Chapter 98: Grinding Sound Fruit and the Wandering Apprentice

That night, Saul slept in Ada’s room.

He took the table, Ada took the bed, and Penny slept in the cupboard.

The three of them each had their own spot.

Perhaps Saul and Penny’s interactions earlier that evening had agitated Ada a bit—he went out of his way to dig up a piece of hemp rope and tied it between the table and the bed. He didn’t even cover himself with a blanket, hanging it up like a curtain instead.

But Saul wasn’t asleep. When night fully cloaked the land and all was silent, he slowly opened his eyes.

He lightly jumped down from the table and lifted Ada’s tattered blanket.

The person underneath was already sound asleep.

At some point, Ada had rolled to the edge of the bed, one arm and one leg hanging off the side.

Saul sat at the edge of the wooden bed and gently opened the cupboard above.

This time, the door made no sound.

Silent Portal. A simple Zero Tier Spell.

Inside the cupboard, the young Penny was already asleep, and her sleeping posture was much more disciplined than her brother’s.

Maybe it was because she’d spent years sleeping in a cupboard.

But Saul observed her eyes closely and noticed her eyelids were twitching constantly and rather violently at that.

A sign of dreaming.

Penny’s complexion didn’t look good. Her brows were slightly furrowed, her lips tightly pressed, arms and legs curled inwards. She looked like she was sleeping with zero sense of security.

Saul immediately entered a semi-immersive meditation state to examine Penny.

But her body was clean—no anomalies that he could see, including her eyes.

Saul reached out and gently touched Penny’s eyes, then touched his own for comparison. He didn’t feel any difference.

If it weren’t for what the diary had revealed, Saul would’ve simply thought her eyes were just pretty—nothing more.

But anything noted in the diary had to be of considerable value.

Should he take Penny’s eyes?

Saul had a way to safely extract them.

After all, she couldn’t see anymore anyway.

But in the end, he withdrew his hand and closed the cupboard door tightly.

Just then, Ada rolled over again, shifting from the bed’s edge back to the center.

Saul jumped off the bed and quietly left.

It was midnight. The full moon hung high, no clouds in sight.

Under its glow, the town was faintly illuminated.

For Saul, this level of light was more than enough.

“It was a new moon just yesterday—how is it suddenly full tonight?”

Saul stood on the empty main street, looking up at the sky.

“From the bits of memory I inherited, this really does seem to be the norm. Looks like the moon in this world isn’t just some celestial object.”

Having spent all his time in the Wizard Tower, this was Saul’s first time noticing something odd about the moon.

But now wasn’t the time to be gazing at it.

Before coming to Grind Sail Town, Saul had made sure to learn a thing or two about the Grinding Sound Fruit.

He hadn’t brought many books with him, and unfortunately, the Botany volume of Basic Knowledge of All Things wasn’t among them.

Luckily, among the books Nick left in the carriage, there was one that covered the Grinding Sound Fruit.

It was a vine-like plant, its fruit hanging down like a gourd. Shaped like a recorder, it would emit grinding-wheel-like sounds when wind passed through it.

The sound wasn’t exactly unpleasant, but it certainly wasn’t friendly to ordinary people. It could cause irritation, dizziness, nausea, and even make someone pass out if exposed for too long.

Yet it was a valuable material for wizardly but hard to cultivate, even harder to transplant.

That was exactly why the Wizard Tower had accepted Grind Sail Town’s allegiance, even though it lay beyond the Tower’s usual sphere of influence.

According to Nick’s book, the Grinding Sound Fruit’s true value lay in its calming properties. It could pacify agitated individuals, and even worked on spiritual entities.

Like a tranquilizer.

Since it was a fruit that had to be offered to the Tower, there was no way it would be casually grown in the wild—it had to be carefully cultivated and constantly guarded.

But due to the way the fruit reacted to wind, it couldn’t be planted in open, windy areas. Ordinary people simply couldn’t watch over them properly, and one misstep could ruin the entire batch.

Saul climbed the tallest nearby building and stood atop the chimney, scanning all of Grind Sail Town.

At this hour, the town was unnaturally quiet, almost no lights anywhere.

Which only made the handful of light sources at the northern edge of town stand out all the more.

Target locked, Saul rappelled down the roof using a strand of algae vine and darted toward the source of the light.

Reaching the town’s northern edge, Saul realized the light came from beyond the town walls. He easily climbed over the completely unguarded barrier and headed outside.

A few hundred meters beyond the wall stood a row of brick buildings.

They were arranged in a ring, surrounding an open space that was enclosed by a three-meter-high wall, topped with a wooden roof.

There was no wind tonight, so many of the wooden panels were pushed aside, revealing dark green vines and foliage inside.

The vines weren’t densely packed. Through the wide leaves, Saul could glimpse the fruits hanging down.

Behind the open field stood a three-story tower. The tower was pitch-black, every window boarded shut. It gave off a faint aura of foreboding.

Saul dropped from the wall and carefully concealed himself as he approached.

He remembered Nick mentioning that two First-Rank apprentices were stationed here. Nick said their combat skills were trash but that was from his perspective. Saul wasn’t about to lower his guard.

If they found out he came from the Wizard Tower, they’d definitely try to cover up the truth behind the fruit’s dwindling yield—if there really was something fishy going on.

Casting another spell of illusion upon himself, Saul weaved through the shadows and got close to the fenced-in field.

Fires lit the area. Guards were posted every few meters.

There were more guards here than at the town’s gates or even on patrol.

Finding an opening, Saul climbed onto the roof of a nearby building.

From this vantage, he could clearly see the plants inside the field.

They matched Nick’s descriptions well. Only, the recorder-shaped fruits were all wrapped in a layer of paper pulp, leaving only the tip where it connected to the stem exposed.

So that’s how they keep the fruit from making noise in the wind?

But can the fruit grow well like this?

A wall to block the wind, paper wrappings too… and this place doesn’t even seem that rainy…

Given all that, Saul figured it was only natural that the Grinding Sound Fruit yields had dropped.

But could there be other reasons?

He swept his gaze around the area—and spotted a house behind the row of buildings, guarded on all sides by soldiers.

Visualizing the Human-Monster Movement Diagram, Saul cautiously observed his surroundings. No unusual spirits detected.

Even the tower with boarded-up windows was clean.

Just as expected—outside the Wizard Tower, “clean” was the norm.

Relying on the ongoing effect of his illusion spell, Saul slipped in through a second-floor window of the guarded house.

Inside, no lights. Total dimness.

He searched room after room but found no one.

Eventually, he discovered a hidden underground passage in the kitchen on the first floor.

Its entrance was cleverly concealed beneath a stove.

While the disguise was decent, Saul still picked up on something odd.

Most importantly, he sensed faint magical fluctuations coming from the passage.

There was a wizard apprentice inside—casting a spell.

Saul muttered to himself, “The magic leak on this guy is insane. Definitely someone who didn’t receive formal training. A wandering wizard—no, a wandering apprentice.”

Now he fully believed Nick’s evaluation. If the two stationed here were like this, Saul could take them out easily.

Still, despite their weakness, Saul didn’t rush in.

Entrances to secret chambers like these usually had traps—to prevent intruders. Saul wasn’t confident he could avoid triggering one.

He was here to eavesdrop, not assassinate.

(End of chapter)

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