After toying with his prey for a while, Fars grew tired of the game. Once he had practiced the spells he had recently learned, he felt a sense of boredom with his current target. As for how to deal with the exhausted prey that could barely move, he naturally planned to indulge in a hearty drink of human blood. In truth, if he fed daily, he wouldn't need to drain his victims completely, especially since his current targets were high-level magical beasts or seasoned professionals like the one before him. About a third of their blood would suffice for Fars. Fortunately, he had also learned methods to preserve blood from his studies. The key was to ensure that the containers were airtight and that the storage environment was suitable.
Just like wine becomes richer with age, blood isn't always better when it's fresh. The quality of blood can be significantly affected by excessive fear or intense emotional turmoil experienced by a person before death. This explains why vampires often release toxins that numb and confuse the nervous system into their prey's blood while feeding. Compared to this method, Fars preferred to use charm spells to ensnare his victims in pleasant illusions before feeding. His renewed appreciation for charm magic stemmed from the demon's earlier reminder. The reason Fars found it so easy to learn the ritual arts was that charm magic was one of the special talents of the Hill family. Charm magic confuses living beings, and theoretically, even sentient creatures would be affected; it just required a different approach in the form of ritual arts.
Consuming too much blood at once would automatically convert it into blood essence for storage, but the capacity for blood essence was limited. Unless the blood was exceptionally valuable, the essence produced wouldn't provide enough energy to sustain various life activities. Now that Fars had learned how to store blood, he preferred to seal away any excess he couldn't drink. Moreover, with Danis, the phoenix who could control ice and snow, freezing the blood made it taste even better when consumed later. Unfortunately, although Fars possessed much greater mental strength than Danis and had some ability to manipulate ice and snow, he still lacked the finesse of the young phoenix.
This was merely a minor episode on his journey. Reflecting on his earlier encounter with Jessie's team, which had only one high-level swordsman, he had relied on magical beasts and a surprise attack to secure a safe victory. Now, just a few months later, if Fars were to face another adventuring party, as long as their high-level professional didn't pose a challenge like Joanna and Agno, he would have no trouble. After all, how many young masters and mistresses from prominent families could casually use scrolls and wield weapons that could be considered divine artifacts across the entire continent of Elras?
After a short journey, Fars found himself back at the Cold Pool. He had traveled nearly a month westward before joining Joanna and her group in search of the Gonsago ruins. Although the route wasn't a direct return, it generally led eastward. Thus, it didn't take long for Fars to return to his old home.
The Cold Pool looked just as it always had. Fars wasn't worried about anyone lurking nearby to ambush him. He had already collected all the precious ice crystals hidden at the bottom of the pool, leaving nothing that would attract knights or sorcerers. Without such high-level threats seeking revenge, Fars felt no danger. If there were more people, he could simply escape. Moreover, it would be difficult for opponents of that caliber to evade Fars's keen senses. He wasn't concerned about revealing his whereabouts; Fars confidently swept his pure and powerful mental energy across the visible area around the Cold Pool. This proactive and mentally taxing search was far more effective than relying on natural perception. While perception could sometimes be evaded using special hidden aura techniques, its range was limited. Even at the level of a sorcerer, one could only detect within a radius of a couple hundred meters.
Fars's direct and forceful approach meant that even traps and other inanimate objects would inevitably be discovered. Of course, nothing in the world is absolute; some items or secret techniques are specifically designed to counter such detection methods. The feedback he received was concerning—he hadn't detected any people, but his wooden cabin was still intact. The Cold Pool, a place he had once hidden in, was now devoid of any human presence, but it was filled with traps. How many traps? There were over a dozen trigger-type traps surrounding his cabin alone.
Fortunately, Fars had not dared to descend directly into the Cold Pool; he had remained airborne. Such traps were generally difficult to set in the air, except for large-scale magical traps that might cover the sky. Well, if there were traps, there would likely be people nearby, Fars reasoned. The trap owner had undoubtedly set them around the Cold Pool with him in mind. There was no need for such a dense array of traps to capture magical beasts; otherwise, it would only alert them.
His earlier actions would have already drawn attention if anyone was lurking nearby. At the very least, such a forceful method of detection would have triggered many traps, except for those designed to ensnare someone who fell into a pit; mental energy was intangible and wouldn't activate those traps.
