Chapter 164 Breaking Through All Obstacles

The branches in the fire pit were carefully arranged into a tower shape by the maid. The arcane fires between the curtains were extinguished, leaving only a few smokeless candles on the writing desk burning quietly. On the large bed covered with black velvet bedding, two naked bodies writhed together. The woman's moans and the man's panting lasted for a long time.

Finally, everything quieted down with a high-pitched moan from the woman. Shaoke pressed against the maid's soft body, panting heavily. "Mage Xueye, will you leave here again?" the maid gasped, voicing her thoughts.

Shaoke did not answer her question. Instead, he carefully felt the soft body beneath him, letting his hand wander slowly over her sweat-covered skin, occasionally caressing her sensitive areas. After a while, he shook his head and fell asleep still pinning her beneath him.

When Shaoke woke up, the maid was already dressed in a snow-white silk sleeping robe, kneeling over him and massaging him. Seeing Shaoke awake, the maid happily asked, "Mage Xueye, I have prepared food." With the mage's permission, she fetched the clay pot from the roasting rack and served the medicinal decoction inside for Shaoke to consume.

Despite the maid's barely concealed longing, Shaoke asked her to leave. "There's no need to come unless necessary," he said, pointing to the open spell record still lying on the writing desk. "You can borrow some books from there. I think that should be fine."

After the maid left Shaoke's room, he resumed his unfinished work. Insights flowed smoothly onto the page, occasionally accompanied by necessary annotations. Of course, such tasks required long hours of work in a peaceful environment.

Recording battle situations, meditation, practicing various spellcasting techniques, and attempting to write simple ancient magic scripts—all proceeded normally and in an orderly manner.

Within a few days, Shaoke not only finished recording the details of his recent battles but also skimmed through the two spellbooks he had acquired during his mission. However, seeing the spells recorded by the mages inside, Shaoke did not practice them, nor did he even bother to copy them. This was mainly because the spells recorded in these spellbooks were not suitable to be used in combination with the spells he currently knew during combat.

Enjoying the maid's gentle massage, Shaoke carefully examined the pouch on the writing desk, which was inscribed with dozens of magic scripts and some magic arrays. He contemplated whether to follow the methods recorded in the books to decipher the spells on it and retrieve its contents. In the end, the urge to attempt decryption took over his mind. He wanted to try dismantling the magic arrays on it, even if mistakes and losses occurred. After all, it was just a pouch belonging to a third-tier mage.

Following Shaoke's instructions, the maid obediently left the room holding a book written in ordinary language. As per Shaoke's orders, she prepared enough food for him before leaving the room with some concern.

The spell of Identification—a floating eye in the void scanned the magic scripts and engraved arrays on the pouch, quickly allowing Shaoke to understand their effects. Of course, this did not consume much of his mental energy, as it was merely crafted by a third-tier mage. If it had been created by a mage of the fifth tier or higher, he would have undoubtedly paid a price for such a simple probing attempt.

After confirming the basic functions of those scripts and arrays once more, Shaoke recovered from the slight exertion of the spellcasting and began formally dismantling the magic arrays on the pouch. Of course, some hidden traps would also be successfully neutralized after expending a certain amount of mental energy or magical power.

Because the mage had infused excessive magical power when writing the spellbook, Shaoke's dismantling work did not proceed smoothly.

Dozens of thin threads of condensed magical power, mixed with a small amount of mental energy, slowly formed a pale purple eye in the air under the spellcaster's control.

With Shaoke's meditation and hand seal control, a thicker purple thread drifted out from the floating eye in the air. This thread gently merged into one of the magic scripts on the cover. As a large amount of magical power poured in, a faint shadow of the script slowly floated away from the pouch and, under the control of the thread, gradually merged into the floating eye. From then on, that magic script would no longer harm Shaoke during future observations or touches. Of course, the protective functions of these scripts for the pouch remained intact.

