“What?!” He slammed both hands onto the table with a heavy thud and roared, “You’re leaving this village?”

“Yeah. Frisi, your temper sucks, but I’m still really grateful for how much you’ve supported my business all this time...” Wude thanked him as he set the prototype of the item Frisi had asked him to forge not long ago onto the table.

“You bastard. You’re so weak, you’d better not die out there!” Frisi’s face twisted fiercely.

“Elisa’s going with me this time. It’ll be fine.” Wude answered with a smile.

“Tch. That little girl Elisa is pretty strong...” Frisi knew Elisa had already reached Level Five. He also knew that in a proper fight, a self-taught brawler like him probably wasn’t her match. Though if it turned into a fight to the death, he wasn’t sure he’d be afraid either.

“Looks like you’ve already made up your mind...” Frisi glanced at Wude, his gaze a little complicated. “Now if I want gear forged, I’ll have to go all the way into the city.”

“Isn’t there a smithy in the next village over too?”

“How could that place compare to your skill? No matter what, you learned from that woman Lingyue!” Frisi looked a little displeased.

“I’m not leaving for that long. I’ll probably be back in two months at most...” At the mention of Lingyue, Wude’s eyes dimmed for a moment before he explained.

As for Lingyue, she had settled here long ago, but she often wasn’t around for years at a time. To the locals, she was the kind of person they only saw once every few years. It was only after Wude came here that she started showing up a little more often. Wude’s blacksmithing was naturally learned from her.

“Oh, give me a break. Let me tell you, Wude. A man goes out into the world to make something of himself. If you don’t, then don’t come back. What’s the point of going out for two months like it’s some sightseeing trip? You’re only Level Three. Even Elisa’s already Level Five. Aren’t you ashamed? Huh?”

Frisi smacked Wude hard on the shoulder. Wude endured the pain and gave a bitter smile. He couldn’t shake the feeling that Frisi was acting strange today. Since when did he talk this much?

“Alright, Frisi. I need to go back and get ready. I’ve handled most of the orders already, and I should be leaving tomorrow.” Wude turned to leave.

“...When Lingyue left last time, she asked me to look after you.”

Just as Wude was about to step out the door, Frisi suddenly spoke.

“I don’t know what kind of luck you’ve got, brat. A woman like Lingyue actually came to me and asked me to take care of you. Back then, she even turned me down. No idea what she went off to do. But don’t you dare die out there and let her expectations go to waste...”

“I know...” Wude strode away.

Meanwhile, back at Wude’s house, Alreis was sorting through the items they should bring. As a Level Six, Alreis could already open his own storage space and put things inside. Even so, things still needed to be organized. Otherwise, pulling them out later would waste mental energy searching for them.

As he sorted, Alreis kept thinking about Elisa’s mirror. If his guess was right, then something had gone wrong with the Blessing of Life. And the purpose of this nation’s Sages didn’t seem all that pure either. The mirror’s function was simple, but there was something insidious about it.

Only something very basic had been attached to the mirror. It should be that thing only usable after reaching the Level Nine Sage stage.

A Sage was a realm below the Ascendant Sovereign. It was the title reserved for those powerful beings who stood only one final step away from that level. Nearly every nation had two or three Sages. Of course, each one had only a single Ascendant Sovereign. Those Sages usually handled matters that didn’t require the Ascendant Sovereign to appear in person.

As beings only one rank below an Ascendant Sovereign, a Sage’s strength was beyond question. At that stage, they could also use certain things unique to them.

For example, on that mirror, Alreis clearly sensed a magic formation. It was tiny, and the amount of magic it consumed was extremely small. Even a Level One could supply it. But the formation itself was Sage-tier. Only a Sage or someone above could detect it. As for removing it, that would take only an instant.

That formation’s effect was, in fact, a kind of tracking mark. As long as it came into contact with a certain specific type of magic power, it could attach itself.

Based on that, Alreis guessed the Blessing of Life’s condition might be a little different from what he first thought. Her strength probably hadn’t recovered. In fact, she might even be weaker than he was. Otherwise, those Sages would never dare use a method like this to search for an Ascendant Sovereign.

Alreis even suspected that he might have knocked the Blessing of Life down from the Ascendant Sovereign realm.

Had there ever been a case in history of an Ascendant Sovereign falling from that realm?

Alreis knew of one.

In theory, no matter how badly an Ascendant Sovereign was injured, as long as they still had consciousness, they could absorb a massive amount of magic in an instant. Then their wounds would recover at an unbelievable speed. So before that one case appeared, people believed it was impossible for an Ascendant Sovereign to fall in realm...

But before Alreis’s era, there had been one example. During a battle between two Ascendant Sovereigns, one of them was beaten until they lost their memory.

After losing their memory, that Ascendant Sovereign could still use magic by instinct. But their strength fell to Level Eight. They didn’t even remain at the level of a Sage. Because of that, some magic scholars proposed that an Ascendant Sovereign’s power was connected to the memories they had accumulated.

Of course, there was no way to test that theory. Still, the incident was a useful reference. The Blessing of Life might be in that exact situation.

But how did those Sages know?

The answer was simple. After the Kingdom Era began, one Ascendant Sovereign feared that he might die in conflict one day. He didn’t want his nation and people to be enslaved by other countries because of his death.

After a long period of research, he finally developed a kind of magic. It linked his own condition to the nation itself. Through observing a certain object in the royal palace, the Sages could confirm the Ascendant Sovereign’s state. Later, this became a spell all Ascendant Sovereigns cast when founding a nation. It was for winning the people’s trust, after all...

But that belonged to the domain of Ascendant Sovereigns. It had been obscured by the river of time, so Alreis didn’t know about it. As for Wude, he had only been here for three years. And no one had founded a nation in that time, so who would’ve told him?

Alreis looked at the potions in his hand. Wude had insisted they bring them. Though honestly, while he wasn’t especially proficient, he could still use Level Four Life Magic.

By the way, Alreis’s wind magic was far stronger than Wude’s. Wind magic was closely tied to spatial magic, after all. If Alreis fully unleashed himself, he could even cast Sage-tier wind magic. It was just that in battles between Ascendant Sovereigns, using that kind of wind magic was basically asking to die. On that battlefield, anything below the Ascendant Sovereign level had no place appearing.

Still, his strength was a secret from Elisa. So all he could do was pack everything properly into a backpack and carry it on his back later...

But this counted as a secret between him and Wude too, right? He’d heard that friends needed shared secrets to truly be called friends. That was something he overheard while hiding behind a spatial fold, listening to a secret conversation between the human Pontiff and a Demonkin general. The two of them had seemed to be laughing very happily too.

What he needed to worry about now was this: if the Blessing of Life’s strength had declined, would her life force still be enough to meet the conditions for Lingyue’s revival? He didn’t know what she would be like after being revived, but they had to try, didn’t they? He was the strongest being in all history. No matter how you looked at it, this was something he ought to be able to do.

Come to think of it, that girl named Elisa had the same blond hair as him. Even their hairstyle was the same. Should he... change his hairstyle a little?

He’d once heard the Elf Queen tell his younger sister that when people interact, if two of them are too similar, one will end up being discarded...

He definitely didn’t want to be the one discarded. He was an Ascendant Sovereign. If he got discarded, how humiliating would that be?