Chapter 1010: Chapter 766: The Old Guy
Long Yi simply lay down here for a little nap, since the cold of this place posed no threat to him at all, and he didn’t really care about it. He didn’t know how much time had passed when he heard the rumbling around him. The metal on both sides automatically assembled into a passageway, at the end of which was a Teleportation Gate.
Yawning, Long Yi walked into the Teleportation Gate, where Instructor Balak was waiting outside.
At this moment, Long Yi’s hair was full of frost, yet his eyes were heavy with sleep. Balak couldn’t help but frown and asked, "How did you find the journey through the Extreme Cold Labyrinth?"
"Not bad, a little uninteresting," Long Yi yawned wide.
"Mister Long Yi! Do I need to remind you of the rules here?" Balak’s tone was already filled with anger.
"No need, absolutely no need!" Long Yi waved his hand and said, "I’ve already memorized all that stuff, I can assure you I haven’t violated a single rule."
Indeed, he hadn’t done anything just now. Although he was a bit irritating, he certainly hadn’t broken any rules.
Of course, Balak knew this, he was just trying to scare Long Yi, but clearly, Long Yi was not frightened at all!
That actually left Balak without any options.
The Extreme Cold Labyrinth was the harshest punishment within his authority. In the endless cold, without using Mana to resist the chill, one must find the exit alone, struggling between hope and despair. Balak believed this because he himself had once endured it, and he was convinced that it was the same for everyone.
At that moment, the person who had entered before also emerged. He was covered in ice, his fingers frostbitten, his face tear-streaked with ice. When he saw his instructor, he crawled to him, crying and begging for forgiveness, swearing to study hard.
But that instructor was also looking at Long Yi, and in comparison, Long Yi was clearly an exception.
The once-anticipated trial of the Extreme Cold Labyrinth turned out to be rather dull for Long Yi. But following that, Instructor Balak became less strict with Long Yi. After all, Long Yi was someone who didn’t bat an eye at the Extreme Cold Labyrinth, and the punishment Balak could employ had already reached its limit. And Long Yi, having absorbed a good deal of coldness so that he attended classes with a chill for a long time, became quite a notable character.
Luckily, Long Yi decided to stop there, not planning to provoke him any further.
Compared to Long Yi, Ai Lin and her group with Silver Shine were probably the most popular. Beautiful and sexy, coupled with an innate nobility, both instructors and classmates were very fond of Ai Lin and Silver Shine. Little Zi and Xiaodie’s group was also good, the mysterious Female Demon Little Zi along with the dazed Xiaodie. Especially Xiaodie’s naturally dazed character, which made the instructors and classmates take care of her involuntarily.
And so, they studied daily, sharing their daily experiences through contracts, and Long Yi also took the opportunity to explore the structure of the Ancient Mage Tower at night. About a month later, the pre-school education officially ended. All the trainees were gathered in a spacious room. Here, all trainees would undergo assessment, and those who passed would officially become a member of the Ancient Mage Tower.
A group of old Mages came out, today they were the ones to select and assess the students, and the trainees were going to sign up with the old Mages according to their strengths.
Long Yi, Ai Lin, Little Zi, Silver Shine, and Xiaodie immediately gathered together.
The assessment had various forms, with different old Mages presenting different problems for the trainees to solve. Anyone who could solve the problem would qualify.
Some Mages had a lot of people around them, basically those involved with research. Some had fewer around them, generally those into crafting or combat. Long Yi noticed that the numbers on the back of these Mages’ hands went as high as "nine."
"What should we choose, Brother Long?" Ai Lin asked softly.
"Don’t know, I just feel these old Mages all look a bit dull." As Long Yi was speaking, his eyes caught a familiar face.
"Which old Mage? Remember the nineteenth-tier person I mentioned before?"
"Is that him?"
"Yes! That’s him!"
Long Yi walked over.
"Old guy, why are you here? Didn’t you say you weren’t recruiting anymore?" Long Yi said with a smile. He and this old Mage already had a good relationship, always calling each other ’old guy’ and ’young fellow.’
"I just wanted to see if you were here. I want you to come with me!" said the old Mage.
"Sure, my friends and I haven’t decided yet either, so we’ll join you!" said Long Yi.
"Them?" The old Mage looked up and down, then shook his head, "No, no, their waists are too thin; definitely not enough strength. Although my place always uses Golems to work, if you can’t farm yourself, it’s no good!"
"Speaking of strength, I’m really not lacking." Ai Lin laughed, stretching out her hand. The old man looked skeptical, grabbed Ai Lin’s hand, and suddenly tried to wrest it away but failed to budge it!
"Huh? This girl has got some strength!" The old man released her hand, his face showing surprise. But then he shook his head again, "It’s a pity, I only have one open spot."
Speaking of which, the old man pointed to the back of his hand, where an additional light spot had appeared on the strange symbol, representing the number of people he could recruit. This number was officially set by the Ancient Mage Tower, and no one could change it.
