Sovereign of the Ashes

In the shallow jungle southwest of Jagem Plains, Sein, having just arrived via a teleportation array, was pinching the spot between his eyebrows to regain his focus.

Beside him, Yuri, who was supposed to be protecting him, looked even paler and more disoriented than Sein.

Around them, the three individuals who had also been teleported lay unconscious on the jungle floor.

Clearly, the stability of the teleportation array in the Monique Black Market left much to be desired!

Sein was unsure whether this was an issue with their subpar teleportation technology or the absence of necessary adaptive devices.

In any case, the disorienting experience reminded Sein of his first journey to the Yellow Sand World.

”The Verdant Flame Body Tempering technique isn’t just effective for me. According to the materials my mentor gave me, it can be applied to the flesh of other living beings. Once this journey is over, I’ll strengthen your constitution as well,” Sein explained to Yuri.

He continued, “The constitution of engineers from the Neisse Civilization is weaker than that of mages, which indicates significant flaws and drawbacks in your civilization’s evolutionary and developmental approaches.”

Yuri made no objections to Sein’s suggestion.

At this point, she would not oppose any of Sein’s proposals, no matter how extreme they might be.

Once they had somewhat recovered, Sein and Yuri left the area.

The three unconscious human slaves, enveloped by Sein’s spell, floated in mid-air and followed behind as he and Yuri flew westward toward the denser parts of the jungle.

***

They were currently in a recently excavated mountain cave, which had once been the home of an intermediate-level magic beast—a Mountain Tyrant Bear.

The beast was no longer here.

One of its paws had served as a meal for Sein, while the rest was consumed by Sev, who had a surprisingly large appetite.

The cave had been significantly expanded from its original size, primarily through Yuri’s effort in her mecha.

The once cramped space was transformed into a temporary laboratory for Sein.

Apart from Sein’s various experimental apparatus, the temporary laboratory housed more crucial “experimental subjects”—the two magic initiates and squire.

Sein never intended for the two black magic initiates and black squire he acquired at the auction to survive.

After all, he was not some pervert with a strange fetish, nor was he interested in retaining three weak minions.

Besides, keeping them alive would only add three potential threats to his surroundings, akin to time bombs that could explode if discovered by the divine towers or the orders of the knights.

If Sein could craft spatial equipment that could store humans, he might have considered sparing their lives for future use in special experiments.

Without this ability, he concluded that the most pragmatic approach was to extract whatever value they could provide before efficiently disposing of them—leaving no trace behind.

The large cave was divided into four distinct spaces.

The three human slaves were each strapped to a different experiment table in three of these spaces. The fourth area served as Sein’s personal quarters.

Nearly a week had elapsed since Sein began his work in the mountain cave. During this time, through a combination of interrogation and focus control, Sein had gleaned much of the information he sought.

His proficiency in soul magic had significantly eased these interrogations.

Terms such as Catacomb Chasm, magic beast forest, Trial of Despair, and black magic academy provided Sein with a clearer and more tangible understanding of Blackhaven, located in the northern part of the Western Archipelago.

It became apparent that Blackhaven had its own black magic academy, an institution similar to the one in Mystralora City, designed to train black magic initiates.

Apart from the black magic academy, Blackhaven was also home to towering, ominous black towers.

These black towers bore similarities to the divine towers found across the Magus World map. They were constructed by mages above Rank Four.

In Blackhaven, each black tower symbolized despair and darkness.

Unfortunately, the life level and knowledge of the black squire enslaved by Sein were too limited to confirm the existence of black knight organizations akin to the orders of the knights in the Magus Continent.

Nevertheless, after calmly analyzing the situation, Sein surmised that such entities likely existed. Considering there were more knights than mages in the Magus World, it was likely that there were more black knights than black mages too.

Given the large number of black towers standing in Blackhaven, it seemed reasonable to assume that there were also organizations established by black knights above Rank Four.

The three soul slaves Sein held were originally from islands east of Blackhaven, part of the Western Archipelago.

Notably, two-thirds of Blackhaven itself consisted of densely packed islands.

The islands were immense, often rivaling entire continents in low-level planes.

Two of the three soul slaves Sein acquired originated from Mishra Island, located in the eastern part of Blackhaven.

This “island” hosted three human kingdoms with a combined population exceeding two million and the two soul slaves came from different kingdoms on this densely populated island.

The female soul slave came from a location closer to the heart of Blackhaven but still within its eastern periphery.

Through her, Sein learned about the black towers and the “Trial of Despair”, a harrowing ordeal far surpassing the intensity of normal regional academy wars typically organized by the divine towers.

The rigorous nature of these trials explained why the black mages from Blackhaven were considered elite.

After briefly hearing about the Trial of Despair, Sein could vividly imagine the intense pressure and despair those black magic initiates endured during the elimination process.

In typical regional academy wars, casualties were intentionally kept between ten and thirty percent by the divine towers to ensure a balance.

In stark contrast, the survival rate for initiates in the Trials of Despair, as organized by the black magic academies in Blackhaven, hovered between fifteen to as low as only one percent!

This startling statistic reflected a brutal educational approach—the academies seem indifferent to the possibility that only one percent of their initiates might survive the ordeal.

The scarcity of resources in Blackhaven meant that the training and development of mages were far harsher compared to the gentler approach in the Magus Continent.

On top of that, the Regional Inter-Divine Tower War hosted by the divine towers in the Magus World was funded by the Magus Alliance.

In contrast, Blackhaven, lacking sufficient resources, was compelled to adopt an elitist approach.

In the eyes of those vicious black mages, the life of a magic initiate was deemed less valuable than a magicoin.