Diary of a Dead Wizard-Chapter 392 : Traces

"Not coming?" Seeing that Saul still hadn't gotten into the carriage, Jero shrugged, the excitement on his face fading a little. "We're in a hurry, so we're heading off first."

Lokai also didn’t get into the carriage, still standing behind Saul.

It seemed that his only purpose in appearing here was to see the two of them off.

He grinned and waved goodbye to Jero and Byron. Jero listlessly waved back, while Byron had already turned away, not even bothering to acknowledge Lokai.

This behavior was very much in line with Byron's character.

Saul's tense shoulders relaxed slightly. "Alright, I'll wait until Senior Byron returns before asking him my questions."

Hidden under the shadow of his cloak, Byron gave a slight nod.

The carriage gradually pulled away under the watchful eyes of Saul and Lokai.

"Saul, how come every time you go out, your strength increases so much?"

Only now did Lokai seem to notice the change in Saul’s magical fluctuations, and the smile on his face grew noticeably bitter.

Saul had no interest in exchanging pleasantries. He simply nodded and said, "By chance. I'll be heading back first, Senior Lokai."

Such a perfunctory answer made Lokai raise his right eyebrow.

But before he could say anything, Saul had already turned and left, the hem of his black apprentice robe fluttering lightly in the air.

Even as Saul made his way up the corridor, Lokai still stood there, his gaze following the carriage as it disappeared into the trees.

Only when the carriage was completely out of sight did a cold glint flash across his eyes.

Saul hurried directly back to... the apprentice dormitories located on the twelfth floor of the West Tower.

Out of laziness, and because he hadn't lived there for a long time, Saul hadn’t changed rooms even after being promoted to a Third Rank apprentice.

This time, unlike usual, he didn’t first head to the Second Storeroom to organize his gains and insights. Instead, as soon as he entered his room, he casually threw his compressed bag and outer robe onto the floor.

Then he himself flopped into the high-backed wooden chair with a heavy thud.

Immediately, without pause—soul separation!

An invisible soul body peeled away from his physical body.

Saul's soul form rippled like water for a moment before stabilizing into the shape of his physical self.

His feet left the ground as he floated upward.

Since completing his second body modification, Saul had rarely taken the initiative to separate his soul from his body.

Partly due to the Tower Master's warning, and partly because of the cautionary tales from people like Yura.

He constantly reminded himself: Never get carried away just because you can easily leave your body.

But today, he had no choice!

Because when he saw Byron in the carriage earlier, at first nothing had seemed wrong.

It was only Byron’s choice to travel with Jero and Lokai that made Saul feel something was off.

So, by instinct, Saul triggered a habitual move—semi-immersive meditation.

This move had become ingrained into his muscle memory, so much so that activating it didn’t cause any noticeable change in his outward appearance.

But what he saw under that state... froze all the blood in his veins.

In normal perception, Byron's body radiated ordinary magical and mental energy.

But under the semi-immersive view, it turned into countless black, thread-like worms crawling from his pores.

And running down Byron's face, from the crown of his head to where his collar covered his neck—a black thread pierced straight through.

At that moment, all of Saul's unease and confusion vanished.

He didn't clench his fists, didn't frown, and even relaxed his tense muscles slightly.

Beneath his calm exterior, however, his blood churned like a whirlpool in the deep sea—silent but fierce.

He even managed to bid Lokai goodbye, politely and distantly, just as he would have before.

But once he returned to the dormitory, away from prying eyes, the suppressed tension erupted into tremors that shook his whole body, making his movements clumsy and scattered.

Even so, he successfully separated his soul from his body in a single attempt and soared swiftly upward.

Aside from some special locations, the Wizard Tower didn’t have barriers between floors to block soul bodies.

Saul reached Byron’s dormitory without issue, finding a room in utter disarray.

But the chaos wasn’t unusual—he had visited Byron’s dorm before, and it was always a mess.

Even the overturned items he had noticed on his last visit remained scattered in exactly the same way.

