"Trying to run?"

  Pierce sneered and flew in pursuit. At the same time, he threw a segment of bright red vine from his hand, shooting it straight toward Zachary.

  Mid-air, the vine suddenly expanded. With a sharp tearing sound, it shot out countless long, blood-red tendrils that instantly wrapped around Zachary's serpentine body, binding him tightly to the spot.

  This blood-red vine was exactly the biological Magic Tool Pierce had obtained from Gareth.

  It had two abilities.

  One was to absorb energy particles from the target after binding them.

  The other was to incubate a flesh golem.

  Neither ability was of much use to Pierce, so after identifying it with an Identify spell, he had left it sitting in his spatial ring.

  Now, it was perfectly suited to stop Zachary from escaping.

  Zachary's massive snake body twisted and struggled frantically, its blood-stained maw constantly tearing at the vines binding it.

  But under Pierce's relentless, unsparing channeling of energy, for every segment of blood-red vine that was severed, a new one grew out, firmly keeping the serpent bound at all times.

  Taking advantage of this opportunity, Pierce and Mist Raven caught up and launched a fierce assault.

  Lightning and the Power of Death continuously ravaged the massive snake body, the excruciating pain causing Zachary to howl miserably.

  Under the severe trauma, he could no longer maintain the Yugoloth Serpent form and rapidly shrank back into his human form.

  He was currently covered in blood and in an incredibly sorry state, entirely stripped of his former high-and-mighty demeanor.

  "Spare... spare my life!"

  Facing death, even a dignified Rank 2 Wizard couldn't help but reveal a pleading expression.

  Unfortunately, the only response he got was Pierce's merciless strike.

  A fist wreathed in lightning tore through the air, smashing his head to pieces!

  Bang!

  Blood mixed with brain matter splattered in all directions.

  Zachary's headless corpse convulsed violently for a second before collapsing limply to the ground, lying motionless, devoid of life.

  Not far away, Victor stared at this scene blankly, his mind entirely empty, his jaw dropped wide open, unable to utter a single word.

  It wasn't until he met Pierce's cold gaze turning back toward him that he violently shuddered, snapping back to his senses.

  In that instant, all thoughts of hatred and malice were thrown to the back of his mind; his desire to survive instantly took over.

  "Don't—"

  Victor opened his mouth to speak, but the moment he did, a streak of silver light shot out like a meteor. With a sharp piercing sound, it penetrated straight through his forehead.

  Thud!

  The corpse hit the ground.

  After killing Victor, Pierce let out a long breath. The silver sheen on his skin receded like a tide, and the halos of the Lightning Runes instantly dissipated.

  Deep exhaustion instantly swept through his entire body. Caring nothing for appearances, he sat heavily on the ground, gasping for air.

  Today's battle could be considered the most perilous he had encountered so far.

  He had been a hair's breadth away from being the one defeated.

  Within the Spirit Crystal deep in his mind, his mental power was on the verge of total depletion.

  If Zachary had held out just a little longer, it would have been Pierce who couldn't sustain the fight.

  At that point, his only option would have been to find a way out of the Dimensional Anchor's area of effect and use the teleportation scroll his mentor had given him to escape.

  Fortunately, he was the superior fighter in the end.

  However, although he had won, the cost was not small.

  "Aside from the Blink Magic Tattoo, the other four will all have to be re-inked."

  "And there's this Magic Tool."

  Pierce looked at the blood-red vine in his hand.

  After the intense, overdrawn usage just now, the blood-red vine was ruined.

  Once a biological Magic Tool of this type sustained such heavy damage, it was basically impossible to restore, or rather, not worth the cost.

  It was safe to say this Magic Tool was essentially junked.

  Although it was only a Tier 1 Magic Tool that he rarely used, it was still worth a few thousand Magic Stones. Pierce still felt a bit of a sting.

  Adding the four Magic Tattoos, this single battle had directly cost him eight to nine thousand Magic Stones.

  "I hope the loot makes up for my losses."

  After resting for a while, Pierce stood up and walked over to Zachary's corpse. After a quick search, he found a spatial ring and a Tier 2 Magic Tool—the Blazing Robe Zachary had been wearing.

  With an Identify spell, Pierce quickly obtained the relevant information about the robe.

  It was a defensive Magic Tool. The moment the wearer was attacked, it would release a fire shield to block the damage, and inversely inflict fire damage upon the attacker. It could be considered a powerful Magic Tool combining both offense and defense.

  "Not bad. This Magic Tool doesn't conflict with Silver Star. Now I have another defensive method."

  Pierce nodded in satisfaction and put the Blazing Robe away.

  The Magic Tool had suffered significant damage in the battle just now and would need to be nourished with mana for a period before it could be used again.

  Pierce glanced at the spatial ring and pocketed it as well.

  Now was not the right time to inventory his loot.

  Immediately after, Pierce looted Victor's body.

  He then looked at the two corpses on the ground, falling into deep thought.

  "I have to take the bodies with me," Pierce muttered to himself.

