35 Reforged Chapter 35: The Unknown 20%

Heading south from Stormwind City, past Mirror Lake and Sentinel Hill, one would find themselves in the region of Westfall.

Sitting in the bumpy carriage, Duke gazed at the scenery outside the window.

The sky seemed eternally clear, and even the wind carried a sense of desolation. The view was filled with yellow earth and fields. Westfall, like Elwynn Forest, had a pleasant temperature, but winds from the sea and Duskwood constantly swept across the region.

If it weren't for the somewhat plentiful grains in the fields, Duke would have thought this place was barren.

In fact, perhaps due to the presence of underground rivers, the land here was still relatively fertile.

Unfortunately, Westfall was home to many terrible creatures, and Duke was most annoyed by the vultures that filled the sky. He had seen one of his hired guards, brought along as a symbolic escort, get attacked.

A shadow streaked across the sky, drawing a deadly straight line. In the blink of an eye, the shadow of death descended from above. It was foreseeable that, in a few seconds, the young hired guard's head would be struck by the vulture and explode like a smashed watermelon.

The young guard's equipment wasn't bad; he wore a standard iron helmet discarded by the Stormwind City guards. However, such a swift strike was not something an unprepared novice could withstand.

The impact alone was enough to break his neck.

It could be imagined that he would soon be dead.

At that moment, fear crystallized within the entire caravan. At least six or seven guards who had witnessed the scene showed terror, and the leader of the guards, Uncle Marco, appeared utterly horrified. However, the vulture's speed was so fast that they didn't even have time to draw their bows and retaliate.

At this critical moment, a hand reached out from the carriage window.

Duke's hand.

That's right, it was still the combination of "Calm and Collected" and the "Pyroblast" spell. This move was more than enough to deal with ordinary soldiers and humans. But as a targeted spell, there was no guarantee of hitting the target in this realistic Azeroth world.

It relied on the mage's own prediction.

Prediction was, in itself, a mysterious thing. It relied on experience and intuition.

Due to limited mana and Duke's inability to find an effective way to replenish his mana, he didn't fully understand his own "Pyroblast" spell. In fact, Duke instinctively felt that based on the speed of the fireball, it would likely hit somewhere in that area.

However, when Duke's dynamic vision captured the swift creature, in just half a second, a feeling of fortune came over him.

Perhaps the vulture could have chosen to roll to the left or the right, but Duke didn't think the featherless beast had such high intelligence. So, Duke directly chose to shoot ahead of time.

More than a dozen guards hadn't yet recovered from the shock of seeing their comrade attacked when they suddenly realized that the important person they were protecting had taken action.

"Whoosh—" With intense light and scorching heat, the massive fireball, trailing a long tail of flame, shot straight out of the carriage window towards the vulture.

"Nice! Oh...no...ah—" The guards' rollercoaster of emotions accurately reflected the development of the situation.

At first, they were overjoyed that Duke had intervened.

Immediately, they discovered that the ruler of the skies in the Westfall wilderness, a vulture known to most of the Westfall farmers as the "Carrion Bird," possessed extraordinary agility. With a powerful flap of its left wing, the water tank-sized fireball was likely to miss the beast that attacked the living without distinction between life and death.

But its target remained unchanged.

Regret filled the faces of every mercenary.

However, in the next instant, a young hand reached out from the carriage window and snapped its fingers...

The massive fireball seemed to be gripped by an invisible hand and exploded with a loud "bang!" The fireball burst apart next to the Carrion Bird, not in an omnidirectional explosion but in a unidirectional blast, perfectly avoiding the young mercenary's side.

Faced with a rain of fire denser than a downpour, the detestable creature let out a "squawk" and turned into a blazing torch, plummeting from the sky.

From joy to disappointment, then to ecstasy, the mercenaries' hearts were like a rollercoaster.

Seeing the Carrion Bird fall, they all raised their weapons in unison.

"Long live Lord Marcus!"

Only then did the young man who narrowly escaped the attack realize that he had been wandering at the gates of hell.

Listening to the enthusiastic cheers, Duke was slightly taken aback. He was willing to work hard to change the fate of the Stormwind Kingdom, but that did not mean he would become a saint who would save every single person.

Such a saintly idea had never crossed Duke's mind. For him, this rescue was more of a practice, with action preceding thought.

Now, Duke's actions had gained the mercenaries' approval and reward.

The mercenary captain, Marco, rode his skinny horse, leading the young man who had just escaped death, and approached: "Thank you so much, great Lord Marcus, for saving my son."

"Son?"

"Yes, my only son Philip. This is his first mission. His mother and I strongly opposed it... Fortunately, he's fine; otherwise, I wouldn't know how to face his mother..." Marco's voice choked up as he spoke, pressing a hand on Philip's head to bow towards Duke.

"It's good that he's fine. Let's continue our journey." Honestly, Duke didn't want to have too much interaction with Marco and his men. After all, he was just using these mercenaries as a cover and didn't want to involve them in his affairs.

Seeing Duke's slightly cold but warm-hearted demeanor, Marco wasn't annoyed. After all, Duke had just demonstrated his nobility through his actions.

Marco bowed: "Actually... I obtained a set of spell notes in an accident, engraved with words we don't understand. However, I think they might be helpful to you, Lord. If you could accept them, it would be great."

"Oh, thank you." Duke didn't put on airs and directly took the small notebook-like spell notes. The money old Norton gave him would run out one day, and for spells, the more, the better for Duke.

However, when he opened the notes, he was dumbfounded.

It wasn't that the system sprite couldn't parse or learn them, but the system's prompts were a bit mysterious.

"Congratulations, host! You've acquired level 0 spell [Mage Hand], level 2 spells [Dalson's Chilling Prison] and [Dalson's Scorching Furnace]!"

Having played World of Warcraft for so long, Duke would stake his life on it; these three spells were definitely not part of Azeroth's mage spell list.