The Aftermath

Anfey regained consciousness after a while, but he stayed still. Any experienced assassin knew that one couldn’t move even the tiniest amount before making sure the surroundings were safe. No one would pay attention to a dead person until he moved.

After a few minutes passed noiselessly, Anfey opened his eyes and looked around, but found nothing suspicious. He slowly got up. Yagor was lying in a pool of blood which had already turned dark red. Anfey stared at him for a while, a slight grin crawling up his face. People who deserved hatred also deserved mercy, but Anfey himself was not the kind of person who could give mercy to others. He himself had to become stronger, otherwise he would be the meat on another’s plate. He knew very well that he would have been killed if he hadn’t grabbed the chance to kill Yagor. Was it morally justified to kill in order to survive? Right or wrong? Let the philosophers handle those questions!

First, he had to rebuild his strength, so he needed food. Lead by the information he obtained from the fraction of Ajia’s spirit, Anfey slowly walked into the kitchen. Yagor didn’t care what food he ate, instead putting all of his effort towards improving his power and skills. There were some sausages and pieces of bread in a freezing array, which was the perfect place to store them. Ajia knew how to do it, so Anfey knew as well. Like Yagor, Anfey didn’t care what food he ate either. In order to restore his energy, he couldn’t afford to be picky, so Anfey ate whatever he could put into his mouth.

Once he felt he was almost full, he stopped eating and put the leftovers back in the array. He knew that this was the ideal state to help his body recover quickly.

After resting for a while, Anfey returned to the cellar and searched Yagor’s corpse, grabbing everything he could find on the archmage’s body. Right now, he didn’t care whether he knew their functions or not, as he planned to spend time researching them later. An archmage would not carry anything worthless. Anfey tried to exam Yagor’s body carefully, to see if he had left any marks or wounds on Yagor, lest he had to change how he buried the body. Anfey happily found dozens of accessories. By instinct, he immediately knew that these were not just simple accessories, but instead all sorts of magic tools. There were some red fire-like crystals, which must have been Yagor’s high-quality fire crystals. The most valuable things Anfey found were two magic books and four diaries. Anfey flipped over a few pages of the books. One was the Fire Series and the other was the Dark Series, with all of Yagor’s practice notes. They were so valuable! As an old saying went, books were the spiritual food of mankind. To Anfey, books were also the doors to a new world!

With great effort, Anfey finally moved Yagor’s body into a small garden in the backyard. He dug a pit and threw the body into it. It took Anfey some time to cover it with sand and soil. In a short period of time, it would quickly turn into ashes, and the evidence would be permanently erased.

After all of this, Anfey was so exhausted that he couldn’t move at all. He didn’t sleep the previous night, but had instead used his endurance and persistence to complete a suite of tough tasks. An ordinary person could not have done that.

He laid down in Ajia’s bed, quickly falling into a deep sleep by way of a special breathing technique.

After a night of sleep, Anfey was greeted by bright sunshine through the window. It had been fifteen hours since he’d fallen asleep, and all of the pain and tiredness were gone. He took a deep breath and jumped off the bed; lots of tasks were waiting for him.

Anfey stood in the basement, picking up the smallest low-grade fire crystals and throwing them into the array he so despised. In the array, there was a key spot that started it. It could transfer or transport the energy. As Ajia recalled, Yagor always placed the dark crystal in the same spot, which made the array start automatically. Then he would mutter some spells to complete the whole matrix. If the properties of the array and the crystal didn’t match, an explosion was inevitable. The explosion made from the water and fire elements were the most dangerous, so Anfey placed the fire crystals into the array on purpose, which would definitely lead to a big explosion. By doing so, Anfey crafted a perfect explanation for Yagor’s death.

In order to survive in this world, one needed both personal power and a proper, and legitimate, identity. The identity of Archmage Yagor’s apprentice was a good one, but Anfey didn’t want to draw too much attention to Yagor’s death. When the runes in the array started flashing, Anfey, without any hesitation, rushed upstairs and hurried out of the mansion.

A while passed with nothing happening, but Anfey still sat patiently on the lawn, practicing his breathing. Bang! A loud sound came to his ears as the big explosion finally went off. Anfey stayed outside the house until it was dark, making sure there were no further explosions.

The explosion didn’t have enough power to damage the house, but it did destroy all the windows and bottles of wine. Anfey liked to drink once in a while; he regretted forgetting to move the bottles of wine when he moved the accessories. What a waste of so much delicious wine! It seemed like he wouldn’t be able to drink for a while.

Half the entrance to the basement had collapsed. It took Anfey a while to knock down the leftover wobbly rocks with a stick. He crawled down the entrance with half of his body, but all he could see was heavy smoke.

It was finally over. Anfey got up and fell deep into thought. The reason for Yagor’s death appeared obvious. He decided to build a nice grave for Yagor later, and then this chapter would be over. No one would suspect him.

What he needed to do next was wait for someone to come to the island to visit Yagor, so that they could serve as a witness. If he went out now claiming his identity as Yagor’s apprentice, nobody would believe him.

Anfey didn’t want to waste any time. While waiting for guests, he decided to spend his days practicing. After another day of rest, he adopted a regular schedule in order to gain more strength. In the morning, he ran around the island ten times, then did push-ups, sit-ups, jump ropes and pull-ups. After breakfast, he sat down and studied Yagor’s books. To be honest, Anfey was more interested in fighting techniques than in magic powers. Unfortunately, nobody here would teach him how to fight. In order to gain more power, he had to learn some magic spells. After lunch, he practiced the boxing techniques he inherited from his previous life’s family. At the end, he would meditate. He would also spare a few hours to go fishing, as the food in the freezing array would not last long. He also used the opportunity to practice fencing and breathing technique.

Anfey’s family used to practice fencing with longswords, but nowadays fewer and fewer people were interested in practicing. For Anfey, though, fencing was the best way to train his eyes and unleash his potential. Holding his breath was another skill he valued a lot. Scientifically, the respiratory system didn’t just refer to the mouth and nose. Humans used the skin to breath, too. If some golden powder was applied to the skin, one could be choked to death even though one could breathe through their mouth and nose. So, in a sense, holding one's breath was a survival skill. Embryonic breathing was the highest level of breathing practice. Anfey could hold his breath for ten minutes in the other world, but only one minute in this world. He had to start from scratch.

After dinner, Anfey started walking around the island and searching for herbal medicine. Martial arts could strengthen the body, but they couldn’t fill the body. Anfey’s ancestors practiced traditional Chinese medicine, or TCM, for generations. But in his generation, TCM was practiced less and less. He couldn’t live a good life working as a TCM practitioner, so he decided to become an assassin instead.

Anfey never thought he would find Chinese medicine on this island. Surprisingly, he found some peonies. He didn’t think they were peonies at the beginning, because they mostly grew inland, rather than by the ocean. Anfey was pleased to find such herbs on this island, as it meant that he might find other types of Chinese medicine. If necessary for survival, he could start practicing traditional Chinese medicine again.

Day after day, Anfey lived his life without knowing what awaited him.