Mage Manual
Chapter 440 - 367: Number One on the "Family Ranking" - Harvey! (Thanks to the alliance leader ’Book Friend’ for the additional - )

Chapter 440: Chapter 367: Number One on the "Family Ranking" - Harvey! (Thanks to the alliance leader ’Book Friend’ for the additional Chapter)

Liss and Hanna only felt a gust of wind pass by, and then they saw Ash rushing over to cover Harvey’s mouth.

"This kid Harvey just loves to spout nonsense. Let me help everyone out by shutting his mouth..." Ash swiftly changed the subject, "All in all, the prophecy list must be wrong. It’s bad enough that I’m involved with Senheiser, but why am I also entangled with so many other families?"

"Exactly."

Igula also came to Ash’s aid, "The Senheiser family is related to us, and we have a feud with the Aldo family. But we haven’t even heard of the other families. Why would Gospel associate them with Ash?"

Hanna sighed deeply, pulling Liss into her arms and rubbing her white cat head, her face full of irritability, "Don’t ask me, I don’t know either... The only thing I do know is that apart from the Aldo family, all the other families are famous in the Kingdom of Gospel—wealthy families, Red Hat families, political families! Even if they’re not as big as Senheiser, their influence is no less!"

"Compared to the accusation of ’suspected apocalypse architect’ in the ’Art List,’ the impact of this ’Family List’ will be even more damaging—after all, ’creating the apocalypse’ is like cursing at a large crowd. People might wait for someone else to refute, won’t bother to argue with you; but this time, Ash, you’ve explicitly turned all these elite families into your Undead Army. As long as they want to avoid such a fate, they will definitely try to crush you!"

"It’s not me; it’s the future me," Ash defended, "You can’t pin things I haven’t done onto me."

"Sorry, that’s the cultural tradition of the Kingdom of Gospel. If you’re unhappy, please get out," Hanna said irritably.

Actually, Hanna knew it had nothing to do with Ash, after all, Ash had been with her in the Dreamland Amusement Park these past few days, but she really couldn’t contain her anger.

Hanna had actually anticipated that they would become targets once the second list came out. After all, ’deceiving Gospel’ or ’predicting the list’ would attract countless attentions, but she didn’t expect the mockery to be so intense—it had offended all the well-known wealthy families in the country!

Thinking about facing a barrage of arrows in the future, Hanna couldn’t help but feel a headache coming on.

Her already tightrope-walking adventure plan would have to be revised. If it was tightrope walking before, what came next would be like doing push-ups on fingertip while walking the tightrope—booking several coffins in advance from Harvey might be a good idea.

And the person who had caused this situation was that detestable man!

Liss, whose head was being furiously scrubbed by Hanna, felt utterly wilted, as if she was suffering in place of her father.

But Liss, who could vaguely sense others’ emotions, felt something odd. She realized Hanna wasn’t all that angry with Ash. In fact, their relationship seemed to have grown quite close. Hanna played and teased Ash very naturally, which was almost on the same level of interaction as Auntie Bokin.

And the point of Hanna’s anger seemed to be focused on why Ash was associated with Qinna and the others...

Aunt Hanna... No, could it be that Aunt Hanna wanted...

"Speaking of which." Banjee suddenly said, "The man who appeared in the visual materials with Ash..."

Everyone immediately fell silent and turned to look at the man most suspected here, even Ash was no exception.

"Impossible, it’s not me."

Unexpectedly, Harvey pulled away Ash’s hand and shook his head calmly, "I could never do such a thing."

"But don’t you like the Necromancy Faction?" Ash asked.

"I’m willing to dedicate my life’s work to the Necromancy Faction, but that doesn’t mean I would turn living people into the undead," Harvey frowned as if he was genuinely getting angry, "Do you really think Necromancy Faction is just about anti-social magic for killing?"

Everyone glanced at each other, trying to find a differing opinion in someone else’s eyes.

Harvey actually didn’t mind being misunderstood by others, but at this moment, he felt compelled to clarify, "The Necromancy Faction is not about creating death but rather utilizing death, complying with death, and ultimately conquering death."

"To me, living beings and the undead are equally important, with an insurmountable boundary between the two. Creatures struggle to survive until their last second, and in the end, they become corpses that are an imprint of their life experiences. This is the natural gift that necromancers cherish the most."

"Although I have a strong distaste for the Blood Saint Clan’s research facilities, it’s only because they monopolize the supply of corpses. Personally, I quite admire and respect the research facility model—they do not interfere with the living, they watch life being born, they watch life grow, they watch life burn brightly, and they watch life pass away. Then they take what remains of life, the ashes."

"This is the authentic practice of a necromancer. Only the bodies obtained in this manner are the best material."

"But transforming the living into the undead is equivalent to cutting a person’s life in half, prematurely ending the splendor of their existence and destroying all the possibilities of that life... That is the behavior I loathe the most, worse than just killing the person outright."

"All Magic Factions exist to help people live better lives, and the Necromancy Faction is no exception. The dead should serve the living, not the other way around."

Harvey said, "I respect life, including my own and those of people I don’t know. I will gladly plan my own death and that of others, but I would never desecrate my own life or that of someone else."

Although it sounded somewhat elusive and difficult to grasp fully, as mages, everyone understood what Harvey meant.

Mages don’t just learn knowledge from their respective Magic Factions; they also shape their worldview, life philosophy, and values.

Just as Igula believes manipulating rules is an essential skill in a civilized society, Harvey also believes that only by utilizing corpses can one strive towards a good life.

Mages will try to interpret the world and deconstruct their surroundings with their own systems of knowledge. Even though Harvey might do many ruthless things with corpses, it doesn’t mean he is without boundaries regarding other lives—quite the opposite, in fact. During his years as a ’control master,’ what he sought was a method of killing that was both efficient and silent.

His biggest distinction from ordinary people lies in his clear separation of life and corpses. Life is life and should be respected; corpses are merely material. This is something ordinary people find hard to do, but it is precisely because of this awareness that Harvey has been able to advance the Necromancy Faction to the Gold Level.

Therefore, Harvey’s words were sincere; he truly didn’t believe he would do such a thing.

Asking him to transform the living into the undead was like asking Igula to become completely selfless and considerate of others—simply a fairy tale level of dark corruption.

At this moment, the "Family Rankings" were finally ready to announce the night’s luckiest winner.

Ash sighed, "Let’s see which major family I’m going to offend this time—"

’Family Rankings First Place: Corpse King of Blood Moon Clan · Harvey’

’Corpse King of Blood Moon Clan: Archibald Harvey has created the fiercest breed of undead soldiers by fusing a massive number of living beings and integrating elements from the Blood Saint Clan and the Moon Shadow Clan within them. Each Corpse King of Blood Moon contains thousands of tormented souls, commonly possessing basic traits such as [Bloodthirsty Aura], [Hungry Wolf Giant Zombie Transformation], [Immortality], [Tombstone Soul Lock], and [Immunity to Miracle Weaving].’

’Head of the Clan: Archibald Harvey’

Ash looked at Harvey and blinked, while everyone else also turned their gaze towards Harvey.

What happened to your absolute respect for life? The Gospel doesn’t seem to believe you.

After a moment of contemplation, Harvey suddenly stepped a few paces away from Ash.

"What, are you afraid I’ll hit you?"

"I’m afraid that the Gospel might strike you with lightning later and I’ll be collateral damage," Harvey pointed at the Gospel Book and said, "You see, this is what happens when you get close to you. Even I’ve been wronged by the Gospel."