Chapter 181: Border Between Two Forces

Chapter 181: Border Between Two Forces

The look of shock on the senior initiate’s face was not just a reaction to Sein’s apparent arrogance and indifference.

Sein’s words had stirred a memory in Jake from the last Regional Inter-Divine Tower Academy War.

During that war, Jake had encountered a formidable Quasi Mage from the Divine Tower of Radiant Thunder, notoriously known as “The Despairer”.

True to his moniker, the Despairer was an invincible existence capable of instilling a profound sense of despair in all other initiates.

In that same war, the Despairer dominated the battlefield across the five major divine towers’ territories, achieving first place on the Regional Inter-Divine Tower Academy War scoreboard.

It was debatable whether to consider Jake fortunate or not.

Back then, he had fallen into the clutches of the Despairer and only managed to escape through sheer luck.

“The weak do not deserve to live!”—that was the quote of the best initiate from the Divine Tower of Radiant Thunder.

This phrase had haunted Jake for fifty years, from his days as a newly-promoted senior initiate to his current status as a Quasi Mage.

Despite his growth in strength and knowledge, his fear of the initiate from the Divine Tower of Radiant Thunder never diminished.

Jake had lost count of how many times he had heard the Quasi Mage’s disdainful voice intruding on his dreams and meditations.

He had closely followed the progress of that initiate from the Divine Tower of Radiant Thunder since then.

He knew that within just two years following the conclusion of the last Regional Inter-Divine Tower Academy War, the Despairer had become a full-fledged mage and was nicknamed the “Electro Commander.”

While Sein’s performance in the recent battle was commendable, it still fell short of the prowess the Electro Commander had displayed in his days as an initiate.

Yet, there was an unnerving similarity in the way both Sein and the Electro Commander executed their spells.

Watching Sein depart, Jake was unable to utter another word until Sein’s figure completely disappeared from his view.

A fellow female Quasi Mage noticed his distress and approached to ask, “Are you all right?”

Unexpectedly, only a handful of intermediate and junior initiates were gathered outside the resource point, with no senior initiates or Quasi Mages in sight.

“Why hasn’t any senior initiate marked this resource point?” Sein inquired as he approached the group.

Sein’s arrival prompted respectful bows from initiates from the Divine Tower of Verdant Spring.

Responding to Sein’s question, a male initiate with freckled cheeks explained, “The secret water mine under this riverbed is guarded by several formidable extraplanar water serpents. One of our comrades, Slarry, had to activate his badge and exit the trial space early after being poisoned by them.”

“As for why there are no senior initiates or Quasi Mages here, well...” The male initiate hesitated with a troubled look on his face.

A female intermediate initiate interjected, “Three senior initiates and two Quasi Mages did come earlier, but left quickly. None of them seemed to have any intention of claiming this resource point.”

“Why did they leave?” Sein asked coldly.

“The other side of this river is the Divine Tower of Shadow’s territory,” she replied, pointing to the river.

Sein was taken aback by her answer.

“I’ve already reached the border between the two divine tower’s territories? Why haven’t I come across any large resource points?” he mused aloud.

Reflecting on the number of initiates Sein had encountered recently, it became clear that he might have strayed from his intended path.

He had headed east upon entering the trial space and had reconsidered his direction since.

While this strategy allowed him to efficiently search for resource points as he moved forward without wasting time and effort, it came with a drawback.

He would not be able to explore other resource points in the other three directions from his landing site, the west in particular.

Given that the territories were divided among five divine towers, each was expected to have around four or five large resource points if they were distributed evenly.

The Divine Tower of Verdant Spring might not be the strongest, so an abundance of resource points in its territory was not necessarily advantageous.

Nevertheless, having access to three large resource points still seemed reasonable.

The fact that Sein had not discovered a single large resource point upon reaching the border of two divine towers' territories indicated that he might have chosen a wrong direction to explore in the first place.