Sighing, I began to rummage through the remains, but apparently little had survived. Even the pommel of her staff split into many pieces, yet the base of the staff remained intact, just sunk into the ground. I dug out the crystal base of the staff and looked at it with interest. The material was clearly unusual and quite durable so this might come in handy. The fragments of the pommel was also collected and will be feed to Rock as an apology for the long absence.

Among the other remains, the only thing that remained intact was the amulet. This toy did not react to my mental energy, apparently it had Stephanie's mental seal on it. Either it was not an artifact as I originally thought. What surprised me was the fact that Stephanie didn't have anything else.

I used to carry around a whole crate of various formation materials, gold, crystals, and other things that might come in handy. However, I could not find even one magic crystal among her remains.

I immediately had a suspicion that the amulet is an ancient artifact with a small hidden space. Records of such still remained, but the method of creation was long lost. After fiddling a little more, I could not do anything with the seal of the amulet and decided to postpone it for the future. Over time, any formation, mental mark or seal will dissipate by itself. How long it would take was anyone's guess.

- Damn it.

Killing a lot of acolytes, I hoped to find something useful for myself. Like information about some secret space or about alternative ways to advance. Any acolyte could potentially seek for other ways to progress. I even attacked Joe, knowing perfectly well what I was doing.

There was no point in going with Harlow to a place that I knew nothing about because I could not kill him without proper preparation, which means that if we discovered something valuable enough, he would surely kill me instead.

On the other hand, the case with Joe allowed me to lure the True Magician into a prearranged playground. Although I took the Melrose experiment option as my main course, I did not lose hope of finding another option. However, now after killing the True Magician, I have a piece of useless staff base and an amulet in my hands that I can’t even examine. But the body is now in such a state that I can forget about further attempts to engage in robbery of a True Mage.

I burned the remains, turning the entire area where Stephanie died into lava, and burned the tree that caused her death, including its base. Covering traces around, I left a trap fixing vibrations in the area. This simple formation will self-destruct within a week. I wanted to know if anyone would show up here so soon after the incident.

However, I doubted that anyone would be able to find out about the death of this True Magician. In organizations where the True Mage of the 1st rank was at the top of the food chain, the death of such a magician could not be recorded.

For example, I would definitely not curse myself as a True Magician knowing that there is no one who could avenge me. What's the point? I shouldn't die at all, and if I do, I won't give a damn about anything else. Magicians were selfish and detached, so such tricks are usually used on others, not on themselves.

Moreover, I would not allow anyone to be able to track my location in any way, rather I would kill everyone who could do this even theoretically. So if someone can find the place of her death, I will be very surprised.

Returning back, I found a unicorn that was humbly waiting for the hostess. The unicorn behaved aggressively trying to attack me, apparently I will not be able to use it as my mount. Unicorn meat was tastier than horse meat.  I decided to hide his horn for the future.

Now I finally moved in the direction of my people. I had to go on foot, so I traveled for several weeks. It was too dangerous to use jump formation at my current state.

Finally hobbled over, I saw a much wider area than 5 years ago. Now it could be called a small city, although no one bothered with the walls. Only a small wooden fence was erected, more so that domestic animals could not escape from the city itself than for protection. Wasting time on a wall in a rapidly growing settlement is pointless. Perhaps this would make sense if there was a lord who would decide to build a well-defended castle for himself, but this is of no use to ordinary residents.

There were spacious fields around, and in the center there were streets and houses at once. I slowly hobbled towards the city center. Since my mask broke, I had to go with a closed helmet so as not to scare people.

I liked what I saw. The people around me reminded me of my youth. About Gray, who raised me. About Isabelle, the short time spent with whom was the happiest time of my life.

Magicians called people soulless, even I myself sometimes said it out loud. But the truth is I didn't like to hear that. Gray was not soulless. He was a great man with a soul the size of an entire continent. Isabelle was not soulless either, her kindness and love could fill the whole world.

If anyone could be called soulless, it was Mages, myself included.

Too many of them looked not like people but like rabid dogs, ready to bite into each other's throats sensing weakness. For any advantage, these dogs are ready to kill everything and everyone around. Obviously I fit in perfectly with such a group.

My attempts to interact with other acolytes almost always ended in the same thing. If we found something valuable enough, I was invariably attacked.

Considering how they are raised in the so-called academy, it's no surprise that most of them become greedy selfish bastards. And apparently this disease only progresses even after becoming a True Magician.

The soulless puppet technique alone impressed me quite a bit. The essence of the technique was to kill certain parts of the human brain. But these parts were incredibly numerous and they were so miniature that they could not be seen with the naked eye. It is not difficult to imagine how many people had to be killed to come up with such a technique. Theoretically, even a True Knight could be made into a puppet.

Of course I was not a kind person myself, but I still could not consider ordinary people as cattle. The idea of ​​slaughtering thousands of people for no tangible benefit still seemed out of place to me. On the other hand, if I could instantly become omnipotent by destroying the entire world, perhaps I would have done so. I think almost any of the Mages would have done the same.

At the very least, creating slave mental marks was a highly unpopular method. The reason is basically the same. Any mental brand, mark, rune, and so on sooner or later lost its effectiveness. Even the mark that the Leicester's left on me would sooner or later dispel itself. Time had no worthy rivals.

Such things were used more often not for mortals, but to control powerful mounts that did not have high intelligence, golems, and artifacts. If you try to brand even a rank 1 acolyte with a slave seal, then this seal will gradually corrode akin to how water undermines a stone. This method may work temporarily, but not for long. If you completely suppress the mind with such a slave seal, then instead of an acolyte you will gain control over a useless piece of meat that is unable to even use its mental energy. This is akin to murder and in most cases does not carry any benefit.

