Chapter 130: Let Me Cool You Down (Bonus Chapter for Donations)
For Chu Yun, it made little practical difference whether his target was male or female. Shyvana’s various actions could be classified as belonging to the chaotic faction, so treating her as a target for grinding experience was hardly excessive. In fact, Chu Yun was quite restrained; had someone else acquired the ability to access the Mirror World, they might have chosen to slaughter an entire city on the very first day.
Although he had obtained intelligence from White Dove, Chu Yun did not intend to head to the hideout brazenly, nor did he fully trust everything White Dove had said. After parting ways with him, Chu Yun did not rush to Shyvana’s lair. Instead, following his original plan, he rode Paimon to the Mage Academy. Having already entrusted Anna to handle his housing application, he was spared a great deal of tedious paperwork.
One had to admit that the accommodations provided by the Mage Academy for its faculty were excellent. Rather than individual rooms or shared buildings, the faculty housing consisted of detached villas. Chu Yun was an honorary mentor at the Blackrock City Mage Academy, and although his nominal rank was still Second-Tier, he had been assigned a high-level villa typically reserved for Third-Tier mages.
While the footprint of each floor was not large, the villa consisted of three stories and included a basement for storage. The first floor served as the kitchen and living room, the second as the bedroom, and the third as the study. The villa also featured a quaint little courtyard. Adjacent to it lay the residential area for Second-Tier mages; Anna lived right next door—whether by coincidence or intentional arrangement, he could not say.
Chu Yun arrived at the entrance, used his mage badge to deactivate the magical alarm on the gate, and then unlocked the door. The interior was newly renovated, and all the furniture had been replaced. As an honorary mentor, he only needed to pay a nominal management and maintenance fee to reside there permanently.
"The environment is nice enough, though I wonder how much longer Blackrock City can remain at peace," Chu Yun remarked, unpacking his various sundries. His spatial belt had been crammed full of Earth-Eater scales, leaving little room for anything else; he was finally able to clear out some space.
Besides the scales, there was another troublesome item to deal with. Chu Yun went to the basement and took out the Abyss Summoning Book. Being organic, this item could not be stored in spatial equipment. The battle in the Poison Mist Swamp had filled the book with the soul fragments of Earth-Eaters, so it no longer needed to be kept in a slaughterhouse to absorb souls. Chu Yun hid the book beneath the basement floorboards; he could grind it for experience every few days, and it would be time enough to dispose of it after he had drained all its experience and skills. As for the "Abyss Summoning" function, the souls of the Earth-Eaters were so immense that the book couldn't even contain them; using it to summon monsters might well drag out an Abyssal Lord or something even more terrifying.
For Chu Yun, there seemed to be no need for that. To deal with Shyvana, he could use a Sleep Spell instead of fire elementals. He recalled that Shyvana was a Dragon-kin with the bloodline of a red dragon, so fire elementals might be significantly less effective. Moreover, if he truly intended to kill her in the real world, fire elementals were ill-suited for the task. Shyvana’s hideout was deep beneath a densely populated slum; summoning a fire elemental would cause massive destruction, and the space was too confined.
After tidying up, Chu Yun went to his room, found a mirror, and entered the Mirror World; only here was it truly safe and secret. He took out his flying wings and headed toward the slums. According to White Dove’s intel, Shyvana was hiding in the area of the slums closest to the city wall, presumably to make a quick escape easier. The exact location was easy enough to find: it was in the sewers, a place so foul-smelling that no one would ever venture there voluntarily.
Truth be told, if it were just Shyvana, she wouldn't have been so cautious, but the Ice Dragon-kin mage named Carlo was with her. When Shyvana was being hunted, she hadn't strayed far from Blackrock City before finding an opportunity to slip back inside. Blackrock City had a long history, and when its sewers were built—whether for strategic reasons or otherwise—they were constructed with remarkable spaciousness, wide enough for people to walk through. However, due to years of neglect and lack of maintenance, many parts of the intricate sewer network had become blocked, turning it into an underground city occupied by the Rat-man race. Many criminals also hid in the sewers to scrape by, and illegal trades were often conducted there as well.
According to White Dove, Shyvana had entered the underground city through a dry well. When Chu Yun found the well and descended, he finally understood that White Dove was a complete fraud. This was one of the reasons he felt the Knights' Order could never complete the mission; this was not the kind of place they would ever be willing to go. Chu Yun hesitated for a moment, wondering if he should proceed, but ultimately cast a *Mage Armor* shield to seal off the stench and climbed down.
The environment inside was better than he had expected. Patches of damp ground were covered in a glowing moss, likely a plant transplanted from the Abyss. Though it remained dim, he could at least see his path. Since he was in the Mirror World, he didn't need to worry about sound or light alerting other creatures, so he simply used an improved version of the *Ignite* spell for illumination. Along the way, he saw many corpses of Rat-men. These creatures were quite large, fully thirty centimeters long, with fangs about five or six centimeters in length. Chu Yun stepped on one; the fur was coarse and stiff, and he feared he might be injured if he were pricked by it. These Rat-men had all suffered fatal wounds from greatswords; Shyvana had cleared quite a few obstacles for him.
The sewers here were dry. The trash heaps were still populated by disgusting creatures like Rat-men and cockroaches, but fortunately, Chu Yun had activated his Ring of Invisibility, allowing him to evade their perception. He had no desire to be targeted by such vile things; even being looked at by them felt like a loss.
After walking for about ten minutes, the path ahead split in two. Chu Yun observed the footprints on the ground and followed the direction Shyvana had taken. She hadn't made an effort to conceal her tracks, or perhaps she simply lacked the skill; as an amateur, she left behind all sorts of traces. Further along, more forks appeared. When it was difficult to distinguish the path, Chu Yun simply stepped out, used *Speak with Monsters* to return to the real world, and questioned the nearby Rat-men. Unlike warriors, mages were different; under the intimidation of powerful mental strength, these Rat-men rarely attacked mages proactively and were quite cooperative in pointing out the route Shyvana had taken.
After half an hour of this, Chu Yun finally saw a glow of fire at the end of a tunnel. He recognized the light—it was the energy effect produced by fire crystals used for illumination. He approached slowly, maintaining a safe distance to avoid being attacked by any of the target's mirror images. This section of the sewer was relatively hidden and very quiet, allowing Chu Yun to overhear the conversation between Shyvana and Carlo.
"Hold on, Shyvana. Let me cool you down."
"Your spells are exhausted. It seems I am destined to die here today. I never expected the curse of that damned dragon to be so vicious before its death!" Shyvana’s voice was filled with resentment.
"I... although I cannot use magic, I can use my own body to help lower your temperature," Carlo said with a shy, reddened face.
At that moment, Shyvana’s entire body was glowing red and radiating intense heat. From their conversation, it seemed related to the dragon they had killed earlier.