Chapter 38: To Piraeus City

    After that guy walked out of Merlin’s house, the first thing the villagers saw was his flawless body. It was beyond the definition of a miracle. Even the alchemists would never be able to do this. But this kid did it.

    They were shouting in joy; some were speechless and embracing each other. A lot of happy tears were shed from their eyes.

    The praise for Merlin continued getting louder. Some people even got down on the ground to pray and babble that Merlin was a god from heaven.

    After seeing light in the dark, their hearts were filled with bliss.

    The village’s headman did not waste any time to quickly follow Merlin’s command. He walked through the crowd of villagers hugging and crying.

    Merlin gave some of the potions as the cure for the infected ones and some as a stock for the future.

    This potion had not been named yet; but its ability to cure the crystal disease made it the scariest medicine in the medicine world because, in the present time, there was still nobody who could come up with the treatment of this disease.

    The ones who got infected with the crystal disease had only one choice: death. If someone had it, he or she had to prepare for one’s fate.

    The potions that could cure this disease were surely valuable. But Merlin chose to give them to this village without wanting anything in return.

    Therefore, his identity was now the saint of this village.

    The day after the headman received and dispensed the potions, people were miraculously cured. The praise got louder and louder.

    Merlin stayed in his house for a whole day. Without his orders, nobody dared to interrupt him.

    He stayed in to review his knowledge and tried to understand this. Although Lemegeton Eye could remember every step, it was just memorizing.

    So, Merlin had to work on all the advancements by himself.

    A few days later, Merlin ordered everyone in the village to gather in the yard.

    Merlin stepped out of the house with two hands clasped behind. His back and face were still straight exuding such a majestic aura.

    He walked to the center of the yard and waved to gently tell them to step back.

    “Step out of this area.”

    The villagers receded as he ordered, leaving behind only Merlin standing in the yard.

    The boy clenched his fist and punched it off the ground.

    The punch wrapped in Xian vital essence created a seven-meter-wide hole in the land.

    Merlin flew up in the air and looked down with calm eyes. His aura felt like that of gods.

    Suddenly, he moved his fingertips; innumerable Sword vital essence appeared and drilled the ground where the hole lay.

    The powerful Sword vital essence penetrated through a hundred meters of the ground below.

    And shortly after, there appeared groundwater.

    “Show yourself, magical cloak,” Merlin said monotonously.

    The cloak showed up on his back floating in the air.

    Merlin raised his hands up and slowly drew them through the air.

    Tons of magical alphabets came out like a river; magical power flow was gushing rapidly around Merlin.

    “Condense.” As soon as he said that, those alphabets turned into magical hoops.

    Blue magical hoops started appearing continually. Every time each hoop showed it brought about waves that gave people chills.

    A large number of blue magical hoops were flying in the air.

    Merlin stayed at the same place. His hands were still waving, sweeping all those hoops and changing their directions as he wanted.

    Those hoops were woven into one huge intricate magical hoop.

    Merlin’s face was soaked in sweat because making a complex hoop was not an easy thing to do. Without skills and mastery, it would be impossible to make.

    The villagers watched his actions with fascination; it was the first time that they saw how an alphabet user worked. The loud praise sounded constantly.

    The intricate magical hoop oozed powerful energy; its aura was fearsome.

    Even though the villagers did not know what Merlin was doing, they were sure that it had to be something marvelous.

    After a while, the intricate hoop was complete.

    The gigantic magical hoop was moved to cover the groundwater well that Merlin had dug.

    BANG!

    Suddenly, golden particles flew up from the well.

    Merlin smiled satisfactorily when the sacred well was filled with the power of his light element.

    “I made this sacred well to alleviate your sicknesses. It is needless to describe its ability. Just drink the water from this well, poisons, and diseases will have no effects on you all.” Merlin said in a calm and gentle voice.

    All of a sudden, all the villagers kneeled and thanked Merlin over and over.

    Merlin was praised as the village’s saint.

    Merlin did not care about that. He had experienced this kind of situation several times in the past, so he knew how to let go when facing it again.

    In fact, Merlin did this act of kindness out of pity. But another reason was that he wanted to test his skills.

    There were still so many things that Merlin needed to learn in this world.

    There were still a lot of things for Merlin to get through in the future; thus, he had to harvest as much knowledge and experience as he could.

    A number of villagers brought Merlin food and valuable belongings, but he refused to take them. He did not take anything back with him.

    After the crystal-disease-curing mission was successful, Merlin left the village. He left without giving his name or any traces but the potions and the well that he made.

    Many people were sad because they never knew Merlin’s name while some had asked his name before but the only answer they got was silence.

    The fact that Merlin did not answer was the answer.

    The villagers were downhearted for never having a chance to repay him.

    Therefore, his identity was an honorable saint in people’s minds; the glorification sounded in every house.

    Not long after Merlin left the village, gratefully, they were united in spirit to build a monument for Merlin.

    They made that sculpture out of stone. It was a mysterious boy wearing a white cloak and a white mask covering his face.

    Despite not knowing his name or his real face, they could remember the face and the manners of their benefactor clearly.

    They set it in a good area. And on the day that they put it there, a miracle happened. Golden particles burst out of the well like fireflies. When sunlight met the water surface, there appeared colorful reflections.

    All the villagers believed that this was a miracle—something supernatural.

    Thus, they named the well, “The Young Saint’s Sacred Well.”