  The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

  Not to destroy the evidence, but because it was rare to encounter two formal Wizards from a primeval Bloodline Family. He wanted to thoroughly study the Yugoloth Serpent Bloodline within them.

  The Yugoloth Serpent form Zachary had transformed into earlier was actually just a fake, an empty shell. Its physique wasn't even a thousandth of a true Yugoloth Serpent, and it hadn't inherited even a fraction of its Shadow Power.

  Yet even so, it still took an immense amount of effort to defeat.

  This sparked a deep curiosity and interest in Pierce regarding the Yugoloth Serpent Bloodline.

  If he studied it using the Omniscient Eye, he might obtain some highly useful gains.

  "Speaking of which, where did those two run off to?"

  Pierce suddenly remembered Sophia and Payne, and issued an order to Mist Raven.

  "Go find them."

  Mist Raven let out a caw and separated into over a hundred Fog Crows, flying off in all directions.

  Pierce then walked over to the Battlebriar and reverted it back to its seed form.

  Having lost its combat capability, the Battlebriar offered no resistance and obediently let itself be collected.

  At this time, the Fog Crows sent out to search returned, carrying the unconscious bodies of Sophia and Payne.

  The three Giant Eagles were also there.

  Pierce frowned. He stepped forward to inspect them, and upon seeing that the two humans and the eagles were only under a Sleep spell, his brow relaxed, and he woke them up.

  "M-My Lord?"

  Sophia groggily opened her eyes, staring blankly at Pierce. It took several seconds for her to abruptly react. She quickly jumped up, looking around as if facing a mortal enemy, only to discover in astonishment that the enemies were already lying dead on the ground.

  And there wasn't just one; there was an extra headless corpse.

  "My Lord, who is this person?" Sophia was completely baffled.

  Pierce waved his hand, offering no explanation. He simply tossed each of them a spatial ring.

  The spatial rings belonged to Zachary and Victor; Pierce had already transferred their contents into his own spatial ring.

  "These are spatial rings. Transfer the contents of your dimensional bags into them, and then give the dimensional bags to me. I have a use for them."

  Sophia and Payne were stunned for a moment before they reacted, doing as told without hesitation.

  Exchanging a dimensional bag for a spatial ring—even if it hadn't been an order from Pierce, they wouldn't have refused such a great deal.

  Taking the dimensional bags, Pierce separated the two corpses and placed them into separate bags.

  It wasn't that he was a neat freak, but Victor had been possessed by an Aberration. His body carried the residual negative energy and malice of the Aberration, turning the corpse into a source of infection. If he placed it together with other items and caused contamination, he'd be crying tears of regret.

  Although Zachary looked fine, it was better to be safe than sorry, so storing his body in a separate dimensional bag was the more prudent choice.

  After dealing with the corpses, Pierce looked at the residual negative energy and malice in the surrounding air, rubbing his temples with a slight headache.

  An Aberration's infection was permanent. The residual negative energy and malice would not dissipate over time unless actively cleansed.

  Conversely, if someone passed through here, they could easily be possessed by the malice, inadvertently creating a new Aberration.

  "Well, it did start because of me..."

  Pierce sighed. He told Sophia and Payne to step back, preparing to cleanse the scene of the negative energy.

  The best method of cleansing was naturally to use positive energy; positive and negative would cancel each other out.

  And he happened to know a positive energy spell—Plant Growth.

  Channeling his meager remaining mental energy, Pierce cast dozens of Plant Growth spells in one go, finally purging the residual negative energy and malice clean.

  Seeing that Pierce was finished, Sophia stepped forward and asked, "My Lord, what should we do next?"

  "We return to Red Maple City," Pierce said without thinking.

  His current combat power was virtually zero. Going to attack a fortification in this state was no different from seeking death.

  It was better to return, recuperate for a few days, and replenish his Magic Tattoos before executing the mission.

  Thus, the group set off back to Red Maple City.

  They had departed early in the morning and returned before noon.

  The Wizards standing guard at the city gates cast curious glances at the trio.

  Pierce ignored them and walked straight into the city.

  Upon returning to his stone house, Pierce wrote a letter, called for Payne, and handed it to him.

  "Make a trip back to Aurora City. Deliver this letter to The Spire Academy and hand it to my mentor, Master Morven."

  Payne didn't ask for the reason. He agreed without a word, turned, and left.

  Pierce then returned to his bedroom in the stone house, sat down, and began meditating.

  This meditation lasted all the way until late into the night.

  Having recovered more than half his mental power, Pierce opened his eyes, let out a long breath, and took out his spatial ring to begin tallying his loot.

  This moment was always the most pleasant.

  And the results didn't disappoint him.

  Zachary and Victor's combined wealth in pure Magic Stones amounted to over ten thousand.

  If he included the various materials, the total value absolutely exceeded thirty thousand Magic Stones.

  The bulk of this naturally came from Zachary.

  Beyond that, there were three Faith Crystals in Zachary's spatial ring.

  This was undoubtedly a massive surprise.

