Primordial Sage: Plight of Immortality

After the ride of shame where the entire group returned with less than half of the people, Illyan decided to disappear with the excuse of needing to rest the moment the carriage stopped at the main square.

Citizens were rushing to look for their beloved while soldiers had to keep order.

There was chaos in the city.

Illyan used this opportunity to run back to his manor while avoiding Vanda and her group.

'I don't want to be part of anything that will happen in the next month or so,' Illyan thought firmly as he could see the imaginary dark clouds above the town.

The fact that the gangs killed off all the acolytes and pushed the blame on the academic institution…

'I can already feel the tensions rise.'

Even he could only partially avoid this, as he already felt some glares from the soldiers who didn't know what had truly happened.

To them, it was overly ambitious academics that had caused this catastrophe.

Well, it wasn't completely untrue, but throwing everyone into one bag was the problem.

Even if the academic institution withstood the pressure, there would be some heavy sanctions, and it would lose a lot of its power within the town and even the entire kingdom.

Of course, this would cause huge resentment between the academics and the gangs.

The mayor would probably be dragged into it too, since his backer had died…

Thinking about this, Illyan hurried his pace, and in a few minutes, he finally stood in front of the manor he had bought back then.

It had already been two years since he bought it from Korin.

'Time really flies…,' Illyan thought as he opened the door.

'Hmm…?' Looking around, he felt a little confused.

The room seemed different from when he left.

Not only was there no dust on the floor or furniture, but even the furniture itself was different!

'Did someone take over my house?' Illyan's face crumbled as his heart tightened.

This house had quite a few of his secrets. They were in the hidden room that he had tried to disguise as much as possible, but if they moved the things in the laboratory, there was a chance they could find it.

But soon, he calmed his anxious heart.

He had told Vael to take care of his little garden while he was gone. There was no way that he would let someone take over this place just like that.

'So it is probably his doing,' Illyan deduced.

After all, his furniture was crude work of his own, since he had been penniless before.

But to be sure, Illyan went to the back door leading to the garden to look.

Based on how well the plants were taken care of, he should be able to deduce whether Vael was still taking care of them.

'After all, it wouldn't be strange for him to die during the time we were away,' Illyan thought as he entered the garden.

But as he looked around, he felt quite surprised.

There were far more plants than when he left. Some of them were plants he had only read about in books, while others were too expensive to buy, as they didn't grow naturally in this region.

Even the original plants looked different from before. They were larger and more vibrant.

Especially the Firestorm Herb that was in the center. The moss that covered the ground was as much as five times bigger than before he left.

'It is not that useful anymore though,' Illyan thought regretfully. The main reason this herb was so useful was its heating properties, which were used for the [Blood Feeding Technique].

But his proficiency was high enough for him to do it without the herb's assistance.

'Well, I will find other ways to use it.'

Illyan looked around and checked the ground for nutrients.

Once he did so, he nodded and checked the leaves of the herbs and their branches.

He noticed that some parts had been cut off. It wasn't a bad thing, though. For better growth, some of the branches had to be cut off sometimes.

There were other things he observed during his time in the garden, but in the end, he didn't find anything harmful.

'The fertilizer is definitely Vael's. His care of vegetation is also perfect. So the furniture was definitely his doing,' Illyan sighed in relief.

Once he verified this, he decided to check if Vael had done something in his laboratory.

However, once he entered, he found that the place was completely the same and even had dust accumulated.

Illyan's face wrinkled up because of that, but he was still satisfied.

'How tactful.' Digging into someone's laboratory was extremely rude from an academic's viewpoint.

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

Illyan wasn't really aware of that, since he didn't learn much about academics' customs, but he also didn't want others to look into the things he was researching.

However, he still hid everything in case Vael or someone else barged inside.

Illyan always believed that it was better to be careful than to regret things later on.

'Good, everything seems alright. Nothing changed.'

Scanning the laboratory with his eyes, Illyan, who remembered the entire layout of everything inside, saw no difference and was satisfied.

However, the most important thing was still not checked.

Illyan looked at the inconspicuous corner. There didn't seem to be any change either.

However, Illyan still needed to look inside.

'I wonder if "they" survived,' Illyan thought as he dragged away the regal with ingredients to activate the hidden mechanism behind it.

Click

Once it opened, he pushed the regal back to its place and entered the passage.

Soon, he finally returned to the hidden room where he stored most of his secret items.

"Heh…" Illyan smirked, looking into the corner.

There, dozens of jars filled with Darkglide Centipedes that Illyan personally raised were stacked one by one next to each other.

'The stench is quite bad. I guess it's been too long.'

As he came closer to the jars, he observed the motionless centipedes lying in the jars.

'They are bigger.'

Illyan pondered for a long time how to keep them alive while being away.

Because of that, he read some basic knowledge about centipedes in the book the acolytes who had raised them before owned.

The book not only had advice on how to breed them but also useful knowledge about their species.

There, he found that most centipedes could enter hibernation by slowing their metabolism.

The Darkglide Centipedes were ravenous and had to eat at least once a month to survive, but Illyan thought that was acceptable.

Thus, he made a simple mechanism with the help of a blacksmith and some of his laboratory tools and created a functional dispenser for his blood.

While the jars were on the ground, above them was the table that held the glass container with his blood diluted with water.

