Wizard: I Have a Cultivation System

Chapter 565: Chapter 21: Rank, Fruit Position, and Karma Position

Murphy nodded slightly but said nothing.

Pete turned and hurried into the house. A moment later,

a sturdy, middle-aged man with a short mustache, wearing a shirt and a leather vest, walked out.

He had a rough face and shrewd eyes, with large palms and thick knuckles. This was the boss of this neighborhood, known as "Anvil."

Anvil’s gaze locked onto Murphy immediately. After a quick once-over, a warm yet measured smile appeared on his face as he hurried forward to greet him.

"Ah, an honored guest has arrived! Forgive me for not coming out to greet you sooner, forgive me! I’m Anvil. I’m the one looking after this little place for now. My men are ignorant and kept you waiting. Please, come in! Let’s talk inside!"

As he spoke, he stepped aside to clear the path, making a welcoming gesture. His posture was very humble.

Murphy calmly strode into the house.

The furnishings inside were a bit more refined than the exterior suggested. A thick, albeit somewhat old, carpet covered the floor. A few crude landscape paintings hung on the walls. In the center of the living room stood a large, solid wood table and several high-backed chairs.

While it couldn’t be called truly luxurious, it was top-tier for this area.

Anvil led Murphy to the seat of honor, then took a seat to the side himself.

Uncle Scar, Ron, and Martha and her daughter, who had been half-pushed into the room, all stood obediently against the wall, their heads bowed, not daring to make a sound.

A young, fairly attractive maid in a clean linen dress soon entered with a tray. She placed two cups of steaming tea on the table in front of Murphy and Anvil, then silently retreated.

"It’s just simple, coarse tea, hardly a show of respect. I hope you don’t mind, Your Excellency." Anvil raised his teacup in a gesture, a smile on his face, though his eyes never left Murphy. "May I ask your name? To what do I owe the honor of your visit to my humble place? Is there something Anvil can do for you?"

Murphy didn’t touch the tea. He simply looked at Anvil calmly. "You can call me Murphy. I’m here to find the Wizard behind you, but upon arriving, I did not sense his presence."

The smile on Anvil’s face froze for a moment, and a flicker of barely perceptible shock and suspicion crossed his eyes.

He carefully wracked his brain. Among all the figures his master, the Wizard, knew, there didn’t seem to be anyone named "Murphy." Nor did the name "Murphy" match anyone on the list of people to watch out for.

’His mind raced,’ but the smile on his face remained as his tone grew even more polite. "So it is Lord Murphy. Are you looking for Lord Rodrick?"

"Unfortunately, Lord Rodrick is out at the moment. He went to attend a city council meeting. If you wish to see him, I’m afraid you’ll have to wait a little while."

Murphy asked, "When will he be back?"

Anvil set down his teacup and said carefully, "The meeting usually doesn’t last too long. Lord Rodrick generally returns around dusk. If you don’t mind, my lord, you can rest here and wait for him."

"I will arrange the best room and the most thorough service for you. You are an honored guest, so please don’t hesitate to ask for anything you need, be it fine wine, delicious food, or... people..."

As he said this, his gaze swept meaningfully over Martha and her daughter in the corner before quickly retracting, as if it were just a casual glance.

"Whatever you desire, man or woman, young or old, I can arrange it for you perfectly. I guarantee your satisfaction."

Murphy said coolly, "They are not cargo. As for Rodrick, I will wait for him here."

How could Anvil not understand the implication? He quickly wiped the expression from his face and said earnestly, "Yes, yes! Whatever you say, my lord. I’ve already ordered someone to prepare a guest room upstairs. It’s clean and quiet, and no one will disturb you. Would you care for some refreshments first?"

"No need." Murphy stood up, his gaze sweeping over the slightly trembling mother and daughter in the corner. "Find them a place, treat their wounds, give them clean clothes, and get them something to eat."

Anvil nodded. "Rest assured, my lord. I’ll arrange it at once."

He beckoned the maid over and gave her a few quiet instructions.

