Chapter 171: The Ticklish Flesh

The most terrifying thing is when the air suddenly falls silent for too long.

Seeing Kongsha remain quiet, Saul grew a little anxious—after all, his eyes were still wrapped in bandages.

“It seems my worries were unnecessary. In that case…” Kongsha suddenly found herself hesitant to give Saul any suggestions. She rephrased, “If you’re interested in a method to strengthen your mental force, I can take you to a place. There, you’ll definitely find a suitable Locator.”

“Locator…” Saul already had his diary, but so far, he hadn’t figured out how to turn it into his Locator.

If he could borrow from other Locator designs, that wouldn’t be a bad thing either—it might help broaden his thinking.

“Senior Kongsha, aren’t Locators hard to find? Is the place you’re talking about particularly dangerous?”

“Yes! But only dangerous places yield powerful Locators. Saul, you are indeed… exceptional. But if you want to continue on the path of becoming a wizard, you can’t be satisfied with your current accomplishments. Sometimes, when you just want to stop and catch your breath, you’ll find that by the time you’re ready to move again, you’ll never catch up.”

The eyeballs inside Kongsha’s head slowly withdrew, as if sharing in her somber mood.

“Could this be Senior Kongsha’s own personal experience?” Saul pondered. “Sorry, I still need to think it over.”

Though tempted, Saul didn’t immediately agree.

Kongsha’s shoulders slumped slightly. “I can give you the Locator blueprint first. Even if you don’t use it, you can sell it to others at a high price. For Second Rank apprentices, Locators have always been one of the rarest resources.”

Sure enough, the Second Vault was a hot spot. Saul hadn’t even warmed his seat before people were already eyeing him.

Now, Ferguson openly wanted the candle, and Kongsha wanted the item labeled No. 117—Elven Whispers.

The first item, according to Kujin, appeared useless but was in fact highly valuable. If Saul took it out, they’d gain leverage over him, allowing Kujin and his people to coerce him.

The second item had been explicitly warned against by Senior Byron—no one below Third Rank should touch Elven artifacts.

Saul found it strange. Their spell system clearly included Elvish as a language, so why were elf-related items considered taboo?

But back then, Saul had been too weak, lacking the strength and qualifications to investigate.

Now, he had an opportunity to understand more. But until he was sure, he would never carry elven items on his person like Kongsha or Sid.

Just that elf doll alone—one that made any apprentice afraid to even stir their mental force—was enough to stir Saul’s curiosity.

Wasn’t that basically a wizard-killing weapon?

“In that case, Senior Kongsha—if I’m ready within ten days, I’ll meet you at the agreed time in the dormitory.”

Saul wasn’t brushing her off. If he didn’t want to work with her, he would’ve set a much longer timeline so she’d give up hope. Ten days meant he was seriously considering it.

At five minutes past three, Saul finally returned to the Second Vault.

He first went to check the communication pen—no new assignments today.

Then he turned and passed through the sea of corpses, heading toward the wall to confirm how many candlelamps were lit.

Ninety-one.

That number was a little risky. Saul quickly increased it to over a hundred.

He held up the lighting tool and waited for a moment. No candles flickered out.

Saul nodded in satisfaction. “No wonder Kujin said the Second Vault is the safest place. This task is pretty easy to manage!”

The next moment, Saul—having diligently lit the candles—put away his lighting tool, grabbed a large box, and dragged it under one of the unlit candlelamps.

He held a beaker in his left hand and a small knife in his right, climbing onto the box.

Standing on top, Saul’s line of sight was level with the candlelamp.

Using the small knife, he sliced off a small piece of the candle and dropped it into the beaker positioned under the lamp.

He crouched down to place the knife and beaker by his feet, then stood up again and took out the lighting tool to ignite the candle.

As expected, the candle lit up, though it was visibly shorter than the others in the vault.

Saul looked back and surveyed the vault. All the candles were the same height.

Only the one he had cut was shorter.