The wise choice was to avoid confrontation and observe the reactions of those with ill intentions from a distance. Before Fars could ascend to a higher altitude, he sensed seven or eight strong presences approaching the Cold Pool. They couldn't be far away, and within minutes, five of them entered Fars's line of sight. Thanks to the cover of night, his arrival was only partially revealed, and no one noticed him.
The first five individuals didn't seem to be a cohesive group, as evidenced by the tense atmosphere. They approached from different directions, with only one pair—a man and a woman—appearing to be together, closely huddled together and wary of the others.
A burly man with a scruffy beard was the first to break the silence, saying, "Who the hell is here, so brazenly destroying all the traps I painstakingly set? Where are they? I'll make them pay!"
After his rant, a few more people arrived, and the once tranquil Cold Pool quickly became crowded. This crowding wasn't due to people squeezing together, but rather an uncomfortable mismatch with the environment. It seemed the situation below was indeed complicated, with at least four factions present. In addition to the ten or so individuals already sensing the Cold Pool, another ten or so were making their way toward it. Their strength seemed to be a tier lower; otherwise, they wouldn't be lagging behind so much.
"Looks like everyone's here, but we still arrived too late, and she got away again. What a pity…" spoke the middle-aged man from the initial pair. He spoke grandly, as if he were the master of the place. Among the factions present, he was indeed the strongest leader. Not only did he and the woman beside him outmatch the initial five, but they also had the largest number of followers.
Fars felt puzzled as to why he could still hear the conversation below while in the air. This was thanks to his diligent studies today. The Sound Theft technique, while not particularly advanced, wasn't something every mage had the opportunity to learn. Fars hadn't known it before, but Master Perugino's collection of ancient texts contained a record of it. This technique allowed one to inscribe a sound transmission array onto an object, transmitting surrounding sounds to the caster. It was called Sound Theft because it required minimal resources and no special materials; one only needed a place to inscribe the array and use magical energy to carve the required spell formation, which would maintain the sound transmission effect for a period. Before retreating to the air, Fars had quickly inscribed a small sound transmission array on the wooden cabin by the Cold Pool. With so many traps and people around, the mixed auras made it difficult for anyone to notice Fars's subtle technique unless they were exceptionally observant.
Fars's confusion stemmed from the man's earlier remark about "letting her escape again." Before he left, Fars hadn't left any survivors aside from a high-level thief, and the situation back then hardly constituted an "escape." This led Fars to suspect that the person they were searching for might not be him.
However, the location was the Cold Pool, a place that Fars couldn't easily forget, one that had caused him quite a bit of trouble. It was hard to believe that no one was keeping an eye on him, especially since he had let two people go. Jessie was one; letting her go hadn't been Fars's intention—he had been frozen beneath the Cold Pool and couldn't stop her. The later thief, who was indeed much more skilled than Fars, had let him go after realizing he couldn't catch up.
It seemed that Fars's head was now worth quite a bit of money. After Jessie's escape, the high-level professionals she attracted would surely be after him. If a high-level thief returned and spread the word about how troublesome Fars was, his identity as a high-level mage would undoubtedly be exposed.
Unexpectedly, one of the individuals below, a man dressed as a sorcerer, stepped forward, nodded to a few others, and offered his opinion: "Could this be the work of the vampire that caused such a stir before? There are clear traces of mental energy here, and from the residual aura, it's evident that a high-level mage has directly swept through the area. This bears a striking resemblance to the vampire viscount wanted by the Adventurers' Guild for having high-level mage capabilities."
"Exactly, this is the vampire's old residence. What if he's returned?" With the sorcerer's explanation, his theory quickly gained support, and the twenty or so individuals began to discuss among themselves.
"Compared to the female thief we've been chasing for so long, the bounty on that vampire is much higher."
"Right? Did you all take that mission? Our captain took it a while back. Now it seems that we thought the vampire had fled quickly, and this mission is now in jeopardy."
...
The noisy chatter made Fars's head spin. However, through their discussions, he gleaned some information about himself. The name Fars de Hill had indeed spread, and he was now wanted. The bounty seemed to be 50,000 gold coins! Fifty thousand gold coins—such a price was typically reserved for A-level wanted criminals on the continent. They really thought highly of him, Fars could only inwardly "thank" the families that had placed the bounty on his head.