Inside one of the thirty-six magic towers inside Liante City, McCarthy was doing his regular cleaning. He wasn’t a cleaner, and he wasn’t a servant. He was a rank four wizard. Since a regular person couldn’t survive inside a magic tower, the owner of this tower had to hire him to help do the chores.

Cleaning the tower up was basically McCarthy’s job. He was responsible for cleaning up the dust, wiping the floors, and anything hygiene-related. It might not sound significant, but he did enjoy doing this job for the points he earned.

After working at this magic tower for a year, he had become very familiar with the interiors of this place. The inside of this magic tower was a big hallroom. Inside a square living room, there was a giant, complex circle rune lying in the center. He didn’t know what it was for, but he knew how important it was.

Yes, he knew how important it was. Last time, when he saw someone accidentally walking over here, that person was imprisoned by the authorities with an enforcement circle. After that, he was immediately executed by the law enforcement wizards.

No trials. No time to defend himself. Not even a single question being asked. That person was just killed on the spot. Ever since he witnessed this horrible incident, he became more cautious.

One day, when McCarthy was cleaning the floor, he saw the magic rune beneath him, starting to shine in gold. He started panicking, and he suddenly remembered something that his friend told him.

It was something like this, “Listen, if you see something strange inside this place, just run outside immediately. Don’t think. Don’t hesitate. Just run if you value your own life.”

That’s when McCarthy started running. He tried to run as fast as he could, but his legs weren’t as athletic as they should have been. He had been in magic towers for too long. It was good for his wizard training, but it wasn’t good for his physical health.

After McCarthy tripped and fell on the floor, the golden light of the magic rune started to shine even more. A deafening noise rose from all directions. It was like some massive energy was concentrated towards this tower. He tried to get up, but a mysterious force was sucking his body towards the magic rune.

Meanwhile, Wizard Lorenzo was sitting in the Wizard Union office building to watch this from a distance, “Well, well. Who’s coming over this time?”

Not a lot of people were aware of this, but the tower that McCarthy was in was actually the sole reason that Liante City existed. Basically, everything in this area was meant to protect the magic tower in the center. If the teleportation circle inside was to be activated, every nearby building would have to supply energy towards it.

Now, this didn’t happen a lot. The teleportation circle inside that tower was seldom used. Every time it was, a huge amount of energy would have to be expended by all sides. Because of how expensive it was to travel towards that specific point, not a lot of people would choose to do so.

Back to McCarthy. Right now, a giant black pit appeared in the hallroom that he was in. It was filled with energy, and it was sucking McCarthy right into it.

“No! NOOOOO!” McCarthy cried. He could feel it. Whatever was inside this pit, it would destroy his entire existence within an instance. He screamed as hard as he could, hoping that someone was in time to save him.

Soon, Wizard Bunker and Wizard Jellal appeared right on the magic rune. Because of how far the journey was, even rank-seventeen wizards like them were starting to feel dizzy.

Right now, McCarthy was already killed by the black pit. His body disintegrated as soon as he was swallowed by it. He tried to use a defense rune (which he saved a lot of points for), but it didn’t do anything to save his life.

“Hey, what the hell is this?” Wizard Bunker said, looking at the blood splattered on his clothes. He and Wizard Jellal were both wearing passive defensive magic items, but that didn’t stop their clothes from being stained by the blood that was poured over them.

“Yeah, what the hell is this?” Wizard Jellal shouted angrily, “What the hell is this?! I just got my new robe! I’m not injured, so why the hell is with this blood?”

Wizard Bunker said after thinking for a while, “I guess… someone was unlucky when we opened the super teleportation circle.”

Wizard Jellal tried to shake the blood off his hair, “Well, we are pretty unlucky as well! Why does this have to happen every time we do this?”

Due to their experience on the battlefield, the two weren’t very disturbed by the blood on them. Still, the idea of having to go through this was quite annoying to them.

At the same time, Wizard Lorenzo was sitting right inside his office. He was doing some paperwork about the people that were coming into Liante City. If their identities were unchecked, he might have to use the city’s reinforcement system to make an arrest immediately.

“Wizard Bunker. Rank seventeen. Battle-type wizard.”

“Wizard Jallel. Rank seventeen. Battle-type wizard.”

Wizard Lorenzo blinked when he saw the names. He knew who these two were. They had the same mentor as Wizard Cliff. They must’ve come to investigate the person who killed him.

As the manager of the intelligence force, Wizard Lorenzo had to think a lot to think about this. He had two choices, to be precise. He could help these two and win their favor. Or, he could pretend that he didn’t care about this. He’d preferred the latter option since he didn’t see much that he could gain by helping the two.

Honestly, he had no idea who killed Wizard Cliff, but he knew about one thing. Wizard Cliff was notorious for being on bad terms with Grandmaster Abel, so those two would’ve definitely tried to bring troubles to him. If that time did come, Wizard Lorenzo didn’t think that he would want to pick a side.

More importantly, Wizard Lorenzo knew about Abel’s connections with the dwarfs and elves. He knew about the works they’ve done to help him build his magic towers. Whatever “friendship” that was between them, it was definitely much deeper than it appeared to be.

With that in mind, Wizard Lorenzo decided to notify the two wizards’ arrival to two of his trusted co-workers. He was leaving all the work to them. The excuse? He said that he was “In the mood for a breakthrough training lately, so he wanted to go to shut down for a few days.”

Now, then. It was Wizard Allenby and Wizard Eddington that received Wizard Lorenzo’s notifications. When they read the content of his messages, they, too, decided that they didn’t want any part in this.

Not Wizard Nigel, though. When he knew that the two rank-seventeen wizards were coming over, he was the first to rush over to them. He thought that he couldn’t leave this chance to anyone else.