Hearing this sound, the red light in the eyes of the skeleton guards began to slowly fade, their heads drooped once more, and they fell back into lifeless silence.

Logan Bennett took a deep breath and walked out the side door. Behind the door stood a city wall ten meters high, with a skeleton guard stationed every fifteen meters along its length. Turning left after exiting led to the path toward the back garden.

This meant that the entire way, he was within the surveillance range of the skeleton guards.

When Logan Bennett appeared, the eyes of every skeleton guard on the wall lit up, all staring intently at Logan Bennett, like a row of searchlights.

“Master’s task, Pure Water Condensation!”

Logan Bennett raised the crystal bottle high, making his movements as gentle as possible.

He knew these skeletons weren’t very bright and were extremely sensitive to sudden movements. If he dared to run, the skeleton guards would immediately follow their attack instincts, and a dozen spears would be thrown at him, turning Logan Bennett into a porcupine in an instant.

Even though the path to the back garden was less than fifty meters, it took Logan Bennett a full fifteen minutes to walk it.

By the time he entered the back garden, it was already nearly three thirty in the morning.

The garden was planted with all kinds of magical plants, such as star grass, silver lilies, purple windmills, and many others—strange plants that Logan Bennett had never seen on Earth.

The early morning of winter was especially cold, the icy wind cutting like a knife. Dressed in thin clothes, Logan Bennett had no choice but to take shelter from the wind in the western corner of the garden.

It was not yet time for the dew to form, so Logan Bennett could only wait. Bored, he gazed aimlessly around, using the faint light reflected off the snow.

From here, the most striking sight was naturally the castle. The castle was square and made entirely of stone, but due to lack of maintenance, many parts were damaged. On the western side of the castle stood a tall tower shaped like an obelisk, at least fifteen meters high.

The tip of the tower glowed with a hazy white light, with mysterious white currents constantly gathering from the air.

Below, a ring of windows encircled the tower, each one pitch black, like pairs of eyes hidden in the darkness, quietly watching Logan Bennett.

That was the residence of the master of White Stone Castle, Fiona Carter. Judging by the windows, there were at least four floors inside. In five years, Landon Bennett had only ever reached the first floor.

He didn’t dare look for long and shifted his gaze back to the garden before him.

Suddenly, he felt a stir in his heart and looked toward a patch of flowers.

There grew a dense cluster of black brambles, their dark green leaves the size of sunflower seeds, covered in tiny white flowers the size of rice grains. They were beautiful, but not what Logan Bennett was after.

He sensed that, deep within the thicket, there was something that gave him a strange, subtle feeling—so faint, it was like someone gently brushing his skin with a feather. Had it been the noisy daytime, he might not have noticed such a slight anomaly.

‘Strange... what could it be?’

At last, unable to contain his curiosity, he looked around. The nearest skeleton guard was thirty meters away, and its eyes showed no red light. The foliage here was dense, providing good cover from their sight. As long as he moved gently enough, they shouldn’t notice.

After confirming it was safe, Logan Bennett tiptoed to the black bramble bush, crouched down, wrapped his hand in his sleeve, and carefully parted the tangled branches.

Then, he saw it—a charred scroll, soaked through by melted snow, looking little better than a piece of waste paper.

“Could it be... a spell scroll?” Logan Bennett felt a slight stir in his heart.

Half a month ago, a group had come to hunt down Fiona Carter. No one knew what tricks they used, but they managed to sneak into the castle, only to be discovered in the end.

The two sides fought fiercely near the garden. That unlucky group seemed to have been wiped out by Fiona Carter, but the magical garden also suffered some damage, with many plants trampled to death.

Now it seemed this scroll was most likely left behind by those people.

‘So, what kind of scroll is this?’

Fiona Carter never taught combat spells, nor did he allow Landon Bennett to access any information related to combat. As a result, in five years, Logan Bennett had only learned some basic enchantments, couldn’t even read, and his understanding of this world remained extremely shallow.

Even though he had always wanted to defect, he was powerless to do so. But now, this scroll gave Logan Bennett a glimmer of hope.

He gently picked up the scroll and examined it carefully in the snowlight.

There were a few characters on the back of the scroll, but unfortunately, Logan Bennett was illiterate and couldn’t read them. The front of the scroll was covered in dark red lines. Even though the scroll was soaked, the lines remained clearly visible. They looked somewhat like the structures of enchantment spells, but on closer inspection, they were nothing like enchantments at all.

‘It must be something those people left behind. Could this be an attack spell scroll?’

Logan Bennett’s heart pounded wildly.

Chapter 003: In Silence, Death or Outburst?

Although Logan Bennett had been in this world for more than five years, the farthest he had ever gone was Echo Valley, a desolate mountain forest behind White Stone Castle.