My health recovery is incredibly fast.

“A defensive style.” Dim patted his chest, making a loud thud, “but it’s not entirely a defensive style. I also practice energy manipulation. You might see that in a few days.”

Xia Zuo nodded thoughtfully, feeling as if a magnificent and colorful scroll of magic was unfolding before him. Having played many games in his previous life, he was quite familiar with the schools of magic that Dim had mentioned, and now his imagination ran wild.

"Let's get back to the main topic." Dim clapped his hands and said in a serious tone:

There is a school of magic that is known to everyone in the Eastern Continent, but no one will search for anything about it, because that would invite severe legal punishment.

"This school of magic is called blood magic, and those who use blood magic are called blood mages."

"Blood magic is not just a school of spells; it has a complete system that includes meditation, alchemy, spells, and more."

"It was once incredibly glorious, at its peak becoming the first choice for almost every mage. After the Year of Bloodshed and Turmoil, this school of magic withered away with the condemnation of the Flesh Artists."

Dim took a breath and continued:

"But not all flesh-and-blood artists were suppressed. The oldest and most cunning among them still linger in the corners of the Eastern Continent, waiting for their chance to strike back."

Dim pointed out the window toward the castle district, “Helmster hooked up with one of the guys and eventually fell into the clutches of evil.”

"So what should we do now?" Xia Zuo asked.

"Wait for Fritz to come and take Hemsworth's body away."

Dim shrugged. "He'll definitely come. Helmst is an expert-level bio-alchemist, a promising candidate for blood magic. Such tempting bait, even knowing it's a trap, the blood mage will send his minions to try it out. But then again, the Mage Temple and the Alchemy School are really cunning, setting up a trap for so many years just to capture a blood mage."

Xia Zuo rubbed his temples. "Wait a minute, Dim. If I understand correctly, you mean Hemsster's corpse is also useful to those people, right? I remember Hemsster mentioning that the mysterious man should at least take his brain back... Sigh, I'd better not ask any further. This blood magic is really evil; it can even use things from the dead."

Xia Zuo hesitated for a moment, then asked instead, "Who is Fritz? He sounds like you know him very well."

Dim's face darkened. "A former student of Starry Night Academy. Don't tell anyone."

Xia Zuo pressed his forehead in surprise, finding it hard to believe that someone would betray the academy.

"I won't bring up his affairs anymore. Let bygones be bygones. If it comes to Fritz, I will show no mercy," Tim said, waving his hand sadly.

Dim patted his stomach and stood up from the chair. "I have to go out for a bit. You should stay in the inn and meditate for the next few days. Don't go anywhere. The guards and the innkeeper have already spoken to you, so no one will bother you. If anything changes, I'll contact you using the communication ring, and then you can use Windwalk to come and meet me."

"it is good."

Xia Zuo got up and saw Dim out, then sat back down at the table and scratched the back of his head.

He was actually quite curious about blood magic, because just from the name, he knew that this spellcasting style was definitely related to vitality, which matched his current stat allocation method perfectly.

Unfortunately, this isn't a proper school of magic... I doubt I'll have a chance to learn about it in the future.

Xia Zuo reached into his pocket, took out a diluted calming potion, and lay down on the bed to enter a deep meditation.

Chapter 37 [Justice Bombardment]

After meditating in the hotel for six days, Xia Zuo finally received news from Dim.

That evening, the setting sun was like blood, a crimson sunset hanging on the horizon.

Xia Zuo awoke from his meditation, habitually raised his left hand, then sat up, washed his face, and transformed into a cloud of energy, floating out of the window.

He drifted out of the city, occasionally transforming into human form in the bushes to locate Dim's position using the secret communication ring, and then turning into a cloud of gas to continue drifting.

Just as the sun was about to sink below the horizon, Dim's carriage appeared on a mountain path not far away.

Xia Zuo climbed into his carriage and transformed back into human form. "I'm here, Dim. I almost missed it, but thankfully I've been reducing the duration of my meditation sessions lately."

