Chapter 445 – A Lucky Intuition

A wild mage refers to a mage with no proper master or lineage of instruction.

In the Mage Empire, a wild mage is merely a synonym for someone without a noble title, without background support, and with weak foundations.

But in the Yala Empire, where the Temple controls all legal magical resources, a wild mage means a blasphemer who has stolen the authority of the God of Light, a believer of demons—and they are treated the same way as witches from the Age of Divine Descent.

For wild mages of the Yala Empire, the best destination when fleeing is to go west to the Mage Empire.

Within the Mage Empire, pick any kingdom or duchy at random and a mage can receive noble treatment; even if they are only a mage apprentice, they can still obtain basic respect.

Who would run southeast instead? Not only is there the Black Forest, permeated with Death Force, there is also the most chaotic region on the entire Mainland—the Land of Chaos. No matter how you look at it, it is not a place an ordinary human mage apprentice should go.

When something is abnormal, there must be a problem. Human cunning is second only to goblins. Goblins only cheat you out of money; humans will cheat you out of your life.

For a moment, Sylph, Vasida, and Lilith all recalled the tricks humans had used in the past to harm witches, and their expressions all turned rather ugly.

Mo Lan hurriedly said, “It’s not a conspiracy. She was originally going to the Mage Empire, it’s just… she’s directionally challenged…”

“Directionally challenged?” Lilith, Sylph, and Vasida wore three identical looks of confusion.

“It means her sense of direction is atrocious. East, south, west, north; up, down; left, right—she can only tell up from down,” Mo Lan said.

“…”

Lilith looked at the human girl with a trace of admiration: “For her to have lived until now is truly rare.”

“There’s actually someone who can’t even tell left from right! How did she grow up to this age?” Vasida said in astonishment.

“Besides being directionally challenged, she also has a kind of intuition-based luck,” Mo Lan said; even she found it astonishing.

This human girl was called Greta. Although she was directionally challenged, as long as she followed the intuition in her heart while lost, even if the outcome differed from what she had first intended, it would still be a good outcome.

When she was little, during the Temple’s baptism, she received the God of Light’s blessing and gained the chance to enter the Temple’s Preparatory Acolyte Class to study.

From the baptism and blessing in her memories, Mo Lan could tell it was actually just a test of magical aptitude and initial psychic power.

It was one of the Temple’s methods for bringing those with magical talent under its control.

And the Temple’s Preparatory Acolyte Class was the Temple’s training and brainwashing process for newcomers.

They taught doctrines such as: magic comes from divine gifts; privately cultivating magic will cause you to fall into the devil’s trap; and the like.

Only after years of brainwashing—after becoming a devout believer of the God of Light—could one accept the god’s second blessing, obtain god-granted magical abilities, become a true Temple acolyte, and gain the qualification to access divinely bestowed magical knowledge.

But Greta was an oddity. Amid the day-after-day brainwashing of the Temple, she did not develop boundless reverence for the God of Light; instead, the closer she came to the second blessing, the more uneasy she felt.

That unease made her, on the day of the blessing, obey the intuition in her heart and leave the Temple.

The moment she left the Temple, she got lost, fell into the sewers, and blundered about mindlessly in the sewers—only to discover the remains of a Mage Empire mage, along with the spellbook he had left behind.

From that book, she learned the true source of magic, as well as the reason for the unease in her heart.

The second blessing was not a blessing of magical ability, but an adventure in which you handed your life over to the Temple.

Her initial psychic power was quite good. During the time she was lost in the sewers and couldn’t find an exit, she relied on the spellbook she had picked up to successfully meditate, and even successfully constructed the spell structures for several apprentice-level spells.

Relying on those few apprentice-level spells, she dug through the sewer and only then emerged. After she left, the breached sewer was discovered; there were also traces of abnormally concentrated earth elemental force left behind. From this, the Temple discovered signs that a wild mage existed, and that was why they launched a citywide manhunt for her.

But by then, following her directional intuition during the process of being lost, she had already left the city.

She originally wanted to go to the Mage Empire, but she was directionally challenged—she thought she was heading west, when in reality she had been heading south the whole time.

Even the Temple’s pursuers went west.

And so Greta, lost as she was, took a bizarre route that brought her to Mino Town.

Even out in the wilderness, she could always rely on that intuition she had while lost to skirt deadly danger.

The greatest hardship she suffered along the way was hunger, but whenever she was about to starve to death, she would always manage to find food and turn danger into safety.

Even when the Temple’s pursuers caught up and she fled into the Black Forest—even within the Black Forest—each time she would coincidentally manage to detour around places where there were mutant blackdeath trees.

If Mo Lan had not checked her memories, she would never have dared believe someone could be this lucky.

Lilith, Vasida, and Sylph were also extremely surprised after hearing it.

“Is she really human, not a Blessing witch?” Vasida said.

“She should be human. There’s no energy halo, and there’s no familiar closeness of bloodline,” Sylph said.

“Mo Lan, is her current physical condition stable?” Lilith asked.

“Stable! She didn’t have any serious injuries to begin with—she just can’t withstand such dense Death Force,” Mo Lan said.

“That’s good!” Lilith took out the Bloodthirst Needle. “I’ll draw two tubes of her blood for analysis and research, and see whether she’s truly pure-blooded human. This kind of lucky intuition—if it comes from her bloodline—maybe we can even extract a new bloodline ability!”

“…” Mo Lan could tell from the interest in Lilith’s eyes that she was not joking. After thinking it over, she said, “Go ahead and draw it. After you’re done, just replenish some of her blood.”

She was a little curious too—where exactly this lucky intuition came from.

In any case, drawing a bit of blood would not kill her.

“So what do we do now?” Sylph asked. “It sounds like she’s pretty unlucky too, but she’s not a bad person. If we ignore her, sooner or later she’ll be turned into a real corpse by the Death Force. Even if she has a lucky intuition, it’ll be hard for her to make it out from deep in the Black Forest on her own.”

“Aren’t we going to the Duchy of Lance? We might as well let her sleep for now, and once we reach the Duchy of Lance, we can toss her down there. That way she should be able to survive, and we won’t expose our identities,” Vasida suggested.

Since she wasn’t a bad person—and she was a human woman—giving her a ride for part of the way wouldn’t really delay anything.

“That works. I’ll also have enough time to study her blood,” Lilith said.

They saw that Mo Lan still hadn’t spoken, and they looked to her for her opinion.

“I’m thinking—should we test her, and let her become our first human contractee?”

Mo Lan said, “If she’s suitable, then after we reach the Duchy of Lance, we can stay hidden in the shadows and let her step forward to develop subordinates. She’s a genuine human, and she has this peculiar lucky intuition—maybe it could have unexpected effects.”

“How do we test her?” Vasida, Sylph, and Lilith all looked at her with curiosity. (End of this chapter)