Chapter 155: What Are You Looking For?

“Mentor, if I choose the export job, will I be working with you?”

“Any mentor could be assigned. The projects researched in the tower are all somewhat related to death,” Mentor Kaz said with a meaningful tone.

In the past, Saul might not have thought too much about it.

But ever since he learned that the tower master wanted to resurrect Lady Eula, he immediately suspected—could all these research projects be connected to reviving Lady Yura?

If that were true, then Tower Master Gorsa was surprisingly a devoted man!

It felt so out of place given his appearance and personality.

“Mentor, I want to choose the export job.” Saul didn’t make Kaz wait long before making his decision.

“You’re as bold as ever.” A strange smile appeared on Kaz’s eerie face—whether it was satisfaction or something else, Saul couldn’t tell.

Kaz turned toward the hallway on the right and raised his voice. “Kujin!”

About ten seconds later, the heavy doors at the end of the right corridor slowly opened. A tall man stepped out.

He was nearly two meters tall, making Saul seem tiny in comparison. The nameplate on his chest clearly identified him as a Level 3 Apprentice.

“When will I finally grow taller?” Saul thought as he tilted his head back more and more, almost to an uncomfortable angle, just to look up at the man.

Kujin tried to stay calm in front of Kaz, but the downward pull of his lips betrayed his reluctance.

“Mentor Kaz.”

“Get ready to hand over your job to Saul,” Kaz instructed—no explanation, no introduction, no chance for Kujin to argue. It was a final decision.

Kujin glanced at Saul, noticing the fresh new nameplate on his chest. His cheeks puffed up as if he wanted to say something but then deflated, repeating the cycle a couple of times.

He finally couldn’t hold back. “Mentor Kaz, letting a complete rookie take over this job—what if he screws it up?”

“That’s his problem.” Kaz waved dismissively, clearly impatient.

Kujin swallowed any further complaints.

If he had only been a Level 2 Apprentice, he wouldn’t have dared to say a single extra word.

“…Understood.” Kujin lowered his head, then turned to Saul. “Follow me.”

Saul followed, but after taking a couple of steps, he noticed that Mentor Kaz wasn’t coming along.

He turned back and saw Kaz staring at him with a complex expression.

When Kaz realized Saul had turned around, his emotions vanished beneath the wrinkles on his face. “Go on. What? You want me to walk you there?”

Saul stopped and gave Kaz a respectful bow. “Take care, Mentor.”

Kaz snorted, clasped his hands behind his back, and walked away briskly.

Saul turned back and saw that Kujin had already reached the doorway, so he quickly jogged to catch up.

“There are hundreds of materials stored here, but the most common one is this.” Kujin said as he pushed open a heavy door.

Beyond the door was an extremely bright space.

The sheer number of candles inside was overwhelming. Saul squinted, momentarily blinded by the intense light.

Once his eyes adjusted, he saw that the room was filled with… people.

His heart skipped a beat. He immediately held his breath and carefully followed Kujin inside.

Behind the third door, over a hundred people stood in perfectly aligned rows.

Each person stood exactly one meter apart, legs together, hands hanging naturally by their sides—like soldiers standing at attention.

But every single one of them had their eyes closed and skin as pale as paper.

Upon closer inspection, not one of them was breathing.

These were corpses.

“Scared?” Kujin asked, closely watching Saul’s reaction, as if hoping to see him panic.

But aside from his expression turning more serious, Saul showed no signs of losing composure.

“Not really. I worked in the corpse room on the second floor before. I’ve seen plenty of bizarre cadavers.”

“Heh,” Kujin sneered, lips curling in disdain. “What you’ve seen were just bodies. The ones in front of you—each of them was at least a Level 2 Apprentice when they were alive.”

“At least Level 2?” Saul was surprised. “So there are even Level 3 Apprentices here?”

“The strongest ones here are official wizards.”

Kujin enjoyed watching Saul’s eyes widen and mouth slightly open in shock.

