Sovereign of the Ashes

Chapter 181: Border Between Two Forces

The look of shock on the senior initiate’s face was not just a reaction to Sein’s apparent arrogance and indifference.

Sein’s words had stirred a memory in Jake from the last Regional Inter-Divine Tower Academy War.

During that war, Jake had encountered a formidable Quasi Mage from the Divine Tower of Radiant Thunder, notoriously known as “The Despairer”.

True to his moniker, the Despairer was an invincible existence capable of instilling a profound sense of despair in all other initiates.

In that same war, the Despairer dominated the battlefield across the five major divine towers’ territories, achieving first place on the Regional Inter-Divine Tower Academy War scoreboard.

It was debatable whether to consider Jake fortunate or not.

Back then, he had fallen into the clutches of the Despairer and only managed to escape through sheer luck.

“The weak do not deserve to live!”—that was the quote of the best initiate from the Divine Tower of Radiant Thunder.

This phrase had haunted Jake for fifty years, from his days as a newly-promoted senior initiate to his current status as a Quasi Mage.

Despite his growth in strength and knowledge, his fear of the initiate from the Divine Tower of Radiant Thunder never diminished.

Jake had lost count of how many times he had heard the Quasi Mage’s disdainful voice intruding on his dreams and meditations.

He had closely followed the progress of that initiate from the Divine Tower of Radiant Thunder since then.

He knew that within just two years following the conclusion of the last Regional Inter-Divine Tower Academy War, the Despairer had become a full-fledged mage and was nicknamed the “Electro Commander.”

While Sein’s performance in the recent battle was commendable, it still fell short of the prowess the Electro Commander had displayed in his days as an initiate.

Yet, there was an unnerving similarity in the way both Sein and the Electro Commander executed their spells.

Watching Sein depart, Jake was unable to utter another word until Sein’s figure completely disappeared from his view.

A fellow female Quasi Mage noticed his distress and approached to ask, “Are you all right?”

Her query snapped Jake back to reality, though he still trembled slightly.

With a pale face, Jake forced a smile in response to the female initiate’s concern and said, “I’m fine. Let’s focus on securing this medium-sized resource point as our main defensive area.”

***

Although Purple Yew Forest was a medium-sized resource point, Sein only managed to amass a significant number of points and acquire the corpse of an extraplanar creature there.

This was unlike his experiences at other resource points where he could gather magic materials of interest.

After all, he could not simply store a Purple Yew Tree over ten meters tall into his space bangle.

This highlighted another aspect of the Regional Inter-Divine Tower Academy War—besides the points that could later be exchanged for a substantial amount of energy crystals or magicoins, initiates were allowed to keep all the resources gathered in the trial space.

This included the extraplanar creature’s corpse, which was now Sein’s personal property.

After leaving Purple Yew Forest, Sein traversed through two more medium-sized and several small resource points.

Each medium-sized resource point seemed to be guarded by extraplanar creatures, bound by a magical restriction that kept them confined to the resource point’s vicinity.

These creatures, akin to living training targets, had no choice but to await their inevitable demise at the hands of the divine tower initiates.

Due to the overwhelming numbers of these initiates, these creatures stood little chance against the magic bombardment from their opponents.

When the quantity of magic spells on the battlefield reached a critical point, the resulting elemental particles blanketing the sky was more than enough to induce despair in any adversary.

In this process, Sein gathered a few hundred additional points and secured the corpse of another extraplanar creature, matching the strength of a senior initiate.

Opting to work alone rather than join a group, Sein’s efficient and ruthless approach gradually earned him recognition among the initiates.

Due to the distinctive mask he wore and the anonymity it provided, many intermediate and junior initiates aptly referred to Sein as “Golden Mask”.

After another half-month, Sein stumbled upon a large winding river.

Beneath its bed lay a medium-sized resource point—a secret water mine.

Unexpectedly, only a handful of intermediate and junior initiates were gathered outside the resource point, with no senior initiates or Quasi Mages in sight.

“Why hasn’t any senior initiate marked this resource point?” Sein inquired as he approached the group.

Sein’s arrival prompted respectful bows from initiates from the Divine Tower of Verdant Spring.

Responding to Sein’s question, a male initiate with freckled cheeks explained, “The secret water mine under this riverbed is guarded by several formidable extraplanar water serpents. One of our comrades, Slarry, had to activate his badge and exit the trial space early after being poisoned by them.”

“As for why there are no senior initiates or Quasi Mages here, well...” The male initiate hesitated with a troubled look on his face.

A female intermediate initiate interjected, “Three senior initiates and two Quasi Mages did come earlier, but left quickly. None of them seemed to have any intention of claiming this resource point.”

“Why did they leave?” Sein asked coldly.

“The other side of this river is the Divine Tower of Shadow’s territory,” she replied, pointing to the river.

Sein was taken aback by her answer.

“I’ve already reached the border between the two divine tower’s territories? Why haven’t I come across any large resource points?” he mused aloud.

Reflecting on the number of initiates Sein had encountered recently, it became clear that he might have strayed from his intended path.

He had headed east upon entering the trial space and had reconsidered his direction since.

While this strategy allowed him to efficiently search for resource points as he moved forward without wasting time and effort, it came with a drawback.

He would not be able to explore other resource points in the other three directions from his landing site, the west in particular.

Given that the territories were divided among five divine towers, each was expected to have around four or five large resource points if they were distributed evenly.

The Divine Tower of Verdant Spring might not be the strongest, so an abundance of resource points in its territory was not necessarily advantageous.

Nevertheless, having access to three large resource points still seemed reasonable.

The fact that Sein had not discovered a single large resource point upon reaching the border of two divine towers' territories indicated that he might have chosen a wrong direction to explore in the first place.