Saul walked slowly, scanning the entire room with his eyes.

There had been almost no changes.

"Senior Byron probably hasn't left the Wizard Tower recently. He usually conducts experiments in his dormitory. With defensive magic formations layered here, ordinary apprentices wouldn't be able to break in. Could it be that something didn’t happen here?"

But if Byron wasn't attacked here, it would be even harder for Saul to figure out where the incident occurred.

"Still, this is the place he spent the most time. If there are no clues here, I can look elsewhere."

Thinking this, Saul moved deeper into the room.

Soon, he spotted Byron’s long table and experiment bench—chaotic all around, but always with a small, neat clearing in the middle.

"There are some damaged marks at the center... He wouldn't normally do experiments directly on the writing desk."

Saul immediately realized something was wrong.

He bent down, leveling his eyes with the tabletop, carefully studying the uneven scars.

"This seems like damage caused by corrosive magic."

Saul extended a translucent finger, gently tracing the corroded area.

"The size... about the size of a book."

He straightened up, looking down at the desk and let out a self-deprecating laugh, "Books are usually what you put on a desk, aren't they?"

If it had been Byron himself destroying a book or document, there would be no reason to corrode the desk.

Moreover, the nature of this power didn’t match the usual characteristics of Byron’s magic.

Someone had destroyed something here, and even went so far as to wipe away traces, scarring the table’s surface in the process.

"For the corrosion to seep into the desk... it was probably a sheet of paper. And freshly written paper at that."

Saul closed his eyes where he stood.

Byron had taken out a piece of paper, written something on it—then something happened. The paper disappeared, and the slight indentations it left were wiped away.

Saul opened his eyes.

"Did Senior Byron discover something? Did he leave behind something important, only to have it destroyed?"

Saul didn’t want to keep thinking along these lines.

But when he recalled that Byron—covered in black, thread-like worms, with a crack running down the middle of his head—he had to confront a cruel reality:

Byron in that state was no longer alive!

Saul slammed his fists down on the table, striking the slightly corroded area.

But as a soul body, his fists simply passed through the wood, falling helplessly into the air—

Just like the helplessness he felt inside.

"Lokai! Jero!"

Byron’s death was definitely connected to the two of them!

They had killed Byron and then controlled his corpse to carry him away!

Saul’s translucent eyes were tinged with grayish blood, and the skin around them began to soften.

Slender, octopus-like tendrils slithered from beneath his skin, twisting and coiling as if trying to transform Saul into some kind of terrifying monster.

Even though his outward appearance grew monstrous, Saul’s mind grew even clearer.

"Their goal in taking the body must be to conceal the death. After all, once someone leaves the Wizard Tower, it takes at least half a year before they're officially considered dead. Senior Byron, did you discover some critical information, or were you trying to pass something to me, and that's why you were silenced?"

Still barely maintaining a human form, Saul slowly withdrew his transparent hands from the wood, brushing past a quill lying nearby.

There was still some ink clinging to the quill’s tip, and a few droplets scattered on the desk—as if the pen had been dropped in a hurry.

Despite Byron’s messy habits, his dorm was never dirty.

Thus, these ink spots likely appeared when Byron met with misfortune.

Saul stared at the pen, grief and rage threatening to tear apart his rationality.

"The quill fell and wasn't moved again. The assailant must have dealt with Byron almost instantly. Whoever did this... was not an apprentice! Was it a mentor? Or Gorsa?"

As he stared, Saul suddenly narrowed his eyes.

He thought he saw something unusual on the pen’s shaft.

The tendrils writhing around his body retracted slightly as Saul lowered himself to be level with the table once more.

The quill’s shaft was thin and relatively soft.

At the spot where a thumb would grip the pen, Saul spotted a faint mark—a symbol scratched out with a fingernail.

There was no magic involved, and the mark was so shallow that anyone not meticulously inspecting the items here would never have noticed it.

Etched onto the shaft was a single character:

Gray.

(End of Chapter)