I continued to hobble along the road towards the city center, a couple of guards on small wooden towers all around not reacting to my arrival. However, judging by the commotion, Sellinger had already been notified. Five years ago, there were no more than 300 people here, apparently the population has grown a little during this time, small children were running around. Most of the locals knew each other by sight.

- Welcome back Lord Tarrister. - said one of the women, bowing.

More and more people recognized me by my dark gold armor. Although the armor was going through hard times now, it still made me stand out from any crowd. People approached and greeted me, at times I nodded in response looking around.

My Knights led by Sellinger came out to meet me, and helped me to get on my horse.

- Were there any problems? - I asked.

Although we didn't stop anywhere on our way here after arriving from Outland, tracking down this place and my connection to it wasn't difficult if anyone wanted to. But apparently Stephanie was only interested in me. I had no doubts about the loyalty of my people, almost all of them were near and served me from childhood. In turn, I always paid them generously.

- No sir. No one was stronger than a rank 3 acolyte. Luckily, we got through one of these without much loss. - Sellinger replied.

I nodded. Initially, few people were interested in this hole, of course, gradually with the development of the city, the situation may change. In any case I couldn't help it. If I will die then sooner or later the city would be taken over by someone else.

- Well, how are you yourself? Did you finally find your life partner? Do you or the other Knights have any requests? I will leave you enough gold for a comfortable life, but unfortunately I don’t have the opportunity to make you stronger yet, it may not appear anymore.

- We are satisfied. If we or the wives need something, we can bring it from the kingdom of Erinz. Even newspapers come here regularly. Over the years, there were several families who wanted to leave, but I did not hold anyone back.

But personally I'm not so great. At first, everything suited my wife, but not so long ago she ran away, taking with her a whole bag of gold. It’s good that she at least didn’t take the child with her. I have to admit that I told her about the fact that I am looking after your gold. It was the stupidest thing I've ever done. It was from that day on that my wife tried again and again to persuade me to take the gold for myself and run away. I still can’t understand why she wanted so much gold and what she was going to do with it. - Sellinger complained.

I remembered Isabelle again, she didn't want to be locked up anywhere either. She liked to travel around the cities, go to various shops and just observe the people and the world around. In this regard, she created some inconvenience for me, but I loved these inconveniences and tried to keep my promise. Although I had many women after her, I did not have an emotional connection with any of them.

- Don't worry about it, I don't care about the gold. But if you want, you can go in search of her. I'll stay here for a couple of years so I can look after the city myself.

- No, everything is okay. I'm not going to look for her. Our relationship finally deteriorated, I even rashly hit her a couple of times for the stupid things that she said. She won't want to come back even if I find her. - Sellinger wave away.

Finally, I went into a hidden basement under one of the buildings. There were mountains of gold, which are now much thinner, but there was still enough left.

Rock was nowhere to be seen.

- Come out Rock it's me. - I said into the air.

In one of the corners, the gilded floor suddenly stirred and a piece of the floor turned into a small golden lizard. It looked at me with its beady black eyes and finally approached me. I sat down on the floor and reached for the lizard with my only prosthetic hand. Rock grabbed my little finger with his mouth and didn't let go. I raised my hand to my eyes and looked at Rock hanging on my little finger.

- I'm sorry Rock. Anyone I was not leaving to just have fun you know.

The lizard has remained almost the same size as it was five years ago. Rock sat in my palm and I tried to address him through a mental connection. I didn’t know how to do it before, but I learned this skill while was at the academy.

- You understand me? - I asked, sending out a mental wave.

The black beads of Rock stared at me in confusion.

- If you understand me nod your head.

Rock nodded his head slightly. I smiled. I could not find a creature with such strange abilities in the encyclopedia of monsters. But the entire Southern Continent was covered with anomalous zones like scars of various stripes. So there were various bizarre creatures. Maybe he got to Outland by sea or something.

Although he wasn't particularly strong on his own, he obviously had some intelligence once I was able to contact him with mental energy. Of course he can't answer me.

After playing around with Rock for a bit, I took a look at the pile of dark gold tails that Rock had piled up over the years. This is enough for me to make a prosthesis and to create a golem for myself.

Melrose usually offered to choose between transferring the soul to another body or to the so-called Soul Pearl. I was going to choose the transfer to the pearl. Nevertheless, apparently there were no successful cases yet, and I had no idea if I could feel anything at all much less move if my soul was in a pearl. Therefore I hoped that Nocturne would help me make favorable conditions. If I can leave the tower then I will return to my future golem and I can use it without any problems.

To prepare the body, I needed at least two years. After all, I was going to do more than just make armor out of dark gold. I have to create the golem as a single large prosthesis with the ability to clearly control it.

Although the protection of dark gold was about 16 units, but unlike armor with a small layer of gold, the body of the golem will consist entirely of dark gold, due to the thickness of the alloy, the protection will also improve by an order of magnitude.

About a month later, three acolytes of the 3rd rank appeared in the city, as Sellinger informed me about. I had to stop from creating runes and go out to look. I immediately noticed the signs of the Leicester family on them, they in turn noticed me and moved in my direction, preparing spells.

True, along the way the ground beneath them collapsed and they fell into a deep pit filled with spikes, then Knights ran up from all sides of the pit and began to shoot them with crossbows.

This time no curses were noticed, apparently these acolytes were expendable.

I examined their belongings with interest, and then set to work again. First I need to finish my prosthetic right arm.