Super Righteous Player
Chapter 1016 - 74: The Cicadas Have Arrived

Chapter 1016: Chapter 74: The Cicadas Have Arrived

"——Annan!"

As soon as Salvatore entered the Heath Tower of Black, even before he saw Annan, he called out in an excited voice, "Where are you——"

His abrupt shout even startled the passing students.

A young apprentice couple that happened to be passing by looked at Salvatore with faces full of surprise.

They quickly recognized Salvatore.

"Mentor Salvatore..."

"Good day, Mentor..."

Two apprentices even younger than Annan timidly bowed slightly and greeted Salvatore.

"Ah, hello," Salvatore said, lowering his head with no pretense and showing a kind smile, directly addressing them by name: "Enoch and Nanali, Hornheim misses you too... but he still has assignments to do and can’t come back for the time being.

"What are you two up to, going for a walk in the back courtyard?"

"...Um, we’ve just finished lunch and were planning to find a place to walk and chat."

The girl who was called "Nanali" whispered, "Because Enoch has a roommate who is taking a nap, we were worried that chatting in the dormitory would wake him... so we came out for a walk."

"That’s good, getting some sun is good for your health."

With that, Salvatore flashed a mischievous smile, stretching out his hand and playfully reaching towards their heads.

The two kids instinctively tried to dodge backward, their faces showing signs of alarm.

But their reaction was still a half beat too slow, and Salvatore caught their hair in his hands. He then ruffled their hair into a mess with glee before laughing heartily as he walked off with his hands clasped behind his back and his head held high.

All that was left were the two young apprentices looking resentfully at the back of Salvatore.

Salvatore walked directly into the "elevator."

Although he had no idea where his destination was and didn’t know which floor Annan was on, it actually didn’t matter.

When he entered the Black Tower, the "Annan" he yelled... was certainly not meant to be heard by Annan himself, to prompt him to come looking for Salvatore.

After Annan’s soul had undergone Stigmatization, if someone called his name, it was indeed possible that Annan would sense it directly.

However, possessing such a feature and being able to use it accurately were two completely different things.

It’s like how humans can naturally see high-speed movements or taste different flavors, but having clear dynamic vision or discerning the details of food with just the tongue... that still requires some degree of training.

Salvatore shouted at the entrance not for Annan to hear, but for Hugo to hear.

As the Tower Master, the Heath Tower of Black was Hugo’s eyes and ears. He was the brain of the Heath Tower of Black.

Everything that happened inside the Black Tower was known to him—and apprentices couldn’t leave the Wizard’s Tower on regular days. Even a King’s control over his domain couldn’t possibly match the dominance of a Wizard’s Tower.

With just that shout, Hugo already knew Salvatore was back and that he wanted to see Annan first.

So, without any need for buttons, without asking where Annan was now, and even without any operation when entering—the elevator started to operate on its own as Salvatore stepped in.

Under Hugo’s control... the elevator began to automatically ascend to a certain floor with Salvatore inside.

What surprised Salvatore was that the elevator seemed to take a particularly long time to rise...

Could it be that Annan was on the upper levels learning spells?

Just as this thought surfaced in Salvatore’s mind, he found that the elevator had climbed all the way to the top floor.

"...What is Annan doing on the top floor?"

Salvatore was somewhat taken aback.

There were no functional areas on the top floor of the Heath Tower of Black.

Even if there was a need to speak with Hugo... Hugo’s projected avatar could appear at any level at any time.

There was nothing on the top floor, not even a chair, to say nothing of anything else.

When the elevator reached its destination, Salvatore’s heart suddenly skipped a beat.

——His intuition let him catch a trace of something, sensing an air of unease.

It was too dark.

Although the lower levels of Heath Tower of Black were equipped with normal and sufficiently bright lights, it was only at the very top level that the more primitive torches were used.

Twelve torches were evenly distributed around the very center, reminiscent of the hour markings on a clock’s face.

For those flames were drawn from the sacred fire passed down through generations of Marshland’s Black Tower—though its size was not grand enough to be considered "another altar of sacred fire," the sheer significance of the sacred fire itself, coupled with the value represented by the sacred number "twelve," was sufficient to form a barrier capable of sealing the primal sacred fire.

Now, however, the room was pitch dark and utterly silent.

...Had the sacred fire gone out?

Salvatore’s heart tightened.

He instinctively took two steps forward.

Then, a gray, bowl-shaped domain suddenly enveloped Salvatore...more precisely, it covered the entire top layer of the area.

Salvatore recognized it immediately.

—It was "Inertia Refinement" by Isaac.

Merely by being inside this spell, Salvatore was almost completely stripped of his combat ability—while transformation spells were extraordinary, capable of changing one substance into a completely unrelated other, transformation spells could be interrupted or even reversed.

One needed only to chant the opposing conversion spell backward to counteract it.

Inertia Refinement itself did not prevent Salvatore from casting spells, but it made his casting movements incredibly slow. A mere one-third reduction in speed was enough for all his spells to be disrupted by Isaac.

At that moment, "Vatore," sensing the aura of danger, instantly awoke.

Upon Salvatore’s shoulder, a liquid-like shadow writhed and, snake-like, abruptly raised its head.

But she said nothing, merely furrowing her brow—as though she had realized something.

"What is...what’s happening?"

Salvatore, still unclear as to what had transpired, simply stood in place, his voice filled with confusion.

"The primal heat comes from deep within the earth. Hence, the earth is also known as the mother of ash and char—"

The emotionless voice of Hugo began to sound.

It was a secret of Genesis concerning "ash and char."

Merely by reciting parts of it, one could ignite the unflammable.

The next moment, countless flames exploded into existence—

Surrounding the upper level space, numerous bloodstained coals ignited, flames intertwined with thick smoke; and on the surrounding walls, an unknown reflective silver-metallic membrane, which also began to burn, had been placed at some point.

And soon, new flames ignited upon the smoke.

—In the face of Genesis’s holy words, even ashes and smoke could burn.

Even fire itself was combustible.

This was the fire of kindling—

The intense smoke rapidly blackened the mirror-like walls. In the blink of an eye, the surrounding space seemed to transform into a sea of fire...the steamy heat and brilliant flames turned the already confined space into a furnace.

Salvatore, standing right in the center, felt no heat whatsoever.

But it was then that he belatedly realized something.

"...Is this the concept of a ’Forge’?"

Salvatore murmured.

Who could it possibly be that could turn the "fire-storing" Heath Tower of Black into a "fire-forging" furnace?

Common fire is used to forge steel, while sacred fire can only forge the soul itself.

And the one who could accomplish this...

Salvatore had already guessed the answer.

Yet he did not want to guess.

He knew full well that only one person could do this.

That person was the owner of Heath Tower of Black, the bearer of the sacred fire.

His mentor...

—Hugo Blacktower.