In the splendid land of Hot Spring Gate, there stood six heaven-touching cylindrical towers, hundreds of meters in the air.
From where those towers were located, however, Fei clearly felt a stronger kind of magical fluctuation, as if there were multiple layers of waves radiating outwards endlessly. The power was so strong that it was no less than the effect of the magic elements caused by a full breakout from a Five-Star Magician. It seemed like the existence of those towers was the reason for the abnormal fluctuations of magic elements.
"Is it the legendary Mage Tower?"
Fei soon noticed that the six mage towers in the Hot Spring Gate were located respectively at every point of a hexagon, and he was already familiar with this kind of location, which obviously formed a tremendous Magic Array division. It was implicitly releasing a sort of strange transparent enchantment that trapped the Hot Spring Gate within. However, the strength of the enchantment was too weak to be noticed by most people; that might be also why, so far, the giant Magic Array still remained hidden.
"I see… the entire city is located on an already built giant Magic Array. Even the walls around are part of it. Once invaders show up, the power of the mage tower, as well as all the magicians in the city, can be used to stimulate this Magic Array. After enhancing the power of the enchantment, it might be able to defend itself against those gallant warriors; or even to fight them back."
Fei gradually figured out many things.
He suddenly realized that the world was way more complicated than he expected. Fierce competition to survive as well as the history accumulated over thousands of years would only make this world even more fantastic. Fei was already shocked by the single wall in Hot Spring Gate, but it also delighted him with a perfect plan for reconstructing the defense of Chambord.
Along with Angela and Emma's laughter, the whole trip did not only shock Fei, but was also eye-opening.
Hot Spring Gate was the economic and cultural hub of the empire's northern region. Its population was ten times larger than Chambord.
As it was getting close to noon, more and more people from various industries such as vendors, artists, mercenary and trade caravans all showed up on the street. The crowd made the street so packed that you could hear all the noise from peddling and talking right beside your ears.
Two girls were hopping around, amazed by the bustling scenes that they had never seen before and totally forgot about the rest of the world. They just could not help buying all the fancy stuff they saw. As it was about noon, they finally decided to rest at a pub called Ivy League. It was now that Fei realized that his storage ring was almost full.
Ivy League was a popular pub among the lower classes in Hot Spring Gate. People from various backgrounds would like to gather there, especially the busy mercenaries. Fei picked a place like that with the purpose of getting some useful clues from those who traveled extensively.
Moreover, what surprised Fei more was the food provided by the pub. It was his first time to taste the amazing food from other parts of the world, not the flavorless stuff from Chambord. The feeling of being part of the cheerful and boisterous scene reminded Fei of his last life back in university, hanging out with a couple of friends, grabbing as much beer as they wanted in a tiny messy restaurant near the university, enjoying being youthful and fearless.
Fei had a sip of the rye beer and was reminded of the sour bitter taste, yet calming while going down the throat. Fei took a breath with pleasure, then glanced around in the pub.
Most of the men in the pub were mercenaries, dressed in some old but neat leather armor. The armor looked like it was polished a lot, making the leather look polished and shiny. It sounded like thunder when they were talking, sitting together in little groups and bursting into laughter from time to time. There were also some guys liked to enjoy their beer while waiting for a chance to grab the ass of the curvy waitresses, then everyone started to laugh again. People had their own groups. If you paid more attention, you could find different kinds of badges on them showing off their status to others. Although Hot Spring did not allow the subsidiary kingdom's troops to get in the city, this mercenary seemed like an exception. Fei keenly noticed that almost every one of them had a weapon on them.
Compared to those mercenaries in the pub, Fei and the two girls looked totally out of place, not only the way they dressed but also their temperament showed unconsciously. From the beginning when Fei brought Angela and Emma into the pub, some people stared at them with curiosity, or to be precise, they stared at the two girls. The innocence and beauty of Angela and Emma definitely were refreshing the pub that only used to be filled with rudeness and boorishness.
"Hey, beautiful ladies, please allow I, Old Sang, a chance to buy you some drinks."
"Oh my God, I see my charming goddess. Hahaha, have a drink. I barely see such beautiful ladies here."
Once a while, there were some excited and hasty dudes from far away raising their steel cups to present their compliments along with laughter.
