Actually, Angele was not concerned about the bloodline of the tree elf. He wanted to know if the merging of the two bloodlines would damage his genes permanently. Moreover, if his genes were damaged, his genetic strand might break as well, resulting in serious consequences. If that happened, he would not be able to recover from the damage as a Gas stage Wizard. The only way to heal the damage on the genes was to convert his physical body into pure energy. However, such a feat could only be accomplished by Liquid stage Wizards.
‘Try to stop the two bloodlines from merging, Zero. Radiate the invasive energy particles from the bloodline of the great harpies. The radiation energy might be able to help.’ Angele gave the order to the chip.
‘I need to find a way to expel the harpy blood out of my body.’ Angele started thinking with his eyebrows furrowed. ‘There’s a technique I read about in a book. I can probably remove the signet’s roots from my nervous system by performing surgeries on my hand… but I need more information…’
However, the biological experiment was partially forbidden in the Wizards of Light’s territories and doing it on a live human being was almost impossible. Most of the larger organizations still had their hidden laboratories that were used to conduct such surgeries, but none of them was publicized.
Especially the experiments involving surgeries on living human beings, including the demihumans, they were considered as evil by the Wizards of Light. Only Dark Wizards would try to capture living subjects in their own territories. However, if they went any closer to the Wizards of Light’s territories, they would be hunted down.
The chip already started absorbing the negative necromantic energy particles from Angele’s body and would use them on the signet’s roots later.
There were many different types of energy particles stored in Angele’s body, most of them being the Wind and Fire energy particles. His forcefield from the Talent Spell was supported by those two types of energy particles. The necromantic energy particles would damage his organs over time, so he only kept the minimum amount in his body.
It seemed like the number of negative energy particles required by the chip was more than the amount he had. Angele had to do some meditation and try to absorb some more necromantic energy particles in the environment.
After about half an hour later, he opened his eyes again.
‘That’s 30 degrees of necromantic energy particles… should be good for ten more days. Sadly, I have to empty the energy storage space in the chip when it tries to stop the invasive energy particles. No instant-cast Lesser Fireball for me now. The good thing is, I still have some heart bombs left.’
After the battles in the ruins, Angele noticed that he relied too much on enchanted items, and he could barely cast any spells during intense fights. The heart bombs and the signet all had limitations, so he had to use them wisely.
The signet needed to be activated, which would take about one second. His opponent might use this period of time to counterattack.
For the heart bombs, once his opponent realized that Angele was about to use the bombs, they could dodge the attack easily by simply buffing their speed. Kuirman had underestimated the power of Angele’s bombs, thinking that his high attributes could reduce the damage to the minimum.
A regular heart bomb only contained about 20 to 30 degrees of power and would not deal any actual damage to Kuirman’s body. He might feel the pain for a second, but his high Stamina would help him recover quickly.
However, the heart bombs Angele detonated had over 50 degrees of power. Kuirman used the cursed energy stored in the blade to block the explosion, but his attributes were greatly decreased after that. He failed to dodge the following explosions and died in Angele’s final strike.
Angele knew such plan would only work on close-combat wizards like Kuirman. Dark Wizards who knew how to fight from a distance could destroy him easily, and they probably had much more ways to deal with the bombs than Kuirman.
He also knew that some stronger Wizards mastered the defensive spell called Spell Reflection, Angele could only control the place he detonated the bomb, so if the explosion was reflected, he would take a lot of damage.
Fighting an average Wizard of Light might be easy, but in the world of Dark Wizards, Angele needed to find more ways to strengthen his battle skills. The more versatile a Wizard was, the higher the chance he could survive the battles. The opponents would never know how and where his attack would come from.
Also, for Wizards at the same stage, they needed to be careful with the choice they made during the battles, but when a Crystal stage Wizard made an attempt to kill a Gas stage Wizard, it would be easy an achievement. They could simply pressure the Wizard at the lower rank with their intense mentality waves. The Gas stage Wizard would need to keep their forcefield to cast spells under situations like this.
***************************************
The boat passed through the fog three days later, but without Melissa pointing directions for them, it was hard to find the right route to the land. There were enough water and food on the boat, but Angele still had no clue about where they were heading to.
It was early in the morning and the sky was still dark.
Angele woke up early and left his room. He started scanning for close lands using the chip on the deck. He had been doing this for days.
The two followers already recovered. They were wearing the leather armor suits, and Isabel was talking to them in a low voice.
It looked like Isabel was questioning them about something.
Angele walked toward the three slowly.
"What’s going on? Any news?" he asked.
Isabel heard Angele’s word and nodded. "I’m asking about Ainphent’s background, but he hired this guy from another Wizard and the man knew nothing about his background."
Angele’s brow furrowed. He turned to the two Grand Knights on the side.
The man in the front had a serious expression on his face. His hair and eyes were both black.
The one behind him had a white, messy hair. He looked old, and there was a goatee on his chin.
