Arcane Lord

Small wooden sculpture?

Shado immediately thought of the slightly mysterious small wooden sculpture. Aiwa said that the material of the wooden sculpture was a kind of tree that was very precious in the Elf Kingdom, and the figure of the wooden sculpture had an indescribable meaning.

Shado could roughly guess that the masked man wanted this thing, but Xiado had sold it a long time ago. The masked man could find out that he had taken some things with him. Didn’t he know that he had already disposed of those things?

As for the account book, this Xiado kept it, but it was obviously recorded by Old Neil himself, otherwise the masked man would have gone to Old Neil to ask for it a long time ago. How could there be a chance to fall into Xiado’s hands?

"The account book is useless to me. I have burned it!"

"How could it be?!"

The masked man was a little surprised, but he just mentioned the account book casually. It would be best if he could get it, but it would be fine if he couldn’t. There was no need to offend the people in the Mage Tower for an illusory treasure, especially those who had just received a reward.

Compared to the account book, he was more concerned about the existence of the small wooden sculpture. If it was also burned, he would be so angry that he would die.

"Where is the small wooden sculpture?" the masked man asked repeatedly.

Even though his tone was carefully concealed, Xia Duo still noticed his anxious tone, which made Xia Duo regret selling the small wooden sculpture again.

"The wooden sculpture has been sold. You have investigated me, so you must know who it was sold to!"

"Impossible! Turner said you didn't sell it in the end!" The masked man retorted subconsciously, but he quickly realized that Xia Duo had no need to lie to him. After all, if Xia Duo knew the purpose of the wooden sculpture, how could he take it out!

And once it was taken out, with his understanding of Turner, how could he not keep it!

"Damn Turner!"

The masked man cursed angrily. When he thought that Turner had embezzled the wooden sculpture, he wanted to kill Turner immediately and let him hand it over.

"Sorry, Master Xia Duo, I'm bothering you!"

After saying that, he hurried away.

Xia Duo looked at the other party's figure gradually going away. He felt that the other party might be empty-handed, which made him more curious about the purpose of the small wooden sculpture.

But he didn't, and he didn't want to think too much. After walking the last section of the stone road, Xia Duo returned to the Mage Tower.

...

The first thing Xia Duo did when he returned was to go back to the dormitory to check the two account books. Before, he just thought that they were secret accounts or evidence that was deliberately kept, so he didn't care much and just put them in the dormitory.

But the masked man put the two account books and the mysterious wood carving together to ask for them. Xia Duo immediately valued them at 500 gold coins. According to the price of the wood carving offered by Turner, a black market middleman, the actual value of these two account books may be far more than 500 gold coins.

Opening the two account books again, Xia Duo carefully examined them with the intention of treasure hunting. He was afraid of being serious about everything. This look really made Xia Duo find some clues.

The secret is not in the account book itself, but in the two pieces of paper with secret symbols sandwiched in the account book.

Overlap the two palm-sized parchments and face the candlelight. It can be seen that the secret symbols on the two parchments in front and behind are connected-

vaguely forming a map!

Xia Duo quickly took out a piece of scattered parchment, and then carefully distinguished the map from the secret text drawing while carefully copying it on another piece of paper.

It took Xia Duo more than half an hour to copy this long strip of map that was two fingers wide and one finger long, and most of the time was spent on identifying traces.

The ink marks on the secret text drawing itself were not very clear. When they were stacked together, it was a bit hard to see through the traces on the other sheet. If there was a strong light source, it might be easier.

But the room itself was soft natural light, and it was difficult to see through the parchment. Facing the swaying candlelight that occasionally dimmed suddenly, Xia Duo's eyes were sore, so he copied this small map completely.

There was a special mark on the map. If there was any treasure, it should be here.

Now there is a map and a suspected treasure point, but the question is -

Where does this map represent?

The maps of aliens naturally cannot be like those maps Xia Duo has seen on Earth, with accurate scales and relatively uniform landmark symbols.

This may be a random drawing by someone, with the scale completely based on feeling, and the landmark symbols are even more arbitrary. Unless you are really lucky and happen to encounter a familiar map, who can recognize this kind of map! At this time, Xia Duo's first reaction was to go to the library to find books related to maps to see how the locals draw maps and whether there are some conventional symbols. But he quickly dismissed this idea. This is just a suspected treasure map. Maybe it will be a trap carefully designed by Old Neil after it is finally found out. Even if it is really a treasure, how to discover, how to transport, and how to deal with it are all problems. At least now Xia Duo is unlikely to take a large treasure alone. Instead of this, it is better to study it slowly in the days to come, which can also be regarded as a pastime and entertainment after studying magic. The most urgent thing is to become a formal wizard as soon as possible. Only by becoming a formal wizard can you really change a world. The status of a formal wizard is far from that of an apprentice. Apprentices have to call formal wizards "adults" when they see them, and only formal wizards have relatively complete immunity. Under normal circumstances, it is difficult for people to kill them by using rules.

Even if a superior person wants to kill a low-level mage, as long as he doesn't die on the spot, there are many channels to get protection before or after the incident.

Whether it is to seek refuge with other lords or the Austrian and French Federation, at the worst, you can still save a small life.

For practical reasons, Netheril was not invincible externally and rich internally. On the contrary, the empire was in a period of active development and struggle against the wilderness, and any official mage was a valuable talent.

Even having an apprentice isn't actually that bad.

Just look at Xia Duo's situation and you will know that the Mage Tower is quite peaceful and stable. If you really want to retire here, it is not impossible. At least a skilled apprentice is much more useful than a novice.

Xia Duo has long understood the basic principles of 0-level magic and the shallow nature of the magic network, but he has never been able to access the deep magic network.

It would be fine if there was no solution at all, but Xia Duo clearly had a solution, but could not implement it due to various reasons, which was really worrying.

It takes time to research on your own. If you want to redeem a level 1 spell learning scroll, but the permissions are not enough, you need to complete at least one year of territory tasks to obtain the redemption permissions.

Of course, you can also use a back door or something. There may or may not be such a back door, but the price that needs to be paid is definitely not something Xia Duo can accept.

What Xia Duo believes in the most is of course the right path, and his current self-research speed has actually reached the fastest speed, because self-research requires the use of a magic laboratory, and the time he can conduct magic experiments every day is quite limited.

Outside of experiments, apart from recharging his batteries in the library, he could only communicate with people in the study group, hoping to come up with something useful and speed up his progress.