Diary of a Dead Wizard

Chapter 106: (Grind Sail Town Arc): A Bowl Can’t Hold a Bucket of Water

Shelly scrambled to his feet in a panic, his eyes wide in disbelief.

“Youʼre from the Wizard Tower?”

Saul knew he looked a bit too young to be convincing, but he didn’t bother explaining. Instead, he used Mage Hand to lift the letter from the floor and send it directly and accurately into Shelly’s hands.

“Hold onto it this time,” Saul’s smile vanished, his voice dropping by an octave. “Drop it again, and I’ll twist your head off with it.”

Shelly instinctively clutched the letter tightly.

He looked down and quickly confirmed that it was indeed a handwritten letter from the Wizard Tower.

While Shelly was occupied reading the letter, Saul leaned close and whispered to Penny, “I’ve thought about it—if we want Ada to be happy in the future, it’s best if you stay by his side.”

Penny lifted her head, her eyes instinctively widening. Inside them was no longer the silver starlight, only a dull gray mist.

Saul had taken away her eyes—along with her ability to see the world through dreams.

For an ordinary person, that might not be a bad thing.
“Wait here for a bit, Penny. Once I’m done, I’ll take you back.”

Penny nodded. She reached out her hands, felt Saul’s robe, and followed it down to the hem, where she held on tightly.

Saul kept part of his attention on Shelly across the room. Though the man was still reading the letter from Mentor Rum, he could strike at any moment.

And Saul wasn’t sure if the Wizard Tower’s authority was enough to deter someone who hadn’t even completed the basic apprentice training.

After all, ignorance breeds fearlessness.

Just look at what this wild First Rank apprentice was trying to do—

He was attempting to refine vengeful spirits to enhance his own magical power?

What, did he think he was still too sane? That his brain hadn’t rotted quite enough?

Across the room, Shelly finally finished reading the letter, his face shifting between pale and flushed.

The letter was short—Saul had read it too—just a scolding, really.

The general message was that Grind Sail Town’s tribute to the Wizard Tower was dispensable. If they didn’t take it seriously themselves, then there’d be no need to continue sending anything at all.

But the tone was much colder and more arrogant than how mentors usually scolded apprentices.

Still, Saul didn’t believe the Wizard Tower was truly indifferent about the Grinding Sound Fruit. Otherwise, they could have just cut ties altogether. Why bother sending a reprimand and asking him to investigate the drop in output?

In the past two years, Saul had never even heard of Grinding Sound Fruit as a material—he didn’t know what it was used for.

Clearly, Shelly was shaken by the letter. When he finally set it down, his face was twitching uncontrollably.

“My lord,” Shelly said, struggling to contain a swirl of emotions as he bowed to the boy who looked younger than his own son, “please allow me to change into proper clothes. It’s inappropriate to greet you like this.”

“No need. I don’t care for those troublesome formalities.”

Saul’s words stopped Shelly mid-step, just as he was about to head for his clothes.

Shelly looked back at him in disbelief, as if he wanted to say more.

But Saul cut him off. “I don’t know where you learned this method of creating vengeful spirits, but it won’t help you reach Second Rank.”

On the way here, Saul had listened to the old madman’s story and realized the town leader seemed to be dealing with the barbarians. The barbarians’ shamans had unique methods to refine vengeful spirits using ordinary people.

That led Saul to suspect this First Rank apprentice might be trying to use the barbarians’ method to advance to Second Rank.

He had chosen not to act sooner precisely so he could observe firsthand what the people of this town were up to.

All the investigation in the world couldn’t compare to seeing it with his own eyes.

Looking at Shelly—his body pale and bloated like a waterlogged corpse—Saul knew the man had probably been using vengeful spirit to empower himself for over a year now.

Even if Saul didn’t know the exact process, he could infer from the principles: one inevitable side effect of absorbing too many vengeful spirits was the chaos of being overwhelmed by their consciousnesses.

It meant living in a constant nightmare.

Fear. Despair. Madness. Collapse…

Without proper methods to deal with it, that was Shelly’s inevitable fate.

With that in mind, Saul also guessed one possible reason for the Grinding Sound Fruit’s reduced yield.