The dismantling work did not proceed quickly. Many obscure magic scripts and array structures were unfamiliar to Shaoke, repeatedly delaying his interpretation. He had considered handing over the pouch, like the other two spellbooks, to the mages of the Death Mage Corps for help in successfully deciphering the arrays. However, Shaoke did not want all his future spellbooks and magic items to require decryption by other mages. Moreover, those mages did not have the time to assist him with such tasks, so Shaoke abandoned that idea.

A month passed in the blink of an eye. Following the method described in the book, Shaoke decomposed the magical power from the floating eye into nearly a hundred thin threads, condensed them into a strange magic array, and expended a large amount of mental energy to fuse two or three magic scripts into that strange array using a special method. This peculiar array was three-dimensional, with countless tiny rhomboids constantly swirling inside it. When Shaoke controlled the array to land on the largest defensive magic array on the pouch, the entire pouch placed on the writing desk suddenly emitted a series of faint cracking sounds. Streams of black light swiftly traveled along the magic scripts and arrays. Under Shaoke's watchful gaze, the intense magical reaction gradually subsided after some time.

Releasing his mental energy to carefully sense the arrays on the pouch, Shaoke finally let out a long sigh of relief. The dismantling of the final array was complete. To successfully dismantle this last self-destruct array and the embedded traps, Shaoke had spent a full ten days in the vast space storing numerous books, reviewing materials, and attempting to draw similar arrays and traps before dismantling this one. This was to prevent failure in the final dismantling work, which could have damaged the pouch.

After pouring out some scattered items from the pouch, Shaoke carefully observed the placement of the magic cores inside, intending to create a similar pouch in the future.

A large, heavy black spellbook lay on the writing desk, with scattered crystals and magic cores used to replenish array energy tossed beside it. As for crystals or magic cores sealed with spells, Shaoke found none. There were no scrolls inside either.

After casually sweeping the low-tier crystals and magic cores into a box, Shaoke began studying the spellbook.

The black pages, made of an unknown material, felt soft to the touch, like the delicate skin of a young girl. The pale blue handwriting, whether due to spell effects or the color itself, made Shaoke uncomfortable.

Subsequently, Shaoke added the task of interpreting the spellbook to his daily routine. Of course, interpreting someone else's spellbook for the first time proved to be a challenging ordeal for Shaoke. The text inside was written in a magic script he did not recognize. Shaoke only remembered having seen the name of this magic script before—it belonged to a relatively obscure minor magical language from the same era as Ancient Magic Tongue. Under the promotion of several great empires at the time, its circulation was relatively widespread, but it only lasted for a few thousand years.

Faced with this situation, Shaoke had no choice but to temporarily abandon the task of interpreting the spellbook. Instead, he increased the time spent practicing spells and then began learning that magical language. Although this magical language was more difficult to learn than Abyssal, with the powerful memory of mages, Shaoke made progress in a relatively short time.

A wine cup carved from Snowshadow Wood, filled with premium purple wine aged for a hundred years and infused with a drop of Fire Honey, was brought to Shaoke's lips by the maid. Meanwhile, Shaoke gently kneaded her prominent breasts, silently toying with them. He hoped to alleviate the irritation brought on by days of dismantling array traps through this method.

"I will be leaving here for a while. You may stay in your room or remain here." Silently feeling the traces of the maid's other small hand wandering over his body, Shaoke quickly suppressed the physical urge. "I'll leave after two more meals." Seeing the maid's hesitant expression, Shaoke quickly added.

"Mhm!" The maid placed the wine cup in a small compartment on the wall and drew the black curtains once more. She then leaned halfway over Shaoke, allowing him to caress her body.

"You should leave first." Shaoke tugged hard on the maid's protruding nipples, kneading them forcefully a few times before lightly patting her lower back, signaling her to leave.

The mage's slight roughness did not upset the maid. She understood that among the maids who had served mages here before her, she was relatively fortunate. Some of her companions were often kneaded forcefully by the mages they served, regardless of their pain. Of course, she did not find the earlier sensation particularly painful. However, she envied those maids whom the mages allowed to become pregnant—at least they had a chance to become high-ranking maids here. Yes, even though they would still be maids, at least they might not be casually exchanged among mages or assigned to exhausting tasks.