The envelope is a thick stack.
On the silver wax seal, there is the emblem of the Silver Heron Royal Family.
After breaking the seal, Angel takes out a stack of thin parchment from the leather seal. Although thin, it is still much thicker than regular paper.
"Truly the style of royalty," Angel raises his brows.
When Frode sees the stack of parchment, he understands why Angel suddenly commented like that.
Because they chose to use an emblematic leather envelope, the contents must be parchment. The leather envelope combined with parchment, it’s no wonder the letter is so thick.
This is essentially the typical demeanor of traditional nobility, where style triumphs over all.
Frode knows Angel well; although Angel was born into nobility, he holds a certain disdain for the stylistic elements of the aristocratic class. This kind of noble demeanor from Drue does not particularly please Angel.
If it were Angel’s mentor Sanders, he might have been more inclined to accept such an arrangement.
Angel unfolds the soft, skin-friendly parchment, and numerous writings leap into his view.
He spends a few minutes reading it through.
After a few seconds of contemplation, Angel hands the parchment to Frode.
Frode scans through it and finds that the content of the letter is mostly idle talk, with most of it detailing how the Royal Knights verified, found numerous related persons, and eventually "by chance" obtained a clue from a sea merchant.
This too is typical style operation.
However, setting aside the idle talk, this clue in itself is quite valuable.
This clue points to the emblem on the heel of the boots from the first image shown by Dororo.
According to the message obtained by frontline knights from a sea merchant, the boot emblem is most likely the family crest of a clan in the Night Lily Kingdom on the Nirvana Continent, called the Manhwani Clan.
Because there is a lot of maritime trade between the Nirvana Continent and the Revelation Continent, there are records of some situations on the Nirvana Continent within the Central Empire.
However, the vast ocean between them means that the recorded information isn’t abundant. Neya went through numerous documents to find several entries related to the Manhwani Clan. It was eventually confirmed that the Manhwani Clan is a local noble in the Windchime County of the Leidu Province in the Night Lily Kingdom, inheriting the title of hereditary Viscount.
However, whether the crest is indeed the Manhwani Clan’s isn’t confirmed yet. Neya has expedited the Knights’ Order to head to the neighboring Hai’an Duchy, which has had trade dealings with the Leidu Province, perhaps someone there recognizes the Manhwani Clan’s crest.
Nonetheless, generally, to ease local trade, sea merchants wouldn’t lie intentionally to royal and noble persons, so the probability of the boots having the Manhwani Clan’s crest is high.
"Following noble customs, garments and boots with one’s family crest generally belong to close family members." Frode says, "If it can indeed be confirmed as the Manhwani Clan’s crest, then the person is highly likely part of the Manhwani Clan."
Angel nods; as a noble himself, he understands this well. Similar garments if emblazoned with a crest can only be worn by family. Like how only Angel and Lyon can wear the Lionheart’s Flame crest of the Pat Clan after Old Pat passed away.
The boots having the Manhwani Clan’s crest means it’s highly likely the person belongs to the Manhwani Clan.
Frode says, "That suggests the Manhwani Clan is likely a Transcendent family."
Angel replies, "It’s also possible that one of the family members has talent and was noticed by a Guide, thus introduced into the Wizards’ Realm."
Frode says, "But regardless of which, as long as there is a record left, it should be traceable."
Angel nods, realizing that although there’s only one clue found this time, following it should soon identify the booted man’s identity. The booted man is one of the masterminds behind the Underground Altar; identifying him will make tracing the altar much easier.
"Inform me of any follow-up clues immediately."
After finishing, Angel calculates the time, realizing the appointment with Nis is drawing near, and prepares to meet him in the Wilderness of Dreams.
At this moment, Frode suddenly states, "Sir, there’s one more thing..."
Angel halts the construction of the Dream Entering Technique and looks towards Frode.
"Drue also brought news earlier regarding Dangross."
"Dangross? Didn’t it go to Saint Sem City? Did something happen?" Since leaving the Tidal World, Dangross has been intrigued by all things human, always clamoring to visit human cities. Angel’s recent focus on researching the Mirror Space left him no time to accompany it, so he let Drue take Dangross to Saint Sem City for some "sightseeing."
"Did it cause some trouble?" Angel frowns.
With a somewhat peculiar expression, Frode says, "It didn’t really cause any major trouble, it just burned down half of the Silver Heron Royal Family’s palace complex; and since the palace was close to Cypress Street, Cypress Street was caught in the fire too..."
"Luckily, it coincided with the Sculpture Festival, and most residents of Cypress Street had gone to see the sculptures at the square. The remaining residents were mostly evacuated with the help of the knight guard. Only a few pets got burned to death."
Burned down the palace? Set a street on fire?
Angel, bewildered, says, "I reminded it earlier to restrain its flames, what happened?"
Frode sighs and explains the situation in detail.
Actually, it wasn’t completely Dangross’s fault, but that of a wizard apprentice named Fritz.
Fritz is a member of the Silver Heron Royal Wizard Group. His situation is similar to Drue, belonging to the Academy Faction, and is even more of a recluse than Drue, usually staying in the Royal Palace conducting various research.
During his early years of training at Hurricane Tower, Fritz was one of Jelal ’Mithril Reformer’s many alchemy assistants, learning numerous alchemy techniques during that time. But he favored Potionology more than Metallography, and has focused on researching Potionology ever since.
It’s just his talent isn’t very high; otherwise, he wouldn’t have ended up here.
After arriving in the Central Empire, Fritz still didn’t give up on potion research and even "developed" many new potion formulas. However, these so-called new potion formulas were all just figments of his imagination and didn’t really enter the experimental stage, as his skills didn’t permit it, nor could he afford the materials.
The closest Fritz got to a potion experiment was a concocted formula called "Boiling Blood Red Water." To experiment with this new formula, he collected many related materials, but in the end, he got stuck on making "Rockborn Sol-Gel."
Rockborn Sol-Gel was also one of Fritz’s concepts, a new type of auxiliary transmutation agent made by combining a special magic ore with a floating gel. Manufacturing it is not difficult; the hard part is melting it.
A very high temperature is required to melt it.
And for this, the ability of fire is needed.
Fritz did have a way to get the fire’s temperature high enough to melt such a magic ore, but while he could achieve the temperature, he couldn’t conduct detailed operations once it melted.