Chapter 738
Elaine handed the paper back.
“It’s a rare type of tree,” she said. “It needs very specific climate conditions and soil to grow properly.”
She took a sip of tea while thinking.
“I heard they were everywhere during the time of the Old Empire.”
She paused.
“But nowadays…” she continued slowly, “they’re almost gone.”
Ludger’s eyes narrowed slightly.
“Where would one still grow?”
Elaine tilted her head.
“I believe I saw one that looked very similar when I was in the capital.”
The word hung in the air. Ludger’s expression sharpened immediately. Capital. The same place the Empire hid its secrets. The same place sealed labyrinth rumors kept pointing back toward.
Elaine noticed the change in his eyes. And she sighed softly.
“Don’t do anything too dangerous,” she said.
Ludger nodded once. Not promising. Just acknowledging. Because if the answer to the illusionist’s riddle was really pointing toward the capital… Then this “nonsense” might lead somewhere far more interesting than he originally expected.
Ludger didn’t move right away.
He looked again at the drawing in his hand, the detailed branches, the twisted trunk, the strange way the roots seemed to curl back into the ground like they were clutching something beneath the soil.
“What do you know about that kind of tree?” he asked.
“If it’s rare, it could be a clue.”
Elaine didn’t answer immediately. She leaned slightly back in her chair, eyes drifting to the side the way they did when she was pulling something old out of memory. Her fingers tapped lightly against the porcelain of her teacup.
“Well…” she said slowly. “Since it’s rare, it should be quite expensive.”
Ludger waited.
“Only a few rich families would be able to buy them,” she continued. “Or maintain them properly.”
She shrugged faintly.
“That kind of tree needs very particular soil and climate conditions. Most people wouldn’t even know how to keep one alive.”
Ludger nodded. That made sense. Rare plant. Difficult conditions. Probably cultivated deliberately. A rich family estate in the capital could easily have one. The illusionist’s puzzle might simply be pointing toward a noble garden. Ludger folded the paper again and slipped it back into his coat.
“Understood. I’ll be leaving now.”
He turned toward the door…
“Wait.”
Ludger paused. Elaine tilted her head slightly, brows narrowing as another memory surfaced.
“…I just remembered something else.”
Ludger looked back at her.
“When I was a child,” she said slowly, “there were rumors about those trees.”
Ludger’s interest sharpened.
“What kind of rumors?”
Elaine gave a small, amused smile.
“Children’s stories.”
Then she shrugged lightly.
“But children often repeat what they hear adults whisper.”
She set the teacup down and continued.
“Some kids used to say those trees could only grow in places where people died… full of bad feelings.”
The room went quiet. Ludger’s eyes narrowed slightly.
“Bad feelings?”
“Hatred,” Elaine clarified.
“Regret.”
“Anger.”
She waved a hand lightly, as if dismissing it.
“Stories, most likely.”
“Still…”
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She glanced at the drawing again.
“Those trees were always associated with strange places.”
Ludger didn’t answer right away. His mind was already moving. If the rumor had even a grain of truth, it meant something interesting. Places where people died with hatred. Places soaked in resentment. Old battlefields. Mass graves. Execution grounds. Or…
He exhaled quietly. Places the Empire might prefer people didn’t look too closely at.
Ludger adjusted the strap of his backpack.
“Interesting,” he murmured.
Elaine watched him carefully.
“You’re thinking about something dangerous again.”
Ludger gave a small shrug.
“I’m thinking about clues.”
He stepped toward the door.
“I’ll be back later.”
Elaine didn’t stop him this time. But as Ludger left the house and stepped into the street, the image of that twisted tree stayed firmly in his mind. A tree that grew where hatred died. That didn’t sound like a noble’s garden. It sounded like the kind of place someone who dealt in illusions and secrecy might hide.
This time, Ludger didn’t take the tunnels all the way out of Lionfang. Instead, he headed toward the small storage structure under the guild where one of his quieter tools waited. The runic carriage.
It didn’t look impressive at first glance. Just a compact wooden vehicle reinforced with metal bands and runic plates along the chassis. The wheels were thicker than normal, the interior narrow but stable enough for long travel.
But the real work was carved beneath the surface. Runic propulsion. Stability enchantments. Shock dampening lines that allowed it to move smoothly even when the road beneath it wasn’t kind.
Ludger climbed inside, set his satchel beside him, and activated the runic core with a small pulse of mana. The symbols along the base plates lit softly. The carriage began to move. No horses. No driver. Just steady forward motion along the main road leading toward the capital.
Ludger leaned back for a moment as the vehicle picked up speed.
Using the carriage meant the trip would take far less time than walking.
And more importantly… It left his hands free. He briefly considered the alternative. Walking.
