Chapter 132: The First Layer of the Ruins – The Water Soul Mage Puppet

Compared to the calm composure of Donald and his two companions, with the ruins right before them, the members of the Ansel and Thorne families grew impatient.
Edwina and Hordon led their family’s swordsmen at the front, with the rest following closely, heading toward the two best-preserved buildings nearby.
The buildings here featured the typical style of the ancient Arcane Emperor era—a fusion of human architecture and elven design. There was an open courtyard outside, without walls, only surrounded by railings carved with vine and flower motifs. The large doors had merely two carved pillars, with no actual door panels.
“Wait!”
Just as both groups stepped into the courtyards of the buildings, Donald suddenly issued a warning.
It wasn’t a danger alert from the Book of Truth, but rather a reaction from the Soul Ball, which he had kept hidden in his arms, ready to secretly collect the souls of dead enemies during battles.
This phenomenon indicated the presence of soul energy available for collection, and given the strong reaction of the Soul Ball, it was clear there was a considerable amount of such energy.
Upon hearing Donald’s warning, Edwina knew he wouldn’t warn for no reason, so she immediately ordered the two people at the front to retreat from the doors. The members of the Thorne family were slower to react and didn’t take Donald’s warning too seriously. After all, Donald was merely a young mage who had just reached bronze rank, while Hordon, an elder of the Thorne family, had been a silver mage for twenty years and was already a high-level expert. With his greater experience, why would he listen to a young mage’s advice?
Due to this delay, Hordon, sensing something wrong, couldn’t stop them in time—the two swordsmen had already entered the courtyard.
Inside the courtyard, there was a well-shaped pool, and suddenly, there was movement. Then, a humanoid creature made entirely of water but wearing black armor emerged from the pool.
“……”
“……”
The water creature spoke in incomprehensible words to the newcomers, blue light appearing in its eye sockets as it raised its black staff.

The water man’s words were Old Elvish, one of the two common languages among mages. Only Master Donald and his apprentice could understand a little, as the Elvish language of today evolved from Old Elvish. Both of them were mages who had studied Elvish, as many ancient alchemical matrices and formulas were written in Elvish to prevent secrets from leaking. Thus, for a mage who also practiced alchemy, mastering Elvish was essential.

As for Edwina and Houghton, although both were silver mages—one an elemental mage and the other a sorcerer—they paid little attention to Elvish, knowing only a few simple characters. This was because they lacked the time to study more.

However, even Donald could only be said to be familiar with Elvish, not proficient, so he couldn’t fully understand what the water man was saying. He immediately asked, “Kelsas, what is it saying?”

“Master, it says this is the residence of the low-level mage Drulu. Without the master’s permission, do not attempt to enter. If you don’t leave immediately, it will attack!”

Due to his elven heritage, Kelsas had also studied Old Elvish from the books copied by Donald.

But Kelsas’s translation was clearly too late—the water man in the courtyard had already started attacking.

The water man waved his staff, and several water arrows were shot at the two Thorn family silver swordsmen. Then, without pause, he raised his staff again and swung it several times, sending a rain of corrosive water elemental energy descending from the sky above their heads.

“Be careful! These are Water Soul Mage puppets. Each one has silver-level strength and are the favorite magical guardians used by mages to protect their homes!”

Seeing this, Edwina recalled the records she had seen in the family archives and hurriedly warned the Thorn family.

By then, the Thorn family and others were already fighting against those Water Soul Mage puppets.

Although powerful, Water Soul Mage puppets were ultimately just puppet creatures with limited intelligence. If they were mages, they would be easy to deal with. But for close-combat professionals like swordsmen and assassins, they were extremely troublesome.

Ordinary physical attacks had little effect on elemental puppets, and their cores were protected by black armor, making it difficult to destroy them in one strike.

The sword energy could indeed harm the bodies of these Water Soul Mage puppets, shrinking their size until only a core remained, rendering them unable to fight. However, using sword energy with every strike would be extremely exhausting, likely not allowing them to reach the depths of the ruins. Moreover, this Water Soul Puppet Mage had the advantage of being in a pool, where it could continuously draw water elements to replenish itself.

“Swordsmen, step back and guard. I’ll take care of this puppet!” Unneeded to remind him, Horden quickly identified the weaknesses of the Water Soul Mage Puppet and understood its rigid fighting style, making it a simple task to defeat it.

