Time flew, and five days had already passed since Anbaixiu parted ways with Catherine.
In Anbaixiu's dungeon, another vast new section had been excavated. Fortunately, this area yielded quite a lot of gold, mostly daily utensils.
"This underground civilization was truly extravagant—they even ate from golden bowls."
Anbaixiu held up the golden bowl, which was larger than his own skull, thinking that this was indeed a civilization created by giants; every utensil was colossal in scale.
Still, giants were great. Only giants would have bowls this huge. The bigger the better, which meant even more gold to harvest.
Anbaixiu directed the aberrant skeletons to keep digging. The feeling of constantly unearthing gold was simply wonderful.
However, someone soon interrupted his enjoyment.
Through the dark dungeon, three shadows were approaching.
Sensing their presence, Anbaixiu walked forward to meet them.
Holding a torch and walking at the head of the group was a battered, disheveled Harvey, trailed by the golem puppet Hastings and Hares in his liquid mercury form.
The bruise around Harvey's eye had not fully faded, yet upon seeing Anbaixiu, he broke into a grin. "Teacher, I'm back."
Hearing this, Hastings shuddered.
*He really is Master's student... I hit him way too hard.*
Anbaixiu asked, puzzled, "How did the three of you end up together?"
Anbaixiu knew Harvey was going to survive, but he had no idea how these three had crossed paths over the past few days.
Harvey said sheepishly, "Teacher, could you let me rest a moment first?"
Harvey looked exceptionally bedraggled. His wizard robes were covered in sand and grime, and there were several wounds on his body. Though bandaged, he was indeed extremely weak.
Anbaixiu cast a healing spell on Harvey, then said, "Follow me."
Leading the three back to his laboratory, Anbaixiu handed Harvey several potions—some for healing, some for restoration. After pouring them all down his throat, Harvey's face finally regained a healthy flush.
"Now tell me, what on earth happened?" Anbaixiu asked.
Before Harvey could speak, Hastings jumped in. "Master, it was like this: Hares and I were trying to save up enough money to cross the Death Line and cause trouble for those paladins, when we bumped into your student! Harvey was so generous. Seeing that we were short on coin, he agreed to help us complete a high-paying bounty. The bounty got done, but he sustained a few minor injuries."
In his mercury state, Hares chimed in hurriedly, "Right, right, exactly! When we saw he was hurt, of course we couldn't just think about our mission. He's Master's student after all, so our top priority was bringing him straight back. Now that we've delivered him to you, Master, we really should get on with our mission. Brother, let's go."
Chiming in together like a practiced double act, the two brothers prepared to slip out of the laboratory.
Anbaixiu sneered. "Trying to lie to me? You need another five hundred years of practice. Go stand in the corner."
The brothers dared not utter a peep. They scuttled over to the corner, standing so still they looked like decorative statues.
Seeing how obedient they were, Harvey wondered if his eyes were deceiving him. Those two certainly hadn't shown him that kind of attitude before. Sure enough, Teacher was incredible; what a student couldn't handle, the teacher resolved with effortless ease.
Anbaixiu turned his skull toward Harvey, his soul fire blazing fiercely and rather menacingly.
Harvey was used to it by now, though, and thoroughly recounted everything that had happened over the past few days.
Harvey had been conned by the brothers and taken a beating, but fortunately at the critical moment, he had blurted out Anbaixiu's other name and his identity as a lich, which finally prompted the brothers to spare him.
Though initially skeptical, as Harvey revealed more details about Anbaixiu, the brothers had no choice but to believe his claims. Hares and Hastings were high-tier undead created by Anbaixiu—essentially his thralls—while Harvey was Anbaixiu's student. The difference in status was unmistakable.
Believing that everything was arranged by fate and that he was already a dead man walking anyway, Harvey bore no grudge against the brothers. Instead, he had the two lead him to "complete" the sand lizard extermination quest.
The brothers couldn't fathom why he was so keen on taking on such a perilous task, but they dared not disobey Harvey's orders. Teaming up, the three ventured into the cave where the sand lizard was said to dwell, and sure enough, they were ambushed by a sand lizard.
The terrifying sand lizard swallowed Harvey into its belly, chewing down hard a few times.
Harvey thought his destined death had finally arrived. But after closing his eyes and waiting to die for quite some time, all he heard was a series of cracking and snapping sounds.
Opening his eyes, he saw that the sand lizard had been dismantled by Hastings's bare fists. It wasn't a living sand lizard at all—just a bundle of skeletal fragments.
Though Harvey had suffered several lacerations, the damage inflicted by such a low-tier undead was trivial, nowhere near fatal.
Harvey couldn't understand why his prophesied death had gone awry.
"At that moment, I began to wonder whether fate could really be altered," Harvey told Anbaixiu.
"And now?" Anbaixiu asked.
Harvey gave a wry smile. "At first I didn't get it, but later I figured it out. Teacher, you saved me, didn't you? While I don't know what method you used, my guess is you went back to the past and forged this prophecy, perfectly recreating everything I was supposed to encounter. Only in this way could I avoid dying to the prophecy—because the whole thing was an illusion from the start."
Harvey had indeed been baffled at first, but when he closely examined the skeletal sand lizard and noticed how strangely mismatched the bones were assembled, he knew it was Anbaixiu's handiwork.
There was certainly more than one lich on the continent, but Anbaixiu was probably the only one who crafted such aberrant skeletons.
Realizing this, everything had clicked into place for Harvey.
Anbaixiu had to admit that the boy's talent in the School of Divination was genuinely extraordinary. To figure it out in just a few days? Exploiting this loophole was an idea Anbaixiu had spent decades pondering.
"You rascal... you're too smart for your own good. Sigh. Now that you've figured out the logic, you can never be saved a second time." Anbaixiu had never intended to tell Harvey. As long as Harvey remained oblivious, Anbaixiu could have saved him a second or third time.
Who would have guessed the boy would figure it out all by himself?
Harvey seemed to have anticipated this, offering comfort to Anbaixiu instead. "It doesn't matter. If fate truly brings me face-to-face with my own death again, I doubt you could save me a second time anyway. After all, fate isn't something one can easily negotiate with."
He wasn't wrong. The Goddess of Fate would probably not let Anbaixiu exploit the same loophole twice. But what if? As long as it wasn't absolute, there had always been a sliver of hope.
And now, that hope was gone.
Harvey continued, "Don't take it to heart, Teacher. Perhaps one day, a student of mine will face the same predicament. If I hadn't figured this out, wouldn't I be forced to watch him die helpless? But now, I possess the means to save him. Thank you, Teacher. Not only did you save my life, you gave me the power to save someone else."
This was the inherent tragedy of the School of Divination: only an insufficiently clever divination wizard could ever be saved, and the method of saving him was sacrificing a cleverer one.
Anbaixiu scoffed. "With your level of skill, you actually want to take on students?"
Harvey replied blithely, "Isn't that why I came back? Teacher, I want to keep studying under you."
Anbaixiu chuckled dryly. "I was waiting for you to say that. From now on, you'll work for me for free until you've paid off the one hundred and eighty million gold coins you owe me."
Harvey's broad smile instantly vanished. He couldn't help asking, "One hundred and eighty million? Where did that number even come from?!"
Anbaixiu said coldly, "You think traveling back to the past is free?! I even rounded down the change for you! Don't think you can get away with not paying—even if you die, you're going to keep working for me!"
Chapter 231