Chapter 388 – Lilith’s Map

Chapter 388 – Lilith’s Map

“Let’s discuss where we’re heading after we leave the Wilds!” Mo Lan suggested.

“Come to my tent!” Lilith said at once. “This past year, I’ve been going to the Witch Council’s golden bird relay station every day to read the messages coming in from outside the Wilds. I’ve compiled everything I’ve gathered and marked it all on the latest version of the map.”

Although the Witch Council’s books were updated from time to time, the pace of revision couldn’t keep up with how quickly the situation outside the Wilds was changing.

At best, one could reference the broad strokes, but when it came to the specifics of any given region, things became unclear.

This was especially true of human territories, where factions were numerous and tangled. A piece of land might belong to one mage lord today, and if that mage lord died tomorrow, it would become another mage’s domain entirely.

The Witch Council’s golden bird relay station was arguably the best-informed place in the entire Wilds.

Of the nearly thirty thousand witches, only a small fraction remained in the Wilds or had gone to the Well of the Sky. The vast majority were scattered across every corner of Valen.

Whenever a major change occurred nearby, the witches would send letters via the Golden Bird spell to the relay station. This made it convenient for witches in the Wilds to assess the situation outside, and also made it easier for witches in the same region to get to know one another.

《The Valen Complete Travel Guide》 even stated that before leaving the Wilds, witches should always visit the golden bird relay station first to check whether there were any recent letters from their intended destination, and to see if any witches were living in that area.

Upon entering Lilith’s tent, they were immediately greeted by an enormous map that covered an entire wall of the living space.

It was densely annotated with all kinds of information and dotted with small labels.

Even a casual glance revealed several pieces of information that hadn’t appeared in any book.

It was spectacular. Mo Lan, Sylph, and Vasida stopped dead in their tracks right at the entrance, letting out sounds of admiration.

Looking to the left and right along the walls, bookshelves lined every side. Each volume bore its own individual number, and judging by the titles, it seemed that intelligence from each intelligent race’s settlement had been compiled into its own separate volume.

The entire living space didn’t contain a single chair. On the carpet, which was littered with crumpled balls of paper, there were only a few soft cushions and throw pillows—apparently for resting.

One look was all it took to know that Lilith had not been idle this past year. If anything, she had been extremely busy.

“You’ve worked so hard, senior,” Mo Lan said. “This was supposed to be something all four of us did together.”

Vasida and Sylph nodded furiously. “You organized everything so meticulously, senior!”

Lilith fought to suppress the corners of her mouth from turning upward and said with an air of effortless nonchalance, “Well, who told me to graduate a year early?”

As if she hadn’t been the one on the verge of a breakdown while sorting through all that information and material.

“Come on! Let me first explain how to read this map!”

Lilith cleared her throat and walked up to the map. “I drew this map of the areas surrounding the Wilds myself, combining the latest edition of the continental map with several regional maps.

To make it easier to annotate information, I didn’t draw it to true scale. I only tried to keep the relative positions of each area roughly correct.”

She pointed to a palm-sized red area at the very bottom of the map and said, “This is where we are now—the Wilds.”

“If that’s the Wilds, then this over here—that can’t be the Elven Woods, can it?” Sylph pointed to a large green area to the northeast of the red region.

“That’s right!” Lilith confirmed.

Mo Lan: “…”

It really wasn’t drawn to scale.

On the continental map, the Elven Woods was at most half the size of the Wilds.

On Lilith’s map, however, it was several times larger. Then again, since there were no foreign factions within the Wilds and little information to annotate, it made sense to shrink it.

Since Sylph had brought up the Elven Woods, Lilith started there.

“We witches have always had a good relationship with the elves, and the Elven Woods was originally a fine choice for training.

We wouldn’t even need to deliberately conceal our identities—we could openly promote Sorceress Magic there.

But that’s no longer the case.

Two years ago, the half-elf lord Elwiss launched a war against the Elven Woods under the banner of ‘fighting for the right of half-elf infants to bathe in the Spring of Life.’

The elves have long been troubled by the fact that their non-elf partners and mixed-blood descendants couldn’t return to the Elven Woods, so Elwiss has quite a number of supporters.

The northern region of the Elven Woods has now descended into war. The situation is deadlocked, and neither side can claim victory for the time being.

Among those fighting are Peak level and Beyond Peak level powerhouses. If we go now, we’d likely get dragged into the war—the risks would far outweigh the gains.

So I suggest we wait until all of our strengths surpass Peak level, or until the civil war in the Elven Woods subsides, before we visit the elves.”

Mo Lan nodded in agreement. Trying to profit from chaos still required sufficient strength, and the four of them clearly didn’t qualify yet.

“Since we’re just starting out from the Wilds and are still green, let’s pick a region with a stable situation that’s relatively friendly to witches, and test the waters first,” Mo Lan said.

“That’s exactly what I was thinking.” Lilith tapped the large area to the north and west of the Wilds.

“Among the intelligent race settlements near the Wilds, aside from the Elven Woods, only human nations remain.

North of Emerald Creek Plains is the Duchy of Lance, which falls under the jurisdiction of the Mage Empire.

North of Poison Mist Swamp, beyond the Black Forest, is the Kingdom of Watson, a vassal kingdom of the Yala Empire.

In the mountain ranges to the west of Greenvale Highlands, there are Tatari tribal settlements.

Of these three areas, I believe the Duchy of Lance is the most suitable as our first destination.”

“The Duchy of Lance?” Vasida asked. “There was a fill-in-the-blank question on the graduation exam about this—the human nation with the most witches currently residing in it and the friendliest toward witches is the Duchy of Lance! The person in power right now is called…”

“Clara Lance,” Mo Lan said.

“That’s it!” Vasida said. “That’s the name.”

Lilith nodded. “Clara Lance is the third grand duchess of the Duchy of Lance.

Although the Duchy of Lance is only a duchy, and its magical strength and territorial reach can’t compare to human kingdoms or the core regions of empires, the grand duchess governs well. The executive mages under her are extremely capable, and the nation is thriving and stable.

According to the latest intelligence, Clara Lance has just advanced to Peak level mage. She’s still quite young by human standards and has a good chance of advancing to Beyond Peak level, at which point the Duchy of Lance would meet the basic requirements to become a kingdom.

Right now is a period of ascendancy for the Duchy of Lance. If we go there, we won’t get caught up in any complicated power struggles.

Moreover, since the founding of the Duchy of Lance, all three successive Grand Dukes have been women. Under the influence of their rulers, women enjoy relatively high status throughout the nation.

The character of witches is highly admired by the Duchy of Lance’s nobility.

The nobles generally believe that marrying a witch brings benefits to the continuation of one’s family line and the upbringing of one’s children.

Many nobles even hire a witch godmother for their daughters, taking pride in raising them to be as strong as a witch.”