There was also a compound mixed in to keep the blood in a liquid state without drying out, but it wasn't really needed, as his blood was quite peculiar because of its strong life force.

The blood slowly dripped drop by drop through the tubes leading to each jar, where small bowls caught the blood.

It was a pain in the ass to calculate how much volume he needed, but he managed to finish it a few days before he left.

With the rate of the drops falling, Illyan made sure that the container would not empty out before the eighteenth month passed.

He had heard about the long length of the expedition and expected it to take around a year or so, but he still poured a half-year's worth of extra blood into the container just in case.

'There is still a third of the liquid.' Seeing that the container wasn't completely empty, Illyan was satisfied that his calculation was right.

He took one of the jars and looked at the centipede.

Because of the sudden shake, the centipede started to crawl around, showing that it was a little longer than a year ago.

'Hmm… They are growing well. I will leave them alone in that case.' He returned the jar to its place and left the hidden room.

Once he came out, he didn't waste time and started cleaning.

He had many things to do from now on, but he felt that there was no need to hurry at this point.

It would take time for Korin's group to start another mission.

'I need to retrieve the things that I left for Aurelia,' Illyan thought as he felt that this expedition took a heavy toll on his weapons.

The aura-refined sword was broken.

The same went for the sabers he borrowed.

His throwing knives were gone too.

In the end, he at least managed to get the mace from Aurelia's cousin, but he had to leave it to Aurelia to retrieve.

They agreed to visit Vael in three days, where Aurelia would bring it to return it.

After all, there would probably be some kind of scrutiny regarding what he was doing.

Because of that, Aurelia would not visit his manor at all.

At least not officially.

And since he had free time for these three days…

'I will finally sleep in my bed.'

After three hours of cleaning the house, he was finally done, and the first thing he went to do was lie down in his own bed.

"Agh…!" He groaned in delight as he fell down onto the soft mattress that was probably brought by Vael.

This was the first time he had laid down on such a high-quality mattress.

The feeling was indescribable.

After closing his eyes for a second, he was already dozing off.

He didn't need to sleep much anymore and used most of his time in the carriage for his training.

The time he slept, it was mostly a few hours to recover from the harsh ride and the mental strain that accumulated from the excessive training in mind power.

Thus, the moment when he finally laid down, he couldn't even change his clothes as he quickly fell asleep.

……..

Knock Knock

Sudden knocks on the door woke Illyan up.

He slowly opened his eyes and sighed.

"Ugh…" With a groan, he stretched his limbs as he looked out of the window at the sun.

'By its position, the night already passed. So it is morning the next day.'

By looking at the sun, he could already guess that sixteen hours had passed.

'Who is knocking like this in the morning?' Illyan wondered as he came straight to the door.

When he opened the door, he suddenly noticed that the door didn't creak like a year ago.

At first, he didn't notice since he was quite tired, but now the silence was deafening.

'Did he oil it up? I don't like it,' Illyan frowned.

It was one thing to clean up often, but the creaking door wasn't a problem in Illyan's opinion. In fact, it was kind of an advantage.

His sense of hearing was very good, and the subtle creaking of the door opening could be heard even from the laboratory.

No one could enter the house through the door without Illyan being aware as long as he was inside.

'I will take care of it later,' Illyan thought as he looked to see who was behind the door.

And it was, of course, Vael, who came with a smile on his face.

However, he noticed that his face was a lot thinner with more wrinkles, and he was using a cane to support his body.

It was obvious that time was catching up with him.

"Ahh, Kaoran, I am glad you are back, hoho!" Vael laughed as Illyan beckoned him to enter the house.

He just smiled as the first thing he said to Vael was, "Is this your doing?" and pointed at the furniture around them.

Vael's smile deepened as he sat down in the chair and slapped his thigh.

"Pretty straightforward, I see. Not that I dislike it. That's right. When you asked me to take care of your little plants, I couldn't stand to look at that junk you had around!"

Vael shook his head with disapproval.

"Hmm, you are right. I also dislike being poor. I guess I will raise my treatment's price by fivefold," Illyan said with a smirk.

Vael opened his eyes wide as he lifted the cane.

"Oh boy, don't play with me. I will whip your bum if you don't behave."

Illyan chuckled as he went to prepare tea for them.

Once he brought it, he sat down and made some small talk with him.

"Ah, it is good to have a good conversation with someone once in a while," Vael said as he leaned on the chair.

However, his face turned grim as he looked Illyan in the eyes.

"But the situation in the town isn't the best. You have had a really wild ride there, haven't you? Aurelia told me," Vael said with a frown.

On the other hand, Illyan froze.

'Did she tell him everything?' He was a little confused, but Vael continued talking since he wasn't saying anything.

"These two days were real chaos everywhere! Who would think that these gangs would come up with such cowardly things! They even dragged you and my dear granddaughter into it. That stupid son of mine is really getting out of control. The headmaster of the institution is returning soon because of this, and the situation in the town will either subside or completely explode into a full-blown war!"

Vael was outraged as he rambled on.

Illyan stopped thinking about what Aurelia revealed too since he knew that she wouldn't do that in the end. It seemed she only told the things that would be revealed sooner or later.

But…

"Wait, it's already been two days?" Illyan thought he had slept for over sixteen hours, but it seemed he was wrong.

'So it was forty hours.' Illyan sighed as he finally realized why the sleep was so refreshing this time.

He was truly tired after all of that and finally had some peace…