garment silently enveloped his entire body.

His figure blurred in the shadows and then disappeared completely.

The oak staff floated up, and he straddled it, flying off in another direction.

As he flew, the surrounding scenery began to change.

Those magnificent and tall buildings gradually receded into the distance.

The magical streetlights on both sides of the street, which were originally exquisite lampposts inlaid with magic stones, have been changed into ordinary iron poles.

The ground changed from smooth granite to a bumpy gravel road.

The decorative runes on the walls are becoming fewer and fewer, replaced by mottled paint and cracked brickwork.

The intense magical aura in the air gradually faded away.

The splendor and magnificence faded away layer by layer.

It's like peeling away layers of a gorgeous garment to reveal the rough, unpalatable lining underneath.

Finally, he landed in an area.

This is the most dilapidated area of ​​the Thousand Pagodas.

Even the name carries a sense of contempt.

It is called the "grey area".

It means an area that can be cleaned or wiped away at any time. Like dust, it won't be noticed once it's swept away.

The gray zone is designed to provide housing for people who do not meet the criteria for long-term stay in the Thousand Towers.

Wandering mages without identities, expelled magic apprentices, and bankrupt small business owners all crammed into this place.

The narrow alleyway was crowded with low brick houses and wooden shacks.

Clothes hung out to dry from the second-floor window, swaying in the wind.

Several children squatted on the muddy ground at the entrance of the alley, playing with pebbles, their clothes patched.

An old woman sat on the doorstep picking vegetables; the leaves were withered and yellow, with wilted edges.

The air was filled with the smells of cooking smoke, sewage, and cheap herbs.

What separates this area from the First District is not just distance, but also the bias and indifference of an entire city.

The equality of a thousand pagodas has never been open to these wanderers who come seeking fame.

Including my past self.

However, as a mid-to-high-level player, I was only allowed to stay in the Thousand Towers for a month.

A month later, the city's defense forces will catch him, throw him out of the Thousand Towers, and never allow him to set foot there again for the rest of his life.

His magical talent was far below the admission standards for magic academies.

The only thing that could grant him the opportunity to stay in the Thousand Towers permanently was his self-created magic, the Night Veil.

He can make a very good living in the Thousand Towers with this magic.

But that incident ultimately led him back to New Testament City, leaving this holy land of sorcerers.

We left the gray area.

Lin Gui flew past familiar streets on his magic staff.

The veil of darkness concealed his presence from others.

Actually, he quite likes the gray area.

Unlike other refugee areas, which are chaotic, dirty, and filled with all kinds of human suffering.

Most of the people gathered here are wandering monks who have come to study.

They are pure, clean, and humble, but their thirst for magical knowledge is unmatched even by students at magic academies.

The gains from the interactions with them.

It's far superior to those incomplete, self-proclaimed orthodox magic books.

His return to the gray zone this time was also to retrieve the things he had left behind.

He flew over several alleys and finally landed in front of a familiar hotel.

The old three-story wooden building has most of its paint peeled off, revealing the gray-brown wooden planks underneath.

The sign at the entrance was crooked, with the words "Traveler's Inn" written on it, but the characters were already blurred and illegible.

The hotel owner is still the same one he was three years ago.

An old man with gray hair was dozing off on the counter, with a half-open book in front of him.

Lin Gui did not disturb him.

Maintaining her veil of dark gauze, she silently passed through the foyer and ascended the creaking stairs to the second floor.

At the end of the corridor, a dilapidated wooden door came into view.

The paint on the door panel had almost completely peeled off, and the door handle was a rusty iron ring.

Lin Gui raised his hand and knocked three times.

A rustling sound came from inside the door, then the door opened a crack, revealing the face of a middle-aged man.

Before the other person could see who was knocking on the door, Lin Gui slammed a brick down.

The man groaned and his body went limp.

Lin Gui reached out and caught him, pushed him into the house, gently placed him on the ground, then closed the door and went inside.

The room was small, with a bed, a table, a chair, and a few old wooden crates piled in the corner.

The window faces the alley behind, the light is dim, and there is a faint musty smell in the air, mixed with the smell of cheap tobacco and old clothes.

Lin Gui stood in the center of the room, his gaze slowly sweeping over the surroundings.

It's different from what I remember.

The wooden crate in the corner was moved, and there were several new scratches and burn marks on the table.

The wallpaper has been replaced, but it's crookedly pasted, with the edges peeling up, revealing the old, yellowed wall underneath.

A faded curtain hung on the window frame, its edges frayed, swaying slightly in the wind.

The bedding on the bed was unfamiliar; the fabric was rough, and the edges were frayed with loose threads.

Three years is enough time to completely transform a room.

The guests have changed, the furnishings have changed, and the atmosphere has changed.

Only the skeleton of the room remains, its size, layout, and the window facing the back alley.

Lin Gui's gaze fell on the bed.

The bed frame was still the same piece, but the paint on the edges had worn away, revealing a patch of grayish-white wood.

