CHAPTER 202: WE MEET AGAIN

Alex stood on top of a sand dune, in the middle of a vast desert with yellow sand surrounding him on all sides. Due to his rapid killing of magic beasts to farm exp points, Alex had killed almost all of the magic beasts around Balon City and it was taking too long for more beasts to come occupy the territories of the dead ones.

For this reason, Alex was forced to travel very far just to look for more magic beasts to kill. Currently, he was millions of miles away from Balon City and had found this desert that was infested with hundreds of sand worms.

This was where Alex had gotten the rest of his exp for the day, he had wiped out the entire population of sand worms and rendered the desert empty; it would probably take some time for more magic beasts to migrate here and Alex knew that he would need to go even further the next time he came out of farm exp.

"But that shouldn’t be a problem, I’m just a few hundreds of thousands of exp short from crafting my first Saint rank spell," Alex said to himself.

He was still in his Mr Chen outfit. Although they weren’t useful anymore since they couldn’t protect him from anything capable of harming him, Alex had gotten used to using them whenever he went out.

Besides, the mask was still useful for identifying things that he didn’t know.

Taking one last look at the vast desert that looked almost golden due to the setting sun, silver white stars appeared around Alex and quickly formed star constellations, then Alex vanished into a flicker of silver light.

Blink!

Void Walk!

Blink!

Void Walk!

Even for Alex who was able to travel quickly because of his spell and skill, it still took him over an hour to reach Balon City from the desert.

This was to show how far he had gone just to find magic beasts to kill.

With his rate of killing, he would probably affect the economy of Balon City because explorers would no longer have any magic beasts to kill whenever they go out on raids and fewer missions would be posted by the Union.

"At least more beasts should migrate over after some time, they’ll be fine." Alex had thought to himself.

Reaching Balon City, Alex went straight to the Union building to sell the beast corpses he had returned with. His space pocket was now so huge that he could store all of the beasts that he killed while farming exp. He worried that the Union building might go broke one day due to the number of beast corpses he was coming back with every day.

If they went broke, how would they be able to buy his goods?

Currently, Alex had Union cards that contained over 30 billion Zen which he had made from selling beast corpses and mana cores.

A small Union branch like the one in Balon City couldn’t possibly sustain such a constant inflow of funds to him, right?

Maybe he should save some for when he went to the capital, Brandvel, and sell them there.

After reaching the Union building, Alex was able to sense a few familiar auras. They were Owen, Lance, and James. Clint, Silvia, and Marco were not present.

Alex then appeared directly in Owen’s office.

The man was startled at Alex’s appearance and quickly stood up. Alex noticed as his face switched from normal to a panicking one right after he saw it was him.

"Ah, Mr Chen. It’s a miracle that you’re here, branch leader Clint and the others got into trouble outside the city, they just called me to help reach you; they need your help!" Owen spoke hurriedly, showing that it was a matter of urgency.

Alex frowned behind his mask, he was sure that there weren’t any magic beasts in at least a radius of two million meters around Balon City that could threaten even an Expert mage rank.

He had wiped out all of them, he had only spared some common rank beasts that he felt too lazy to kill. So what was Owen talking about? Clint was a Master rank mage, and so was Silvia. How could they get into trouble?

Or could it be that they had encountered other mages instead of magic beasts?

"Where are they?" Alex asked, planning to go take a look if they were really in any form of danger as Owen was insinuating.

But instead of telling Alex where Clint and the others were, Owen said that he would take him there himself because it would be faster.

Alex "..."

What sort of transportation would be faster than his travelling speed as a Saint mage, even if he didn’t use Blink and Void Walk? He instantly felt that this was suspicious.

Therefore, he didn’t argue and agreed for Owen to take him there.

Owen immediately rushed out of the office and Alex followed behind.

They used the elevator and quickly arrived at the reception hall before heading outside. Many people in the hall saw them and immediately wanted to talk to Mr Chen.

After all, Mr Chen rarely appeared in the reception hall and many people hadn’t seen him in months.

But Owen drove all of them away and said that they had important matters to attend to. Alex wasn’t planning on entertaining them anyway.

They reached outside and entered Owen’s car, which was a red sports car with a rather impressive speed. The engine roared to life before Owen drove it into the road and they sped off into the distance.

A short while later, they were already outside Balon City and were heading north. Owen had a serious expression as he controlled the steering with both eyes fixed on the road.

Alex just sat quietly and watched. After driving for almost two hours, he saw Owen take out his phone and typed something with one hand while one hand remained on the steering wheel, the car was still speeding.

Owen had curved his hand at an angle that prevented Alex from seeing what he had typed, but it wasn’t too obvious; however, Alex had noticed it, but he didn’t say anything.

After another twenty or so minutes, the car left the major road and entered a ground path as they drove past large rocks and trees.

Alex spread his senses to the maximum, and he sensed something.

The Aura of several people, all of them were mages, while some felt odd but familiar.

It was as if he had sensed a similar aura before but he couldn’t quite recall what they were. They weren’t mages, humans, nor magic beasts.

At the thought of this, Alex immediately remembered why they felt familiar.

They were dark beasts of the Dark Union!

At the thought of this, he shot a side glance at Owen.

’So that’s how it is.’ Alex thought to himself but didn’t say anything, he allowed Owen to keep driving.

He already figured out the strength of the group ahead of them. One Archmage, five Master rank mages, several Expert rank mages, and numerous dark beasts that he could not tell their level of strength yet but figured that they should be the same as the ones he had seen in the past.

After some while, Owen finally stopped the car at the foot of a hill. Several large trees and rocks surrounded them.

The two of them came out of the car, and Owen then asked Alex to wait while he went to check if Clint and the others were fine.

Alex found those words funny.

"Didn’t he ask you to bring me over to help? Let me go with you." He said and wanted to take a step, but Owen insisted.

"It’ll be too much trouble to bother Mr Chen. They should be behind this hill, let me go take a look first." Owen said and immediately rushed off.

’...And you think those excuses make sense?’ Alex thought to himself but he didn’t go after Owen.

He already knew that he had walked into a trap and wanted to see what was going to happen next.

’I wonder how Clint would react if he knew that an elder under him was a member of the Dark Union?’ Alex thought to himself as he waited for Owen and the other members of the Dark Union to come out.

He wondered what they were going to do, they didn’t plan to directly gang up on him, right?

After some time, several people finally appeared at the top of the hill in front of Alex.

"Mr Chen, we meet again!" A childish voice rang out.

Alex raised his gaze slightly and saw the kid with the lollipop, whom he had fought previously, standing on top of the hill. He was in a red robe and behind him were over twenty mages in robes as well, all in different colours but similar patterns.

With them was Owen who had also changed into a yellow robe.

"I promised to kill you the next time we meet, I’m sure you didn’t expect to see me so soon." The kid said with a victorious grin on his face.

"Actually, you’ve come a bit too late; I won’t be the one dying today," Alex replied.