The maid glanced at Martha and her daughter, then walked over and said to Martha in the gentlest voice she could manage, "Please come with me."

Martha clutched Lina tightly, looking terrified at Murphy, then at Anvil. Given her experiences, she didn’t believe in the mercy of powerful people, but she was helpless.

Lina, meanwhile, buried her little face in her mother’s embrace, daring only to peek out with one eye.

Murphy continued, "Go."

Clearly, Murphy’s command was not to be questioned. If she didn’t obey now, the consequences would likely be immediate.

People have a will to survive, and a tendency to hope for the best.

She hoped the future wouldn’t lead to an abyss she had yet to see with her own eyes.

Besides, they were already here. In the end, Martha bit her lip, held her daughter close, and followed the maid, shuffling slowly toward the side corridor.

Anvil took all this in, his mind racing.

’This Lord Murphy’s attitude toward that mother and daughter is rather strange.’

He suddenly recalled how Lord Rodrick would occasionally mention certain "special existences" taking an interest in specific souls or bloodlines...

’Could it be that this ordinary mother and daughter possess some value that I haven’t seen?’

He secretly decided that, before Lord Rodrick returned, he must pay double attention to Murphy’s every move, and even to every detail concerning the mother and daughter.

...

「Nightmare World. Deep within the Forge.」

Murphy hovered at the edge of a torrent of incandescent souls, gazing at the slowly rotating, incandescent-white vortex ahead, its center pitch-black.

[Option 2: ...You witness the demoness seize the fetus to refine it, the demonic energy returning to her body...]

Option 2 proved that Cheris would act personally.

Therefore, what he needed to do was follow this script and successfully claim the core fragment of this dream.

At the very least, he had to trigger it, thereby eliciting Cheris’s subsequent actions and completing the part where he "witnesses the demoness seize the fetus to refine it."

Of course, simply trying to take it wouldn’t work.

This was not some ownerless object, free for the taking.

In Murphy’s spiritual vision, a powerful defense constructed from Dao Patterns existed around the incandescent-white vortex.

Rashly attempting to seize the vortex by force was bound to fail.

To be more precise, it was untouchable.

That’s right, untouchable.

Unobservable matter is different from observable matter.

With observable matter, the tighter the bonds between forces, the more solid the matter, the harder it is to destroy, and thus the more powerful it is.

With unobservable matter, however, the weaker the bonds between forces, the more powerful it is.

In other words, the more ethereal and illusory it is, the more invulnerable it becomes.

To put it in gaming terms,

a Golden Core is immune to damage from anything below the Golden Core Level.

But even among Golden Core and higher-level existences, there is also percentage-based damage reduction between each tier.

This damage reduction is fixed.

It is known as status, Fruit Position, or Karma Position.

It guarantees that higher-ranking beings are immune to harm from lower-ranking ones.

This is why in myths, mortals can never harm Divine Spirits by swinging swords and blades.

Because to a mortal, a Divine Spirit is truly like a flower in a mirror or the moon reflected in water—an existence of pure concept.

Therefore, to challenge a superior, the first thing one must learn is how to dismantle this untouchability.

The simplest and most convenient method is, naturally, an enchanted weapon.

Just like with Keynes’s previous attack on Murphy; when normal attacks couldn’t connect, an enchanted weapon was needed.

And higher-ranking beings can naturally use higher-tier enchanted weapons to inflict damage.

Or you could call them Legendary weapons, Epic weapons, Divine Artifacts, Immortal Artifacts, and so on.

This is also why in some ancient myths, a Divine Spirit can be unkillable by any means, yet a mortal who obtains a Divine Artifact can slay a god.

Murphy, of course, did not possess such a powerful weapon. His Flying Sword was only of quality 4.5; at most, it could only harm a Golden Core Level existence, but it couldn’t necessarily harm a Divine Spirit.

The same held true even for a creation of a Divine Spirit, or the dream of a Divine Spirit.

So, he chose the second method.

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