Chapter 482: Worked to Death

To be honest, Saul’s original intention upon coming to Caugust City was to keep a low profile. But now that he had gotten a taste of the benefits from collecting wraiths to assemble soul armaments, the current rate of collection felt far too slow.

In truth, Saul was even tempted to head to the Borderland right now. He knew that the number and quality of wraiths over there far surpassed those in Caugust City.

Just thinking about being able to experiment on such powerful wraiths made Saul so excited he couldn’t sit still.

As for the danger involved…

Saul felt that, with the diary on him, even if he wanted to find a safe place to lie low, he wouldn’t be able to.

So he might as well take the initiative.

Thirty minutes later, Saul appeared in front of Shaya’s villa.

Before he could even knock, Shaya pulled him in like a thief.

Inside, Julie was already waiting in the living room in a light and breezy outfit.

But Shaya hadn’t offered any tea, not even a place to sit.

Julie didn’t know how long she’d been waiting. Arms crossed, she stood there fuming.

Seeing Saul, Julie turned around and said, “Good thing you didn’t show up at the last minute. Otherwise, I don’t know how much longer I’d have to stand here. Shaya hasn’t said a single thing before you arrived.”

Shaya peeked through the window near the front door, checked both sides, then pulled the curtains shut and, keeping his distance from the two, said, “This is a sensitive matter. Every time I repeat it increases the risk of alerting

that

person, so of course I had to wait until everyone arrived before speaking.”

“Well, can you talk now?” Julie snapped, clearly annoyed.

“Nope. Actually, I also secretly contacted Jonah. Just don’t know if he’ll show up.”

“I thought you said you only notified me and Julie?” Saul chuckled.

“Sorry, that was just caution on my part. Before you two agreed to come, I naturally couldn’t reveal who else was involved.” Shaya said the words of apology, but his face showed not even a hint of remorse.

So Saul had no choice but to wait another half hour with Julie.

But this time, Julie wasn’t quite as bored.

She had no interest in Shaya’s paranoia, but she was much warmer toward Saul, who seemed cold on the surface yet remained polite.

Only, this Saul sometimes acted like a clueless little boy, ignoring her enthusiastic advances more than once.

So over the next thirty minutes, Julie began chatting with Saul, trying to build some rapport.

Saul didn’t dodge her like last time. Back then, he had no clear goals in Caugust, but now he was very interested in the recurring charred wraiths. While casually handling Julie’s subtle flirting, he pried more information about wraiths from her.

Half an hour later, Shaya finally left the front door.

“Let’s go.”

Jonah hadn’t shown up, even at the last minute, and Shaya’s face didn’t look too pleased.

“Oh? This is the first time you’ve let us into a room other than the living room.” Julie shot Shaya a glance, teasing.

“No.” Shaya still kept a three-meter distance from the two of them, answering stiffly.

Under his lead, Saul and Julie went down into the basement.

After passing through several tightly sealed doors, they finally arrived at Shaya’s intended location.

“What is this?” Julie’s mouth fell open in shock.

“A teleportation formation?” Saul was equally surprised. He hadn’t expected to see a teleportation formation in the home of a First Rank wizard.

All space-related magic was far from simple.

For example, the spatial compression technology in the dimensional pouch Saul had bought was considered a closely guarded secret of Bayton Academy.

Though some other places also had wizards capable of mastering such techniques, no one widely disseminated them.

Aside from the usual secretive and old-fashioned reasons, the more important factor was that arcane knowledge could pose unimaginable danger to those incapable of controlling it.

Like handing a blade to a child—he’d likely be the first to cut himself.

That’s why, upon learning that Bayton had space-compression-type magical items, Saul spared no cost to buy one.

Because who knew how long he’d have to wait before encountering another space-related item that could be exchanged for.

And the spatial leap technology used in teleportation formations was a level harder than spatial compression.

Even many Second Rank wizards didn’t necessarily have such a formation.

Take Saul’s mentor Gorsa, for example—he didn’t have one.

But then again, it was more likely Gorsa simply didn’t need it.

He was the type of wizard who could teleport but preferred staying at home—your typical reclusive type.

Upon seeing the spatial teleportation formation, both Saul and Julie instinctively began memorizing the runes. But halfway through, they realized the formation had a layer of obfuscating runes—the part they were seeing wasn’t the actual formation.

“Well, nothing in this world comes free,” Saul muttered, withdrawing his gaze, already thinking about how he might get his hands on a teleportation formation.

“Shaya, when did you install a teleportation formation in your house? Don’t tell me all your magic crystals go into funding this?” Julie, being more familiar with Shaya, spoke more bluntly.

“Hmph.” Shaya sneered. “This world is dangerous—enemies are everywhere. Of course I need to prepare an escape route. And don’t even think about this teleportation formation. After I send you back, I’ll move it elsewhere.”

Julie rolled her eyes, not at all surprised Shaya would say that.

Saul said nothing, merely swept his eyes over the formation one last time before stepping in with the other two.

Once the three were in position, Shaya began murmuring an incantation. The magic crystals around the formation began to glow, their radiance quickly blinding everything around them.

Saul felt a sudden dizziness, like his head and feet had flipped positions, only to flip back again.

“This teleportation formation probably sends over a much longer distance than my mentor’s spatial blink.”

At the very least, Gorsa’s instantaneous teleportation never left Saul this disoriented.

Saul couldn’t see the outside world, and a natural tension rose in his heart. He instinctively wanted to use his new meditation method to observe his surroundings, but Penny stopped him.

“Brother Saul, don’t look around during spatial teleportation. You might accidentally lock eyes with something from the spatial rift.”

Saul immediately stopped observing. “I don’t know much about spatial magic. Are you saying there are spatial rifts around us during teleportation?”

“Yep. A teleportation formation basically finds a safe spatial rift and uses it to transmit both physical matter and soul body. But if anything goes wrong in transit, the matter and soul might not make it to the destination.”

After what might’ve been several seconds—or perhaps several minutes—the white light finally faded.

Saul and Julie looked around and found themselves in a cave.

It was damp, and the air smelled salty.

They seemed to be near the ocean.

Saul sent Penny out to scout the area, while he spoke with Shaya.

“You specifically used a teleportation formation to take us far from the Academy—is it because what you discovered is related to someone in the Academy?”

While deactivating the formation, Shaya answered Saul, “Yes. You know me—I’m terrified of dying, so I pay close attention to any potential conspiracies against me.”

Julie rolled her eyes. If Shaya hadn’t burned through all those magic crystals to use a teleportation formation, she really wouldn’t have the patience to listen to this guy’s paranoia.

But Saul played along. “So? What conspiracy did you find?”

Though it was just the three of them, Shaya still lowered his voice.

“I discovered a batch of similar wraiths. They look normal on the outside, but their insides are completely charred corpses. Before they erupt, they can maintain the appearance of a normal person for over a day.”

In the darkness, Shaya’s eyes burned with intensity.

“And after tracking them down, I found that all these wraiths had one thing in common before they died…”

“Stop dragging it out!” Julie knew Shaya was about to get to the point and urged him on.

Shaya ignored her, waiting a few more seconds until the atmosphere grew heavy, then continued, “Someone is secretly contacting those who want to leave the city, claiming they can help them get the necessary documentation. But the people who go with them all end up as wraiths—returning to their original jobs.”

“They keep working until their bodies can no longer hold up. And just before their human shell completely tears apart, they go and infect the next person.”

At that, Julie seemed to realize something and raised a hand to cover her mouth.

Saul muttered under his breath, “Now that’s what I call… worked to death.”

(End of Chapter)

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