Mangowo

Chapter 131: Not Assassination. An Invitation.

"I ran."

"Elaborate."

"Was sniffing around for divination traces when I felt a weird mana surge—next thing I knew, I’d practically tripped over a bunch of hooded Elves."

Lysska arched a brow. "Interesting. So… Elves were behind whatever went down in Veilwoods."

Hoh. Those creepy woods actually had a name?

"Veilwoods?"

Lysska gave me a flat look. "Did Vyra not warn you before you wandered in there?"

I frowned, glancing at Vyra. The aforementioned...

Chapter 130: Sparky and Mean Hand

“Oh? She’s finally up? Come in, Zofia.” Lysska’s voice sliced through the quiet just as the two girls stepped through the doorway.

And just like that, the puzzle pieces started snapping into place. The very same girl I’d once hitched a ride in—steering her through those sewer tunnels to shake off those damned Elves—was standing right here. And Lysska? Looked like she was playing detective, sticking her snout into the mystery of the missing kids. My hunch that this girl had...

Chapter 129: A Tactical Necessity

1) Phantom Domesticity: Become a spectral maid, invisible except to those she "invites" (via eye contact).

-Reflective Service: Teleport through mirrors, polished silver, or the eyes of people. (Current blink range: 5 meters.)

-Guest’s Guise: Control others by "tidying their mind." Victims perform chores robotically or self-destruct if resisting. (Effectiveness depends on victim’s core color—further study required.)

2025-02-13 00:30:01 +0000 UTC View Post

Chapter 128: SQUEE!

Once again, I felt the thread snap—and I was back in the water tunnel.

Still water. Still silence.

But now, I was seeing it in a very different light.

One time? Could’ve been some universe magic fuckery.
Twice? Yeah, something was up with this place.

Not just the tunnel itself, but the whole sequence of how I’d been entering the dreamscape lately.

And it all started after Lotte gave me that strange incan...

Chapter 127: A Con of Draconic Proportions

Vernia Drakonski shut her eyes and whispered a prayer to the ancestors, hoping—just this once—that the artifact would actually work.

Because if it didn’t, and Mother finally noticed it missing from her treasury... oh, she was dead. Well, not literally. Anyone else would’ve been turned to ash on the spot by the wrath of a gold-core pathwalker, but being her mother’s beloved daughter only earned her a mind-numbing lecture on the dangers of ancient artifacts—and y...

Chapter 126: Curiosity Killed the Cat—Good Thing I’m a Dragon

Five minutes in—as Lotte had promised—I noticed the pulsing chrysalis starting to throb. It wasn’t long before I picked up a sound from within; not so much scraping as moaning, really. And then, out of the crimson, quivering mass of flesh, a vicious claw burst forth.

Or rather, a claw that turned out to be…

“Is that a damn mini mop?!”

Yes, a mop. Its handle was carved from pale ashwood, topped with a floppy tuft of undyed hemp fibers. It hacked its way through th...

Chapter 125: The Crimson Chrysalis

My air-sense was still buzzing as I worked on the ingredients—strategically stationed a safe distance from Greg’s corpse (still within Range, mind you) in case Quickpaw decided to pop in for a scare.

I really hoped Lotte had packed a contingency or two this time, but as usual, a mage’s nose is sharper than a gossip’s, and it only took a sniff to detect a hole ripped right through Parda—the fabric of reality isn’t exactly known for subtlety.

Belle fidgeted anxiously at ...

Chapter 124: A Compass for Corpses

Well, the next part was entirely up to Alice. My job? To put on a show. But how in the abyss was I supposed to track down his shredded corpse? Some brand-new form of divination? Ooh, this was delectable. Intriguing. I shot Alice a look filled with blatant anticipation. Quickpaw did the same to me, mirroring my energy like a pesky little echo.

The sooner I found this poor bastard, the sooner I could pass Whisper’s test and prove my worth. And, hah, I managed without her too. The origin...

Chapter 123: Milk the Mercenary! (In A Good Way)

Interrogation, much like divination, was about nudging the mind into yielding its secrets—prodding it with the right questions under the haze of a truth serum, guiding it to answers it couldn’t help but give.

The serum wasn’t mind control. It didn’t compel speech or plant thoughts. What it did was slip past the brain’s inhibitory defenses, numbing the barriers of deception and greasing the wheels of impulse-driven recall. It coaxed truth from instinct, not force.

Its eff...

Chapter 122: Improvised Violence

[Quick heads-up before you jump into this chapter! You might’ve noticed I’ve been testing a punchier, snappy writing style, curious if this lands well for you. Does it help or trip you up? Any sections that feel clunky or disjointed? Totally fine to be honest, this is just me checking in, since crafting chapters this way takes me a bit more time. If it’s not vibing or feels harder to follow, I can always revert to the old straightforward style.

