I Level Up Dragons with My Evolution System-Chapter 93: Realizing

"That... That’s impossible!" Edward roared. "Clearly..."

"Clearly, you saved them all. But now they’re all blaming you. You don’t stand a chance in this one, student Edward." Owen laughed. "You need evidence that only a dead man could give you. Arnold’s words won’t be enough; he just got out of one of the punishment places, so he’s considered a criminal. Even though Miss Aurora has a powerful voice, do you think it will be enough when Count Hazzard gets involved in the dilemma?"

"Why would the Count get involved?" Edward frowned. "I don’t think Lander has anything to do with him."

"Hehe." Owen leaned over and crouched down to look at him. "You’re not understanding the situation, student Edward. You just read it, they suspect your fire. You’re the target. Even if the Count didn’t want to get involved, you’re a Lux, he’ll have to get involved because everyone hates you."

"Why don’t you understand? It’s the weight of your surname, student Edward Lux."

Finally, Edward understood. It wasn’t that they really considered him the criminal. The principal probably already knew he didn’t do it, but it was the perfect excuse to get rid of a Lux who was growing up.

Edward laughed softly. "In the end, the academy didn’t turn out to be as trustworthy as many say." He scoffed.

"No place in this world is trustworthy, student Edward. We live in a rotten world that functions in the meantime, but we constantly fight each other for resources. We’ll end up extinguishing ourselves sooner or later."

Edward remained silent.

"Since you’re being accused of your fire and I technically have to be part of the jury, may I see what that fire looks like?" Owen asked and took out a puppet. "They didn’t put any restrictions on your magic, right?"

Edward sighed and looked at the puppet beside him. "My fire can’t even attack a single place and burn it at the same time. The evidence against me is meaningless."

"If they weren’t from a Cursed Land, how could there be so many Death Knights and a Lich?" He sighed and shook his head. Owen knew better than anyone else about this mission. Did he need to tell him again?

He simply cast all the fire spells he had. The Terminal Spark and the Embedded Ember, which did not have many attributes of burning, but rather of subtracting life by embedding.

The Mark of Ash and the Veil of Fiery Smoke... Did they even count as fire spells?

"This is called Shared Ignition; I haven’t completely mastered it yet. It’s what I used to fight and what left me so badly injured." His disconsolate and lonely tone of voice didn’t matter to Owen, he was more interested in that magic.

It was quite peculiar, very different from all the fire magic Owen had seen.

"Now I understand why they consider you a target." Owen laughed and got up to leave.

"Elder Owen." Edward called out to him.

"What is it? Are you going to ask me for help?" Owen asked, looking over his shoulder.

Edward shook his head. "Have you ever heard of the Great Tool Maker?" he asked suddenly.

Owen stared at him for a moment. "What does that question have to do with your current situation?"

"Hehe." Edward smiled and leaned back against the moldy wall. "True... What does it have to do with it?"

Owen stared at him thoughtfully for several minutes.

Edward didn’t see him leave; he was lost in his thoughts.

He remembered Silas Merchant’s final words.

There was confusion in those words, as he tried to say something and quickly changed what he wanted to say, but if there was one thing he could understand from them, it was: Don’t trust Línnava.

"Linnava is capable of stabbing you in the back with a sword, just for a small benefit..." he muttered to himself.

At first, he hadn’t understood, but with every step he took at the academy and with every new mission completed, he began to understand that they were walking on the edge of a precipice with a noose around their necks, and that at any moment, someone would throw them over the edge.

Now it made sense that the Central Academy didn’t teach you what it should, didn’t really educate you, and only focused on missions. They were telling you, openly, that if you don’t bear fruit, you’ll be cut off.

Whether because of the cruelty of the world or because of the academy itself.

Suddenly, a lot of doubts implanted themselves in his mind and resonated with Owen’s words: ’Do they want to kill me, and that’s why they gave me that mission?’ he thought.

’Is it Mervan who wants me dead? Is it Count Hazzard? Is it Owen?’

It could perfectly well be all of them, because of his surname.

’Silas said my father was a great man once, too. But now he’s just a miner who gets bullied by some bastards. Clearly, there’s something behind this.’

He remembered that when he asked Owen about The Great Tool Maker, Owen took a while to answer. Maybe he knew something.

But those were just his assumptions. With his mind confused and trying to find answers to his constant questions, he didn’t know if he was thinking coherently or if he was doing so out of desperation...

He suddenly sighed and leaned heavily against that moldy wall, while the incessant horrible smell of the dungeons filled his senses.

It wasn’t the smell of blood; there was no time for torture in this place. No one had been tortured here; rather, it was the rotten smell of decomposing bodies in the distance.

No one was tortured, but they were left here at the mercy of fate. Perhaps it was one of the cruelest fates for anyone who entered this place.

’Should I escape?’ He looked at his hand; they hadn’t taken away his ability to use magic. And in his hand, his sword appeared.

Slowly and deliberately, he ran his hand along it, as if to gauge its sharpness; with its edge and fire, breaking the bars would be easy.

’What a fine sword... I don’t need to maintain it. I wonder who made it.’

His thoughts stopped instantly as his body tensed.

Who made it?

Why would he ask that, if it came from his father?

The Great Tool Maker!

’Is it a tool created by my father?’ He searched the entire sword for clues, curious about his discovery.

The sword had intricate details as if it had been carved by a great blacksmith; its cost was surely high, even though its material did not seem to be particularly remarkable.

The intricate details were scattered throughout the sword, but there was not a single letter... at least not one that was obvious.

While he was immersed in his investigation of the sword, perhaps to try to clear his mind, he found something peculiar about the entire sword. Those beautifully crafted details were not just decoration.

They looked like a pattern.