Chapter 148 – Is it the power of blood?

Lake Lodenmere was still a bit strange looking from the south, and although Jace had grown up around the lake, he had never seen her from that direction.

The entire city of Dalaran wasn’t big, especially compared to a metropolis like Stormwind City, but these exquisite buildings, clean paved brick streets, rising and falling minarets, gardens everywhere, street flower beds and small fountains, all led one to believe that this was definitely a rich and peaceful place.

The house that Jace was in was located at the southern end of Dalaran, a section of Dalaran’s urban area that was relatively close to the normal city and not particularly associated with magic.

He was on the third floor, peering down at the metal railing on the window sill, the street was shrugged with people and quite busy, and with just such a casual glance he saw two or three groups of elves traveling in pairs.

In the untimely days of the Alasso Empire, Dalaran was just a small city-state under the shade of the empire.

Most of the human mages of that time were concentrated in the Empire’s capital city of Riptide, where they learned magic from the High Elves of Quel’thalas and received instruction to assist the Empire in its fight against the invasion of the Amani Trolls.

But as the empire gradually declined and internal and external troubles continued, Riptide began to grow more and more distrustful of the group that honored the foreigners.

The trolls were unable to deal with the growing number of human mages, and as the battle between the two sides died down, people gradually forgot all that the mages had done to defend the city.

Later, the mages left the city of Riptide, where the winds of opposition to magic were growing stronger, and came to the small, assorted state of Dalaran, which was located in the west and treated as an alienated land, but had a strange magical web of earth energy.

More and more mages arrived from all parts of the Alassor Empire, and Dalaran flourished and grew stronger under the influence of magic, bucking the trend and quickly becoming a rising star during a period of imperial decline.

However, after the deaths of the pioneers who came here only to create a mage sanctuary, the new mages took pride in the name of Dalaran and abused the power of magic in a big way, quickly dragging the city into the abyss.

Space here became more and more grotesquely twisted, and terrible dimensional disasters were frequent, with demons even emerging from them, until they drew the attention of Quel’thalas.

The High Elves came to Dalaran to help the human mages, passing on the taboos passed down from the days of the Ancient War to the humans, re-establishing order and restoring peace here.

To this day, the area is still heavily influenced by elves, and many elves have settled here in the name of diplomacy and alliance mutual aid, living alongside humans.

A headache drifted through Jace’s mind, and he nearly fell over as he held onto the windowsill railing in pain.

The pain reminded him of the agony he had experienced in that stupor before he opened his eyes and came to Dalaran. The swelling and pain all over his body had dissipated now, but there was still some persistent ringing in his ears, and bouts of pain in his brain suddenly struck now and then.

At that time, the blood that made him even vomit out looked like congealed shadowy thick plasma, barely discernible.

Is he cured now? Did the mages of Dalaran help cure him?

Are there any after-effects?

Jace went back inside and rummaged around in various drawers for a while before finally finding a small mirror.

He looked at his face, his eyes and his teeth to see if there was any sign of Shadow corrosion, but everything was as it should be.

That’s when Jace thought of a possibility that could explain his arm not recovering.

Perhaps he had sucked in both Shadow and Life Vitality when he attacked the Black Dragon with Life Absorption, after all, the Black Dragon was a dragon race corrupted by Shadow, and the Shadow energy in its body was very powerful.

The Black Dragon’s fallen body can reconcile the two powers, but I’m afraid Jace can’t.

The Shadow power entered and hurt himself, but at the same time the Black Dragon’s life energy repaired the damage from these shadows, but in the end the Shadow power was still a bit stronger, and that’s what caused him to fall unconscious and vomit out the Shadow tainted blood so his arm didn’t recover.

But that doesn’t explain why there are no dreams produced by the power of the Shadow.

Before that he would have had a horrible and nagging dream if he was scared even once by a fear spell, not to mention being severely shadow-wracked. It seemed that the only time he wasn’t tormented by nightmares was that time in the stone fortress when he was scalded by his own Shadowfire.

A somewhat outrageous but seemingly all-explaining possibility floated to mind.

Could it be that the Black Dragon’s blood was absorbed by him?

It didn’t have a healing effect because of all that dragon blood transforming into his power?

Something like absorbing dragon’s blood is not, on the whole, a special ability.

Gargoyles often seek out mortals who worship dragons and give them their own blood, giving them some degree of transcendent power, but at the cost of a little bit of slavery to, and control by, the dragon.

The path ends with the draconians, a half-human, half-dragon hybrid monster that unconditionally obeys the commands of the dragons, and the ancient dragons can rely on this contractual power to create an entire legion of draconians to serve them.

Did he or she happen to come across this situation?

Even though the draconians felt kinda strong, Jace didn’t want to turn into an ugly monster that had no brain and only knew how to follow orders.

Surely just that life-sucking moment wasn’t that bad?

He even wondered if the blood of young dragons had the same potency as that of gargoyles.

Letting go of these thoughts, Jace dressed himself, refolding the shirt that didn’t belong to him on the table, and tucking the cloak, which wasn’t quite suitable for wearing while traveling through the city of Dalaran, into his warlock’s bag.