Dim turned to look at the other person. "You stay inside and don't come out. We might chase you all the way outside the kingdom."

Xia Zuo half-closed the carriage door and peered into the darkening forest ahead. "It's so dark... Won't we lose our way?"

"No, it's impossible to lose track of them. You provided us with excellent intelligence, and the enemy hasn't even discovered your whereabouts."

Dim shook his head and said:

"The army of Spreeer province, as well as the mages stationed in various cities, have been mobilized. They will hold off any enemies that interfere with our pursuit. The villages that have been hit by the plague have also been sealed off. I've tampered with Hemsworth's body, so wherever Fritz runs, we'll follow, but we won't let him run indefinitely."

Dim paused for a moment and asked, "How's your Wind Hand practice going?"

Xia Zuo scratched his head. "I think it's quite difficult to use the Wind Hand to throw and catch the ball. I need to practice more."

Dim once said that the Hand of the Wind had a mysterious and special quality.

Based on his training experience from half a month ago, Xia Zuo confirmed that the special feature the other party mentioned actually referred to the enhancement of strength and agility attributes.

Every 10 minutes of using the Hand of Wind to throw and catch the ball will grant you an experience, strength, and agility bonus, but the values ​​are too small. It's better to spend your time deducing the raw materials for elemental toxins.

As a result, Xia Zuo rarely practices throwing and catching the ball.

Upon hearing this, Dim stroked his beard and comforted him, "Take it slow. You can lower the difficulty a bit and start practicing with two balls."

The two chatted about the tracking for a while, then stopped talking.

Xia Zuo practiced throwing and catching the ball in the carriage, while Dim lay half-reclined in the driver's seat meditating.

Five days passed in this way, and the surrounding trees became sparse, while the lush green grass grew more and more abundant.

On the morning of the sixth day, Xia Zuo finished his meditation, opened a crack in the window, and was surprised to find himself in a vast grassland.

“You’re awake.” Dim turned around and opened the carriage door. “This journey is almost over. Come and see, Fritz is running ahead of us carrying that body.”

Xia Zuo pulled up his hood, concealing his face, and peeked out from behind the door.

About a hundred meters away, a figure was lying prone on the grass, carrying a body bag, and running frantically on all fours.

His appearance was quite strange; his head was round and his dark gray limbs were several centimeters longer than normal, and when he ran, his limbs moved across the ground like wooden paddles.

"You saw what Fritz looked like, didn't you?" Dim pointed to the figure in the distance.

Xia Zuo frowned, nodded, and said, "I see. Why did he become like this?"

"Hmph! Becoming a Blood Mage comes at a price; it's a sinful path to advancement," Dim said with disgust.

"Abandoning one's own body, one uses a transformation ritual to become a Transformer composed of filthy flesh and blood, burrowing into the bodies of living people to draw nourishment and perfect one's own body. To transform from a Transformer into a full-fledged Blood Mage, one needs to absorb the lives of more than a hundred people."

Dim raised his left hand, revealing a secret message ring on each of his index finger and thumb.

He flicked the secret message ring on his index finger a few times with his right hand, and received a reply a few minutes later.

Dim glanced at the message on the ring, grabbed the reins, and pulled. "Whoa!"

Upon hearing its owner's command, Radish let out a long cry and stopped, panting and snorting a few times.

"It's a real shame we couldn't lure that big fish out."

Dim gazed into the distance with a hint of melancholy. "You know what, Shazo? Before I became a mage, I was a heavy infantryman."

He pointed to the dark figure running further and further away, "Back then, the enemies that gave me the biggest headache were these kinds of people. They were agile and fast-moving. Whether they were fighting me or running away, I couldn't do anything about them."

Dim patted his leather armor, shaking off a cloud of dust, and walked from the driver's seat onto the grass.

Xia Zuo noticed that the light around Dim's body was distorted. Upon closer inspection, he saw a transparent shell appearing on the other's body.

