While Jonah was still mulling over how to persuade the dean to quickly but politely get Saul out of Caugust, Saul had already packed his things and was preparing to leave.

He had forcibly retrieved An from within the Inverted Tree. Although the other party hadn’t chased him to the surface, they had clearly marked him.

On top of that, Saul had already taken care of Kent. Even if Bayton Academy hadn’t figured anything out yet, they would start suspecting him sooner or later.

After all, the pollution on Kent was far too strange.

In less than an hour, with the help of Agu and Morden, Saul had already sorted all the jars, containers, and various materials in his room, carefully categorizing them and packing everything into his storage device.

As he left his temporary residence, Saul noticed someone watching him. But he paid it no mind and simply instructed Marsh to drive the carriage at a normal pace.

When the carriage passed through the city gate, no one came forward to stop him. Saul even caught sight of that Second Rank apprentice Dumar whom he had seen when entering the city.

Through the semi-immersive state of his new meditation technique, Dumar’s head still appeared as a surveillance dish to Saul.

As he swept his gaze across the others, he noticed several more with the same problem as Dumar.

At the entrance in the distance, a long line of people were still waiting to enter the city.

They had no idea what kind of world they were about to step into. Tempted by high pay and a convenient life, perhaps even if they knew, they wouldn’t care.

Saul leaned out and looked behind him. Very few people were leaving the city.

Even the wizards who had been keeping tabs on him stopped following once he was out of Caugust.

“Looks like they haven’t noticed what happened with the Inverted Tree yet.” Saul lowered the carriage window and pulled out a storage bag.

Penny, who hadn’t been much help in the earlier battle, finally had a chance to speak.

“Brother Saul, did you actually steal Kent the wizard’s storage bag? Heehee, you’re getting bad!”

Only Penny dared to talk to Saul like that.

Expressionless, Saul began deciphering the encoded formula on the bag. “This isn’t stealing. Kent deliberately set an ambush in my room and blasted a huge hole in my ceiling. This is called compensation.”

“Yes, yes, that Kent isn’t a good guy at all. He was probably trying to steal from you when he set that trap. I say he’s the real thief boss!”

Penny giggled and landed on Saul’s shoulder, curious to see just how much loot Bayton Academy’s so-called thief boss had.

“Don’t get your hopes up. Kent has long-term accommodations at Bayton Academy. He probably wouldn’t carry much with him while traveling—maybe just some tools or materials useful in battle.”

The bag’s anti-crack protections weren’t very strong.

It used spatial magic to compress a larger space into a smaller volume.

Its main weakness was that this spatial compression could easily be destabilized, causing the compressed space to revert to its original form.

With the right methods, anyone could disrupt the balance and cause its contents to spill out.

So keeping your bag well hidden was usually much safer than simply locking it with a few magical seals.

It didn’t take Saul long to break Kent’s storage bag. By then, the carriage had already left Caugust far behind.

The grayish-white city walls and towering buildings had faded into the backdrop beyond the forest.

“Huh? This Kent wizard is dirt poor!” Penny leaned in, took one look, and sighed in disappointment.

Though she had expected Kent wouldn’t be carrying his full fortune while traveling, she hadn’t expected it to be this little.

Unbothered, Saul first pulled out the magic crystals and swept them with his spirit.

Not even a hundred.

He then pulled out a few pieces of parchment—not spells, but rather a deconstruction diagram of a magical formation.

There were no annotations on it, so Saul couldn’t tell what it was for. He handed the parchment to Agu sitting across from him.

Agu flipped through it twice and said hesitantly, “Might be a summoning-type formation.”

“Summon what?” Saul asked curiously.

“Um… I can’t tell yet. But we could try activating the formation sometime. As long as we stop before the final step, we might get an idea of what it’s meant to summon.”

“Could it be Greatwood Growth?” Saul asked, somewhat expectantly.

Dean Pond’s Greatwood Growth was impressively powerful—just standing near the branches was enough for Saul to feel immense pressure. If he hadn’t attacked Kent first, it might’ve been a tough fight.

“It doesn’t look as complex as a Fourth Rank spell. But it’s possible the real runes are hidden.”

Saul chuckled, hearing the hint of consolation in Agu’s words.

He looked through the remaining contents of Kent’s bag—just some fairly common magical materials.

“Even though I knew he wouldn’t bring much, this is way too little.” Penny was clearly unsatisfied.

“Well, it shows that the materials I offered in exchange for that wraith were pretty tempting. Kent may have attacked me partly because of them. I’ll need to be more cautious moving forward.”

“Sigh, Brother Saul, you can’t really blame yourself. Who would’ve thought people out here were this poor?” Penny, already bored, phased through the carriage wall, wanting to fly outside for a bit.

But she’d barely been out for two seconds before she zipped right back into the carriage.

“Brother Saul!”

“Shh.” Saul raised a finger to his lips.

The moment Penny slipped back in, he felt it too.

Something was trailing the carriage, quietly.

It exuded faint spiritual energy, lurking underground, matching the carriage’s speed and slowly drawing closer.

“Little Algae,” Saul ordered calmly.

A black, tentacle-like vine shot out from the window and vanished into the ground.

The carriage didn’t stop, and had barely gone three to five more meters before the sounds of metal clashing rang out from behind them.

Saul was just about to transform into his octopus form to help Little Algae, when he sensed the spiritual energy catching up and paused, reverting to his human form before jumping off the carriage.

“Wizard Shaya?”

Saul recognized the familiar spiritual fluctuations.

But to his surprise, the thing battling Little Algae wasn’t a wizard—it was those pale root tendrils that had attacked them several times before, and that Saul had just provoked again.

Only this time, the number of tendrils far exceeded anything he had encountered before—dense as a field of young shoots.

Little Algae was locked in fierce combat with the foremost tendrils.

The tendrils relied on entanglement; Little Algae fought back with its bite.

Even though it could split itself, it was gradually being overwhelmed by the sheer number of roots.

“Shaya? Is that you?” Saul raised a hand, and a black blade formed swiftly above his head.

The dozen or so roots at the very front halted their attack, clustered together, and raised their tips skyward—almost like someone standing upright.

The other tendrils hovered in midair, seemingly confused, and didn’t attack right away.

The ones that stopped first twisted together and slowly formed a humanoid shape.

Saul kept his black blade suspended and stepped closer.

“You… were you swallowed by the Inverted Tree?”

The humanoid figure made of roots sprouted a new branch, forming something like a mouth.

“Damn it… too… late… to run…”

Never before had Wizard Shaya cursed out loud.

And the fact that those words came from his mouth now—full of bitterness and frustration—spoke volumes.

(End of Chapter)

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