Richard was pacing in the study, muttering something under his breath.
His two inexpensive students — the children of Marquis Vian — a boy named Harry and a girl named Cathy, both about ten years old, sat quietly on two wooden chairs against the wall, listening intently, giving off an impression of sitting in a row, as if ready to eat fruit.
Richard’s lips moved as he softly said, "If you want to further study philosophical matters, you should know about someone named Schopenhauer. Schopenhauer was a special figure, he had a great talent, wrote many works, but during his lifetime was not famous at all.
It wasn’t until after his death that some of his thoughts became widely known. Of course, by widely known, I mean within a small circle at most.
He was rather pessimistic, so his views of the world were also skewed towards negative. He believed that a person’s life is forever under the control of suffering and boredom: when you have desires that can’t be satisfied, you suffer, and after satisfying them, you fall into endless boredom, trying to fill the void inside with anything.
You don’t have to accept all his thoughts, it’s best to look at them critically, choose the parts you think are good, and incorporate them into your own philosophical system.
Among these, you should pay attention..."
Richard stopped mid-sentence because the study door was being knocked on.
"Hm—" Harry frowned, while Cathy bared her teeth like an annoyed little tiger, both showing a touch of displeasure at being interrupted as they looked towards the door.
Richard raised an eyebrow, also looking at the door, knowing that the only one who would knock would be his steward Jia Lie, so he inquired, "What is it, Jia Lie?"
"Uh, Master, outside there’s a friend of yours wanting to visit you, it’s that Lord Joseph from before. I know he’s a wizard and didn’t dare delay, so I came immediately to tell you. If I’ve disturbed you, please forgive me," came the explanation from Jia Lie outside the door.
"Joseph has come?" Richard blinked, somewhat surprised. Previously, Joseph had indeed mentioned during their meeting that he would visit him a second time, but Richard didn’t expect it would be so soon.
"Is it him? Well alright then." Richard pursed his lips, turned to look at Harry and Cathy sitting on their seats, and said, "Harry, Cathy, I have a visitor today, so we’ll end our lesson here for now. If there’s a chance, I’ll explain Schopenhauer’s thoughts to you in detail next time."
"Okay then, teacher, we’ll leave for now. See you next time." Harry pulled Cathy up, sensibly saying goodbye.
"Mm, see you next time." Richard nodded.
Harry and Cathy stepped to the door, opened it, and walked out.
Richard looked at Jia Lie standing outside the door, thought for a moment, and instructed, "Jia Lie, go tell Wizard Joseph that I’ll meet him in the reception room."
"Yes." Jia Lie turned to leave, while Richard headed straight to the reception room.
A moment later, Richard entered the reception room.
After sitting in the master seat for a while, footsteps were heard from outside, and Joseph came in.
Upon meeting, Joseph spoke immediately, smiling lightly at Richard, "Wizard Richard, I’ve come to visit you again. I hope you’re not bothered."
"Heh, how could I be." Richard responded, smiling as he rose from the master seat, taking the initiative to meet Joseph.
When he was one or two meters away from Joseph, Richard gestured and was about to invite Joseph to sit down, when he suddenly felt a kind of erosive energy wafting from Joseph’s body, attaching to his own.
Richard’s movement froze, frowning as he looked at Joseph.
Seeing Richard’s reaction, Joseph seemed to understand what was happening, took a step back and, showing an apologetic expression, said, "Uh, I forgot to tell you, Wizard Richard, I might not be suitable to stay too close to you right now as my condition is not very good."
"What happened?" Richard asked.
"How should I put it? It seems that I’ve been contaminated by a few demonized beasts," Joseph honestly replied.
"Contaminated by demonized beasts? How is that possible?" Richard questioned.
Joseph spread his hands, explaining in detail, "It happened during a task I was performing; I was careless.
The task was initially just to get rid of a few demonized beasts with unusual appearances and vicious temperaments. Their combat strength wasn’t strong, and I easily completed the mission. But, unexpectedly, when I killed the last demonized beast, its blood splattered onto me, leading to the current situation.
You must have sensed it, an erosive energy keeps drifting from my body, which is quite uncomfortable, though it doesn’t harm the human body — or at least not at this level. Therefore, I don’t plan to specifically clean it out, just let it disperse naturally. After some time, it should be back to normal.
Of course, if there’s a method to speed up its dispersion, I wouldn’t mind trying it because I also have a piece of clothing that got polluted, and I want to salvage it as much as possible. This is partly why I came to find you. After all, since you thought up a way to enhance the efficiency of a communication crystal ball, perhaps you might have an idea to quicken the energy’s dispersion rate as well."
Upon hearing Joseph’s words, Richard pressed his lips together. He gestured for Joseph to sit first, then sat back into the master seat and pondered for a while, shaking his head as he said, "I’m afraid I really don’t have a good method to offer you at the moment, Wizard Joseph. I know too little about your situation to have any problem-solving ideas."
"Is that so, then that’s a bit unfortunate," Joseph said, then smiled, "But it’s alright, the energy drifting from my body, apart from being uncomfortable, doesn’t cause any harm, so I just need to wait patiently for a while."
"True enough." Richard agreed, seriously feeling the erosive energy wafting from Joseph’s body, and suddenly had a thought, asking seemingly unintentionally, "By the way, Wizard Joseph, where were you contaminated by the demonized beasts?"
"Why? Is Wizard Richard interested in this?"
"Uh, not really interested, I just want to take preventive measures," Richard explained, "You mentioned earlier it was near Jialan City while carrying out a task, so the demonized beasts that contaminated you shouldn’t be far from Jialan. I think it’s best to know their specific range, to prevent them from reaching Jialan one day without my knowledge."
"Makes sense." Joseph nodded, accepting Richard’s rationale, then smiled and said, "Wizard Richard, actually you don’t need to worry at all because I’ve already killed all the demonized beasts with pollution capacity. Of course, if you really want to know the location, I don’t mind telling you either.
To the west of Jialan City, there’s a small town called Shambala. It was in the woods near Shambala Town that I killed all the demonized beasts."
"West of Jialan City, Shambala Town, nearby woods?" Richard recited, nodding, then picked up the teacup from the silver tray on the table beside him, indicating to Joseph, "Wizard Joseph, please, have some tea."
"Alright." Joseph said, finding nothing amiss, naturally picked up his teacup from the silver tray beside him, and took a gentle sip.