“Understanding of yourself and your communication with the world.”

Five days later, Saul finally returned to the Purity Wizard Tower, lying on the pink sofa his mentor had left him and pondering Wind Sprite Pei’er’s words.

That day, shortly after they had agreed on conditions, Pei’er indeed fell back into slumber as she had predicted.

Ann continued disguising herself as the Wind Sprite, leading Saul—who was disguised as one of the Wind Sprite’s guard attendants—out of the Cliff.

Outside, Brando was still entangled with the wizards from the Cliff. Seeing the signal Saul released, he immediately turned and ran.

Ann stopped the others who wanted to give chase, only letting Saul alone pursue Brando.

From then on, Saul never returned.

Ann temporarily stayed behind, disguising herself as the fake Wind Sprite with the real Wind Sprite’s help, beginning a period of blissful life like a queen.

With this, Saul’s counterattack plan was perfectly completed.

Now, he not only didn’t need to worry about retaliation from the Cliff, but also gained a third-rank ally.

Although that third-rank’s current situation was also very dangerous, third-rank was still third-rank. Before she completely perished, no one dared disobey her commands.

Soon enough, Saul should receive a peace treaty sent from the Cliff.

After all, on the surface, the Purity Wizard Tower was the one who suffered losses. Saul didn’t mind pretending to belong to the Wind Sprite, nor did he need to worry about the Wind Sprite breaking character.

However, there was another small interlude whose implications for him Saul couldn’t yet determine.

That was Kismet’s sudden appearance in the Wind Sprite’s lair.

He seemed to have been hiding at the Wind Sprite’s place for some time, though his purpose was unclear.

After Kismet’s exaggerated greeting to Saul, he said nonsensically: “Master must protect Miss Pei’er well. The Borderland is about to belong to someone else.”

However, when Saul was guessing that the Old Witch was the Wind Sprite, he had already decided to cooperate with her, so their thoughts coincided.

But afterward, Kismet made a strange request.

He knelt on one knee, raised both hands high above his head with palms up, as if begging for a reward.

“Please grant me a fragment of your soul, Master.”

Saul was stunned for a moment, but after coming to his senses, he directly severed a tentacle tip from his fingertip and placed it in Kismet’s palm.

This time, it was Kismet who was surprised.

He seemed not to have expected Saul to agree, much less agree so quickly.

He raised his head, looking at the soul fragment swimming in his palm like a small gray fish. “Aren’t you afraid I’ll use this fragment against you?”

Saul shrugged. “The diary didn’t object.”

Kismet suddenly laughed so hard his whole body trembled. “Will you always listen to the diary?”

This was the first time anyone had asked Saul this question.

After thinking for a few seconds, he answered calmly: “I have my own will.”

Kismet craned his neck, his face full of eagerness. “Based on your will, would you give me a soul fragment?”

This time Saul didn’t even need to think. “Yes.”

Kismet stared at Saul in a daze. “Why?”

Saul laughed heartily. “Then I won’t tell you. Let you have a taste of being the riddler for once.”

Kismet: “…”

As if to ease the awkwardness, Kismet naturally changed the topic.

“The fake Wind Sprite is coming. It seems she wants to solve her current troubles by improving her strength.”

“The fake Wind Sprite is only second-rank. I can handle her.” Saul had just advanced to second-rank. Although he hadn’t learned fourth-rank magic yet, his Shadow Blade and Soul Fishing were both spells that could improve with his own strength, so he wasn’t without means to fight.

This was a perfect opportunity to understand what level his current strength was at, especially with Kismet here.

However, Kismet didn’t take the fellow second-rank fake Wind Sprite seriously at all.

He suddenly moved behind Saul and said with a smile near his ear: “Master, battles between wizards don’t require back-and-forth like warriors. You just need to move a thought, and you can easily solve her.”

Saul whipped around, but found that Kismet had already vanished.

Seeing the fake Wind Sprite’s magical fluctuations getting closer, Saul hesitated no longer. He walked out of the cave’s light barrier and intercepted the fake Wind Sprite halfway.

The other party hadn’t expected Saul to have already broken free from the dream and didn’t have time to launch an attack immediately.

But Saul activated his consciousness space the moment he saw the fake Wind Sprite!

The change in strength after advancing to second-rank was evident.

The consciousness space that had previously struggled to pull in second-rank wizards, and even when successful had sometimes let them escape, now almost instantly confined the fake Wind Sprite’s spiritual body, leaving her completely unable to resist.

Due to the urgent situation, Saul wasn’t sure what had happened on the old witch’s side, so he held nothing back. He directly released countless tentacles in the consciousness battlefield, tearing the fake Wind Sprite’s soul into countless fragments.

Her consciousness also entered the last black page in Saul’s book.

But unlike before, just after awakening from the Consciousness Platform, Saul saw a semi-transparent thread extending from the fake Wind Sprite’s forehead.

However, that thread was rapidly disintegrating and disappearing, about to vanish completely in the blink of an eye.

Saul quickly reached out, trying to grasp the remaining bit of thread at her forehead.

When the thread touched his hand, he only saw an image of the fake Wind Sprite falling toward the starry sky.

Very strange—though she was clearly flying upward toward the stars, it gave the feeling of falling.

Like a drowning person sinking into the deep sea, helpless and desperate.

This image also quickly shattered.

In the end, the Wind Sprite was left with only a fresh corpse devoid of soul.

Thinking about it now, that thread was actually the fate line Saul had seen when advancing to second-rank.

And the shattered, dissipating fate line represented the future the fake Wind Sprite had lost due to death.

Returning from his memories, Saul leaned back, his entire body sinking into the soft sofa. “However, that fake Wind Sprite was also pitiful. Even if she hadn’t died by my hand that day, her future outcome looked quite miserable.”

“Her now-vanished ending was actually similar to what I saw in my dream.” Saul suddenly sat up straight. “If the fake Wind Sprite’s future has disappeared, could the one falling toward the starry sky in the future become the real Wind Sprite?”

In Saul’s prophetic dream, there was a blind giant, a burning forest, and a giant bird falling toward the starry sky.

The rest was a boundless black ocean.

If the giant bird falling toward the starry sky represented the Wind Sprite, then could the burning forest and blind giant represent the fellow third-ranks Firefly Lord Herbert and Dreammaker Clark?

“Their conditions don’t look too good either. But I also became a black skeleton in the dream, so I have no right to laugh at others.”

Saul raised his hand and took out a test tube from his storage device. Inside was sealed a pollution source he had extracted from the merchant Jiajia Gu’s body.

Then he took out another test tube containing a pollution source extracted from Justin.

“Through repeated experiments, I’ve confirmed that these two pollution sources are essentially the same, and consistent with the pollution I absorbed from Claude.”

“The three of them have different strengths, different lifestyles, and live in different places, but it’s basically certain that the pollution they were infected with is identical.”

“It’s the same pollution that once transformed into the Black Tide and invaded my consciousness space. Black Tide, Black Tide—could it represent the same thing as the black ocean in my dream?”

Saul curled his finger, and the two test tubes disappeared. He supported his chin with his hand. “It seems the pollution in the Borderland is about to undergo a massive change, and no one can escape.”

So, should he consider leaving the Borderland directly, finding another place to establish a wizard tower and advance to third-rank?

(End of Chapter)