Family......

When she heard this familiar and unfamiliar word, Mary felt a little trance for a while.

It wasn't until a few seconds later that she slowly remembered that she had indeed told her mentor the other day about her decision - she wanted to see her family.

The young female mage pursed her lips and looked at her mentor with some hesitation: "They are ......"

"It's upstairs in the living room," Daniel's yellowed eyes stared at Mary, "you'd better freshen up before you go up—especially your hair." ”

"Good...... Good. ”

Mary hurriedly agreed, and then left the basement where the immersion pod was housed, and she returned to the first floor, entered the public bathroom, reached out and opened the water valve, and watched the clear water supplied by the magic pump flow out of the metal pipe, the sound of the rushing water gradually calmed her mood.

Her family.

She couldn't remember what it was like when she left that home...... An ignorant little girl, followed the older children to the mountains to "explore", after nightfall and friends separated, accidentally stepped into the magician's ancient tower, since then changed her life, since then cut off contact with her family, now more than ten years have passed, childhood memories have long been blurred and weathered, the only impression she can remember, related to "home", seems to be only a low and leaky old house, a dim lantern hanging at the door, and those bedtime stories used to scare children.

Unfortunately, much of those spooky bedtime stories—about dark wizards, about castles, about monsters in the mountains, and magical slaves—all came true in the decade or so of her life.

The water was rushing and Mary picked up the cold water and slapped it on her face.

She couldn't remember her parents anymore, but she still wanted to see them.

Leaving the bathroom, the young female mage's mood gradually calmed down, she saw that her mentor was already standing in the corridor, looking at her expressionlessly, seeing herself appear, the old mage in black robe just nodded, and walked silently in the direction of the living room.

Mary stepped closely.

When they came to the door of the drawing-room, a servant immediately stepped forward and pushed open the door for his master.

Mary saw the scene in the living room.

The fireplace burned quietly on one side of the living room, the red light of the fire shining on the nearby copper shelves, and the dark red couch in the center of the living room, where an old couple in dirty gray cloth coats, gray hair, and wrinkled faces sat on the sofa.

They sat very carefully, most of their bodies outside the sofa, as if they were afraid of soiling the luxurious furnishings here.

- It seems that the mentor only brought her parents, not her sister.

The old couple on the sofa also saw the person appearing at the door, and they stood up almost instantly, showing awe and flattery at Daniel, and then they saw Mary standing behind Daniel, and at this moment, the family members who had been separated for more than ten years finally met.

Mary looked at the old couple steadily, watching their cloudy eyes roll and their gaze fall on their robes, watching them slowly show humble and awe-inspiring expressions, watching them slowly bend down.

This series of actions is like a conditioned reflex.

"Honorable Mage." She heard the couple call themselves that.

Mary was a little overwhelmed, she heard Daniel speak next to her, and her tone was cold and hard: "This is your daughter, you don't have to salute." ”

The old couple straightened up and glanced at Mary with a hint of surprise, but there was still obvious nervousness in the surprise, Mary didn't know how she felt at the moment, her lips squirmed several times, and finally squeezed out the voice between her lips: "Father, mother......"

She used a very standard, citizen-style pronunciation, and the words were also more solemn and upper-class titles—because no matter what her life had been like for the past ten years, her mentor had always been a high-level mage from the imperial capital, with outstanding knowledge and upbringing, and she had not learned any other way of speaking under her mentor.

The rural habits she had been exposed to in her childhood had long since blurred in her mind.

The old couple seemed stunned for a moment when they heard Mary address them, and then nodded stiffly and repeated dryly, "Good, good, good......"

After everyone had sat down on a few couches, the living room quickly fell awkwardly silent.

Mary struggled to think of what she should say to lighten the mood, and it took her half a day to form a complete sentence: "At home...... Are you all right? ”

"Okay, okay...... There's enough food to eat," the hunched man nodded repeatedly, "Are you okay?" There's enough food to eat, right? ”

“…… I have no worries about food and clothing," said Mary, with some awkwardness, "and you ...... now Do you still live in the country? ”

"Where else can I go?" The wrinkled old woman said, "The house and the land are over there, and the livestock. ”

"How did you get here?"

