Wizard: Scamming a Demon God

"What’s wrong, Avin? Do you know who he is?" The two-meter-tall sturdy man behind the girl slung a greatshield—taller even than the blonde girl—onto his back and looked curiously at the pensive male Mage.

"Who is he?" Everyone turned their heads in unison to look at Avin.

"Isaac Solomon. You must have heard his name."

"That Mad Witch?" The sturdy man’s brow furrowed. That name was all too familiar to them!

This was pretty much the hottest topic in the Terra Empire recently. The sickly youngest son of the Solomon Clan, weak due to the Mad Witch’s curse, had become a Mad Witch himself. The story had maxed out its hype in every sense of the word!

Therefore, even though not many people knew about the battle in Philis Town, Isaac’s reputation was still considerable.

This was because he and Princess Philo were the only two legal Mad Witches in the Empire.

"So it was him... No wonder he was so ruthless." The blonde girl seemed to understand now.

People were like that, always looking for a compromise.

If an ordinary person killed a member of the Sea Race and turned its corpse into Magic Materials—how cruel!

But if a Mad Witch killed a member of the Sea Race and *only* turned its corpse into Magic Materials, you could even praise him for being normal.

"He’s not here to summon some Evil God, is he?" another Swordsman in the party asked with some concern.

As soon as he said that, everyone’s expression changed drastically. It seemed that possibility couldn’t be ruled out!

"Stop overthinking it. He’s probably here to use the island battle ritual to advance to Grand Wizard. It has nothing to do with an Evil God Ceremony. Besides, this is still part of East Port’s territory. Duke Noy won’t let him do whatever he wants." Avin shook his head, dismissing his teammate’s guess.

"Is that so? That’s a relief..."

"Alright, in that case, let’s avoid him. We’ll go somewhere else to hunt the Sea Race!" The blonde girl took one last look in the direction Isaac had left, then, longsword in hand, led her teammates away in the opposite direction without a backward glance.

...

Isaac glanced in the direction they had left, his eyes narrowing slightly. He recalled the Blood Mosquitos from that area. ’Four Tier Two and one Tier One. If we really fought, I could win, but I’d definitely be forced to reveal a lot of my trump cards. Better to avoid meaningless battles like this as much as possible.’

Still, Isaac was a little surprised. ’To think adventurers like them would also participate in the island battle...’

’That lineup... three Great Knights, an Official Wizard, plus the blonde girl who is also a Great Knight... She’s definitely from a major noble family. You have to understand, even my brother didn’t have a team like that when he went out adventuring back in the day.’

’It took my brother four or five years of knocking around outside to even reach the Level of Great Knight. Setting aside combat prowess, just her cultivation speed and the guards she has... she’s no ordinary noble.’

He really couldn’t figure out what these people were doing in the island battle. ’Surely they’re not just here to kill members of the Sea Race?’

’You can kill those things anywhere, can’t you?’

Isaac’s brow furrowed slightly. He made a mental note of them. He might end up facing them in the end. The others were one thing, but that Arcanist was truly a bit tricky.

His limited bag of tricks worked well enough for bullying brutes and Legendary Mages who also only had a few tricks up their sleeves, but against a knowledgeable Arcanist, the outcome would be uncertain.

Knowledge is power. This saying was perfectly embodied by Wizards.

Who knew if that Arcanist just so happened to have a way to counter him?

But Isaac didn’t let himself get worked up over hypotheticals. After parting ways with the group, he first went to the edge of the island to exchange the Sea Race heads for Gold Coins, and while he was at it, he stored all the loot he had on hand.

Although Isaac only killed the Sea Race, he had collected a good amount of loot from adventurers’ bodies. After all, the Sea Race killed adventurers too.

On this island, the relationship between hunter and prey could change at any moment!

However, Isaac was clearly one of the hunters at the top of the food chain.

It couldn’t be helped. A Demon like the Blood Mosquito was just too useful in this environment!

Normal Blood Mosquitos weren’t actually as strong as he had initially thought. An insect swarm was ultimately just a fantasy, because the role of insect-type Demons was somewhat awkward.

If you went for numbers, a single one might not be able to break through defenses. Reality wasn’t a game; there was no "minimum one damage" setting. If you couldn’t break through their defense, you couldn’t deal any damage at all.

And with the Blood Mosquito’s size, even if Isaac Enhanced it to its limit, you wouldn’t even need a Great Knight. An Official Knight could just stand there, circulate Life Energy throughout their body, and their taut skin would be enough to ignore a Blood Mosquito’s bite—unless there was a massive swarm that could crawl in from every opening on their body.

But the Blood Mosquito was far slower than an Official Knight. A single sprint would leave the Blood Mosquito chasing for ages. And against a Great Knight, they were even more powerless. A single burst of Qi could kill a whole swarm...

Moreover, the cost-effectiveness of a Tier One Blood Mosquito was very low. Although it was small, the amount of Demon Flesh required to create one was by no means small. After all, while a Tier One Blood Mosquito was tiny, its Magic Power was high quality!

From an energy standpoint, it was no different from creating a Tier One Gale Wolf.

’When you thought about it, this made sense. Nature is a wondrous thing. If a swarm of Demons like the Blood Mosquito was really that terrifying, the Wilderness would have long since belonged to them.’

So, after some experimentation, Isaac didn’t continue to Enhance the Blood Mosquito. Instead, he specialized it, weakening its internal Magic Power and strengthening its biotoxin, turning it into a combination scout and assassin type.

’A perfect Demon doesn’t exist, and even if it did, the current me couldn’t create it. So instead of being a jack-of-all-trades, master of none, it’s better to specialize in one thing!’

Besides, there were no limits on the number or type of Demons he could command.

And compared to the original Blood Mosquito, the current version was much more powerful, especially in this environment!

The forest was already full of mosquitos. Isaac had also practically eliminated the Blood Mosquito’s own Magic Power, making it look no different from an ordinary mosquito. Almost no one would be on guard against mosquitos at all times in the Forest Land.

Most people would only pay attention to insects that carried Magic Power...

Even for Non-Rank insects, as long as their Magic Power was a little high, they would notice. Otherwise, they would be ignored.

It was precisely with this trick that Isaac not only set up a monitoring system in the Forest Land as vast as a celestial net, but also had a large number of silent, top-tier assassins!

Up until evening, Isaac only saw three adventurer parties. The rest of the time, he was busy picking up corpses everywhere!

He took back what he said before. The Sea Race heads here could be exchanged for a lot of money; it was no paltry sum at all!

With the way he could find bodies to loot everywhere, anyone who didn’t know better would think this was a bar!

As of 8:00 PM on the first night of the island battle, Isaac had exchanged Sea Race heads for a total of over three hundred Gold Coins!

That was a whole month’s worth of food money!

And that wasn’t even counting the other loot!

He loved the Sea Race!

The Sea Race were just the best!