Dim took a smooth, square metal cube out of his pocket and snapped it onto the center of his chest.

The cube was then embedded in the transparent shell, and ripples appeared on the smooth surface of the cube. It then quickly decomposed into countless tiny cubes, which scattered in all directions in an instant, spreading along the body and covering the transparent shell.

Within seconds, a set of matte gray-white heavy armor appeared on Dim's body, with a huge shield as tall as a person behind him.

With his imposing physique and heavy armor, Dim exuded an unwavering aura.

However... the left and right shoulder armors are asymmetrical, which looks a bit strange.

The left shoulder has a normal scapula, with a rounded metal plate that fits snugly against the shoulder.

There is a metal protrusion on the right shoulder, and the shoulder armor is shaped like a snail shell.

"This is what my elemental husk looks like when I activate it. What do you think? Not bad, right? However, this elemental husk isn't finished yet, so it looks a bit simple, haha~"

Dim laughed and patted the metal protrusion on his right shoulder. "After I became a full-fledged mage, the head of the academy found me a big one, and I was extremely satisfied with it. It took many years to fuse it with my elemental body."

The metal protrusion splits open from the middle, revealing an extremely complex array of gears, hinges, rollers, and a metal tube pointing towards the sky. The intricate mechanical structure is bewildering even at a glance.

The gears turned, the hinges creaked, the rollers twisted, and the metal tube drooped down and extended towards the sky.

With a series of crisp ratcheting sounds, the silver metal tube grew thicker and longer in circles, then slowly tilted forward, where it was caught by Tim's broad right hand.

Xia Zuo felt a chill run down his spine. He rubbed his eyes in disbelief and saw a cannon fixed to his shoulder.

“What is this…” he asked, staring at the cannon barrel, which was thicker than his arm.

"This is the Elemental Cannon. Its prototype is something invented by weapons alchemy, which the alchemy school calls a cannon. The head of the academy modified it into its current form based on the characteristics of my magic. You may learn about the principles of cannons later. Now, let me take care of the enemy first, and I'll show you the power of the Elemental Cannon while I'm at it."

Dim took a few steps to the side, each step leaving a noticeable indentation in the grass beneath his feet.

He came to a spot ten meters away from the carriage, raised the shield on his back with his left hand, and planted it diagonally into the soil.

He stepped forward with his left leg, knelt on his right knee, leaned his back against the top of the shield, raised the cannon barrel with his right hand, extended his left arm, raised his left thumb, and clenched the other four fingers into a fist, aiming at the dark figure in the distance.

The dark figure was already running very fast. When it heard the noise behind it, it stopped and looked back for a moment before fleeing towards the horizon at an even faster speed.

A fiery red light emanated from the cannon's muzzle.

Even from a distance of more than ten meters, Xia Zuo could clearly sense that a fireball of extremely high power was condensing on Dim's right shoulder at the point where the cannon barrel connected to the heavy armor shoulder.

The air around Dim was distorted by the high temperature, and heat waves radiated from his shoulders in all directions.

The fiery red light from the muzzle grew brighter and brighter, gradually turning yellowish-white.

"boom!!"

A loud bang, accompanied by a powerful shockwave, exploded around Dim.

The radish bristles were blown sideways by the wind, and the grass blades lay flat on the ground.

Xia Zuo's cloak fluttered and rustled.

He instinctively covered his ears and looked up at the high place.

A dazzling ball of light shot out from the cannon muzzle, trailing a long tail and drawing a huge arc in the sky.

Dim maintained the motion of launching the orb of light, his left thumb following the movement of the orb in the sky. At the instant his fingertip overlapped with the dark shadow on the horizon, he snapped his thumb down, as if pressing a detonation button.

"Boom~~~~"

The ball of light exploded on the horizon, turning into a bright flame, and the roar echoed across the grassland.

Xia Zuo felt his heart pounding violently.

It wasn't that he hadn't seen the spectacle of artillery firing before; in his previous life, he had at least learned about it through videos.