"The old mage sent someone to fetch us," the old woman glanced at Daniel cautiously, "the carriage we are in, a very large carriage. ”

Then she looked at Mary's robe again, and there was a hint of awe in her eyes—as if this awe had been deeply imprinted in her bones, so that whenever she saw something similar, even if she knew that the person in front of her was her blood relative, she couldn't help but get nervous: "You are a mage now......

"Yes, I'm almost mid-ranked...... Mary said, but she wasn't sure if the old couple in front of her could understand what mid-rank meant.

"Okay, you...... You are promising," the hunched man nodded again, with a hint of flattery, glanced at Daniel next to him, and then withdrew his gaze, "You were taken away by the mage, this is your luck, your sister, your brother is not as lucky as you......"

Fortunate...... Mary suddenly felt at a loss for what to do with the word.

The topic that could be used for conversation seemed to end quickly, or rather, the topic didn't exist in the first place.

Mary felt more and more uncomfortable, and she believed that the same was true of the old couple in front of her.

They were strangers, related by blood, but thousands of miles apart, sitting in a place that seemed very close, trying to say something that would make them feel comfortable on both sides, but they couldn't even pretend.

Soon after the second embarrassment and coldness began, the old woman began to look at the door frequently, and her husband became more and more nervous—they did not know how to hide their emotions properly, and Mary could see through their thoughts and feelings at a glance.

Sitting in this "luxurious" place for so long, the old couple from the countryside had been restless, they did not feel any joy of reunion with their daughter from Mary at all, they had only come here by order of a mage, and every minute they had been here was a torture.

They occasionally sneaked a sneak peek at Daniel, and there was even a hint of begging in his eyes.

Mary took the initiative to stand up.

"That's it," she whispered, "I...... There are still some magical experiments to be done. ”

"Oh, oh, well," the old woman stood up after her, "that ...... Then you go about your business. ”

"How many days are you going to stay here?"

"No, no," the old woman hurriedly waved her hand, "the family still needs to be taken care of, and we don't feel at ease if we leave it too long for others." ”

Mary didn't say anything more, just nodded slightly, and left the room as if fleeing.

It wasn't even until she had taken refuge in a nearby side hall that she realized that she had recklessly left her mentor behind—something that would have been horrible if she had been a year ago.

Just as Mary realized that she had made a mistake, the door to the side hall suddenly opened, and Daniel stepped in.

The black-robed old mage just glanced at Mary quietly and said casually, "I arranged for them to rest elsewhere for a day, and I will send them back tomorrow."

"If you don't want to see them again, you don't have to see them again during this time.

"After that, I will send someone to take care of their lives."

Mary lowered her head and whispered, "...... Thank you. ”

"Not necessarily."

"Mentor, I...... Isn't it bad? Mary boldly looked up at her mentor, "They are my parents......"

Daniel interrupted her indifferently: "They didn't want to come at first, until the apprentices I sent showed their identity as mages and gave them a reward, they were willing to come and meet you. ”

Mary was a little dazed: "The remuneration ......"

"It's not anyone's fault." Daniel said calmly.

"Mentor, did you foresee such a situation a long time ago?"

"Yes," Daniel said without any change in expression, "but it's your own choice, and it's a situation you have to face, so I didn't intervene." ”

Mary bit her lip, then lowered her head to look at the robe on her body, as well as the silver badge representing the mage-level near the collar of the robe.

It is not only more than a dozen years of separation that create estrangement.

"Between the Guru, the transcendent and the ordinary...... Is the gap really that big? ”

"In most places, that's it."

Mary hung her head and did not speak again for a long time.

Daniel turned and left the room, not disturbing his apprentice any more.

He still has tasks to be assigned by his master.