Sometimes wandering on foot helped the mind work differently. The sights along the road, the way mana currents flowed through forests or hills, the patterns in nature, those things occasionally sparked ideas.
Maybe he would see something along the way that inspired the solution to the illusionist’s riddle. Or the breakthrough he needed for the skill book. But that was a gamble. And Ludger didn’t like gambling on things he couldn’t control. He preferred reliable progress.
So he opened his satchel and took out the materials he had packed.
Ink. Sheets of parchment. The sealed bottle of magic water. He uncorked the bottle carefully and poured a few drops into one of the small ink containers.
Then he began experimenting. Different ratios. Different mixtures. Some with only a trace of the strange liquid. Others with enough that the ink shimmered faintly under the mana lamps inside the carriage.
Each time he tested the mixture, he wrote small rune sequences across the parchment, simple structures designed to respond to mana input.
If the magic water altered the conductivity of the ink… If it changed the stability of the rune lines… If it allowed knowledge patterns to anchor into the material differently…
Then maybe…
He tested the first sheet. Nothing. The runes behaved exactly like normal ink. He adjusted the ratio. Second attempt. Still nothing. Third. Fourth. Different rune patterns. Different flow structures. Still no change.
The carriage rolled steadily along the road toward the capital while Ludger worked quietly inside.
But every test ended the same way. No reaction. No breakthrough. No sign that the magic water altered the ink in any meaningful way. After the tenth attempt, Ludger leaned back slightly and studied the page in front of him.
“…Nothing.”
That didn’t frustrate him. Experiments failing was normal. But it did confirm one thing. Simply mixing the magic water with the ink wasn’t enough.
Which meant the key probably lay in the production process itself or maybe the issue was the paper…
The ink might need to be created from scratch using the magic water. Or the rune lines needed to be structured differently. Or…
His thoughts drifted again toward the illusionist. Toward the strange tree. Toward the possibility that inspiration might appear somewhere he hadn’t considered yet. Outside, the runic carriage continued gliding along the road toward the capital. And inside, Ludger kept experimenting, quietly dismantling possibilities one failure at a time.
When Ludger finally reached the outskirts of the capital, the sun was already leaning toward the west. The runic carriage slowed as the outer districts began to thicken with traffic, merchants, carts, patrols, and the endless flow of people that surrounded a city this large.
He slipped the vehicle into one of the quieter storage spaces connected to the underground routes and sealed the runic core. The journey had taken him most of the day and part of the night before, but it was still far faster than walking the entire distance.
Now it was afternoon. And Ludger had no intention of walking through the capital in daylight. He waited.
The sewers beneath the capital were far older than the ones beneath Lionfang, narrower, rougher, with walls that had clearly been modified over centuries. Some passages smelled of old water. Others carried faint traces of mold or rust from forgotten metal fixtures.
He sat quietly on a stone crate, reviewing his notes, adjusting his equipment, and letting time pass. When the last light of day faded above the city… Only then did he move. Night covered the capital like a second skin.
Ludger slipped into motion through the tunnels, feet landing softly against the stone as he began to use the darkness properly.
This was good training. He leaned into two classes he rarely had the opportunity to sharpen. Courier. Assassin. Courier gave him efficiency, silent footwork, controlled breathing, movements that wasted almost no energy as he glided through the passages.
Assassin sharpened his instincts, angles, shadows, blind spots in patrol routes. He didn’t rush. This wasn’t a race. It was practice. Eventually he reached one of the ladder shafts that led toward the surface. Ludger climbed slowly and pushed the stone cover aside just enough to peer out. Then he stepped into the night.
The capital stretched around him in quiet streets and dim lantern light. Tall stone buildings cast long shadows across narrow alleys, and the distant murmur of the city never truly disappeared, even at night.
But something felt… Wrong. Ludger paused for a moment beside the wall of the alley where he had emerged. He listened. Watched. Felt the rhythm of the place.
He didn’t have many memories of moving through the capital at night. Most of his past visits had been during daylight or inside controlled environments, manors, senate halls, official meetings.
Still… He could tell something had changed. The patrol patterns were tighter. The guards moved in pairs instead of alone. There were more lanterns lit than he remembered. And the air carried a strange tension, like the city itself had grown cautious. Ludger’s eyes narrowed slightly.
Maybe the capital had simply become more paranoid in recent years.
Or maybe… He exhaled slowly. Maybe his perception was biased now. After all, things between him and the Regent were no longer neutral.
When someone that powerful considered you a problem, the entire city could start to feel different. Ludger melted deeper into the shadows of the alley. Whether the tension was real or imagined didn’t matter.
Either way… It meant he needed to move carefully.