Chapter 270

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Chapter 270

Sylas had already started preparing breakfast. She dug out a smooth stone from the fire pit, washed it, and used the cooking technique that Archmage showed her yesterday to fry two eggs. She placed them on top of the pancakes and beans with tomato sauce, then handed the plate to Xerath.

Xerath ate silently for a while and asked, "You got up on your own?"

"Yes."

"And you didn’t let me know?"

"I haven’t started keeping score with you for not calling me to wake up."

"Keeping score? My actions were completely justified. It was revenge for your behavior last night, breaking our agreement to stand guard." Xerath put down the pancake in her hand and stared at Sylas seriously.

"Even though I didn’t keep my promise, it doesn’t mean you can break the promise without punishment."

Xerath couldn’t help but smile and said, "Okay, how are you going to punish me?"

After some unreasonable arguments, Sylas didn’t know how to respond. She looked at Xerath smiling at her like she was watching a joke. Her face turned red and suddenly she spoke loudly, "Then you’re not allowed to come out. Today, I will drive the car!"

Xerath seemed confident as she washed her face and rinsed her mouth with a magically appearing water ball. She said, "Mordant is a border town, which means there are many forks nearby. Are you sure you know the way? What if we get lost? It seems like we don’t have any food left."

Her fiery spirit was extinguished. The old magician packed up and put the clothes back on her. He climbed into the driver’s seat and leaned out half his body, asking her, "Are you going back to sleep or sitting here with me?"

Sylas quickly climbed up and sat down. Earth Child was already ready to push the cart. The cart drove onto the main road, and Sylas couldn’t help but ask, "When was the last time you came to Mordant?"

"Probably… when you were about your age." The old magician made a thoughtful expression but winked at her and said, "Virgil and I took a high-paying escort mission. We encountered robbers nearby, and we defeated them, of course. Virgil stripped them of their equipment and sold it for a lot of money, much more than what we earned from the mission."

"An escort mission… how much money approximately?"

Xerath sighed suddenly and said, "Actually, it’s very little. The money I earned, you couldn’t even afford."

"Am I still me now or am I the me from back then?"

Xerath glanced at her and said with a smile, "Back then."

"That’s really rare," Sylas earnestly agreed.

"That was over twenty years ago. Mordant had many skilled dwarf craftsmen and their handmade equipment was excellent. Virgil used the money to buy a lot of weapons to sell back home, so we made a big profit. Before that, both of us were poor students who couldn’t even afford a teleportation array."

Sylas looked at her and found it hard to associate Xerath with the word "poor."

Xerath leaned back in her chair, holding her chin, and smiled, "My family isn’t poor. They give me a lot of money. In fact, the money my teachers spent on me as an apprentice far exceeded my tuition fees, not to mention I also received a scholarship. But I know if I didn’t have money, my mother would never let it go. Okay, stop asking. Take the next left at the intersection. Are you tired?"

"No, not tired." She wanted to push her luck and say, "I won’t get tired as long as you keep talking to me," but the words lingered on the tip of her tongue before she swallowed them back.

The grandeur of Mordant is reflected in its expansive breadth. From this mountain pass, the city could be seen from the middle of the mountainside, and the first thing that caught the eye was the well-connected roads outside the city.

The road they were walking on could be considered one of them. The entire road was paved with gravel to accommodate heavier horse-drawn carriages or ox carts. It extended from their wagon tracks and met with more intersections outside Mordant. Xerath pointed to those roads and said, "This road leads to the seaside village of Thugendael. This one leads to the autonomous domain of Maramala. The other two lead to two dwarf tribes, the Walcam of the Black Hammer clan, and the Penglind of the Redbeard clan. Those are the names of the two mountains. There are several mines between Thugendael and Mordant, producing copper, iron, tin, and some minerals that I don’t even know."

"How do you know? Do you remember so clearly?"

Xerath smiled and said, "Did you notice the different colors of the stones on the ground? They are markers for different paths." Sylas smiled back, sensing a hint of pride in Xerath’s smile. Suddenly, she understood, "Could it be the colors of different minerals?"

The whole town of Mordant was originally just a border market, but it gradually grew with some city buildings. The entire city was chaotic, as if you could hear the noise of hammers and air blowers everywhere, and even the air was filled with the smell of coal dust. Their height was considered tall here, but not really tall. They walked on the streets surrounded by dwarfs of different skin colors, as well as humans and many other humanoid beings much taller than ordinary humans, such as the laboring dragonkin (a large lizard-like creature with lower intelligence) and even orcs with golden eyes.