……

Aldernan, East End Dark Alley, a man with a messy beard, deep eye sockets, and a plain appearance is staggering through the alley.

The man smelled of alcohol, carried a cloth bag of food in his hand, his hair seemed to have not been groomed for a long time, and his shabby clothes were the same as the standard of living of most people in the neighborhood.

Winter days always darken early, and the dim light has enveloped Aldernan, and the sparse magic crystal street lamps are lit up from far and near, illuminating the old and dilapidated streets of the East End. There are few pedestrians on the road, and those who go to work in the factories have not yet returned home, and the occasional people who appear on the roadside are low-level prostitutes who have just arrived on the street, if not the unemployed vagrants with suspicious appearances.

The drunken man was walking down the street, and suddenly, an inexplicable palpitation came to his heart, which stopped the man in the shabby coat.

He seemed to be holding on to the wall next to him because he was drunk and uncomfortable, but his right hand was quietly pressed on his waist, and he quietly held a spike made of gold in his hand.

There is a shimmer of magic on the surface of the spikes.

A scruffy bearded homeless man walked past him, and as the two staggered by, the homeless man suddenly turned his head to look at him.

In the eyes of the drunken man, the image of the homeless man suddenly twisted and writhed, changing into a figure in a black robe with a face hidden in the shadows.

A voice came to his ears: "Meet at 14 Black Iron Lane." ”

The drunkenness in the man's eyes had completely disappeared, and he quietly put away the golden spikes, feeling the other will beating quietly in his brain, and whispered as he changed direction under his feet, "Yes, Bishop. ”

The man turned away from the alley, and there had never been a scruffy bearded homeless man on the road he had walked, as if it had been an illusion from beginning to end.

……

A dazzling light pierced the darkness, illuminating a cloud-shrouded plain, barren and dry, desolate building ruins and plant remains buried in the wind and sand, and endless winds constantly blowing through the whole world, and between this ruined and ruined world, countless shadowy figures were trudging across the plain.

Their expressions were numb, and their eyes were blank, as if the trek had neither purpose nor end.

And in the distance of the plain, at the end of the light, stood a glorious city, the palace of the city towering and resplendent with gold, like the perfect city of myths and legends.

High in the sky covered with dark clouds, two figures suddenly appeared.

One figure was dressed in a long white dress and carrying an illusory lantern in his hand, while the other was tall and thin, with black hair and Sven's monocle.

"Archbishop Selena," said the elegant man in monocle to the woman with the lantern beside him, with a slight respect in his tone, "this area is the largest spillover projection ever discovered, and the only one found so far that is completely out of the Dream City and generated in the 'imaginary number zone'. ”

"This looks like a ruin, a ruin that has been around for an unknown number of years," Selena Gerfen frowned, "All of the previous overflow projections showed a city or village that was functioning, and our hysteresis managed to keep the time flow of Sandbox One in sync with the real world, so theoretically, there shouldn't be such an area in the sandbox that has been abandoned for so long...... Archbishop Yuri, what do you think? ”

"Perhaps, the course of history in Sandbox One has been fragmented and time is no longer linearly distributed," Archbishop Yuri pondered, "or perhaps the world within it has swelled to such an extent that some areas are functioning normally, and some have actually been abandoned for hundreds of years. ”

“…… It's a pity that this is just an overflow projection, and all the interference we do here will not affect the operation of Sandbox One. ”

Selena Gerfen whispered, staring at the darkness of the plain below, then silent for a moment before gently waving the lantern in her hand.

The entire spillover projection dissipates silently in the shaking of the lantern, reducing the basic black and white two-color grid lines and the gray mist that covers the sky.

"Summoning that Daniel next week," Selena said to the elegant man beside her, "I'm going to talk to him personally." ”

"So fast?" Archbishop Yuri couldn't help but be a little surprised.

"yes, sooner than expected - because that Daniel seems to have sensed something and is investigating privately, and it just so happens that we can talk to him."

(Mom!!! ）