Chapter 32: The Sorcerer (III)

While the upper classes of the entire North County were in turmoil over a bottle of Moonlight Wine, Donald, the creator of that wine and the mastermind behind it, had just finished copying the text and was ready to return to his estate by carriage.

As he left the club and was about to board the carriage, a commoner child suddenly ran into him. Donald immediately became alert. Whether the child was an assassin or not, he activated his mage armor to protect himself. Movies and novels often depicted such situations—targets underestimating a child only to lose their lives due to carelessness. After the previous assassination attempt, he had become even more vigilant about his surroundings.

Before the child could approach Donald, however, his loyal servant George stopped him. The child glared at George angrily, secretly threw something at Donald’s feet, and then ran away without looking back.

Donald scanned the area cautiously and saw that no one was paying attention to him. He extended his mental senses to the surrounding houses but detected no signs of snipers. Puzzled, he picked up the object the child had thrown—only to find it was a crumpled piece of parchment.

Once in the carriage, Donald unrolled the parchment. On the small, narrow sheet were a few faint lines of text:
“Macbeth, the assassination attempt—be careful of the sorcerer and the mage!”

It was just these thirteen words, signed by Black Jack. Donald quickly understood the message.
“So, the last assassination attempt was done by that old fool Macbeth?”
“And be careful of the sorcerer and the mage—does that mean he still wants to get rid of me? This time, he’s sent a sorcerer and a mage?”
“Who exactly is this person?”

After figuring out the general meaning of the letter, Donald became even more puzzled and grew very interested in the person who sent it. Though he had never heard of this name before, he remembered it, determined to meet this person someday and ask what they meant by this.

As for the term “sorcerer,” Donald had only learned about them from a book in the club’s collection. It said they were a group descended from supernatural bloodlines. His impression of sorcerers came from the book’s descriptions of their evil and eerie magical abilities, as well as their capacity to summon and control demon-like creatures. However, he knew little about their actual strength.

So, naturally, he went to see Master Mesel with this question.
When the old mage heard his apprentice use the term “evil sorcerer,” he immediately frowned and said worriedly, “An evil sorcerer? The North County hasn’t seen such a profession in over a decade. These reclusive and evil creatures prefer to operate in the crowded and chaotic areas of the central and southern parts of the continent. It is said that they like to steal the souls of the living to trade with demons!”
According to the old mage, aside from the four main mage professions, there were many other less common spellcasting roles, such as warlocks who used the power of their bloodline, druids who worshipped the forces of nature, and necromancers who controlled undead creatures.
Evil sorcerers were a branch of warlocks. Unlike warlocks who simply inherited powerful bloodlines, they inherited powers related to the soul realm. They belonged to the evil and chaotic faction and even resorted to evil and chaotic forces from beyond the main world, such as demons, in pursuit of greater power.
“If it’s an evil sorcerer, you need to be careful. Although an individual evil sorcerer isn’t as versatile as a mage and is better at mental control spells rather than powerful attacks, they can still manipulate deadly magical flames. Many evil sorcerers prefer to summon demons and other creatures, so their strength is often greater than what appears on the surface!”
Unlike priests or mages, evil sorcerers didn’t need any external aids—such as gestures, spells, prior prayers, or equipment like wands that enhanced spell effects. They could unleash powerful magic simply by using their willpower in conjunction with the power of their bloodline.
Under the control of their strong willpower over the mind, evil sorcerers could use their innate magical power to carry out secret operations, control souls with weak wills, or directly destroy enemies with magical flames.
“Unlike mages, evil sorcerers don’t need much meditation. Instead, they attack, defend, or achieve other effects by gathering the wild magical power flowing within their souls. This ability is called dark magic. Dark magic is also a type of spell-like ability. Like spells, it can be interrupted. If hit while casting dark magic, the evil sorcerer must rely on their willpower and focus to continue casting it. But evil sorcerers usually prepare in advance to avoid being attacked.”

“The good news is that spell resistance works against evil spells. In other words, equipment and other means for defending against spells are also effective against most evil spells, so you need to prepare more!”
After listening to the teacher’s explanation, Donald gained a deeper understanding of the profession of an evil spellcaster. He learned that they didn’t cast spells themselves but used spell-like abilities similar to those of magical beasts—abilities that allowed them to control their own mental and bloodline powers to perform a limited range of special techniques, which were known as evil spells. At the cost of flexibility and diversity, evil spellcasters were better suited for sustained combat than mages or warlocks; they excelled at ambushes and trickery rather than direct confrontation and powerful assaults.
What was even more terrifying was that, aside from a very small number of kind or neutral evil spellcasters, most never believed in true gods or demon kings. They had direct knowledge of supernatural forces. Evil spellcasters would try to please cruel and bloody dark gods or certain ancient evil entities through sacrifices in exchange for power, while kind evil spellcasters, though acknowledging the power in their bloodlines, would choose to believe in deities who didn’t despise them, drawing strength from their faith to fight against the twisted dark side in their souls.
During times when there were no magical disasters, the demonic creatures that appeared in the main world must have been summoned. Although it was slightly different from a summoner’s invocation from another realm, when it came to summoning, Donald believed no one could compare to him. He didn’t think anyone else’s cost for summoning demons or limits on the number of summons could be lower than those in his Book of Truth.
When Donald finally asked about the name on the note, the old mage said doubtfully, “Black Jack? That name is very unfamiliar. There are many people named Jack, but I’ve heard of few who are powerful or belong to any organization. There is indeed a notorious band of thieves in the North County area these past couple of years; their leader seems to go by that name as well. Could it be that the person who sent this message is the leader of the Black Knights Brotherhood, Black Jack?”
The situation clearly exceeded the old mage’s control, but as the leader of the largest and only mage organization in North County, Messel had his own ways of finding answers.
“You don’t need to worry about these. I’ll assign the mages from the guild to investigate. Just focus on your training when you return!”
“Although evil spellcasters usually don’t come looking for you directly, Donald, you still need to be careful. I think it’s necessary to send two mages to your manor for a few days!”
Upon hearing this, Donald’s face lit up with joy.

“That’s great! I was worried about the safety of the manor! Please take care of this matter, Master, and I’ll double any compensation you ask for!”
“No compensation is needed. As long as you treat me well, that’s enough. Your Moonlight Wine is very popular among the mages! I’ll go check which of the bronze-ranked mages in the guild is available these days. The chances of them deploying silver-ranked mages are extremely low.”
“Thank you, Master!”
Donald’s respect for his teacher grew even more. Apart from Cord, the butler who treated him like family, he now considered this person his closest ally in the world.
The old mage smiled. “We’re old friends after all. They’ll surely do me this favor!”
“Remember, once you go out, you must bring enough guards with you and stay vigilant to ensure your safety!”
Then the old mage gave him some instructions on cultivation and repeated his warnings before allowing Donald to return to the manor.
This conversation reassured Donald greatly. Although the origin of the unknown enemy remained a mystery, he now remembered the names of the sorcerers, dark magic, demons, the Black Knight Brotherhood, and Black Jack.
In truth, he wasn’t overly worried about his own safety. What concerned him was the unknown threats. Only thieves work day and night, not those who guard against thieves. His strength far exceeded what he showed, and with ultimate survival skills like teleportation, he felt fearless.
Rather than living in constant fear and hiding in the manor or guild, he thought it would be better to go out normally—perhaps even luring those threats out to deal with them once and for all.