Abe the Wizard

Abel sat right on top of White Cloud as he checked his personal storage box. This time, he prepared a total of twenty super explosive balls for his revenge. They were all created by perfect gemstones synthesized from the Horadric Cube, which were better than even perfect gemstones shaped in nature.

Once he arrived near Frost City, his destination, White Cloud reminded him. He looked down to see the city. It was located right on top of a large mountain. It consisted of one main castle, five castles on the side, and several hundred smaller buildings. The name “Frost City” came to be because the whole castle was pure white. Yes, even the ground was covered under snow. As for the buildings, they were built from white stones.

While Abel was on White Cloud, he could feel a very strong ice elemental presence here. The mana concentration here was apparently much higher than in most places. He had anticipated it to be a great spot to set up a mana gathering circle if he was an ice element wizard.

Speaking of which, his rank was not yet high enough to make him understand how things worked on the central continent. For instance, he was still unsure why the wizard organizations were classified into ice elements, fire elements, and other groups. It made less sense for him when he saw Blizzard wizards using fire spells. If the type of spell used was not what categorized the wizard, then there had to be some pattern that he had yet to distinguish. Perhaps he just needed to be a little more patient to figure it out.

Abel tapped White Cloud on the neck, “Fly higher, White Cloud!”

White Cloud did all that it could to fly towards a higher altitude. As a spiritual beast that excelled only in its flying ability, even Flying Flame could not match it in terms of its flight duration or maximum altitude height. Abel told White Cloud to go high, so it went to its maximum of 5000 meters from the ground. From this distance, Frost City appeared to be nothing but a tiny dot.

Abel stared coldly towards Frost City, “Enjoy my wrath, Blizzard Clan.”

Having switched on his world stone fragment, different types of statistics started popping up. White Cloud was also changing its position. It was not easy to aim with the super explosive ball, so they needed some time to calculate the right angle and so on. It wasn’t like Abel dared to go lower, too. He didn’t know if there was any wizard that could ride on flying mount. As the average maximum altitude, a flying mount could reach about 2000 meters from the ground. He thought that 5000 meters were the perfect get-to if he wanted to stay safe.

Anyways, he started dropping one super explosive ball. Instead of counting the numbers out this time, he could calculate the detonation time in a very precise manner with his wizard sense. The first one he dropped was a fire element type, which had a duration of six seconds before detonation. Given that it was dropped from an altitude of 5000 meters from the ground, its velocity must be about 800 meters per second. With his throwing power, it would be more than easy to reach that requirement.

Or so he thought. He didn’t take Frost City’s defensive large circle into account. When the super explosive ball reached the air above Frost City, it was instantly stopped by an invisible wall. The super explosive ball exploded after bouncing off it.

BOOM

Followed by a great bang, the city’s large circle began to show itself. It went from being this invisible barrier to a crystal translucent layer covering the whole city. The explosion’s impact created ripples on the circle’s surface, which was absorbed and distributed to the edges.

The city’s spirit sent a warning, “Warning! Warning! We’re under attack! Under attack!”

Having calculated the super explosive ball’s power, the city spirit discerned that the attack was targeted towards the entire Frost City.

Elder Marz called through the elder sign card, “Who is it? Hey, city spirit! Tell me which direction the attack came from.”

The city spirit replied in a calm voice, “Please wait for detection analysis, sir Elder.”

Elder Marz was not pleased to hear this, “Damn you! Get it done, or I’ll replace you with something faster!”

He was really just saying that because it was not plausible to replace a spirit responsible for monitoring an entire city. His rage continued to fume as he was already very stressed to have taken charge of everything outside the city. Besides, two other elders were under shutdown training. He didn’t want them to know that there was an invasion happening now. He certainly didn’t want to be held accountable for letting the whole city break apart.

The city spirit replied, “The attack came from above, Elder. Two of our top-level gemstones in the energy storage have been deducted. Please recharge them as quickly as you can.”

“What? What!” Elder Marz screamed in exasperation, “Two top-level gemstones? What was the thing that attacked the circle?”

That was two out of the six top-level gemstones gone in just one attack. There were also many intermediate gemstones in storage, but they were mostly for supplying the mana gathering circle.

Elder Marz screamed even louder, “Quick! Call the other elders! Use any gemstones you can in the storage room!”

Having given up the thought to get this over with himself, Elder Marz decided to call for the others to help. He realized that the situation was much worse than he could handle.

On the other side, Abel wasn’t so happy either when he saw that the defensive large circle had blocked his first attack. He had never seen a circle that could repel his super explosive ball before.

Abel murmured to himself, “One down. Fine. I’ve got more.”

BOOM.

BOOM.

As the super explosive balls continued to explode in midair, streaks of crystal ripples began to appear in the sky. It was actually a pretty good view to look at if the wizards living in Frost City could calm themselves down enough to enjoy it. Right now, all of them were petrified to see that the Blizzard Clan was being under attack.