Either way, ho...

Chapter 121: Professionally Suspicious

I snatched the cup from Viera’s grip the second her mouth parted from the edge. Effortless, nonchalant—as if the whole thing was a mirage. Once the brew left her fingers, the world clicked into place again.

“Huh, Jade?”

“Oops, my bad. Pretty sure that’s Belle’s mug—she tends to concoct her own peculiar brew.” I kept my voice airy, brushing it off. No reason to stir her suspicion.

“Ohhh,” Viera hummed, tracing her tongue over her lips. “Makes sense wit...

Chapter 120: Infected

[Sorry for the missed chapter yesterday, been feeling like absolute shit all week. Headaches, fevers, the whole miserable package. Nothing too serious, but it keeps coming back, and yesterday hit especially hard, so I had to tap out for a bit. Honestly, my own meat-prison’s weakness makes me wanna puke.

Anyway, I’m on the mend! So, enjoy the read!]

Assumptions were like unstable elixirs—best not bottled until the ingredients were confirmed. First, I needed to verify i...

Chapter 119: Impending Chaos

Morning rituals were nothing special—though the day always started a bit sweeter when no apprentices were underfoot. With the baths to myself, I could actually enjoy some peace, soaking in water that would’ve been too hot for anyone else’s liking. Let them complain. I preferred the kind of heat that melted tension right out of my dragon bones. Blissful, scalding solitude.

Of course, the moment couldn’t last. Soon enough, I was drying off, gearing up to play the part of the haugh...

Chapter 118: Late

The murky waves of ink-black ichor receded, leaving the water eerily still as my eyes snapped open, dragging me back to the comfort—or relative comfort—of my own dragon body. My gaze darted over the surface, scanning for any sign, any ripple, anything at all. But there was nothing. Just the quiet retreat of the dark tide. My chest tightened.

Hell, how was I supposed to know I was working against a damn timer? Only in the final moments did I realize that the thread tethering me to my...

Chapter 117: Crunching Skulls

It was the quiet breath before a throat-slitting.

The leader stared down at the burning dagger buried in his chest, and the moment his brain caught up with his eyes, the blood drained from his face. Dramatic. I figured he had to be a red-core, maybe high yellow at worst—strong enough to take a dagger through the heart and walk it off with some gritted teeth and a bit of luck.

What I didn’t expect was for him to scream like a gutted hog...

Chapter 116: Stagnant Filth

Didn’t take long before I tore him apart. Literally. What was left of him? A mess of shredded limbs and glistening entrails. Took me a while to adjust to my high strength stat—unless my opponent had the durability of a fortress, I didn’t even need magic to turn them into a violent smear. Iron had been an exception. I struggled, because, well, he was durable. Metal Pathway plus those draconic scales made him a bastard to crack. Wouldn’t mind a rematch, though. Nearly losi...

Chapter 115: Borrowed Flesh

Belle was scrubbing away at something with her dainty cloth clutched in one claw, her go-to ritual for anxious moments—anxiety cleaning, if you will. But the moment I slipped out of the shadow dimension, her inner badger had a meltdown. She leapt off the table like she’d been launched by a spring trap.

No time for pleasantries, though. Priorities. I immediately spat out my belongings, and Alice (who came out a little wetter than she might’ve preferred), then shifted ...

Chapter 114: A Gentledragon Always Helps a Damsel in Scales!

[Just a little update! as y’all know I’m always tweaking older chapters, at least the ones that aren’t on RR yet. Usually nothing major, just some extra details here and there, but the overall outcome stays the same in the long run.

Just wrapped up edits on Chapter 100: The Concept. Same end result, but the road there got a nice dose of adrenaline. Sooo, less bland, more oomph. I well, just wasn’t happy with how it originally played out, so I made some changes....

Chapter 113: The World is Good, Ancestors are Kind

The instant the blur collided with me, I nearly staggered, but reflexes—bless their split-second magic—saved me. My body pivoted like a well-oiled machine, right foot sliding back to anchor me, heel angled just so to soak up the impact. My arms counterbalanced instinctively, and my fingers flexed in preparation—ready to defend, but wisely holding their fire. The force that might’ve toppled me fizzled harmlessly, dissipating through my adjusted posture instead of bowling me over. Crisi...

Chapter 112: Barreling into Trouble

Whisper didn’t bother with an answer, just glided ahead like she owned the snow—what little there was. Her steps left barely a trace, like the ground didn’t dare hold onto her footprints. She stopped in front of what looked like a… beggar? Hard to say, given how he was hunched in the corner under a tattered blanket. But the moment that threadbare shield of his shifted, my guess went belly-up.

It was a Voruun. Green-skinned. Tusked. Built like he could bench-press a boulder just ...