He walked over, squatted down, and ran his fingers along the edge of the bed board until he found a small dent. He then lifted it up forcefully.

A corner of the bed board was pried open, revealing the compartment underneath.

His fingers paused for a moment.

The partition is still there.

The dusty backpack inside was still there, the fabric was worn and covered in a layer of dust.

The location has hardly changed, as if it has never been discovered in the past few years.

Lin Gui reached out and took out the backpack; it was heavy.

He closed the bed frame, placed his backpack on his lap, and then opened it.

Inside the backpack were two carefully bound manuscripts.

The first copy had no title on the cover, only a date written in the corner.

That was the date he left Xinghuo for Qianta three years ago.

He pulled out the first manuscript and turned to the first page.

The text that came into view was densely packed with characters, written in a messy hand, bearing his unique writing habits from back then.

The content is about Xinghuo's vision for the future.

Lin Gui never joined Xinghuo, and even the people in the Xinghuo organization didn't know his name.

Because he was very pessimistic about the future of Xinghuo.

He didn't believe that an organization without even a legend could survive the encirclement and suppression of the entire alliance.

Even though they conquered three city-states under Sivir's leadership.

Even if their morale was once so high that they could look down on everyone else.

Lin Gui always understood one thing: in the face of an absolute gap in strength, ideals and passion are as fragile as a piece of paper.

To pray that the enemy will show mercy and give in is a foolish move.

Especially since the other party is the city-state alliance, the biggest representative of the interests of the nobility.

So, after leaving Xinghuo, he began to think about something.

How can Spark survive when the gap in strength is so overwhelming that it seems insurmountable?

This manuscript is the result of his thinking along the way.

It was also the prototype of the crazy plan he had told Elvia.

He casually flipped through a few pages, his gaze sweeping over the familiar words.

Every page was repeatedly rewritten, some paragraphs were crossed out and rewritten, and some arguments were overturned and then re-established.

Tea stains from those late nights still remain on the corners.

He believed that if the manuscript fell into the hands of nobles, they would go mad and find him, then kill him.

Because the contents are too dangerous.

It pinpointed precisely where the nobles feared the spark most.

It was so dangerous that if they were discovered, they would go to any lengths to kill the person who wrote the manuscript.

However, this is simply impossible.

Even if they found the manuscript, they wouldn't be able to understand it at all.

Because the language used in it comes from another world.

Those were the words of the world he once lived in.

Lin Gui carefully put the first manuscript back into his backpack, then took out the second one.

The second manuscript is much thicker than the first.

The cover also had no title, only a few scribbled magic symbols.

He turned to the first page, where he was greeted by a jumble of magical incantations and strange annotations.

The spell's structure is fragmented and disjointed, like an endless series of attempts and overturnings on paper.

Next to each line of incantation, there were dense annotations.

Some were written in the common language of the mainland, and some were written in the language of that world.

Some annotations also included rudimentary diagrams indicating the direction of magic flow and the connection between runes.

This manuscript is the reason he returned here.

Lin Gui's magical talent was not outstanding.

He was by no means a genius when it came to practicing magic.

His near-mad mastery of magic is now entirely thanks to the system's rewards.

The enhancement of magical power, and the learning of magic.

Since obtaining the system, Lin Gui has never actively meditated or cultivated magic power.

Because of his terrible magical talent, the speed at which his magic power increases is probably not worth the system's rewards at all.

But that doesn’t mean he was completely useless in magic.

At least.

In the New Testament City.

He relied on a rudimentary encyclopedia of basic magic that he had picked up, along with some fragmented basic magical theories.

Upon advancing to the intermediate level, I learned several nerfed intermediate-level spells.

Then the Night Veil was created.

In the practice of magic, he was mediocre.

But in magical research and creation, he is definitely a master.

This is thanks to his past experiences.

In the world he came from, he was a graduate student at a prestigious university.

His rigorous research methodology fostered his habit of systematic thinking.

Before each experiment, he would first establish a hypothesis, then design a verification plan, and then revise the conclusion through repeated experiments.

This method of study is far more efficient and rigorous than the conventional magical experiments in this world.

Many mages rely on inspiration and intuition, as well as extravagant and frequent trial-and-error magical experiments, when creating new spells.

If you happen to be right, it'll work.

If you make a mistake, start over.

But Lin Gui wouldn't do that.

He would first break down the problem, clarify the relationship between each variable, and then proceed step by step.

It was this method that put him at a disadvantage compared to others in terms of basic conditions.

Without its own theoretical framework and without any formal study, it lacked a solid foundation.

They still managed to create magic like the Night Veil.

And here is this manuscript filled with various theories.

This was the first draft of the second self-created magic that he had been working on since arriving at Thousand Towers.

A magic spell, based on the Night Gauze Robe, that Lin Gui truly intended to use to open the gates of the Thousand Towers.

[Intermediate Light Magic - Illusionary Imagery]

And it will provide the most crucial assistance for Lin Gui to steal the treasure of the dwarf kingdom.