Chapter 74: Struck It Rich 1

“Hold on. Didn’t Daphne say you were only a few thousand years old? How come you’re suddenly saying you’re over ten thousand?”

Kent walked up beside Keta.

Contrary to what Keta had expected, there was no sarcasm or hostility in Kent’s voice. He simply sounded curious.

“That girl was talking about my age after my awakening,” Keta hurriedly explained. “Actually, when you used light-element magic just now, I had no idea that I would undergo a second awakening—or evolution, as you might call it. So I truly wasn’t trying to deceive you.”

Keta was quick to make himself clear.

After all, mages were becoming increasingly rare in the subterranean world, and the chances of a light-element mage awakening in such a dark environment were even lower.

In truth, a mage’s awakening was closely connected to the environment.

Water-element mages were far more common near the sea. Fire-element mages appeared more frequently around volcanoes and deserts.

But for someone to awaken an affinity for light magic deep underground, where darkness prevailed year-round?

The odds were extraordinarily small.

And even if someone possessed an innate affinity for the light element, it would still be useless without the proper magical incantations.

It was rather like handing a missile to an ordinary person back on Earth and telling him to launch it. Without knowing how the thing worked, he might very well blow himself up instead.

“Fine. We’ll settle the accounts properly when the time comes,” Kent said. “You know how enormous the expenses of an alchemist can be.”

In truth, Kent had already thought the matter through.

No matter where one found oneself, there was one rule that seemed to remain unchanged:

it always helped to have someone powerful backing you.

That was true in official circles.

It was true in the workplace.

And it was certainly true in a world like this.

Within the subterranean realm, Keta clearly stood somewhere near the very top of the hierarchy. If Kent maintained a good relationship with someone like him, his safety and freedom down here would be far more secure.

But that did not mean Kent intended to give up the chance to extract a few benefits.

After all, there was another possibility he could not ignore.

If Keta revealed everything about him to the dark elves, Kent might very well find himself placed under some form of confinement. At that point, they could simply order him to do whatever they wanted.

And this world was filled with all manner of strange and mysterious methods.

Kent could not guarantee that he would not somehow be turned into a puppet capable of doing nothing but casting light-element magic for them.

His understanding of magic was still far too shallow for him to dismiss such a possibility.

So if that was the case...

why not make sure he gained something from the situation first?

“Fine. Whatever you say.”

Keta visibly relaxed.

“There’s a shortage of almost everything underground, but materials useful to alchemists are one thing we certainly don’t lack.”

Privately, Keta sighed.

Humans really are greedy after all.

Still, greed itself did not bother him.

A greedy man could be dealt with, as long as he kept his word.

Besides, for the treant race, many of the things humans considered precious were not particularly valuable at all.

Metals, for instance, were something treants actively disliked.

“Stop!”

A thunderous shout suddenly came from behind them.

“Stop right there! All of you!”

Kent had been in an excellent mood, silently calculating just how far he might be able to push Keta before reaching the old treant’s limit.

The sudden shout interrupted his thoughts.

He turned around.

A fiery-red figure was racing toward them at astonishing speed.

In the blink of an eye, Kent was able to make out the newcomer clearly.

It was another knight.

The man wore a suit of silver-white armor covered from top to bottom in intricate magical formations.

Across his back rested a glittering golden two-handed greatsword.

Yet it differed slightly from an ordinary greatsword. The blade was longer and more slender, giving it a strangely elegant appearance despite its enormous size.

Set into the hilt was a fire-element magic core nearly the size of a fist.

Powerful waves of magical energy radiated from the weapon.

One glance was enough for Kent to tell that it was an advanced piece of alchemical equipment.

But what truly caught his attention was the knight’s mount.

It was an exceptionally rare magical beast—

a Blazing Steed.

These creatures were said to live within magma itself.

At first glance, they closely resembled ordinary horses, but unlike horses, a Blazing Steed possessed a pair of sharp horns protruding from its head.

It was a high-ranking magical beast.

According to the records Kent had read, the strongest members of the species could even reach the level of a Sacred Beast.

A Sacred Beast was a magical beast that had reached Level Ten.

Unfortunately, records of Blazing Steeds on the surface were exceedingly scarce. Most books mentioned them only in a few brief lines.

It was said that ever since the great war between gods and demons, no one had seen one of these powerful magical beasts again.

And yet now, one was charging straight toward Kent.

“Damn it... if only all that stuff were mine.”

Kent stared at the knight in front of him, his eyes practically glowing.

The man’s armor contained an astonishing amount of rare magical metal—magic silver, mithril, and several embedded magical gemstones.

And that dazzling golden greatsword...

Kent could tell at a glance that refined adamantine had been mixed into the blade.

Even the smallest amount of such a metal could increase a weapon’s hardness severalfold. Yet that was not even the most valuable part.

The fist-sized magic core set into the hilt looked almost identical to something Kent had only ever read about in legends.