Under the protection of the swordsmen, Horden first recited a spell, summoning a cloud of mist made of water vapor around the Water Soul Mage Puppet. The puppet relied on its senses to perceive its surroundings. Although it was half a water elemental creature—and casting water-based spells seemed to strengthen it—the mist could also obscure its senses.

As the Water Soul Mage Puppet struggled, its senses disrupted by intermittent external signals, swimming aimlessly in the pool unsure of what to do, Horden raised his hand and summoned a conical beam of flame to strike it.

Without any defense, the Water Soul Mage Puppet was hit. Though its core remained unharmed under its armor, its entire body of water elements was shattered on the spot. At that moment, Horden shouted, “Now!”

The two swordsmen from the Thorne family immediately rushed forward at his command, retrieving the puppet’s armor and staff from the pool and carrying them away to prevent the Water Soul Mage Puppet from gathering more water elements to reform.

Seeing Horden easily defeat a silver-tier magic puppet using just a level-2 spell, Mist, and a level-4 spell, Flame Blast, with such skillful and graceful casting, Donald couldn’t help but marvel—this was true mage power. His own abilities were still far behind. Though Horden used both water and fire spells, they were actually spells from the wizarding schools that summoned elemental forces through incantations, rather than the elemental mage method of controlling elements by sensing their properties.

After dealing with that Water Soul Puppet, Horden ordered the three family swordsmen to follow him inside the archmage’s house for a search. Aside from some decaying furniture, they found nothing of value.

Of course, this was not unexpected to them. After all, the Water Soul Mage Puppet had already said that the owner of this building was merely a low-level archmage, so it would be surprising if they could find any precious items. At that moment, Donald deliberately stepped forward and took hold of Horton’s loot to examine it. The core of the Water Soul Mage Puppet was a black crystal the size of an egg. This substance was called Water Soul Stone, and Mesel, as a master alchemist, knew quite a lot about it. “Water Soul Stone is the best material for creating water element puppets. It usually only forms within rare water element creatures on the continent. Each one is worth more than a level 5 magic core. This one, made by a powerful archmage thousands of years ago, is even more precious than a level 6 magic core!” In reality, Donald wasn’t particularly interested in the Water Soul Stone itself; he just wanted to take the opportunity to extract its soul energy. Unfortunately, the pure soul energy had been eroded by the compatibility with water elements. Most of it had combined with water elements under the influence of magic, forming the Water Soul Stone. The remaining soul energy stored in the crystal was only a little over 300 units, enough to summon a level 3 troop. If all of it were extracted, the Water Soul Stone would be destroyed, and the amount of soul energy obtained would only be one-third more—everything else would be pure water elements. Since he wasn’t an elemental mage specializing in water, it wasn’t worth it. Although the Water Soul Stone, having had its floating soul energy extracted, could still be used to create puppets, their spiritual essence would be greatly reduced. Of course, Donald, having reaped a small advantage, certainly wouldn’t explain things clearly to Horton and the others. A low-level archmage was equivalent to a modern bronze mage. The fact that a bronze mage could have silver-level magic puppet guards at home showed just how powerful the spellcasters were during the Archmage Empire era. After this battle, Donald and his group had already figured out most of the details about the ordinary buildings in the ruins. Each well-preserved building had a small barrier, which was why the archmages didn’t need gates or walls. It was these barriers that separated the outside world from the buildings. Once outsiders stepped into the courtyard and the Water Soul Mage Puppets sensed unfamiliar presence, they would appear.

Looking around, there were at least hundreds or even thousands of such buildings in the ruins. It would take a long time to take them down one by one, and by then, when facing real danger, everyone might already be exhausted. So Donald said, “It’s better for us to move forward along this main road toward the center. The buildings around here can be left behind; we can come back and search them slowly after dealing with the most important parts and obtaining the most valuable items, so as not to waste time outside while something goes wrong inside!” Both Ansel and Thorne understood the priorities, so they naturally had no objections.

However, there were also many buildings along this main road leading to the center of the ruins. Without wasting time, Donald dealt with the magical guardians in some of those buildings as well. Most of them were water spirit mage puppets, indicating that archmages back then really favored using these water element puppets—capable not only of defending residences but also of cleaning courtyards and purifying the air, making them highly versatile and useful mage guardians.

Only Donald unexpectedly encountered a magical construct in a building that stood out from the rest. Under the envious gazes of the others, he subdued and stored away the metal construct puppet belonging to the Shieldwardens. Inside that building, he found the control amulet left by its owner, along with blueprints detailing how to create such magical constructs.