On the third day after Archmage Akama was assassinated, the Mage Country's spy was discovered.
Trant Sordill was a dark magus who was skilled at summoning death and talisman crafting. He was only one research result away from becoming a mage at the level of Divine Truth.
It was discovered that he was directly connected to the Chaos Abyss. He was ordered by a certain Chaos God to assassinate his colleague, Archmage Akama.
I wasn't curious as to how the spy was discovered. There were so many mages in the Mage Country, not to mention the Bardi Empire's professional mages. Not only that, the Dragons even knew about the spy. It would be strange if the spy couldn't be discovered.
Compared to the famous detectives in novels, which were known as the science of writing and the author's deductive abilities, the messy magic and supernatural abilities were more direct and magical when it came to investigating cases.
Prophecy, astrology, lie detection, and so on. There was no such thing as inhumane or inhumane evidence. Whenever a suspect was captured, the suspect would be beaten half to death before being interrogated. Hallucinogens and truth-telling potions would be used to hypnotize the suspect. Unless the suspect directly self-destructed and entered the Cycle of Reincarnation, nobody would be able to escape.
Indeed, there were many cases of wrongdoing due to excessive pursuit of efficiency. But in this situation, finding the spy as quickly as possible was doubtlessly the most important thing in order to appease the public.
I received a simple message. Trant basically admitted that he had been bewitched by the Chaos Abyss and attacked Archmage Akama.
Trant, who was skilled in combat, had attacked Archmage Akama, who was skilled in divination and prophecy. If the ambush had been sudden enough, it would have been possible to kill Archmage Akama in one strike. However, many people would be unable to accept such a conclusion.
Who was the true culprit? Was there someone else behind the ambush? There would definitely be many ideas, but there were no more clues. Since a major battle was imminent, it wouldn't be appropriate to conduct a large scale investigation in order to not affect the morale of the army.
The side effect was that everyone would be on guard against each other in the future.
Halent's request went quite smoothly. Reinforcements arrived one after another. However, judging from how things were going, he probably viewed this as not just a battle between the Bardi Empire's allies, but also a demonstration of his international status and influence.
"See, these are our Bardi Empire's allies."
From a certain standpoint, this was no longer a battle. It was more of a show, a large-scale commercial event that they absolutely had to win in an extravagant and dominating fashion.
He had used a massive amount of resources and funds in exchange for the solid and powerful support of the allied countries. Whether or not it was worth it could be discussed later. At least for now, the scene was spectacular.
"The Truth Symposium sent nine members? Including that Akama from before, it's already in the double digits. This is simply … "
Ten years ago, there had been a total of 28 Truth Overseers in the Truth Symposium. As the Elemental Tide increased, theoretically speaking, the profession with the greatest increase should have been the mages.
Many of the research that had previously only been theories on paper became reality with the activation of the Elemental Tide. The result was that not only did several archmages instantly grasp the truth, their power also increased explosively.
The current Truth Symposium had a total of thirty-one Truth Symposium mages. Although it didn't seem like there was a sudden increase in the number of mages, there were actually twelve new members … Don't be mistaken, mages weren't gladiators. The mages who had retired were only trying to shirk their responsibilities as members of the Truth Symposium.
The members of the Truth Symposium were the highest authority in the Mage Country. However, for many mages who specialized in research, the Truth Symposium was nothing more than endless trouble. Mages would have to use their research time to deal with boring government affairs. Although they could take advantage of the Truth Symposium to embezzle some research funds, it still wasn't worth it.
Apart from the archmages who spent tremendous amounts of research funds, the other archmages didn't care much about this position. Since there were juniors who were willing to take the position, they were naturally willing to give up their positions. Many archmages would even try to trick their juniors or disciples into taking over their positions.
However, some things were publicly acknowledged. The Mage Country of Arlodante's overall combat strength was at least twice as powerful as it was ten years ago. The Mage Country of Arlodante had benefited the most from the Elemental Tide.
Not only did the Mage Country of Arlodante's overall combat strength increase, the mage job class, which was originally the most difficult job class to advance in power level. But after the Elemental Tide increased explosively, the mage job class's difficulty in advancing in power level became ridiculously low. In fact, there were even several hundred mages who simultaneously advanced in power level every single day.
Another reason for the exponential increase in elemental power was that many forbidden and imaginary creations from blueprints and ancient books could now be transformed into reality. Alchemists and marionettes were having fun every single day. Summoners could summon creatures from other planes that even they themselves couldn't deal with. Even the forbidden undead mages had greatly increased their power level with the establishment of the Hades.
Originally, the Mage Country was pitifully small despite being a mega empire. Their combat strength depended entirely on the mages. Now that the mages' power level had increased explosively, the Mage Country's power level had naturally increased explosively as well. Saying that the Mage Country was twice as powerful as it was ten years ago was a conservative estimate.