But Saul quickly regained his composure and immediately asked, “Managing these corpses must have a lot of strict rules and taboos, right?”

“There are only two taboos here.”

“First: At least 81 candles must remain lit in this room at all times.”

“Second: Do not touch or move any materials that are marked with a serial number.”

The fewer the taboos, the more absolute they must be.

“There are plenty of rules as well, written in that handbook over there. You can read it later.”

Saul committed the two taboos to memory but still felt cautious. “Kujin, are these two taboos also written in the book?”

“…Yes, on the first page. Don’t worry, I wouldn’t lie to you.” Kujin stepped forward. “If you break the taboos, you’re the one who dies. But if I deliberately neglect to warn you during handover, I won’t escape the consequences either.”

As the towering Kujin walked past a corpse, his arm brushed against it, slightly shifting the body’s position.

He immediately stopped and corrected the corpse’s posture.

Saul took note of this and planned to check the handbook later to see if this was another unspoken rule.

Beyond the rows of corpses stood towering storage shelves filled with preservation equipment—jars, boxes, metal frames, flowing soil, and more.

Kujin led Saul down the corridor between the shelves.

At the far end, where the shelves stopped a few meters from the wall, there was an open space—Kujin’s personal study and work area.

Saul immediately noticed a five-meter-long table and multiple cabinets fixed to the walls and floor.

The table was spotless, clearly cleaned in advance.

Was Kujin naturally a neat person, or had he tidied up before Saul’s arrival?

If it was the latter, then it meant Kujin already knew he was being replaced before Saul got here.

“Maybe… this job was arranged for me by the Tower Master?” Saul speculated.

After all, Gorsa was the first person in the tower to know that Saul had advanced and was returning.

And for the past two years, Saul had suspected that his opportunity to work in the corpse room was also arranged by the Tower Master.

He could only hope that what Gorsa valued was merely his soul talent—nothing else.

Kujin handed Saul the rulebook and three quill pens.

The quills were absurdly large, each one longer than Saul’s arm.

“These are communication pens. If a mentor needs something, the request will appear on paper automatically. Most of the time, requests come after 3 PM, but if it’s urgent, they might wake you up at midnight. You can keep one in your dorm, or you can choose to live here.”

“Live here?” Saul was surprised. “I thought we were required to leave the East Tower by 8 PM?”

Kujin loaded his belongings onto a cart. “This is one of the most dangerous places in the East Tower… but it’s also the safest.” He pushed his cart, glancing sideways at Saul from a higher vantage point. "As long as you don’t break the taboos."

With that, he pushed the cart and left.

The hourglass clock behind Saul continued counting time. He turned to look at it and realized it was only a little past nine in the morning.

Saul picked up the manual and flipped through it twice. "Second Warehouse Regulations?"

The book had more than a dozen pages filled with text, but there were also several blank pages at the end, seemingly waiting for new rules to be added at any time.

Apart from these two taboos, nothing else was recorded on the first page.

Saul carefully read through the entire book from beginning to end, checking for any signs of erasure or alterations, but he found none. There were also no lingering traces of magical energy.

Only then did he place the book back on the table.

"There’s still a long time until three in the afternoon." Saul's skeletal fingers tapped rhythmically on the table, producing a crisp sound. "I should check my body and soul again and have a professional find out exactly where that shadow is hiding."

Although Byron and Nick had already examined him and found no other souls within him, last night’s experience had convinced Saul that something ghostly was lurking nearby.

This time, he planned to seek out the medical apprentice in the Wizard Tower who specialized in examining apprentices' physical and mental health.

It would cost a significant amount of academic credits.

But spending credits was better than having an unknown spirit hiding around him.

Just as Saul took his first step, a voice sounded beside him.

"What are you looking for? Me?"

A dark shadow suddenly appeared in front of him, blocking his way.

Thor looked up and met a pair of enchanting red eyes.

(End of Chapter)

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