“The candles in the Wizard Tower always remain lit, never going out, and no one is ever seen replacing them. Yet the height remains uniform—as if precisely measured by a machine.”

Saul jumped down from the box, picked up the beaker and knife, and returned to the long table.

“I used to think some servant or apprentice was responsible for replacing the candles. But only the Tower Master and I can freely enter the Second Vault. No one else can get in, so this has to be a result of wizardly.”

Thinking this, Saul suddenly put down the beaker, grabbed the knife again, and ran back to the box.

He dragged the box to a damaged candlelamp that had no candle in it, climbed up, and forcefully pried the lamp from the wall with the knife.

The base of the candlelamp was secured to the wall with six long iron nails. Even with Saul’s strength, it took considerable effort to wrench one free.

The loosened iron nails clattered to the ground.

Saul transferred both the knife and the lamp to his left hand and pressed his right hand against the wall, leaning in to inspect the hole exposed beneath the lamp.

In the wall, below the base, was a small hole about one centimeter in diameter—too dark to see inside.

Saul gently moved his fingertip to the edge.

“Gleamlight.”

A warm magical glow lit up the inside of the hole.

Inside wasn’t rough earthen wall or smooth metal piping, but a wrinkly, fleshy texture—something like blood vessels or intestines.

At the bottom of the blood vessel was a thin layer of dried white substance.

Saul immediately turned to look at the damaged candlelamp in his hand.

Sure enough, there was also a layer of that same white substance on the bottom.

“Could these be the same material?” Curious, Saul tried to scrape some of the white substance from the pipe using the knife.

But the blade was too wide, and the material too deep in the tube. Unless he broke the wall, he couldn’t reach it.

He was about to fetch a needle or tweezers when he suddenly muttered to himself, “If I touch it, will it be dangerous?”

No response from the diary.

He answered his own question, “Shouldn’t be dangerous. Candles are everywhere in the Tower, and the rulebook only says not to extinguish them—it doesn’t mention touching. My job often requires handling candles, so accidents could happen. If touching them were dangerous, the rules would’ve said so.”

With that thought, Saul reached in and gently scraped a bit of the white substance with his fingertip.

Just as he curled his finger, he suddenly felt the pipe twitch.

It was like someone getting tickled—a sudden, involuntary shudder.

The movement was so slight Saul thought he imagined it.

He reached in again—no response.

Then, like scratching an itch, he gently trailed his finger along the inner wall of the pipe.

Suddenly, it twitched again.

This time, Saul was prepared and saw it clearly.

The pipe was alive.

And it had ticklish spots.

With a complicated expression, Saul carefully reattached the removed candlelamp—he’d also collected some of the white substance but dared not tamper further with the “blood vessel.”

Afterward, he carried the materials back to the long table.

Now, he cleared a small space on the messy table. Laid out in front of him were: a candle stub, the white substance from the pipe, and the residue from the candlelamp.

Saul carefully extracted a bit of each and ran a series of basic tests.

After several rounds, the three samples all showed identical properties—almost certainly the same substance: candle wax.

“So the candles in the lamp are supplied by these tubes. That’s why they don’t require manual maintenance and never burn out.”

“The vault’s candles are just like those outside—except they can extinguish—but the wax itself never diminishes. So there must be living pipes under every candlelamp elsewhere, too.”

At this thought, Saul suddenly felt a chill.

He looked around.

“Could it be… we’re actually living inside some kind of creature?”

The cold vault housed all manner of materials—many were biological limbs. Even though the cuts were clean and smooth, they did little to hide the pain the creatures must’ve endured.

All the cruelty, blood, and darkness hidden beneath neatly carved stone slabs…

“Is the Wizard Tower… a synthetic lifeform? One that entombs countless living beings?”

Countless lives. Countless grudges. That’s why the Wizard Tower must never fall into darkness.

Because in darkness—slumbering fear awakens.

(End of Chapter)

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