Elite Mages’ Academy (Web Novel)

Chapter 498: Feeling Things Out

Taking advantage of the driver looking away, Xiao Lin immediately shot toward the carriage. Changing all his attributes to agility had also strengthened his dexterity, so his silent approach could not be detected by regular people. By the time the driver carefully put away the New Dollars, Xiao Lin had already hidden at the bottom of the carriage.

There was a large dog-like creature pulling the carriage that had actually detected Xiao Lin’s approach, but the dense death energy around the hill had caused the animal to be filled with fear, which was why it did not react to Xiao Lin at all.

The gate of the castle slowly opened. Under the gaze of the necromantic eye, the carriage was slowly led inside, but the driver was not allowed to enter. After talking to the people from the castle, he happily left after taking his money.

“Bring the vegetables to the kitchen!” A few people were talking in Normese with a thick local accent. Even if it was a castle of necromancers, other than those faced with death, normal necromancers were usually regular humans.

“How unlucky. Why do we have to specially prepare food for those people?”

“I heard that they had been refusing to eat anything the past few days. They really are clueless outsiders. How could they refuse the fresh flesh and blood we prepared for them?”

“Our lord is so kind, even preparing fresh vegetables for them. He should just turn them into undead beings. I heard that the spirits made with those aliens are even stronger.”

“I heard that we’ll be sending them away in two days.”

“There’s no choice. Those outsiders are too strong. No one in the whole kingdom dares fight them.”

…

The sound of the chatter got further and further once the cart was pushed into the kitchen. The two of them had already gone far away before Xiao Lin got out.

It seemed like the monitors really were taken here. What relieved him was that Valen did not make it too hard for them, even preparing fresh vegetables for them to eat. It was obvious he did not dare starve them to death.

The ancient castle covered the whole hill, so it was not small. Even though the old man had given him a general blueprint, such as where the dungeons could be, it was not easy to investigate while avoiding detection. It was hard to guarantee if he could finish his inspection before the sun came up.

Xiao Lin actually understood that the smartest thing to do was to retreat. His goal for that night had been to determine if they were safe. He would then only need to wait for the next day before getting Liang Taibai to get the soldiers in the royal city to surround the castle and force the Argos clan to hand the monitors over. If the Argos clan wanted to stay within the city, they would be unable to refuse.

He had wanted to avoid mobilizing the troops and potentially alerting the Argos clan since everything was just speculation before that. It would have been troublesome if the Argos clan had moved the monitors away the moment they received the news, but now he basically confirmed it.

The ancient castle was larger than he thought. It seemed like the Argos family had a unique approach to architecture. The design was complicated and the corridors often intersected. On top of that, there were long flights of stairs that separated the castle into various segments.

Xiao Lin gave up after walking around for a bit. He knew that, even if he was handed a map, it would still be hard to find where they were hidden, so he decided to hide in the kitchen.

After a while, people came in to prepare the food. The chef was obviously unhappy at being made to cook in the middle of the night, and was mumbling all sorts of vulgarities while he cooked. It was called a kitchen, but it really was just a storage room. There was trash and dirt everywhere. It seemed like the temporary chef was just going through the motions as well, not even bothering to chop the vegetables as he threw the piles of vegetables into the pot and fried them.

Xiao Lin hid behind a pile of junk. After ten minutes, the man put the food into a very large wooden box and carried it out. Xiao Lin immediately followed behind.

After twenty minutes, Xiao Lin almost got a headache from all the twists and turns before the man finally stopped in front of the cells. The cells were built on the third level of the basement. Other than a few torches that gave the bare minimum amount of light, everything was dark.

“Eat up!”

His voice quickly spread across the cell. He then threw the wooden box into the cell through a small window. After a few minutes, movement could be heard, and someone seemed angrily say, “F**k! What sh*tty vegetables are these?! They’re so salty!”

“They probably feed it to the pigs!”

The shouts had little power behind them, but they sounded confident. They seemed to figure out that the captors did not dare make things too hard on them, nor did the captors dare starve them.

Sure enough, even though the chef had complained in a fit of rage, he still clenched his teeth as he took away the wooden box that had been thrown back out, probably to redo the dish.

Xiao Lin finally made his move after being hidden for so long. The unlucky guy was not very strong; Xiao Lin only needed to chop him lightly on the back before he passed out.

“Xiao Lin?”

“It’s Xiao Lin!”

The monitors were shocked when they saw the man collapse, but they quickly saw that it was Xiao Lin from the dim light, and a few of them exclaimed.

“Shut up!” Xiao Lin softly said. “Do you want to attract the whole castle?”

All of them fell silent immediately. Even Han Manman, who always went against Xiao Lin, was obediently silent. Of course, seeing how haggard she looked, it was understandable that she had absolutely no will to retort.

Xiao Lin looked around. The cell was much better than last time. At least, it was not that damp and there were not that many bugs around. Of course, as a place thick with death energy, it was doubtful bugs could live there in the first place. They had even prepared beddings for them in the cell, so their treatment was definitely better.

“How are all of you?” There were seven of them in the cell, and the men and women were not separated, which was probably a hard time for the women.

“We’re okay. They’re probably worried about the academy, and did not dare do anything to us.” The one who spoke was Class Eight’s Zhang Shengguo. Even with his pallid face, he still tried to maintain a look of calm in front of Xiao Lin. His words seemed to imply that, even if Xiao Lin did not come save them, they would have been fine anyway.

Xiao Lin did not bother entertaining the pretentious fellow. If he had been a few days late, they would probably be unable to be saved.

“Xiao Lin, sorry we did not listen to you.” In opposition to Zhang Shengguo, Class Ten’s Chen Fangming apologized immediately.

“Why did you all not kill yourselves?” Xiao Lin asked.

“We thought of it, but that bastard warned us that the castle was not within the boundaries of a resurrection tower. If we committed suicide, we would actually die.

“You believed him?”

“Not completely, but who would dare try?”