Mystic Overlord: Reading Gives Strength-Chapter 514 - 511: Discovery in the Manor

Heidi, back on the ground, fell silent.

She didn’t even ask who Heloise was.

It was as if she had lost something very important; she simply followed Ronald and Mil without uttering a word.

They walked a distance and came to the entrance of the manor.

After much consideration, Ronald finally turned around to ask her,

"Heidi, why don’t you go back first?"

Ronald’s thoughts were straightforward.

Tonight, after confirming Rumiel’s condition, the caster whom he had pulled out of the slums proved her honesty. In this situation, Ronald really didn’t want her to suffer here any longer.

"..."

"I understand."

Heidi’s reaction was as direct as Ronald’s.

A hint of surprise flashed through her listless eyes, and then without any hesitation or superfluous questions, she slowly turned and walked alone towards Springs.

At that moment, Heloise reached out to pat Ronald on the back:

"Ronald, got any thoughts?"

Ronald felt the girl’s concerned emotions and managed a slightly fake smile in response,

"Just some thoughts, nothing impactful."

"Let’s continue."

With those words, Ronald took the lead and entered the manor.

Heloise looked at the man’s retreating figure in front, and in the end, she silently followed.

Next, Ronald and Heloise began to inspect the place.

The manor, as the location where Rumiel staged her ambush, was in fact an abandoned building. The garden outside was obviously hastily tended to, most of the trimming poorly done, which proved this point.

They proceeded into the building’s interior.

The people Ronald had subdued earlier with his Hell’s dark mist started to appear before them, scattered—one by one—they mostly maintained their pre-unconscious attire, whether they were leaning against the wall or lying on the ground.

Ronald and Heloise tried waking a few of them for questioning.

But the result...

Invariably, all of those roused were ordinary people without any school insignia and showed no signs of having used magic power. Further questioning revealed that they were all ignorant of any information about Rumiel.

After several inquiries yielded the exact same responses, Ronald simply gave up on pursuing further questioning,

"All of them are ordinary people under control..."

Heloise then offered an explanation,

"If one has spells like charming humans or mental control, this is indeed a behavior quite common among casters. These ordinary folks in the manor, we really don’t need to interrogate them further; they are just unlucky souls."

Speaking of Rumiel’s spells brought Ronald’s doubts to the surface.

The Divine Comedy - Purgatory had long been activated by him.

Yet, having obtained this final piece of the Divine Comedy, to this point, Ronald had not once encountered an opportunity to activate a spell, possessing only the last strengthening automatically conferred after collecting the originals.

This didn’t align with the usual activation process of the Divine Comedy.

Truthfully, Ronald was quite curious about the spells of Purgatory.

If his deductions were correct, then there should be at least spells to change physical appearance, control humans, and intangible attacks...

Unfortunately, he had not activated any of these spells yet.

He didn’t know if the Nine Commandments secret society did something to this part of the original on Black Mountain or if some unexpected changes happened during the time Rumiel possessed it.

As Ronald pondered, the two of them found the underground chamber favored by those from the mysterious side.

Heloise skillfully destroyed the defense spells of the chamber.

Both of them entered together.

It was the dead of night, not to mention the pitch-black enclosed environment of a basement. Even though their eyesight was very good, they could only make out the rough outline of the room.

"Ronald, light."

Snap—

At Halois’ command, Ronald immediately snapped his fingers.

With just the activation of the power of daylight on his hand, a bright spell glow illuminated the room.

The manor’s basement was quite large.

Moreover, to meet his own needs, Mil expanded the original size by digging out more soil and then used a wooden structure for support, turning the entire basement into the size of an underground residence.

It was in such a spacious environment that a large number of wooden pieces were messily thrown around on the floor of the surrounding rooms, with only the area around the workbench by the wall still maintaining some semblance of tidiness.

After taking a look around the basement,

Ronald and Halois exchanged a tacit glance.

"Did Mil use this place as his own spell laboratory?"

"Judging by those wooden puppet guards he previously made, it should be the case. And with such a large number of wooden splinters, it seems like he has obtained a new spell."

While speaking, Ronald slightly bent down and casually picked up a piece of wood from the ground.

Although the magic power within the wood had long dissipated, its shape and color still revealed that they were Mil’s creations. Recalling the scale of the puppets he saw before, an idea suddenly surfaced in Ronald’s mind.

"This guy didn’t steal an original text from the ’Twelve Witches’, did he?"

"This..."

Ronald asked the question, and Halois hesitated.

After pondering for a while, she then voiced her judgment:

"I don’t think that’s very likely."

"’The Twelve Witches’ is an old and mysterious organization, and they hold original texts in high regard. With Mil’s demonstrated abilities, stealing an original text single-handedly wouldn’t be an easy feat."

Ronald silently nodded.

Halois’ analysis was very practical and made sense, to which he showed his support and acceptance. However, Ronald couldn’t shake the vague premonition in his heart.

— Using the ability to change appearance.

— Mil successfully stole an uncontrolled original text from the hands of the ’Twelve Witches’.

— This matter might even be closely related to the high witch, Teresa.

In the time that followed,

Ronald continued to check the puppet fragments in silence.

With the convenience of Hell’s black mist, he categorized the puppet fragments in the basement according to their age, hoping to discern some clues about this spell system.

Halois went to the workbench.

She deftly broke dead Mil’s defensive spells and inspected the area around the workbench. It didn’t take long before she successfully found two small manuals from the tools on the bench.

Just then, Ronald sensed several new friends on the floor.

"Halois, someone’s coming."

"Are they enemies?"

"Doesn’t seem like it."

Snap snap—

Shortly after Ronald alerted Halois, two investigators adeptly jumped into the basement and then aimed their pistols at the only two people there.

"Listen up, the Investigation Bureau is now taking over everything here!"

"Everyone immediately..."

"Ah! Ro... Ronald, Mr. Ronald?"

Updat𝒆d fr𝒐m freew𝒆bnov𝒆l.c(o)m