Chapter 289

I couldn’t help but feel nostalgic as I walked through. Even with all the changes, it was just like the past. Once again, I was disguised as a servant, walking around, desperate to hide my true identity.

The only difference was the nature of the threat. In the past, I was afraid that anyone could take me down ... but now, it was different. I just needed to avoid the attention of the Eternals.

As I walked around, I took note of the changes. Amusingly, more than half of the teachers stayed, showing that they had no problems with the new management. Even more interestingly, the guilds were also here ... and they were acting far more arrogantly.

Enough to actually insult the teachers.

A rather interesting change.

However, the classes also changed, paying even lesser attention to the content of the classes, making Silver Spires even more useless ... and even the levels of the students were much lower.

“I wonder why they didn’t just close it down,” I murmured. Maybe it was a trap ... not for me, obviously, as they had no idea about my survival, but the girls. Considering they were wanted, it made sense.

Unfortunately, poking around the locations that could be accessed by servants didn’t give me any clue about their destination. I needed to be more adventurous.

First, I visited the ruins of the headmistress’ tower, trying to find any hint of a ward, a hidden clue, maybe a Divine Spark ... but nothing stayed other than a bunch of rock. Whatever destroyed it did so with a rather intense display of anger, and if anything survived, I wasn’t able to pick through my magical probes — limited to avoid distracting the wards that surrounded the area.

Naturally, there was no hint of Divine Spark, which was not a shocking surprise. Without the darkness ward to protect it, the System would have long devoured it.

I needed to cast more aggressive detection wards ... but I was having trouble doing so, afraid of getting caught. Especially since my mana signature was slightly different than the one that the System provided.

I didn’t know if they had the ability to catch, but either way, I didn’t want to go around throwing epic spells.

Maybe I could tap into a different source instead, I decided.

Then, as I passed near a warding class, where an incompetent teacher teaching an even more incompetent batch of students, I had an idea. Do I need to be the one to cast the spell?

Sneaking into the class while staying hidden under a shadow was trivial with my stats, and a blanket of illusion ensured it would stay that way.Cheêck out latest novels at novelhall.com

I didn’t have to wait long for an opportunity. The incompetent teacher was building an unnecessarily complicated ward that would waste a lot of mana, so I stretched a tendril of mine, connecting to his soul space to pilfer a good amount of mana in the process.

Watching the ward stutter and die was a particular kind of fun.

Though, I didn’t pull back ... because I had realized he also had a water magic skill. Just an advanced one, but I wondered if I could use it for my benefit. I pushed some of the mana I acquired from him ... and from the other side, I received some freshly converted elemental mana.

Just what I needed, I thought with a huge smirk, and decided to extend that trick to the rest of the class; their attempted wards failing just as easily.

Not that I cared, but when I discovered another student having earth magic ... so, I channeled the mana I stole through his skill as well.

{+1200 Mana}

Soon, I gathered enough mana to create a beautiful cloak around me, and used it to slip through the initial darkness ward. For all its amazing qualities of maintaining concealment, Darkness mana wasn’t a good material to make wards. Once discovered, bypassing them was trivial.

Oh, whoever built it was smart enough to realize that fact and built a secondary layer under the first, but whoever built it wasn’t exactly competent. High-leveled, but not competent.

“Probably the princess,” I murmured as I assessed the evidence. That made sense, as she had access to the darkness ward, and if necessary, high-level skills, and the combination would allow her to dig down.

But, I could also deduce that it was not for her own residence. They had already bonded with Darkness Spark, and unless things had changed radically, she wouldn’t be able to use the Sparks she had been stealing from the school.

With that in mind, I continued traveling down, bypassing the ward layers, taking note of the details.

Then, I arrived at the center of the wards, and I came across a familiar sight. Two familiar sights, even.

The first, and the less important, part was the crystal platform that the headmistress was using to suppress her divine spark continuously. However, not without some changes, as half of the supporting pillars were gone while the platform itself showed signs of damage as well.

All of those were just details compared to the more important aspect.

Helga was at the center of the platform, naked and frozen...

{Strength: 45 Charisma: 45

Precision: 45 Perception: 45

Agility: 45 Manipulation: 45

Speed: 45 Intelligence: 45

Endurance: 60 Wisdom: 45}

{Purified Divine Spark: 32920}

{Pseudo-HP: 1103 Mana: 2410}

{ADDITIONAL SPARKS

Light - Chosen 7.4

Nature - Chosen 10}

{MINIONS

GODDESSES

Elven Goddess}