A dragon’s magic core.

Kent’s mind immediately began converting everything he saw into gold coins.

How much would the armor be worth?

The sword?

The gemstones?

The magic core?

By the time he had finished estimating the value of the knight’s equipment, Kent was almost drooling.

The armor and greatsword were certainly the most eye-catching pieces, but they were hardly the only treasures on the man.

His boots carried a clear trace of wind-element magic. They had probably been made from the hide of some wind-element magical beast.

And set into the top of his helmet was a green gemstone about the size of a little finger.

If Kent’s magical senses were not mistaken, it was a Life Stone.

A treasure capable of granting immunity to negative magic and curses.

“Were you the ones who killed my men?”

The knight circled Kent, Keta, and Daphne once on his mount, then barked arrogantly,

“Do you have any idea who I am?”

Kent barely heard him.

His attention had already shifted to the Blazing Steed.

Its eyes were brown.

That meant it was still immature.

According to the records, the eyes of a fully grown Blazing Steed were as red and brilliant as rubies.

Keta, however, was far less interested in the mount.

His expression darkened.

“This is Muan City,” he replied coldly. “Dark-elven territory. You are not welcome here.”

In Keta’s eyes, the knight before him was little more than rubbish.

Treants, however, were naturally mild-tempered, so he did not attack immediately. His tone merely became noticeably less friendly.

“How dare you!”

The knight lifted the visor of his helmet and demanded arrogantly,

“Do you know who I am?”

Kent finally understood.

So this fellow had come looking for trouble.

He wiped the drool from the corner of his mouth, glanced once more over the knight’s expensive equipment, and suddenly rolled his eyes.

Then he began walking around the man.

Three circles to the left.

Three circles to the right.

Finally, Kent stopped, nodded solemnly, and put on an expression of sudden enlightenment.

“I know!”

The knight instinctively puffed out his chest.

Kent looked him straight in the eye.

“You’re a human being. Am I right?”

“You... you...!”

The knight’s face instantly turned crimson.

“I’ll kill you!”

He had seen Kent examining him so carefully and had assumed the young man had finally recognized his identity.

He had never imagined that this would be the answer.

Of course he was human!

“Wait... are you saying you’re not human?”

Kent asked with genuine-looking confusion.

The more furious the knight became, the calmer Kent appeared.

With an old monster like Keta standing beside him, Kent did not believe for a moment that the treant would simply stand by and allow someone to hurt him.

So naturally, Kent felt free to make trouble.

Daphne could no longer hold herself back.

“Pfft!”

She burst out laughing.

“You lowborn bastard!”

The knight became even more furious after hearing Daphne laugh.

“Watch how I, Hank, deal with you!”

With an enraged shout, Hank charged toward Kent.

Strangely enough, however, he did not draw the massive two-handed greatsword from his back.

Instead, a slender blade suddenly appeared in his hand from nowhere.

It was a one-handed rapier.

Kent’s eyes immediately lit up.

There was only one explanation.

A spatial ring.

The rapier had appeared out of thin air, and Kent had clearly sensed a faint ripple of spatial magic at the same instant.

Now, when Kent looked at Hank, he no longer saw a knight.

He saw a mountain of gold.

“Bang!”

Before Hank could reach him, Keta moved.

“This place does not welcome you, human.”

With a casual sweep of his hand, a streak of green light shot forward.

It struck Hank and his mount head-on.

Both knight and Blazing Steed were blasted more than twenty meters through the air before crashing heavily to the ground with a thunderous impact.

“How dare you!”

“You damned—”

Two furious shouts rang out almost at the same time.

In the next instant, two figures wreathed in silver-white battle aura shot toward the place where Hank had fallen.

They reached him in a flash, pulled him back to his feet, and immediately gripped the greatswords in their hands.

Then both men turned toward Keta and shouted angrily at him.

Before long, another squad of knights appeared behind them.

At first glance, they looked almost identical to the group Kent had killed earlier.

There was one obvious difference, however.

Their armor was silver-white rather than black.

And these knights were clearly much stronger.

In the subterranean world, wearing bright silver armor was practically the same as announcing one’s position to every enemy in the darkness.

Anyone foolish enough to do that without considerable strength would have died long ago.

These men, therefore, were obviously no ordinary soldiers.

What caught Kent’s attention even more were the weapons in their hands.

Crossbows.

And judging from the magical fluctuations coming from them, these were no ordinary crossbows.

They were magic crossbows.

Fortunately, there were only a few of them.

The moment Kent recognized what they were, however, he immediately slipped behind Keta without the slightest hesitation.

He knew exactly how dangerous those weapons were.

Magic crossbows were relics from the era of the War of Gods and Demons.

On the surface, the knowledge required to make them had long since been lost.

Their effective range could reach several thousand meters.

And to a mage, they were one of the deadliest weapons imaginable.

A true mage-killer.