The bird still retained its own brain and it could do anything it wanted normally. Angele would only control its body when necessary.
"The only disadvantage of this rune is that it’ll be consuming my Mentality constantly as long as it’s still activated. The higher my mentality is, the more creatures I’ll be able to control. But if I have too many runes activated at the same time, I’ll have trouble casting high-cost spells. I need to plan it carefully…"
Angele did the calculations. He had around 40 units of Mentality at the moment and he could activate two runes at the same time with 1 unit of Mentality, which meant he could control more than 80 Four-wing Night Sparrows if he wanted to.
He knitted his eyebrows and grabbed the bird. He then walked to the window and pushed it open.
Angele could see the stone watchtower from the experimentation room.
The watchtower stood beside the forest quietly. Two wizard apprentices he hired were chatting beside it. They noticed that Angele opened the window and bowed immediately before returning to their patrol duty.
Angele waited for the two to leave and carefully put down the sparrow on the windowsill.
"Fly." He gave the simplest order.
*CHI*
The Four-wing Night Sparrow disappeared from the windowsill. Angele only saw a black string flying into the sky at an incredible speed.
Under the gray clouds, the black string was traveling with no hesitation.
Angele took out some black powder from the pouch and rubbed it with both hands. The black powder started burning and smoking.
"The creature shall serve as my eyes," he invoked the incantation.
Slowly, his eyes were surrounded by red glows.
Angele’s sight blurred for a second and found himself staring at the clouds the next second.
He could feel the wind blowing over his face and below him was the sea of trees.
Quickly, a human’s town appeared ahead. Angele asked the bird to approach the town and fly through it.
*DANG DANG DANG*
The bell tower was ringing.
Angele could see the houses lined up below from the sky. They all had red roofs and gray walls. The Knights patrolling on the street were wearing leather armor suits. A small twisted river went past the town and in the center, there was a tall bronze statue of a wizard.
The town disappeared from Angele’s sight after several seconds.
‘The Greenwood Town, 15 kilometers from my house.’ Angele knew the place. It was a tiny town by the border controlled by several small wizard families. Towns like Greenwood were very common in the area.
"Come back to me."
Angele gave the order after stopping the vision synchronization.
The Four-wing Night Sparrow rotated once in the sky and started flying back to his house.
A tiny black dot appeared in Angele’s sight after about two minutes.
It seemed like the bird already got used to the two new wings it acquired. The sparrow slowed down easily and landed on the windowsill in front of Angele.
"The speed is incredible," Angele praised.
He did the calculation for the last trip and the bird was traveling at about 110 meters per second.
The mutated sparrow was almost faster than the Peregrine Falcon from Earth. Furthermore, according to the chip, the Four-wing Night Sparrow’s peak speed was higher than 125 meters per second.
It was the fastest creature Angele had ever found in this world.
Angele carefully patted the back of the sparrow.
Its feather was clean and smooth. Touching the sparrow calmed his mind down.
For just one second, he felt confused about his future.
It was a thought he never had before.
He was no longer a mortal the moment he became a wizard apprentice. Angele broke the limit at a very young age and he had the opportunity to explore the most mysterious field in this world. During this process, he had never stopped for one single second.
At the beginning, he wanted to gain power because he wanted to protect himself and his family.
However, after exploring many areas of the world, he started to seek the greatest knowledge of this land.
Angele carefully rubbed the feathers of the bird as he thought of this.
His achievement was incredible and he was definitely one of the most talented modern wizards in history. Angele was wondering if he should take some time and enjoy his life. For some reason, he was losing the motivation to keep progressing and he felt empty inside.
Angele’s relationship with his father and the family was no longer the same. His life expectancy was much longer than mortals, and one day, the inheritors might not even know that he was a son of the Baron.
Angele started to understand why most of the old wizards were acting crazy and some of them even developed sick hobbies.
Time would change everything. Wizards like Angele came from mortal families and when their relatives all passed away, they would feel that they lost all the connection to the world. Angele felt scared just thinking about that moment.