Elder Marz’s voice echoed through the city’s siren circle, “Flying mounts! Flying mounts! All wizards with flying mounts, raise yourselves this instance!”

No, he was not going to think about estimating this invader’s strength. He just wanted to make sure that the city remained standing no matter what. Still, when he saw that the top-level gemstones that were stored up over the past few years vanish, his heart ached so much that he couldn’t bear to check the rate at which they disappeared.

One after another, the flying mount units began reaching for the sky. They couldn’t see White Cloud, though, because it was in its invisibility mode. The only thing they could see were ball-shaped objects falling from high up into the sky–past the limits of their mounts.

Elder Marz asked desperately, “You! Who are you? Give me a name!”

It wasn’t like Abel was going to reply to that question. At this very moment, countless names flashed across Elder Marz’s mind. He thought about a lot of different famous people, but Abel was not amongst them.

Elder Langland screamed in rage as he appeared next to Wizard Marz, “What the f*** is this, Marz?”

The anger was understandable. All the resources Elder Langland prepared for his shutdown training had just gone to waste.

Elder Marz pointed towards the sky, “Frost City is under siege!”

Elder Langland screamed frantically, “I DON’T CARE! Don’t f****** wake me up if the circle isn’t broken!”

The last elder, Bunch, appeared right next to Elder Marz, “I’ll kill you right here, Marz!”

Unlike Langland, Elder Bunch didn’t look as healthy. He had blood at the edge of his mouth. There was also blood on his clothes. His face was also extremely pale.

Elder Marz tried to say back, “I’m sorry! I’m sorry! The attack was stronger than level twenty, so I had to call all of you here!”

The other two became a lot calmer after hearing this. They turned their heads towards the sky, and they finally noticed the explosion that was happening in the sky.

Elder Marz called through his elder sign card, “How many top-level gemstones are gone now?”

The city spirit replied, “Thirty-six, Elder.”

Elder Langland and Elder Bunch didn’t know how to react. They looked at each other blankly before either one of them said anything.

Wizard Langland said in a skeptical voice, “I think…, maybe we should call the grand elder.”

Whether this problem gets solved or not, they would get punished if they tried to reach the grand elder. Elder Marz, especially. This was why they all became very hesitant when the suggestion was offered. Luckily for them, the explosions stopped before any of them made the call.

Elder Bunch spoke, “Get this investigated! Use everything at your disposal if you can! Make sure we have a name for whoever’s responsible for this!”

Wizard Bunch suffered many injuries, this time for being interrupted in the most crucial part of his meditation. Recovery was near impossible at his current level because the right potions were just not that easy to come by at this point. It would make sense that he’d be a lot angrier than Elder Marz.

On the other hand, Abel was still quite gloomy when he looked at the ground from above. He had already used up all twenty of his super explosive balls, but that still not enough to break the city’s defensive large circle. He was nowhere near achieving the revenge that he’s plotting for. Rather, he’s not even close to having got his point across to the wizards of Frost City. There was something that he had missed, though. The loss he had inflicted on Frost City just caused its top-level gemstone storage to go to single digits, which was the first time that this had happened over the last few centuries.

If he wanted to, he could’ve just dropped more super explosive balls right here to do some real damage, but he was starting to think that the super explosive balls wouldn’t actually do anything. Having given up on his operation, he called White Cloud to fly him over to a deserted spot where no one could spot him. After having made a landing, he put White Cloud away and took out the other circle of his “bi-directional teleportation circles.” By putting four intermediate gemstones inside and activating it with his power of the Will, he used the circle to get him back to the house he bought at Ice Crown City.

Soon, he was back inside his room. He checked around him to see if anyone was going after him, but the attack he initiated was nowhere near effective enough for that to even happen. Without getting too disappointed, he installed a seclusion circle to enter back into the dark world.

To resume his quest inside the dark world, he chose to move to where the oak tree was outside the Rogue’s Encampment. From there, he went to retrieve the blue howling rabbit crystal cores that were stored up inside the oak tree. He’s never done this much ever since having used his “light stone” for his meditation training because he wanted to save up as many blue howling rabbit crystal cores as he could if he happened to come across more spell rune equipment in the future. Since it’s been a few years since he’s paid any visit to the oak tree, there should be enough for him to make a new gear that’s befitting to his current level. What he needed to do now was to synthesize the fresh crystal cores into dark-golden cores with his Horadric Cube.

And so he did. Having prepared forty portions worth of materials, he went on to spend up so many of the blue howling rabbit crystal cores that his plan to create a new spell rune just got delayed for a few days more. When he was done, he brought the dark-golden crystal cores to leave the dark world. Once returning to Ice Crown City, he went to have his meal at the dining room before spending the rest of his days wandering around the city. He was in his elven form the entire time, but he was still very careful not to let too many people know that he was inside the Ice Crown City.