Chapter 8 Beginner Quests and Combat: Ethan says he wants to change this...
Ethan said that changing this city isn't something that can be achieved just by talking about it.
Once he came into the public eye, his workload increased exponentially. He was so busy that he sighed that he was lucky to be a living dead person who didn't need sleep, but even a living dead person has to work.
Then, on the dark web, the bounty on his head suddenly reached seven figures in US dollars. Unsurprisingly, it was the enthusiastic people of Starfall City who congratulated him on being so valuable. No one in Starfall City had ever been worth this much.
Ethan: ?
So? Does he still have to be proud? Doesn't this mean his head is in danger? Although he's not alive either.
Starfall said righteously, "The strong never fear challenges. You can prove your strength by defeating them one by one."
Ethan, who had been using a sobering spell to stay awake, lost all control of his expression: "I don't want to, I'm busy."
Because the criminal laws of cities other than Starfall City are relatively uniform, Ethan needs to change his clothes and go to other cities to learn about their sentencing and rules in order to synthesize them and then innovate. However, due to his social anxiety, he is still in the preparation stage.
Besides improving the criminal law, Ethan was also worried about practicing teamwork with his Guardian colleagues, so he watched their combat videos repeatedly, learning frame by frame.
While he might not be as skilled as the original, Ethan felt he could handle the coordination. As for the Guardians, they would need to work with him and coordinate with him? He couldn't do that; let him be a lone wolf. He could just coordinate with them.
Then the Mage Guild sent him a beginner's quest and the guild's rules.
For example, there are rewards for completing tasks, and you can only post on the magician forum after reaching a certain reputation score. Reputation scores are hard to obtain, requiring you to complete many tasks, but failing a task results in a significant deduction.
Completing tasks will earn you a small amount of points, which can be used to purchase desired items in the association's shop, such as precious medicinal herbs, enchanting materials so rare that they were thought to no longer exist, and even a variety of adorable pets.
So Ethan was too busy to deal with people who might try to assassinate him, but since they stayed in the alternate dimension created by Starfall and didn't leave, those people couldn't find Ethan.
The book Ethan saw contained a type of magic called clone magic, which allows one to control several bodies simultaneously. However, it requires exceptional magical control and experience to use, and Ethan is currently unable to do so, even if he were busy enough to split himself into several parts.
Ethan glanced at the most pressing matter: the mission from the Mage's Guild, which only had two days to complete. The last piece of information about the criminal was that he had come from the direction of Starfall City.
With no other leads, we still need to spend time looking for people.
Ethan stood up, and in an instant, magic appeared from above, twisting and changing in mid-air. It took no more than three seconds for the magic to completely end before Ethan's cloak was on.
"Remember to take pictures to remember this moment." Xingyun handed him a camera, her tone like a parent instructing their child to take pictures as a memento of their extracurricular activities.
Ethan looked completely bewildered: "Lord Starfall, I'm going on a mission, not to play."
But he accepted it anyway.
"Remember to take a selfie with the mission target," Xingyun reminded him. In his eyes, this was just a game. Beginner missions are usually not too difficult, otherwise, why would they be called beginner missions?
Starfall watched Ethan step into the portal, his clothes fluttering and falling as he walked, disappearing into the portal.
To be honest, after watching Ethan leave, Starfall still felt a little worried about Ethan's first mission.
However, if it can be used as a beginner quest, it shouldn't be too difficult for Ethan to solve, and besides, if he can't solve it, he can ask him for help.
Xingyun had a change of heart, and then messaged Selene to chat, mainly about parenting.
Selene, still at work: ...
After leaving, Ethan used divination as he headed towards the location of his mission objective, only to discover that it was in Starfall City.
Could it be that Starfall City is actually seen as a city that can accept all prisoners? Ethan felt a little heavy-hearted in the divination room, and then found his target.
Ethan's new mission is to arrest a criminal magician.
According to the mission description, this man named William sold counterfeit goods that were crucial to magicians, causing minor injuries to seven magicians. When he was discovered selling forbidden items and tried to escape, he accidentally killed two magicians who were chasing him. Before that, he had kidnapped people and experimented on them with the black magic he had learned, causing their bodies and minds to become twisted and irreversibly turned into monsters.
As Ethan read through the list of items, his anger grew, and he became increasingly wary.
Someone capable of committing so many unforgivable crimes won't be easy to catch, but it shouldn't be too difficult either, otherwise it wouldn't have been assigned as a beginner's task.
When Ethan found William, that scumbag still hadn't shown any restraint. He chased a girl into a dark alley in the middle of the night, about to attack her.
Ethan reacted quickly, casting a spell that sent William slamming into the wall behind him with a loud "thud!"
However, William did not lose consciousness. Instead, he sat up due to his displeasure at being disturbed and the anger that arose from the pain.
Ethan knew a fight was about to break out, so he yelled at the girl who was still observing the situation, "You go first." Without hesitation, the girl turned and ran.
William was not about to let his prey escape. He whispered a spell, and thorns sprouted from behind the girl's feet and wrapped around her.
She tried to break free, but to no avail; the poor girl ended up with a bloodied ankle.