He looked deep into the warlock’s bag and tried to say, “Saeuno, if you hear me, I want you to stay out of sight …… think of a way to make your presence known to me.”

Yet there was no response. Where had the brat gone?

Just as Jace wanted to continue rummaging, a sudden rustling movement sounded behind him.

Looking back, a magical broom was standing in the middle of the corridor leading out of the door sweeping itself, and when Jace noticed it, it stopped sweeping as if it sensed it was being watched, and froze there as well.

It was almost as if a few seconds had passed before it suddenly turned and rustled away.

“Slow down ……”

Jace ran downstairs after his broom and was met by a man sitting at the dining room table downstairs reading a book while sipping a cup of coffee.

“Master Dushan?”

“Uh?” Carlo Duchamp turned to see Jace and said, “Holy light on you, how …… you can wake up! I thought you were going to sleep through the Orcish language exchange!”

Jess asked, “How many days did I sleep after missing the exchange ……?”

“Four days, Jace Sesso.” Duchamp said, “It’s already the 5th day of December, the date of the Orcish Exchange has been set for the 11th, and there’s less than a week to go …… Wait, you’re getting out of bed right now, are you sure you’re okay? Those mages said that your situation might not be too optimistic, just now I was wondering how to think of other ways to treat you further, and you’re just standing here …… There’s no place on your body that’s uncomfortable?”

“I ……” said Jace, looking over himself, “My arm still hurts, is it a burn?”

“Yes.” Duchamp explained, “Your arm was scalded by the black dragon’s flames, but that’s nothing compared to the major damage you sustained.”

Jace said, “Slow down, Master. What the hell is going on, how did I get to Dalaran, where is that dragon, and what injuries did I sustain?”

Dushan stared at Jess for a moment and asked, “You don’t remember anything? What’s the most recent thing you remember?”

“I ……”

Jace certainly couldn’t say he’d smacked the dragon in the mouth with black magic of the life-sucking variety.

“I saw the dragon look at me from the sentry tower, and then I don’t know.”

“That’s what happened, you haven’t forgotten anything.” Duchamp explained, “That dragon attacked you with black magic, and you were so badly injured that many of the mages present thought you were dead, and the town of Southsea surely couldn’t deal with a problem like that, so the soldiers of Lordaeron urgently called on the griffin knights who had come to support them to send you to Dalaran, with the idea of seeking the help of a higher-ranked healer or scholar. ” So the dwarf knight really was just a random passing patrolman, and it had been so long since his companions had gotten word to come over.

The sight of him dying horribly in that room Jace couldn’t get out of his head to this day, it was still as real as if he’d just seen it.

Dushan continued, “It was only after a series of anti-shadow treatments that your vital signs finally stabilized, but the shadow power in your body was never completely removed.”

“It’s just that the villages and towns that have been attacked by the Black Dragon in the past few days are not just Southsea Town, but Ambermere and Aidensbryde as well. There are quite a few soldiers and mages who have been seriously injured like you were sent here to Dalaran to ask for help, and Dalaran’s medical resources are limited. You were sent out as soon as you were out of a life-threatening situation. I was the only person in all of Dalaran who knew you, so I received you to me first.”

“It’s really too much trouble for you, Master Duchamp.”

“Come on don’t say that, Jace Sesso.” Dushan said, “You’re my favorite student and a warrior who just battled a black dragon, so how can it be a bother to be able to take care of you? I’ve just been worried that you wouldn’t wake up, and I’m also a little afraid that your talents won’t be able to shine for the Sorcerer’s Sanctuary at the Orc Exchange afterward.”

He smiled and said, “Of course if anything goes wrong with you, Master Andromas might have to cut my funding quite severely in the future, and that’s kind of a pain in the ass ……”

Jace smiled shyly, suddenly recalling what Dushan had just said, He’s the only person in all of Dalaran who knows me? What about Grid?

“What about the dwarf?” Jace asked.

Dushan suddenly said as if he remembered something, “Ah, I almost forgot about your friend, that Barbarian Hammer Warrior named Grid. He’s the friend who came to South Sea Town from Storm City with you, right? He came several times yesterday, and every time he grabbed me and asked if you were well or not, there’s nothing wrong with him, Jace, he’s the dragon slayer hero of South Sea Town now.”

“I know you gave him a bottle of Shadow Protection Potion, that bottle was just too crucial, if you hadn’t poured it into him right away, he probably would have died there, or at least not been spared from a lifetime of serious after-effects. But strangely enough, you didn’t have any aftereffects, didn’t you feel that something was wrong? You were right in the middle of that black dragon’s weird magic!”

Jace basically made sure that no one knew he used Life Suck against that dragon.

He replied, “I still have a bit of a headache.”

Dushan nodded and said, “Wait, I’ll make a trip to the pharmacy to get you some medication to suppress the Shadow Energy, or at least get something for the headache, try to rest for now, your friends might be here soon.”

“Wouldn’t be too much of a bust, would it, teacher?”

“The pharmacy side knows about you, and the mayor of Nanhai Town has already figured out the cost of treating your injuries, so don’t worry.”