As evening fell, Angel took Qili and returned in the original carriage.
The wheels rumbled as the carriage swayed up and down.
Sitting inside, Qili’s face was extremely displeased. Angel, on the other hand, acted as if he noticed nothing, lost in his own thoughts.
"Don’t you have anything to say to me?" Qili asked angrily.
"Say what?" Angel turned his face.
"Where did you go? We agreed to come here together for an outing, but you disappeared. Leaving me alone to wait like that. Aren’t you going to explain yourself?"
"Just went for a walk and found the scenery quite nice, so I stayed a bit longer. Is there a problem?"
"You looked at the scenery for five hours?"
Qili turned her head away, her face puffed up with anger.
Angel also turned his gaze towards the window.
The devil whispered, "I think you should soothe her. After all, if anything unusual happens, you’ll need her as your alibi. Bringing her along for this outing was precisely for this purpose, wasn’t it?"
After some thought, Angel mustered a smile and said to Qili, "Your cooking is really delicious."
"Is it?" Qili glared at him coldly.
"It really is good. Didn’t I finish all of it?"
"But you disappeared for five hours. We were supposed to go on an outing together, and I ended up sitting there alone." Check latest chapters at NoveI(F)ire.net
"Well..." Hesitating, Angel said, "Actually... I’ve never been on an outing before, much less with a girl. So I just wandered off... You know I’m terrible at this. Sorry. Does that seem odd?"
Qili blinked at Angel for a moment before nodding.
"Sorry, it’s my first time." Angel feigned an awkward look, shaking his head helplessly, "You have to keep it a secret for me."
"Who else could I tell about this?" Qili sighed with a trace of resignation, looked at Angel, then chuckled, "At least we can share many ’firsts’ together, which is a good thing."
"My goodness, there are people who believe such a terrible lie." The devil rubbed his forehead helplessly, "I suggest you make more use of her. After all, there aren’t many people this naive. And don’t waste Mosharili either."
Under the setting sun, the carriage continued rumbling along the long cobblestone path, heading towards the direction of the sacred tree.
Beneath the dim red light, the miners continued to dig tirelessly, peeling back the soil bit by bit.
One of the miners was an aging Centaur with a bushy beard, yet his body was still burly with muscles. With slightly trembling hands, he carefully unearthed a transparent crystal of Modo mineral from the mud, and then gently placed it with several others in the iron basin beside him.
Bending down again, he resumed his search in the soil.
Under the firelight, the recently placed crystal emitted a faint, almost imperceptible black glow, quickly vanishing without anyone noticing.
Upon returning to the Magic Academy, Angel resumed his usual life. He shuttled between the library and laboratory daily, occasionally making trips to the administration building.
Still immersed in magic, steadily striving to enhance his magic power and knowledge.
"Since you’ve already completed the task, why not summon him and claim your reward?" the devil asked.
"I want to wait for him to come to me. If what I did truly worked, he would definitely reach out to me." Looking at the devil, Angel exhaled slowly, replying blankly, "I feel like he’s just brushing me off, maybe he’s testing me, or maybe he looks down on me. It was clear from what he gave me. He only gave me ten milliliters of the potion. But as we’ve tested, at least one milliliter is needed to render a single Modo mineral ineffective. What does that mean? At most, the entire potion can only neutralize ten Modo minerals. Based on the current market rate, those ten Modo minerals are worth only about ten thousand silver coins on the black market. Do you understand what that implies?"
"Hmm..." The devil looked at him, furrowing its brow and pouting without answering.
Taking a deep breath, Angel said, "It means that I’d be spending ten thousand silver coins on the black market to buy ten Modo minerals and smash them, which is no different from taking the risk to do this task."
The devil remained silent, simply watching Angel intently.
"So, I’ll wait. I need to find a way to change things because becoming a Demon Envoy would just be a burden for me, offering no real benefit. I don’t need those tiny and useless favors." With that, Angel bowed his head and continued busily with his experiments.
Time passed day by day, Angel didn’t summon the Frog Demon, and the Frog Demon didn’t seek him out, as if he had never become a Demon Envoy of hell.
However, over a month later one day...
With a loud noise, the door to Cornelia’s office was pushed open. The force was so intense it was nearly a crash.
Cornelia hurried in, flustered.
Dariana, who had been sitting in the room early, quickly stood up, her face full of bewilderment.
With a clatter, Cornelia placed an iron basin holding about ten Modo minerals on her desk.
"Ma’am, what’s going on?" Dariana asked with a frown.