Translator: La0o9 

〖 Very well, take this envelope back to Stim, I shall be arriving at the correct time 〗as Negary's hand glowed goldenly, the magic signature belonging to the Great Magus was erased, replaced by Negary's signature.

Watching Eyre leave, Negary calmly pondered the Great Magus' invitation. The so-called Mana Banquet was nothing more than a decadal gathering of the House of Mages he established.

They would invite some people with supernatural powers to attend an exchange of knowledge within the Grand Library.

For the little rats who tried everything they could to prolong their last breaths while being suppressed by the seven Churches, this banquet was without a doubt their greatest feast, as well as the greatest stage.

But for Negary, this was nothing but child's play, and yet that old man who was essentially waiting until the day he died suddenly extended him an invitation, this was clearly picking a fight.

This wasn't the SCR world, Negary's virus had yet to spread and infect the entire world, not to mention the seven huge interferences, so there were still many secrets that Negary didn't know about.

〖 Some necessary espionage must still be done… Stim Allenz isn't the simple person he seems to be 〗Negary waved his hand and posted a new mission on the Hermit Order's cla.s.s mission board: To investigate the Grand Library's abnormalities.

The larger the Hermit Order grew, the more restrained his actions became. Numerous people had discreetly infiltrated the Hermit Order, so the Hermit Order's hidden mission board had also been modified to become segregated by rank.

Every member needed to spend a certain amount of contribution points from their ring in order to unlock the higher mission board ranks, and as soon as the owner of the ring changed, this rank would be reset.

〖 Of course, I also need another layer of security 〗Negary thought to himself.

Academic City.

While this place had n.o.bles and nouveau riche who came from all over to study, there were also those who were forced to drift here due to religious reasons. These people lived in the slums and sewage of the city, left to fend for themselves without anyone's care, they could only rely on the leftover trash and occasional relief from a portion of good-willed people in order to survive.

A young man whose entire body was covered in gunk dug out a small piece of algae from the underground waterway and put it into his mouth, some mud even stuck to the corners of his mouth.

After swallowing the algae, he weakly sat on the street and watched the numerous people who walked by, his stomach soon began to rumble intensely. Algae was one of the few edible things one could find in abundance in the waterway, but unlike kelp sold to be consumed, one had to properly clean these things found in the underground waterway, otherwise, who knew how many dirty things were mixed inside.

Only those who didn't want to die from hunger came here, where they would stuff themselves full of whatever they could before waiting to die.

The young man sat waiting for his death, but he soon discovered that the uncomfortable sensation he felt in his stomach was quickly going away.

“Jimmy, I have a serious question I want to ask you”

The young man suddenly heard someone talking so he looked up, only to see two thin and lanky figures picking things out from the dirty underground waterway.

One of them asked very seriously while still focused on picking things up.

“Just ask, Pilo, I'm listening” the other lanky figure replied.

“Look at the s.h.i.+t in the waterway, I also put out a lot of s.h.i.+t, so where exactly does the s.h.i.+t I put out go to?” as soon as he opened his mouth, Pilo mentioned a completely nauseating topic.

“This isn't a serious topic, but they probably flow along the river into the city moat” Jimmy was speechless, but still answered: “If I were you, I wouldn't be wasting time on such useless questions. If we can't find anything of value, we'll probably be the same as the s.h.i.+t right there floating above the water in one or two days”

“Are you looking down on s.h.i.+t?” Pilo continued to ask: “And then what? I'm asking where the s.h.i.+t goes after that?”

“Alright, can we stop wasting time on this dumb question?” Jimmy was considerably dejected. They hadn't been able to find anything of value to sell for the last two days, so if they couldn't find anything else today as well, they could only eat the algae and wait to die, but his companion was still spouting nonsense.

“The s.h.i.+t will flow from the sewage to the city moat, then flow into a bigger river, then flow out to sea, is that enough for you!?” Jimmy shouted in annoyance.

“So it heads out to sea, everyone's s.h.i.+t will head into the sea, the sea with all the big fishes, right?” seemingly unfazed by Jimmy's annoyance, Pilo continued muttering to himself.

“I heard from some scholars in the city that a lot of the clouds in the sky come from evaporated water from the sea… yeah, evaporated, that's the word, clouds are formed from evaporated water” Pilo continued: “s.h.i.+t gets mixed into the seawater, flies into the sky to form s.h.i.+t clouds, s.h.i.+t clouds pour down s.h.i.+t rain, fall onto the soil, the s.h.i.+t tress then absorb s.h.i.+t rain to grow big and strong…”

“But so what? We're about to starve to death over here, can you stop with that topic and get back to trying to survive?” Jimmy's mind was at the end of its ropes. The pressure of survival had crushed him to the point that he could break at any moment.

“I'm just thinking. If even s.h.i.+t can leave this place, then we should be able to as well” Pilo stared at Jimmy, still maintaining his focused look: “What do you think, Jimmy?”

Jimmy's annoyed expression froze and faded. Thinking of the fact that even the s.h.i.+t he looked down on could leave this place, travel to the great sea that they haven't even seen, flow with the fishes, fly into the sky, turn into clouds and rain; his fear towards the uncertain future and upcoming threat of death slowly faded away.

Jimmy nodded, his voice a bit hoa.r.s.er than before: “Maybe, Pilo”

Living with trash at the bottom of the bottom in this city, their fears and despair were unimaginable to many people. Most of them didn't live for 'tomorrow' because not all of them could wake up the next day, and no one would care about their survival except themselves.

These two people who stood in the foul underground waterway with s.h.i.+t and gunk all over their bodies were actually glowing with light.

As the young man previously waiting for death sat in the waterway watching these two, he rubbed his stomach that had now calmed down and found a piece of information in his mind.

[Dirt-infused algae, can increase the speed at which rocks are corroded, capable of maintaining climate and soil fertility… Can be used as food by mixing with black horn powder to cancel toxicity, extracting up to 0.01 strands of Impurity]

Instinctively, the young man understood what these algae could be used for. He still didn't understand what the 'Impurity' mentioned at the end was supposed to be, but he understood that if this information wasn't fake, a new type of food was more than enough for him to escape the slums.

G.o.d favors me!

The young man grabbed a large chunk of algae from his surroundings, but Jimmy's and Pilo's conversation swiftly flashed through his mind. Some sort of power was guiding him, changing his way of thinking.

The benefits brought by a new kind of food is considerable, I need help, or I won't be able to gain anything from it.

The young man who originally didn't understand the concept of a 'bigger picture' suddenly knew this as fact. He stood up and called out towards Jimmy and Pilo who were wandering towards a faraway underground waterway: “You two, I have a chance to survive”

“You are?” the two men in the underground waterway looked at the young man doubtfully.

His appearance means he isn't any better off than we are, but he mentioned some sort of chance to survive, maybe he's a cannibal?

“You can call me…” the young man paused a bit, then frowned and replied: “Negary”