Chapter 111: Good Gangs, Bad Reputation (Sort of)

Lysska caught the shock plastered on my face before I could even wrangle a single coherent thought. “Oh, don’t bother. I’ll spare you the headache,” she drawled. “Since you’re already wise to my little feathered spies, let me just say, I was surprised you didn’t notice a crow tailing you on your grand return flight to the Alchemy Tower. I wasn’t even that curious at first. But when I discovered the poison you used on those thugs wasn’t actually lethal?” Her tongue swept ov...

Chapter 110: Trust, My Dear, Is a Slippery Thing

[Apologies for the missing chapter yesterday. A thunderstorm decided to have a go. knocked the power out, laptop dead. Tried writing on mobile, big mistake, left me scarred for life. (Kidding. Sort of.) Anyway, it's here now. Happy reading!]

"Alright, Zoran, out with it," Lysska said, sifting through a mess of papers. "What dumpster fire did you dive into this time to get some enforcer breathing down your neck?"

The kid—a wiry little rakari, lion-kin with a mop of unruly ...

Chapter 109: Hello, Whisper

Being a detective was fun and all, but you know what would’ve been more fun? Having one of those sleek, hovering broadswords. Lysska owned a few—well, "salvaged" from some less fortunate souls—but actually using them? That required a permit. And these days, unless you were part of the Iron Pact, getting your hands on one of those precious documents was harder than prying teeth from a drakkari. Poor her. Instead of soaring dramatically through the skies, she w...

Interlude 3.2

There were certain things Lysska had come to both loathe and grudgingly appreciate during her formative years in the lower district of Varkaigrad. After all, it was a place so tangled and treacherous it could twist even the straightest of spines into survivalists or well… corpses.

The upper-district folk, with their manicured hands and perfumed disdain, had given it a name, dripping with condescension: Shadow’s Warren. A fitting title, she thought, for the district's labyr...

Chapter 108: Varkaigrad’s Shadowed Reflection

The instant I dipped into the fourth dimension, I was ready. My eyes flickered, adjusting to the familiar shift, and once more the world unraveled into its shadowy double. Everything from the three-dimensional plane carried a smoky outline—not just in shape, but in essence. Walls stretched around me, their solidity dissolved into hazy mirages, teasing me with their insubstantiality. I could drift through them as easily as a whisper slipping past lips.

Even Belle looked like she’d be...

Chapter 107: Safe, or So I’d Be

The Senior Apprentice Wing's back office was less a workspace and more a hoard of scholarship and subtle menace. Enchanted mana lanterns glimmered in subdued hues, their light sliding over rows of obsessively organized tomes, charts, and vials.

I stepped through the already open door, Alice trailing in my wake like a curious shadow. Vasilisa was pacing when I arrived, her talon-tipped fingers twitching in a way that told barely-contained irritation. Hawk-kin or not, Vasilisa could rival...

Chapter 106: Alice Knows, Perhaps a Bit Too Much

I stepped into the corridor with Alice in tow. Turns out, the little porcelain menace could move. Her stubby legs zipped along at a pace that had me squinting—a blur of glazed alabaster on a mission. Honestly, it was a relief—I’d half-expected to lug her around like a cursed handbag. I mean, she was a doll, after all.

The dormitory stood nestled behind the Alchemy Tower, its aged silhouette a contrast to the gleaming modernity of Alchemy Tower. You could tell this place h...

Chapter 105: Divination

"There are many flavors of divination, Mistress. You’ll need to be a touch more specific about what you’re asking.”

As if I knew the first thing about divination magic. For starters, I didn’t have the right pathway. Second, I didn’t even have the right element for it. Sure, I’d poked around enough to learn what traps to avoid—nuggets of wisdom I might one day toss back at those who practiced it—but let’s be honest, that was more curiosity than preparation. To no one’...

Chapter 104: Squee! Translation: Dolls Are Liars

The plain ceiling of my dorm room greeted me like an old, indifferent acquaintance the moment I opened my eyes. That earlier bone-deep exhaustion? Gone as if swept away by some unseen hand. With a sharp slap of my palms against the bed, I sprang upright, only to spot something peculiar by my bedside—a doll, robed and serene, its expression carved with unsettling tranquillity.

Belle, my ever-dramatic badger, was doing her trademark ‘angry donut’ routine around it, growling her uniq...

Chapter 103: A Doll?

[Happy New Year, everyone! Words can hardly capture just how grateful I am for the way this year wrapped up. A heartfelt thank you to this brilliant, supportive community for championing me as I poured my heart into what I love, crafting worlds for you to explore. Here’s to a fresh start, a new chapter! I promise to work even harder, spinning countless more stories to life. For now, though, my sights are set squarely on one. After all, Jade’s adventure is only just beginning, Lmao. Anyway...