Unfortunately, some things still hadn't changed, such as how the Mage Country of Arlodante was organized …
According to the most recent records, after so many years, the Mage Country should have more than two hundred mages who had reached the Truth rank. However, less than fifty of them were actually capable of contacting each other, and less than thirty of them were capable of being dispatched. Not to mention, all of them were dispatched in exchange for favors, knowledge, and so on.
In such a situation, the Mage Country had dispatched ten Truth rank mages, along with several Truth rank mages who hadn't become Truth rank yet. It could be said that more than half of the Mage Country's strongest combat strength had been dispatched.
"Such generosity. What benefits did Halent give them? Don't tell me it's something like ceding territory to the Mage Country? No, the Mage Country's territory is nothing more than a burden to them. It's probably some ancient knowledge or something like that. Anything that can make these old fellows come out in full force is definitely something extraordinary. "
I muttered to myself as I observed the archmages before me.
It was currently a royal banquet that Halent had organized, and many foreign guests had arrived.
Due to certain things in the past, such as Halent acting atrociously at the Truth Symposium several times … ahem, I meant having friendly interactions with the Truth Symposium, many of whom were old acquaintances.
The Mystical Blade's Aloso, an ice mage who was one of the rare good people among archmages, was currently seriously licking a strawberry-flavored ice cream produced in Barte … when he saw me looking at him, his face instantly reddened as he turned around and lowered his head to continue licking.
Marguerite's teacher, Star Revelation's Auntie Amala who always pretended to be young … I meant Sister Amala who was eternally young and beautiful, please retract the demon in the shadows.
A white-bearded old mage whom I didn't recognize was smiling at me while proudly pointing at the Truth Emblem on his chest …
"Who are you? Don't act so familiar. "
"You, you, Roland! I'm Kaid, the earth archmage Kaid, your old classmate for so many years!"
"… Lolicon Kaid? You're still alive? Are you here to return the 100,000 gold coins I owe you? "
"Of course I'm still alive! I wouldn't die even if you turned into dust. No, wait, it's only 100 gold coins! Oh, wait, you're the one who owes me money! I was almost led astray by you! Ahhh, you're doing this again! I'm not a lolicon! What's wrong with liking little girls!? No, wait, I'm not a pervert! "
"Such a familiar stream of comments. As expected of a lolicon Kaid."
I looked at the white-bearded old man with sympathy, and then in a friendly manner, I handed him a drink.
He was already quite old, and had spoken too much in one go, so he was already choking and coughing. However, he didn't notice that his companions had silently distanced themselves from him. Once he returned, it was likely that all the little girls would avoid him.
"Heh, heh, to think that you still have a conscience … Pfft, what's this!"
Before he could finish his sentence, he collapsed. When he collapsed, his old face was still red and hot.
I looked at the label. Oh, Dwarf Entite Wine? The famous Dragonslayer Wine? Who would throw such a thing at a banquet?
I looked at the elderly mage who was lying on the ground with a mysterious smile on his face, and the strange expressions of everyone around me. I felt that from tomorrow onwards, not only would all the little girls and girls stay away from Kaid, even all the women would stay away from him.
"Pitiful Kaid …"
I made a cross in front of my chest as a form of praying for him.
"The most pitiful thing about him is that he got to know you."
As always, the silly cat's comments were timely. But today, she was quite different from before.
She had a proud smile on her beautiful face, and her long blonde hair was as smooth and beautiful as silk. Her black formal attire matched her golden moon earrings quite well, making her seem noble and mysterious.
As the Empress of the elves and a Truth level archmage, she was doubtlessly the center of everyone's attention. And in consideration of the elves' diplomatic image, she could only appear like this in public.
But doubtlessly, it was easier for others to view her as an adult.
As far as I was concerned, only some of the Truth level mages were familiar with me. But for Harloys, there were probably only a few people she wasn't familiar with.
She could casually call out the archmages' nicknames and talk about their scandals from when they were acolytes without hurting their reputation. Everyone around her would laugh at her.
As expected of an old fox who had lived alone in the Mage Country for so many years. After adjusting her age, Harloys was able to utilize her past advantages and quickly became friends with the Truth level mages. Her astonishing knowledge and connections made people sigh in admiration. There was already a circle of people surrounding her.
For most mages with "unique" personalities, this was an incredibly rare opportunity to get along well with others.
Actually, I was quite famous in the mage world. Not only was I an undead archmage and an ice mage, I had also publicly prophesied the dangers of the Holy War in the Cloud Tower and promoted magical engineering technology, which left a deep impression on the mages.
And as my prophecy was proven to be true, and magical engineering technology was gradually proven to have limitless possibilities, I naturally obtained the fame I deserved as an outstanding prophet.
And after I "killed" Kaid, the archmage who had originally intended to chat with me wisely kept his distance … In this day and age, even pets were more popular than their masters.
While I was having a rare moment of free time, a familiar child's voice sounded behind me, causing my scalp to go numb.
"Dad, Mom invites you over."
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