Two wizards fell silent, saying no more.
...
Meanwhile, after several hours of trekking, Colin arrived at the capital of the Fabados Kingdom, Nanao, before noon.
The familiar Leibo River was now frozen over. The many boats that usually dotted its surface were nowhere to be seen, leaving only a few fishermen who were ice fishing at the thin edges.
He chose this place not only because it was nearby, but also because it was familiar.
Familiarity could save a lot of unnecessary time.
In just one hour, Colin contacted the Nanao Royal Family through the well-known local land merchant, Hosone, whom he knew.
After that, other than the slightly annoying scent of cosmetics on the two accompanying princesses, there were no further incidents.
Colin successfully exchanged a few magic stones for nine death row inmates.
In fact, before coming here, he had considered other methods to obtain materials, such as attempting to find some in the outskirts of Neustadt in the Neustadt Kingdom.
Although the Supreme Council does not permit the indiscriminate killing of ordinary people, as a First Rank Wizard, he had countless ways to bypass this restriction.
The simplest would be to buy a few slaves at the Neustadt Kingdom's slave market.
But Colin had no desire to kill innocents without good reason, and it was not even a matter of good or evil.
He simply did not want to, did not like to.
However, as many philosophers have said, not wanting to, not wishing to, and not liking to... in themselves are the biggest reasons.
Colin strongly agreed.
But now, it seemed that coming to Fabados was not a bad decision, as the efficiency was not much worse than buying slaves directly, and they were all condemned prisoners. Moreover, he could take the opportunity to complete the Black Mist Transformation here.
Colin refused the residence offered by the Royal Family and chose to stay in the villa he had used before.
After he had left, Hosone had kept the villa unrented to others. Other than sending someone to clean regularly, nothing inside the villa had been changed... It showed consideration.
"Lord Nade, may I know how long you plan to stay this time?" Hosone walked into the villa with him and asked.
Colin glanced at him, his expression calm.
Hosone's heart skipped a beat, and he quickly added:
"That is, I noticed you did not bring the maid you had before, so I wanted to ask if you needed some maids arranged to handle miscellaneous tasks."
"There's no need; just send over some food daily," Colin shook his head, then specified, "Send enough for fifteen people for the first three days, and for three people from then on."
If the death row inmates went through the Black Mist Transformation, they would no longer need to eat.
After all, they could hardly be considered human at that point, being able to survive solely by drawing on magic power, so they would not need to eat and excrete like humans.
As for the extra portions he requested for the first few days, aside from what he needed himself, they were also prepared for the prisoners.
Before the Black Mist Transformation, Colin planned to first enhance them into Great Knights.
"Very well, Lord Nade," Hosone nodded gravely. He looked behind instinctively, feeling a chill inside.
The death row inmates had come off the prisoner transport at the door and followed behind the two of them obediently, as if dead men walking.
Although Hosone felt some fear, it did not strike him as unusual.
Previous interactions had convinced Hosone that the wizard before him was not a man of evil, or at least... whether good or bad, he was a wizard with principles.
"How is your daughter doing?" Colin suddenly asked.
"Are you referring to Wensy? Thanks to you, she has gone to the Wizard City and successfully joined a School," Hosone said with a hint of pride.
"That's good," Colin nodded slightly, a bit surprised.
After all, the girl's talent had not seemed exceptional during the initial tests, and she was no longer young.
He had thought that Wensy would not pass the School's entrance examination...
But who can truly predict the twists of fate?
Colin shook his head and continued walking forward with the death row inmates.
...
It was just a single day later.
Those prisoners with varying levels of physical fitness had been catalyzed into Great Knights by Colin using the Limit Breaking Blood Pattern Transformation Technique.
On the second day, he used his own First Rank Knight's Fighting Aura to mitigate the negative effects of the Blood Pattern Transformation Technique as much as possible to prevent it from adversely affecting the Black Mist Transformation that would follow.
Without considering future development or bodily harm, after a series of operations, these prisoners had actually increased in strength somewhat.
Although they remained at the Great Knight stage, they had reached the pinnacle that mortals could achieve.
At this point, the preparations were successfully completed.
For the Black Mist Net, the best material is a Wizard who is also a Knight, followed by lone Wizards, then by lone Knights, and finally by ordinary people.
But everything is relative.
Materials like those Colin now had, which had reached the peak level of Great Knights, were naturally much better than Wizard Apprentices of only low to middle level.
If he were to officially apply for human materials from the School, he would likely only be able to request materials of this quality at most.
Of course, if one wanted to fully unleash the power of the Black Mist Net, the best Casting material would naturally be First Rank Wizards.
If it were possible to use First Rank Advanced Wizards entirely as material, then the power that this witchcraft could display would be comparable to Middle Second Rank Wizardry, and it could even compete with some Upper Second Rank Wizardry.
But obviously, for Colin at the moment, let alone using only First Rank Advanced Wizards as materials, he couldn't even procure Wizard materials.
The status of an Official Wizard is extremely high, and moreover, the materials needed for the Black Mist Net have to be alive.
Normally, the number of materials needed for the Black Mist Net is six.
It could be more or less, but there must be at least three and no more than eighteen.
Six is the optimal choice, any more would only increase the number of Black Mist Puppets—also known as Silent Shadows, without increasing the strength of auxiliary enhancements like the Black Fog Armor.
Six Official Wizards as materials... even the original Yasi had not managed to gather that many.
Therefore, during the battle at that time, the Black Fog Armor that Yasi was supplemented with was only considered top-notch among the Lower Second Rank.
And the Summon Fire Element resulting from the Golden Paper Limit Breaking was also at the top-notch level among the Lower Second Rank Wizardry, combined with Yasi's exhaustion from the initial battle of attrition, that was why he was ultimately defeated by him.
And this time, Colin bought nine prisoners, mainly considering the possibility of transformation failures, as after all, it was his first time practicing on living people.
Aside from theoretically being able to achieve tremendous power, another benefit of the Black Mist Net is its extremely low Magic Power consumption.
This consumption is so low that it's almost on par with the Magic Power needed to maintain the Spirit Fog, or even lower.
After all, the main part of the Black Mist Net—the transformation materials—
had already been completed before the battle.
During the battle, the main expenditure for Colin was the Magic Power needed to summon the Black Fog Armor.
As for the Magic Power needed to maintain the Black Fog Armor, it was mostly provided by each Silent Shadow.
They were like individual Magic Power nodes, all linked together to form a large net, providing the host with defense, replenishing Magic Power, and so forth.
If one had to compare, this witchcraft should be considered the strongest Colin currently mastered.
Even the Temple Ring Binding—a complete set of witchcraft rewarded by the Supreme Council—could not match it.
It's just a pity that excellent materials are hard to find.
Simply using Great Knights as materials, at best, the Black Mist Net could reach the level of Yasi, and might even be slightly inferior.
After all, Yasi must have used Wizard Apprentices as materials.
But that doesn't matter much, an increase in combat power is still an increase, after all, the consumption is low, and it can coexist with the Steel Temperature Resistance Field.
Time flowed quietly, like water slipping away.
The time required for transforming materials was faster than Colin had imagined.
Merely on the sixth day of his arrival in Nanao, he embarked on the return journey.
In fact, Colin had to embark on the return journey.
Because on the morning of February 1st on the Yanan Calendar, the sixth day, his School Badge flickered for a moment, then the familiar words reappeared—
"Lord Colin Leonard, please proceed to the School to receive your second compulsory task of the year."