Ethan, of course, would not allow a tragedy to unfold before his eyes. He immediately used magic to cut the thorns, and the girl, enduring the pain, sped up.
William was not giving up, and he didn't care whether the other party was dead or alive. He launched a fierce attack on the girl, but Ethan reacted quickly and raised a protective screen behind her.
The girl could still hear loud noises behind her before she could completely escape. She didn't even dare to slow down, for fear that she would be killed if she slowed down even a little.
Seeing the only innocent passerby leave, William was completely enraged, and the two equally angry people started fighting.
Ethan dodged a spell that struck the ground, leaving a large crack. Ethan retaliated with several fireballs at the same time, and it turned out that having more fireballs had its advantages, as at least one of them successfully set William ablaze.
"Damn it!" William cursed under his breath. He couldn't extinguish the flames, and he dodged another attack from Ethan. The burning pain didn't stop, and he used several different water spells, but they only reduced it a little.
In desperation, he remembered one of the black magic spells he had learned that might be the most suitable for the current situation. He pretended to attack, but in reality, he had already set up the spell circle in secret.
Ethan found that he could no longer sense magic. The sparks at his fingertips clicked, but nothing happened. A huge array enveloped the ground.
"Hahaha." William laughed wildly, the flames on his body extinguished. "Can't use magic anymore, huh?"
This is the most useful magic circle William has learned; it can seal magic power but is not an ordinary magic-suppressing circle.
He can completely imprison his opponent's magic power, and then kill him to obtain his magic power and aptitude.
Although William's magic power will be suppressed to one-third, the difference between having magic power and not having magic power is a huge dividing line, and the difference is enough to kill Ethan.
Ethan knew things were going badly. He could only barely dodge William's attacks because he had no magic power and couldn't use defensive magic.
Soon, he had many wounds of varying sizes all over his body, but he kept changing positions to dodge.
William wasn't in a hurry to kill him. Like a cat playing with a mouse, he left him with more and more wounds, and his cloak was soaked with blood, but he refused to give him a quick death.
Because they initially used magic, Ethan and William fought from a distance. As he lost his magic, he slowly approached William while dodging, occasionally flashing behind him. Even though this increased the chances of him getting hurt, he gritted his teeth and persevered.
William observed for a moment, then laughed dismissively: "You think you can subdue me with force? With your physique?"
Ethan didn't speak, but dodged another attack, leaped up, and performed a perfect somersault in mid-air. As he landed, he grabbed William's neck and used the momentum to pull William's head and slam it hard against the ground.
William wasn't dizzy yet; even with his head smashed open, he was still laughing: "You think you can do this..."
Before he could finish speaking, Ethan threw him over his shoulder. William was already dizzy from the three head injuries. When he was furious and wanted to use magic to kill Ethan, he found that he could no longer feel the presence of magic.
"How could this be?!" William looked down in disbelief and discovered that, in addition to the large magic circle he had drawn at the beginning, there was a smaller, overlapping magic circle nearby where he was standing, which was none other than his own magic circle.
"You think I was just dodging?" Ethan asked curiously while throwing him over the shoulder a few more times. He was ruthless and taciturn, but his hands kept moving.
After being subjected to more than a dozen over-the-shoulder throws, with Ethan specifically targeting his head, William lost consciousness.
Magic has returned, but Ethan's combat suit is made of a special material that he can't repair with magic. Since he is a living dead and his physical condition is maintained by Starfall, he can only seek help from Starfall when he is injured.
After looking around, Ethan realized that the only camera damaged in the battle was the one he could repair. He wasn't particularly happy to take a picture with William, who had a bruised and swollen face, worried that Starfall would say he had gotten himself into such a mess while doing a beginner's quest.
When Ethan returned, Starfall was writing something with his back to him. Sensing the familiar magical fluctuations behind him, he turned around: "You're back? You..."
The moment he saw Ethan's current appearance, his voice vanished instantly.
Ethan swallowed hard, released William who was dragging him like a dead dog, and handed him the Starfall camera and photos, saying weakly, "Photos."
Xingyun took it and looked at it, but his gloomy expression did not ease.
It's perfectly normal for Starfall to be angry. He didn't expect that a beginner's quest could make Ethan look so miserable. He came back dirty and covered in wounds, looking at him pitifully as if he was afraid of being scolded.
He even handed Starfall a camera. When Starfall saw the photo, Ethan, his face clearly showing displeasure, was posing with the damned criminal on cracked ground. He actually remembered that he had asked him to take a picture as a souvenir...
Starfall envisioned Ethan completing his mission with a clear conscience, taking a happy group photo as his first mission picture, something he would be proud of in the future, a record of his beginnings, rather than looking like a pitiful kid who barely managed to win a battle and was afraid of being scolded.
Xingyun was both angry and incredibly soft-hearted.
After treating Ethan's wounds and repairing his cloak, Ethan underwent two months of grueling physical training.
A note from the author:
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Ethan's too busy to even see his mom. His father, Starfall, is both soft-hearted and angry. He feels his action scenes are weak, but nobody's reading them anyway. [Sunglasses] Avoiding rumors [?]
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