As for receiving this nice invitation, Angela did not get mad. Instead, she chose to be enthusiastic as well as elegant. She would hold the cup with a sweet smile on her face and had a sip in response to the mercenaries' guffaw. You could not find any affectation on her, but only a deep elegance.
Fei was surprised to find out that the appetency his fiancée was born with did not only have an influence on animals. Even those rude mercenaries were unbelievably affected, and they were friendly when they were with her. Fei could tell, it was the kindness from deep inside of their tough hearts. It was the emotion that people only had for their families.
"That is strange, is that because Angela has the spirit of a protagonist?"
The wooden door was pushed open as Fei was snickering. The shadows of two appeared in the doorway, one tall and the other short.
"Haha, look who is here! Old York, when the hell did you come back from the empire?"
"Haha, I just came back, I cannot wait to come here and have a drink with my buddies…" The tall one replied as he looked around, eventually heading to Fei's table with the short tiny fellow, saying "Hey young man, can I have a seat here? Everywhere else is full. "
Fei smiled and pushed two wooden chairs towards him, "Have a seat please."
"Thanks, man…" The tall man named York sat down gladly.
All of a sudden Fei felt that things turned dark in front of him, as if a giant mountain stood ahead of him. This guy was exceptionally strong. Even the barbarians in the Diablo world were inferior to him. He was about thirty or forty years old, but his fire red beard drew a lot of attention, making him look like a bold and forthright man. His fellow, on the other hand, was a lot skinnier with a tanned skin tone, but you can still tell that he was quite good-looking. Not a while Fei noticed that this tanned skinny guy seemed very shy. Most of the time he just looked down, but when he lifted his head up, there was a shy smile, together with his white teeth and dimples on his face, made him look like a stunning young man.
"Hey man, get me two large premium rye beers! Hurry up…" the big guy York was knocking on the table and yelling, looking like he couldn't wait for a second longer.
His voice was rumbling like muffled thunder in the pub. However, the other mercenaries were already used to this, and all burst out into a guffaw. Someone asked in a high pitch, "Hmmm premium rye beer?Old York, seems like you made a good fortune after going to the empire… "
"Emmm, a bit, but only a bit." The big guy scratched his head with a smile hanging on the face, not even trying to hide the fact that he did make a fortune.
"Oh come on man, you have to get us drinks since you got some money in your hands." Someone shouted.
"Ok guys, drinks for everybody… I mean, regular rye beer, I can't afford the premium for so many people." The big guy said passionately without a hesitation.
The crowd responded with loud applause and cheering. The pub was full of noise and excitement again.
However, this fellow did not seem too happy about it. No matter how hard he winked at the big guy trying to stop him, he just did not get any hint at all. So he gave up, and could not help but shake his head and stare at the big guy with an awkward smile.
Seeing this, Fei started laughing at himself.
Fei had been observing those two guys the entire time. They made quite a strange mercenary group. As he could tell, they were definitely not from the best tier. The big guy might be a one-star peak samurai, but the young fellow might not even be close to a one-star. However, the strange feeling and sharp sensitivity of someone like Fei who had the[Barbarian Mode]told him that this young black guy was not as innocent as he thought. Fei could tell there were some potential dangers deep inside of the guy, and his scent was familiar to Fei, as if he encountered that somewhere before.
"Hey Old York, tell us about your trip to the empire, anything interesting?" Someone shouted in the pub.
"Ok fine, speaking about the big events in the empire, the one that draws the most attention must be the military contest among the 250 subsidiary countries. There are only 10 days left, and 80 or 90 percent of the subsidiary country troops had stationed outside the empire. Not to mention that the top ten first-class subsidiary countries are already there." The big guy did not continue talking until he took a nice big drink, "All the chambers of commerce, private banks and casinos had set historically high odds and payouts in the market. Tons of aristocrats and businessmen were betting crazily on this contest… "
"Stop here man, that's out of date now, we all know about this event already. Everyone in the empire knows that only those from the first-class subsidiary countries have a chance to be the final winner." Someone contradicted.
"Then you just don't have any clue, I'm afraid it might be different this time." The big guy laughed while shaking his head, "I heard that a few days ago among the kings of the subsidiary countries, there was an amazing young master that showed up out of nowhere going to the contest, who shocked the entire empire by beating the Golden Sun Knight – Chris-Sutton, one of the top ten Execution Knights from the Imperial Knight Palace, in the battle at the twin peaks tower."