  "As expected of a Rank 2 Wizard, truly a rich net worth."

  Pierce was delighted. With these three Faith Crystals, the resources he lacked to break through to the Liquid Phase were entirely compensated for.

  He would be able to complete his breakthrough within the next few days.

  As for Magic Tools, aside from the Blazing Robe, there was one Tier 1 Magic Tool in each of their spatial rings.

  Unfortunately, after checking them with the Identify spell, Pierce found that neither was of any use to him.

  "I'll just sell them for Magic Stones another day."

  What disappointed Pierce was that he couldn't find any information related to the Bloodline Stimulation Technique in either of their spatial rings.

  "Makes sense. Why would they carry such crucial core knowledge on them?"

  Pierce sighed in disappointment.

  But a second later, a flash of inspiration hit him, and a brilliant idea emerged.

  Acting immediately, Pierce left the stone house and rented a laboratory near the Exchange.

  Inside the lab, Pierce set up an isolation array on the spot, then brought out Zachary's corpse.

  After a thorough inspection to ensure Zachary's body hadn't been contaminated by any negative energy malice, he dismissed the array and began dissecting the corpse.

  Although he rarely performed dissections and experiments personally—usually relying on the Omniscient Eye for analysis and probing—the corresponding knowledge was already stored in his mind. Putting it into practice wasn't difficult.

  With the guidance of the Omniscient Eye, Pierce quickly moved past the initial clumsiness and gradually became proficient.

  More than two hours later, he set down a test tube filled with blood and issued a new command.

  “Omniscient Eye, based on the experimental data, deduce the Bloodline Stimulation Technique for the Yugoloth Serpent.”

  [Task Created: Deduce Yugoloth Serpent Bloodline Stimulation Technique. Estimated requirement: 167.2 Mental Energy Levels.]

  Pierce nodded inwardly. As expected, with a corpse and blood samples in hand, the deduction wouldn't be too difficult.

  Refocusing, he cleaned up the dissection table and took out two memory crystal balls.

  These were also found in Zachary's spatial ring. They recorded two different secret techniques.

  One was the secret technique for crafting Bloodline Marks.

  A so-called Bloodline Mark referred to an imprint containing the power of an ancient bloodline creature.

  Generally speaking, a person born into a Bloodline Family could only awaken the ancient bloodline within them after advancing to formal Wizard, when their mental energy and physique underwent an essential sublimation.

  During the Apprentice stage, aside from a very small minority of geniuses who could partially awaken their bloodlines, the vast majority of people were completely incapable of utilizing the ancient bloodline within them.

  To remedy this, a Wizard created the Bloodline Mark.

  A Wizard who inherited the same ancient creature bloodline could pay a certain price to leave a Bloodline Mark on a Wizard Apprentice.

  By activating the Bloodline Mark, the Apprentice could temporarily grasp the bloodline's power, experiencing a massive surge in strength.

  It was just like Monville, whom Pierce had encountered during the trial.

  During their life-and-death struggle, Monville had activated his Bloodline Mark, transforming into a Silver Frost Dire Wolf, his strength skyrocketing.

  If he hadn't run into Pierce, no other Wizard Apprentice participating in the trial would have been a match for Monville, thanks to his Bloodline Mark.

  "A Bloodline Mark..."

  Pierce's eyes flickered slightly.

  Every Bloodline Family possessed a proprietary secret technique for creating Bloodline Marks.

  Wizards who hadn't inherited the corresponding ancient bloodline couldn't craft Bloodline Marks even if they obtained the secret technique, much less use them.

  But he was different.

  The Omniscient Eye represented infinite possibilities.

  Omniscient Eye, optimize the Bloodline Mark secret technique.

  [Please set the specific optimization parameters.]

  "Remove the restriction that prevents non-bloodline possessors from crafting and using it, and increase the power of the Bloodline Mark."

  [Task Created: Optimize Bloodline Mark Secret Technique. Estimated requirement: 389.2 Mental Energy Levels.]

  Pierce smiled slightly and looked at the second memory crystal ball.

  This crystal ball recorded a technique for extracting the bloodline of serpentine magical creatures to enhance oneself.

  There were two main enhancement directions.

  One was Physique.

  The other was an affinity for Shadow.

  The former was easy to understand. The latter was likely meant to synergize with the Yugoloth Serpent Bloodline.

  After all, the Yugoloth Serpent was an ancient creature that commanded the Power of Shadow.

  "If I optimize this technique, I should be able to use it to enhance my own strength as well."

  Pierce pondered inwardly.

  However, all three task slots were currently full. He could only set this aside for now and deal with it later when he had a free slot.

  Overall, while this experience had been perilous, the harvest was equally extraordinarily rich.

  Putting aside the massive amount of Magic Stones, valuable materials, and the Blazing Robe, what delighted Pierce the most were the three bodies of knowledge.

  To him, this knowledge was true wealth.

  If utilized well, any one of them could significantly enhance his power.

  It was foreseeable that in the coming period, his strength would undergo a massive, qualitative leap.