Sylas looked around and felt that their Earth Child carriage stood out among the crowd, but it seemed that everyone around was oblivious to it. Occasionally, she could hear someone complimenting, "Nice carriage."

After entering the city, Xerath took control of the Earth Child. Now, they were walking into a relatively quiet neighborhood, and the carriage entered a courtyard. The archmage jumped off the carriage, which was moving slowly, and Sylas quickly followed suit. A wealthy old wizard had booked a suite, and after the two water lords put down their luggage, Xerath pulled Sylas towards the library diagonally across the street.

While walking, Xerath said to her, "Put away Leunen."

"Why?"

"Water lords attract too much attention. There aren’t many wizards here originally."

"Really?" Sylas couldn’t help but look around. Sure enough, people on the street were sneakily glancing at the chubby blue creature behind her, only to quickly look away when their gazes met.

"Yes, let’s go." She gently pushed Sylas from behind, taking advantage of the opportunity silently, and led her into the lower corridor of the library, then up to the second floor reading room.

Since they didn’t need a library card to borrow books, Xerath seemed familiar with the place and quickly found the index room. She searched for books on alchemy under the "T" section, but after going through the entire shelf, she strangely exclaimed, "None?"

She switched to another box labeled "H," but still found nothing.

"What are you looking for? You should tell me," she said.

Xerath said seriously, "I have to see it with my own eyes to be sure."

It was a vague statement, but Sylas seemed to understand a bit and cautiously asked, "Are you saying… you also don’t remember the name?"

Xerath’s face showed a bit of embarrassment. "Well… strictly speaking, it’s not that I don’t remember at all."

So the two of them went through mountains and rivers and even bought a carriage, sleeping outdoors for two days, all just to find a book they weren’t sure existed and couldn’t even remember the name of? This hardly seemed like Xerath’s style.

Seeing the doubt on her face, the old magician tried to calm her down. "Don’t worry, I can search nearby bookshelves without relying on the index."

"Hmm… Don’t worry too much. Since you remember, it must be here. Maybe the indexing here is not good, so you couldn’t find it in the index box. And, let’s also check if there are any related ones. Look for it under the alchemy section. Alchemy shouldn’t have only one book, right?"

Even if Xerath is slow, she can still hear her pet comforting her. She thought with a mix of amusement and frustration, "I’m not so old that I need my apprentice to cover for me."

Biting her lip and hands tucked in her pockets, she briskly walked out of the index room. It took her a while to find the cabinet labeled "Alchemy." Unfortunately, even in a city known for blacksmithing, there weren’t many books on alchemy. There was only this one shelf. Sylas glanced briefly and noticed that all the other entries were unrelated.

Generally, people believe that writing books and collecting books are official duties, especially for the Mage Guild. Craftsmen only pass on their knowledge through oral tradition. They don’t really care about how or why those things came to be. Therefore, they don’t really have the desire to write about them.

Xerath began reading from the top shelf, her brow furrowing as she seemed to contemplate something. Even Sylas noticed that something was off. It was all too messy here. Each level wasn’t filled to capacity, and the books weren’t fixed, but instead leaned against each other haphazardly. Some books labeled "TU" were even mixed in. It was clear that the administrators hadn’t put much effort into organizing this place.

Unable to resist, Sylas asked, "Teacher, do people really come here often?" When they entered earlier, the librarian at the entrance was dozing off, and there were spiderwebs on the top shelf. However, they did see quite a few people in the nearby library. They didn’t know what category of books were there.

Xerath shrugged, not really concerned about whether people were here or not. Instead, she asked, "These books here are strange…"

"Yeah, they’re quite messy."

Xerath slowly shook her head, leaning against the window. She gazed thoughtfully outside, where the window overlooked a clean and beautiful courtyard. The gardener was a dark-skinned dwarf made of black iron, watering a potted plant.

"I seem to remember that it’s not in this place." She stretched out both hands and gestured side by side, "not in this place."

Memories are made up of a series of very complicated images. Among old-fashioned researchers, there is a memory method called the "memory palace." It connects everything with spatial positions and images. So, as long as you pretend to stroll through your "memory palace," you can remember everything you need to remember.

This is the principle of memory. Although Xerath clearly didn’t pay attention to memorize this book, which might be something she used to pass the time, spatial positions and locations still left a deep impression in her memory.