"This..." Long Yi was somewhat troubled, he genuinely liked the old man’s personality, but he really did not want to separate from Ai Lin and the others.
"No worries, you can go wherever you want. I’m used to being alone, and it would be even better if you have the chance to visit me in the future!" The old man laughed heartily, then turned around and left.
Watching the old man’s departing figure, Long Yi suddenly paused, then whispered to Ai Lin, "Did you notice just now?"
Ai Lin also nodded at this time, "Yes, I noticed too."
"What?" Xiaodie asked, confused.
"The fluctuations of the Crazy Demons." Little Zi said indifferently.
"I will follow him; you four see if you can enter the same place, that way you can look out for each other," Long Yi said.
The girls nodded. Having already promised to help Yavenny, they could no longer treat this like a leisurely tour.
Thanks to their vast knowledge, Ai Lin and the Silver Light almost made a one-in-a-hundred entrance into the Magic Development Institute. Soon after, Little Zi was also selected for the Magic Development Institute. Although Xiaodie seemed absent-minded, her ability to learn knowledge was strong, and ultimately, she too entered the Magic Development Institute.
Meanwhile, Long Yi pursued them.
"Hey! Old man, are you just going to run off like that?"
Long Yi caught up from behind, and upon seeing Long Yi actually follow him, the old man snarled with bared teeth, "Why are you chasing after me instead of keeping your little girls company?"
Long Yi, however, smiled, "They can take care of themselves. Me, I’m just soft-hearted; the sight of your weathered figure was just too much for me, so I couldn’t help but chase after you."
The old man immediately became furious, "Are you pitying me?"
Long Yi promptly nodded vigorously, "Yeah, it’s pretty obvious, isn’t it? You should gratefully accept my sympathy, and then hand over whatever treasures and secrets you’ve got!"
Long Yi stretched out his hand grandly, and the old man slapped it hard. Long Yi’s mark on the back of his hand immediately distorted, adding a ring that resembled ears of wheat.
"Alright, since you’re here, don’t run away. Come and farm with me! Hahaha!"
The old man and Long Yi had recently spent a lot of time talking nonsense together, so they understood each other’s temperaments well, resulting in no further ado, and Long Yi promptly became a glorified farmer.
If there was anything different about this change from before, it used to be that Long Yi had to sneak around to find him, but now he could proudly breathe the freshest air right here.
The daily tasks here were simple: ensuring the golems had no issues and replacing some parts. When it was time to harvest, some machinery needed to be manually operated, and that was about it, so Long Yi had a lot of free time every day. The old man told Long Yi that because he had so much downtime, he could walk around and explore when he wasn’t busy. Now that his level had risen to the second tier, there were many places he could go.
Compared to him, Ai Lin and the others had become much busier. Due to their extensive knowledge, Ai Lin, Silver Light, Little Zi, and Xiaodie were heavily relied upon by their mentors and quickly became part of a core research team. Their free time dramatically reduced, but they also began to get in touch with some secrets.
And so, another month passed. Long Yi had visited all the places he could and made some friends, but he had not found any leads on the God Chasers. Of course, it’s not like someone would just randomly shout out, "I’m a God Chaser," right?
Ai Lin sent messages every day; recently, they had started working on a new research project. The project only had bits of magic, and they were tasked to complete it. This project had been stuck for a long time, and including Ai Lin’s group, there were four teams working on this magic fragment. When Ai Lin sent the fragment to Long Yi, he almost immediately recognized it as a Demon Tribe magic, a technique used by the Crystal Demons.
This magic, once completed, should be able to extract energy from crystals. It was a simple spell for Long Yi, who had a deep understanding of Crystal Demon magic thanks to his relationship with Belle. But what would be the outcome of completing this spell?
Long Yi thought carefully, first sending the completed spell to Ai Lin, and then asked Ai Lin to find a way to make some modifications. It seemed as though it was completed, but it did not achieve the intended effect. Long Yi believed that if they really needed to research this, they would surely involve Ai Lin and her team further.
And sure enough, that’s what happened!
When Ai Lin submitted the altered result, her team was quickly promoted again and assigned a new task. The next task was still to complete a fragment of a spell, which also originated from the Demon Tribe.
It was around this time that Long Yi noticed that ’the old geezer’ seemed to have more pep in his step lately. Upon inquiring, the old man told him there had been new progress in the research on Life Crystals. Not only could the crystals provide life energy, but they could also supply mana! Naturally, this delighted him.
"By the way, you still haven’t told me your name!" Long Yi suddenly remembered he always called him the old geezer, but he had no idea what his actual name was.
"Me? Just calling me the old geezer is enough!" said the old man with a smile.
"Alright, old geezer."(To be continued. If you like this work, you are welcome to vote for it on QiDian (qidian.com). Your support is my greatest motivation. Mobile users, please visit m.qidian.com to read.)