    They had no idea that this phenomenon was the effect of the intricate magical hoop that Merlin had put there.

    Generally, creating magical hoops was not something any alphabet user could do. It depended on each one’s ability at the end of the day. However, the magical hoops made by wizards would not be able to maintain their conditions for a long time unless they were made by alphabet users.

    With the power of the alphabets, the magical hoops would stay as long as they were not destroyed. Even after their creator died, the hoops made by magical alphabets remained.

    The durability and the vigorous power of the magical alphabets made them popular to be used as barriers protecting several cities in this realm.

    Not long after, when the news about The Young Saint’s Sacred Well was spread out, this village became more famous because the water in this well was distilled by an alphabet user’s intricate magical hoop with the light element from the sunlight out. So, this water resource was left with the pure water element packed with healing ability and the light element that could get rid of wickedness.

    The Young Saint’s Sacred Well had the benefits of both curing and clearing out evil energy like the Church of Light’s holy water. Some people even filled it in bottles and carried them around as their lucky charms.

    From a no-name village in the middle of the forest, now this place had become a large village that was expanding and growing constantly. Finally, after a few years, it became a small city.

    Merlin was heading to Piraeus, the city under the rule of Duke Cowe, Arthur’s father.

    Along the way, Merlin spotted a lot of deserted cities. He flew down to explore those places and found out that they were all destroyed by the crystal disease.

    Merlin was too late to save those people.

    Behind all of this, the spreader of the crystal disease must have harvested a lot of Living Spirit Crystals. These villages were broken down; innocent lives were used as sacrifices to make Living Spirit Crystals.

    Merlin did not know how many Living Spirit Crystals had to be used in order to make a Living Spirit Crystal. But from what he saw, he noticed that that person had already harvested tons of them.

    Merlin shook the thoughts off and chose to leave this problem behind. He did not want to be involved in things that were none of his business. Moreover, he still had no idea who was behind everything and how skillful he or she was.

    If that person was much stronger than Merlin, it would make his life difficult, which he did not desire.

    Two days later, Merlin had finally arrived at Piraeus City, his destination. Both Arthur and Maye lived here.

    Checking Arthur’s sword which had a connection to Solomon’s possession and helping Maye were his two goals for coming to Piraeus.

    Merlin changed his clothes and took the mask which covered his face. Travel clothing was taken out and worn. He did not want to stand out and hide himself any longer.

    Merlin’s appearance was still the same. Even after a few years, because of his cultivation at the stem-building stage, his body grew slower. So, he still looked like a ten-year-old boy although he was older.

    But there was something that had changed: his hair went from black to white.

    After getting in the line to get into the city and showing the Aragon family’s coat of arms, the soldiers keeping the gate treated him politely and easily let him in.

    Merlin went straight to Duke Cowe’s castle; he wanted to meet Arthur to check the sword and ask him questions including Maye’s house.

    This was the city that the old Merlin used to live in. Walking into the city now, he felt that the atmosphere was not really different. Merlin took a shortcut here and there until he arrived at the Grand Bazaar which was packed with people.

    Merlin looked around the place for a while; he saw a lot of magical tools were being sold. He even picked some of them up to study the use of alphabets.

    Unfortunately, most of them were made by the blue-level alphabet users so the alphabetic arrangements were not so complicated.

    At this point, the knowledge of the blue-level alphabets was too low for Merlin. He really wanted to study the arrangement of the green-level alphabets,

    But unluckily, the items made by the green-level alphabet users were rare. Although there were people who had them but, surely, they would not show them easily.

    Merlin was enjoying these goods for a long while until he arrived at one spot and saw a lot of people engrossingly crowding around something.

    Walking closer, Merlin found that that area was for a duel. The stage was located in the center of the bazaar, so it was attracting a lot of passersby.

    The objectives of this duel were for people to try out their skills and to practice; it looked like there was a match of people fighting right now. It received so much attention that a crowd of watchers expanded out of the area.

    Looking around, Merlin saw that more than half of the people were female.

    So, fighting was famous among ladies? That was odd.

    Typically, these girls loathed violence; so why did the girls in this city like it?

    With his tiny frame, Merlin walked through the packed crowd to the front line. He wanted to know why they were so intrigued by this battle.

    But it was unfortunate, the fight had just ended when Merlin arrived.

    The last thing he saw of that duel was a man sword-fighting with his opponent. With only their strength and sword skills, they were not using any magical power.

    One guy quickly kicked his opponent’s thigh; suddenly, he gave a series of attacks with his sword. Although his rival was trying to defend, he was not strong enough. A sword was strongly charged; its power made the other guy’s sword fly out of his hand.

    With his swift movement, finally, the guy’s sword stopped at his opponent’s neck.

    The result was shown; people were cheering happily.

    That man raised his hand to the sky and jumped around the stage.

    The ladies in that area were screaming for the victory of the man that they came to support.

    He had a nice figure full of decent muscles; he looked tall and strong. His hair was golden, and his eyes were blue. Together with that prominent nose, thick eyebrows, and beautiful chestnut-shaped lips, overall, this man looked absolutely handsome.

    It was no surprise why there were these many women crowding around this fight. The reason was indeed this man.

    Merlin felt that this face was very familiar.

    When he turned around, Merlin could clearly see his face,

    And their eyes accidentally met.

    His happy jump for the victory suddenly stopped. His countenance seemed like he was aghast; then he said something unawares,

    “Merlin…”