Elite Mages’ Academy - Chapter 707 - Museum
Xiao Lin and Song Junlang arrived at Frontier Town in the evening. The little town was quite a remote place in the Weier Union, but thanks to the development of their tourism in recent years, the place had all the facilities needed. New hotels, clean streets, various shops, and even eye-catching merchandise.
Only, due to the declaration of war by Dawn Academy, the shops around had all chosen to close up. In truth, over half of the people around Frontier Town were those from various Earth academies, but Dawn Academy’s motives for the war this time were vague, and could be targeting the other academies as well, so the people there could not help but be wary.
As was the case for most territories under the colonizers, the Weier Union was completely covered with resurrection towers, so no one was particularly worried about dying, but it was not impossible that they would be restricted in some other way. Furthermore, it was entirely possible for Dawn Academy to be even more ruthless, sending their troops to guard the resurrection towers and killing everyone after they resurrected until they ran out of lifespan, essentially spawn-camping them.
Under such a horrifying atmosphere, Frontier Town was quite a depressing place, as if night was about to fall. Of course, Dawn Academy’s own scholars looked much more at ease, eating and drinking away like nothing was happening.
Xiao Lin had thought that they would be staying in a hotel, but Song Junlang had other arrangements. They were not in much of a mood to admire any tourist attractions. So, when it got a little later, at the southeastern part of the town, they entered a museum that looked very aged.
The museum was in a state of closure, and Song Junlang had brought Xiao Lin the long way around before entering through a small door on the side, and they walked through the place in a familiar manner.
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Even though it was during the night, the lights in the museum were all on. They were all high-level magical lamps. When Xiao Lin hastily walked past, he glanced at a few of the objects on exhibit. They were mostly objects from thousands of years ago in the New World. The museum’s target audience was naturally the people from Earth since the locals did not seem to be interested in things like that.
Xiao Lin had once heard in a lecture before that the natives of the New World kept track of history as well, but due to the large amount of races and countries, as well as various forms of information being missing, their true history had actually been compiled by the colonizers from Earth, and the various museums were the proof of that research.
“Later, you’ll meet someone. It’s the curator of this museum. Be mentally prepared. You’ll probably need to spend some money.” Under the magical light, Song Junlang said coldly.
“What?” Xiao Lin’s head was full of sweat.
Before he could ask anything else, Xiao Lin met the curator. They were completely different from the image of museum curators in his mind. He was not some well-mannered historian, nor was he some archeologist that had various equipment to look at antiques on his body.
He was an incredibly well-built, and bald Russian man. It was still early in spring, so the New World’s temperature was quite low, but the man’s upper body was bare as he held a bottle of unknown liquor. Xiao Lin could smell the thick smell of alcohol from far away, and possibly, because the Russian man had drank too much, his entire body emitted hot air.
“Oh? Song Junlang! You little brat, how dare you come here! You haven’t paid your tab from last time! How dare you come here?!” The Russian man immediately widened his eyes when he saw Song Junlang. His pronunciation was very good, and even had a bit of a northern accent, but the heat around his body started to redden like flames. It was the sign of a flame battle aura.
Xiao Lin immediately jumped in fright, as he had thought that the curator was Song Junlang’s friend, but the curator seemed prepared to fight the moment he saw Song Junlang. Xiao Lin got ready to defend himself, but he could only smile wryly when he felt nothing. He was a powerless person.
Song Junlang did not look scared at all, and did not make a move to avoid anything as he opened his hands up and smiled. “My old friend, you won’t be able to get any money if you kill me. Aren’t I here to return the money?”
“Oh? Return the money? You came here to pay me back? Let me tell you, the interest rate is very high!” The bald man laughed coldly, but the fire around him dimmed a little.
“Don’t worry! I’ll make sure I return all of your money. Not only that, I even found you a new business — something that will make you earn a lot of money!” Song Junlang winked before moving aside, pushing Xiao Lin forward.
The bald man narrowed his eyes and measured Xiao Lin. The flames around his body completely dispersed. He looked up curiously, nodding, “Your academy’s intelligence department has reached out to me, and I’ll get quite a sum if I capture this guy. Even though it’s not a lot for me, it’s still better than nothing!” Saying that, he motioned to capture Xiao Lin.
Xiao Lin widened his eyes. Why did he feel like he had been sold out to make up for a debt?
Song Junlang hurriedly stood between the two of them awkwardly, pulling away the man’s hands before lowering his voice in a stern expression, “Alexei, stop playing the fool. You know why I brought him here. Just tell us now. We need the Holy Grail.”
The bald man, Alexei, had a look of surprise when he heard the words ‘Holy Grail’. He seemed to sober up quite a bit as he swept his gaze over Song Junlang and Xiao Lin again. He said with some exasperation, “Song Junlang, you really are a rat. Only a handful of people know about that. Whatever, come in and we’ll talk.”
Alexei’s office was very small and messy. The air was filled with the stench of alcohol, and the empty bottles on the floor were evidence of how much of an alcoholic that man was.
Xiao Lin remained on alert as he was observing Alexei. Logically speaking, Weier was at the border of Dawn Academy, and had the Royal British Academy and Judge Academy as backers, so it was very strange for a Russian man to have a museum there. The Russian Voyna Akademiya was very, very far away from the Weier Union. However, it looked like that guy had adapted himself quite well, and from his fluent Mandarin, it was obvious that the man had been there for a long time.
“Give me back the money from last time first, then we can talk business. Forget it otherwise!” Alexei gulped down more alcohol as he shouted loudly.
Song Junlang took out a card and threw it on the table as he said, “Swipe it yourself. The extra money will count toward the rewards of this job.”
Song Junlang looked like it was nothing, but Xiao Lin widened his eyes. However he looked at it, that card was his own; he had left it at the academy before going for the tournament!