Wizard: I Have a Cultivation System

Chapter 562: Chapter 20: Power

Upon hearing this, Uncle Scar hesitated. "Sir, I don’t know about anything illegal, but in the last district, the one we just came from... there’s a man called Old Viper. The boss he reports to is said to have a Wizard backing him. Not Lord Carlos, but a different one."

"Is that so?" Murphy asked calmly. "And what about this place?"

Uncle Scar swallowed hard. "There are definitely some here, too! Every district needs a powerful figure who knows Magic standing behind it. Otherwise, a place like this can’t survive."

Murphy nodded. "Then take me to them."

Uncle Scar and Ron exchanged a look.

’Go find the local gang boss?’

To people like them, struggling to survive in the muck, who had to shrink back at the mere sight of a patrol guard, these bosses were terrifying figures from another world entirely. They held the power of life and death over a small territory, kept desperadoes on their payroll, and had the backing of an Extraordinary Being.

But in the next moment, their gazes fell upon Murphy in unison.

The immaculate black robes, those calm, bottomless eyes, and the all-consuming Black Light and soul-searing golden flames from just now... Compared to this enigmatic and immeasurably powerful man, what were those so-called gang bosses, or even the Wizards who might be backing them, really worth?

They were just slightly bigger toads in a mud pit.

’Hadn’t they just seen that even the great Lord Carlos, far more powerful than any of these bosses’ Wizards, couldn’t lay a hand on this mysterious man?’

Uncle Scar took a deep breath and said without the slightest hesitation, "Yes, Sir! I know the general way! I’ll lead..."

Ron also straightened his back, his face beaming with vicarious pride. "Right! Uncle Scar knows his way around! Sir, we’ll take you! Once those guys get a look at you, they’ll definitely..."

He wanted to say, ’they’ll definitely piss their pants in fear,’ but the words felt too crude, so he choked them back.

"Let’s go," Murphy said simply, paying no mind to their inner turmoil.

No longer hesitating, Uncle Scar picked up the dim oil lamp from the ground. He cupped a hand around the flame to shield it, got his bearings, and then led the way toward a relatively spacious main pipe.

Ron hurried to follow, carefully walking just a little ahead of Murphy to help light the path.

It was just like before.

The farther they walked, the more figures they saw huddled or sprawled on either side of the pipe. Their bodies were covered in all manner of festering sores, unnatural growths, and deformities. There were young and old alike, though most were elderly.

Occasionally, a pair of eyes would land on Murphy’s far-too-clean figure. They would linger for a moment, betraying a flicker of primal fear, before quickly darting away, as if a second glance might bring disaster.

They followed the sloping pipe upward, eventually crawling out of a half-collapsed exit partially buried in trash, and emerged back on the surface.

Low plank-wood shanties were crammed together in a slightly more orderly fashion here.

But the streets were still dilapidated, pocked with pits both deep and shallow. Black sewage flowed freely across them, showing no signs of having ever been repaired.

Compared to the clean and tidy district where Cheris’s towering high-rise stood, it was a completely different world.

Still, it was much better than the sewers, at any rate.

As Uncle Scar carefully led the way, doing his best to navigate around puddles and conspicuous trash heaps, he explained to Murphy in a low voice:

"Sir, every district has its own rules. To put it plainly, it all depends on what the local boss decides. Some are stricter—they don’t allow fighting, and they demand a cut of everything you do."

"Others are more chaotic, but as long as you pay your protection fees on time and don’t provoke the wrong people, you can generally get by."

"If you don’t follow the rules, or if you’re deemed an offender, the light punishment is getting kicked out. The severe one is..."

Realizing what he’d just said, he quickly added, "Of course! You would never be the offender, Sir! If there’s any offending to be done, it’ll be them offending you! With your presence, your power..."

He wracked his brain for more complimentary words, but limited by his vocabulary, he trailed off.

Murphy listened to Uncle Scar’s explanation and remarked calmly, "Hmm. Power abhors a vacuum. With no official governance here, order can only be spontaneously maintained by these underground forces."

Uncle Scar and Ron listened, stunned.

They barely understood the first part of Murphy’s statement, "Power abhors a vacuum." They got the gist of it—that someone always had to be in charge of a territory.

But the phrases that followed—"with no official governance" and "order spontaneously maintained by underground forces"—were too scholarly and abstract for them to grasp.

They lived amidst it all; to them, this was just the natural law of survival. They’d never stop to consider concepts like "absence of governance" or "maintenance of order."

But not understanding was no obstacle to their continued reverence and flattery toward Murphy.

In their simple worldview, anything the Sir said had to be profound, full of wisdom, and inherently more correct than anything they could ever think.

Uncle Scar nodded eagerly. "You’re absolutely right, Sir! That’s brilliant! It’s just like you said, no one’s in charge of us. Why would the lords up above care if we live or die in these stinking gutters? It all comes down to who has the strongest fist, who has the power to make the rules!"

Ron chimed in vigorously from the side. "Right, right! Everything you say is right, Sir! Those guys only get to make the rules because they’re tough! But compared to you, Sir, their rules ain’t shit!"

Murphy just listened, but there were some things he left unsaid.

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