"Master Green, my name is Gill, I was hired by master Ainphent. I’m a follower of Wizard Grace," the old man spoke first in a polite tone.
The man in the front lowered his head and introduced himself as well. "Master Green, my name is Rivail, a follower of master Isabel."
"Go rest now, we have something to discuss." Isabel waved her hand.
The two Grand Knights put their right fists over their chests and bowed to the two Wizards. It was how they showed their respect and honesty to the people they serve.
"I’ll try to catch some fish. We’re getting low on food supply." Gill lowered his voice.
"Go ahead." Isabel nodded.
Angele walked to Isabel and put his hands on the railing after the two followers left.
The sea looked dark and muddy under the gray sky. He wondered if a storm was coming.
"I don’t know how long we will spend on the sea," Isabel spoke calmly. Her voice was low, sounding as though she was talking to herself. "I never knew that the mission would be so dangerous. I read about the curse of Axis of Tim. The rumors sounded horrifying, however, I didn’t take it too seriously. I thought I could just enter the ruin and take what I needed…"
"Are all the ancient ruins dangerous? And yeah, it was an… unpleasant experience." Angele muttered, "It’s my second time exploring those mysterious places and the last time… didn’t end very well too. I almost lost my life."
"Not all of them, but the chance is definitely high. What attracts the Wizards are the treasures and rare materials left in the ancient ruins. If the exploration is successful, the reward will be incredible. I should’ve done more research about the ruin, but when I can’t find the resource I need anywhere else, I’ll have to take the chance," Isabel answered in a light tone.
"It’s quite interesting actually." Angele smiled. "The last time, I survived with a female Wizard apprentice, and this time, it’s a female wizard."
"And two followers, they survived the mission too." Isabel pursed her lips. "Where are you from?"
"The other side of the Gem Sea." Angele had nothing to hide. "I spent more than ten years there, my father… well, I was a spoiled kid."
"What a nice childhood you had there. Much better than mine at least." Isabel sighed. She was not emotionless anymore. "I needed to memorize all types of basic knowledge. I needed to meditate, study, learn to dance and sing, every single day. I didn’t have any free time. Mother said I was their only hope after they realized I had the talent… The only thing she wanted was a high position in the family."
"Where are your friends?" Angele shook his head. He could understand how frustrating her life was. No wonder she looked like an emotionless machine when they first met.
"I don’t have friends. I’m a future Wizard, no one wants to get close to me. Even if they can, my mother won’t let me talk to them. Children with talents studied together, but the only thing we did was to study. We had no time to talk to each other at all." Isabel looked a bit depressed.
"You know what? It’s the first time I left my castle… believe it or not, I’m more than a hundred years old…" She looked at the sky. Angele was not sure what she was thinking.
He did not know how to make her feel better. He could not even imagine what living in the same place for more than a hundred years felt like.
Isabel looked at Angele. "I’m the hope of my mother and I became what she wanted me to become. Everything I do is monitored by the maids and servants. They watched me eat, sleep, and finish homework, they just wouldn’t let me breathe. My mother recorded my daily life and they checked my body condition every week. They wanted to make sure that I was not ill, physically and mentally."
"Did you gain anything from it?" Angele felt speechless.
"Well… At least, I’m healthy." Isabel smiled. Angele had never seen such a pure and beautiful smile.
He remained silent.
Isabel continued, "I tried, haha. Is my smile weird? My mother blamed me for smiling when I was happy about what I accomplished in my Wizard career, and after that, I barely smiled. However, now she is telling to make friends for some reason, and that’s one of the reasons why I left the castle."
She glanced around and shook her head. "Why don’t you say anything? Am I talking too much? I don’t know why, but I just want to tell you about my life."
"Don’t worry. It’s good that you’re willing to talk." Angele smiled. "I thought you would never smile the first time I saw you. Change is good sometimes."
Isabel nodded slightly. "You’re right…" She stopped smiling and her expression disappeared again.
"Umm… Take this." She suddenly took out something from the pouch and put it onto Angele’s palm.
"I can assume that we are friends now, right?" she questioned in a whisper.
"Of course, you’re my friend." Angele chuckled.
"Thank you." Isabel nodded again. A hint of happiness flashed in her eyes.
Angele watched her return to her cabin, and he checked the item he just got after. It was a silver ring with no engraved patterns on it, but he could sense the intense energy waves the ring was releasing.
"For real? Such high quality… Its energy wave is actually affecting me…" Angele did not expect Isabel to give him a rare enchanted item as a gift. Low-rank enchanted items did not release energy waves, and even if it did, the energy waves would not affect wizards. The ring Isabel gave Angele must be rare and had certain special effects.
It seemed like Isabel only knew how to deal with strangers and her followers. She had no idea what a friend was, but she looked happy when Angele said that they became friends.
Perhaps Isabel was trying to maintain her friendship with Angele by gifting him this rare enchanted item.