Isabel’s grandmother, Flan, was seeking comfort by monitoring the daily life of her granddaughter. She loved Isabel a lot since she was a kid but the love just changed into something twisted.
Angele reincarnated to this world. The only person he developed a special bond with was his father, but he realized that the bond was no longer there after his last visit. He started to face the problem the old wizards were facing.
"Maybe I should get some rest before trying to advance to the next stage. I just reached the Liquid stage and I can use this period to absorb new knowledge," Angele muttered. He was certain that he could win a fight against any Liquid stage wizard at this point.
It took time for his body to get used to the liquified mentality. He needed to acquire the basic knowledge for the rank 2 wizard and wait for his body to adapt to all the changes before trying to do any modification.
It was impossible for him to speed up the process using special techniques so he had to wait.
Angele thought for a long time. It was now getting dark outside.
*Thud thud*
Someone knocked on the door.
Angele carefully patted the back of the Night Sparrow again. The bird jumped off the windowsill quickly and vanished into the forest beside the house. He then walked to the door and opened it.
Alice was waiting outside with a silver plate in hand. She was wearing a white maid suit.
The food on the plate was still steaming hot.
"I’ll have dinner downstairs." Angele closed the door and looked at the dish.
"Mushroom and deer stew with toasted potato buns? Nice combination. It’ll be even better if I can pair the bread with some coconut jam."
"Understood, I’ll prepare the jam for you right now."
Alice responded politely.
Angele walked down the stairs and sat on the sofa.
Nancy was waiting quietly beside the sofa.
"Master, there’s a letter for you." She handed over a black wooden cylinder over to Angele.
"My letter? It finally arrived…" Angele wondered for a second and realized where it came from.
About one year ago, he sent several letters to Lennon City.
They were for Tia, Harland, and Tinos. The three people he communicated the most with back in the city.
Especially Tinos, the man who had a prettier face than the ladies and left a deep impression in Angele’s mind.
Angele removed the seal and opened the lid. A yellow leather scroll slid out of the cylinder.
He opened the scroll carefully. The words written on it were stylish and clean.
‘To my dearest teacher, Angele. From Tia Rio.’
It was the salutation.
‘Right after you left the city, the horrifying plague arrived. People began begging the god for the cure. Piles of dead bodies were being burnt to ashes every day on the streets. The situation is getting worse and worse. Grand Knight Harland answered the call of the empire and joined the war against the invaders, so he had no time to help the city. Knight Tinos and I were planning to leave the city.
However, the south of the empire was suffering from the plague and we weren’t allowed to leave the area. I wish you are here, Master. I’m certain that you can help all the people in the city. Even the lord of Lennon City has been killed by the plague.
Later, Harland was ordered to guard the northern border. I don’t think he’ll come back anytime soon. The King gave him a large territory there.
Tinos was almost killed during an assassination attempt. Politics is destroying the city since no one is in charge. Although he was saved by a great doctor, his eyes are severely hurt and he’ll never be able to see the light again. I was asked to help defend the city since Tinos couldn’t fight anymore.
Ah, by the way, Master. The darkest time has already passed. I’m now sitting in a warm room writing this letter to you and I already read the letter you sent to Tinos for him. He’s sitting in a chair with a red blanket thinking about something.
Right now, Tinos is the lord of the Lennon City. He says that he misses the days you were still here. We’re very happy that you sent letters to us.
Also, after training for years, I have already become a Knight. You’ll be surprised to see how much I improved the next time you come to visit. The life energy seed you planted in my body is much stronger than the ones other Knights have.
I asked the workers to keep the manors you purchased clean. I didn’t change anything since you left. Please pay us a visit when you have time…
I’m training the kids in the city recently, and some of them have the tenacity to endure all the hard training. They’re just like me…Master, without you, I might be still working at the pancake house.
Tinos is blaming me for talking like an old lady again…He never treats me like a young girl.
Oh, and due to some special reasons, many trees in the forest were cut down…’
Tia’s letter was more than 10,000 words long and she almost listed everything that had happened since Angele left.
Angele read the letter several times. A relaxed smile appeared on his face.