Looking back on the twists and turns that had unfolded upon arriving here, he noted two main takeaways worth pondering.
First was an embarrassing matter over which he felt a twinge of genuine remorse: he had trekked across great distances to claim an inheritance, only to discover the benefactor had not even been dead. Fortunately, he had barely managed to inherit it in the end, sparing himself both the awkwardness and the indignity of an empty-handed return.
Second, the mysteriously altered Fetid Skin was indeed effective against an enemy that seemed virtually incorporeal, though it was not overwhelmingly potent. That might have owed to the foe's unusual state, or perhaps because the adversary had been a limit apprentice wizard. After all, veteran apprentices who earned such a title always possessed formidable methods, and their mental power was bound to have reached the apprentice limit.
Of course, the fellow trapped in the orb had certainly not been in peak condition. His strength had likely been reduced to less than a tenth of its prime, leaving only a mental power intensity that still measured up to a fifth-rank apprentice wizard.
In the end, he had been reduced to a generous, silent soul.
Looking up at his benefactor embedded high in the cavern wall, Luge found himself in a bit of a quandary. Eventually, he had to rely on brute strength, jamming the claw of the Black Claw Holy Lord into the rock to chisel out several footholds. Using a short spear as an impromptu ladder, he painstakingly pried this nameless predecessor—whose origins remained a mystery—out of the stone.
"Your life ended right here," he muttered, regarding the two halves of the corpse with a sigh. It was the first time he had ever laid someone to rest. "The aunts of the little chrysalis worm-person are even fiercer than I imagined. Their strike was brutal—snapped the man clean in two. What a shame about these clothes, though! Wait, no... actually, this is just right..."
Luge picked up the upper half of the robe and held it against himself. The top portion bore only a slight smear of blood along the severed edge, which would be easy enough to clean.
A half-length black robe, with a section of the sleeves cut away.
When he slipped it on, it fit remarkably well. The hem fell past his knees, reaching just above his ankles. He had to admit, his knees sat quite close to his feet.
What pleased him most about this black robe was its attached hood.
He pulled up the cowl, slipped on the boots, and suddenly looked the part.
After a brief tidy-up, he buried the remains. Only then did he find a smooth, comfortable spot to sit and rest, solemnly producing the storage pouch to witness a miracle and claim the nameless predecessor's true bounty.
He let out a long breath.
Channeling Bull's Strength, he gripped the pouch with both hands and gave a sharp tug.
*Riiip!*
The sturdy storage pouch followed its master into the afterlife.
Accompanied by a barely perceptible spatial distortion, a chaotic assortment of items spilled across the ground.
Only wizards back in the day who had conducted dedicated bag-rupturing experiments could compile accurate loss rates. Someone like him had no idea how much had been kept inside in the first place, leaving him with no way to tell what had been destroyed in the breach.
According to kobold creed, if you did not know what was lost, you had gained one hundred percent.
Ignorance truly made life easy.
He began sifting through the pile. Even the magic stones held little interest for him; what he truly desired were inheritance scrolls and books filled with spellcraft. Failing that, a few biographical novels to pass the time would do, offering him a glimpse into some facet of this world.
His hands never stopped rummaging, yet his heart sank lower and lower.
There were all kinds of unrecognizable jars and flasks filled with repulsive substances. He would neither dare nor know how to use them, nor could he trade them for magic stones. These things took up a vast amount of space.
There were also experimental notebooks with broken dates, filled with jottings he could not decipher.
Magic stones were present in modest numbers; he sorted them into a small pile to the side.
In the end, he found only three books dedicated to teaching magic. To his surprise, two of them covered the very same spell.
Thus, he had obtained only two spells in total, both zero-ring: Scribing and Body Lightening. The fact that a limit apprentice wizard carried these two spells on his person was surprising enough. In Luge's mind, an apprentice at such a stage should have been researching first-ring spells in preparation, or at least carrying materials to study powerful zero-ring variant spells tailored to their strengths.
Yet the spell shared by the two books was Scribing. A cursory flip revealed that one of them was the predecessor's research notes—and from the looks of it, there had been more than just one notebook. Perhaps the rest had not been brought along, or had been destroyed when the pouch tore. From this, one could infer that Body Lightening had likely been accompanied by several notebooks or treatises by other wizards as well. For some purpose, this gray shadow predecessor had set about researching both of these spells.
With his own meager knowledge, Luge could not fathom their value. Perhaps reading through the books once he returned would shed new light on the matter.
After all, the functions of both spells seemed simple on the surface.
Scribing: a zero-ring spell. Upon chanting the incantation, the quill before the caster would seem to spring to life. It was a minor utility spell commonly used to aid note-taking during experiments and coursework.
Body Lightening: a zero-ring spell. It could effectively keep the caster from falling to their death, making it a very practical spell in the treacherous, shifting terrain of the Earth Cave world—and that was all. Crucially, it was not the first-ring Levitation; fools were always muddling the two.
Two was better than nothing, he consoled himself.
Since a fifth-rank apprentice wizard had been researching them, there had to be something worthwhile about them.
Perhaps they could open up a new train of thought.
Then again, some apprentice wizards simply disliked traveling with spellbooks, preferring to carry their accumulated magic stones, valuables, or whatever was personally vital to them—such as active research materials.
Luge's journey this time targeted two nearby destinations, chosen not only for their proximity to kobold territory, but also because they lay close to each other.
He leaned back to rest, examining the gray, translucent crystal in his hand.
This was another gift from his predecessor.
He had originally considered tossing it into the predecessor's grand tomb, but as if a flicker from the Light of Spirituality had stirred within him, he had inexplicably changed his mind.
*What is this used for anyway? Do I have to go back and ask Half-Man?* he wondered.
*Snap! Crack!* As he turned it over in his hand, a sharp sound suddenly rang out.
"Friend, you've cracked open again..."
The fractured gray crystal crumbled like a brittle biscuit, turning to fine debris in his palm with the lightest squeeze.
All at once, the scattered, splashing motes felt vaguely familiar, giving him a sensation similar to what he drew in when using the Demonic Mark Meditation Method to restore his mental power.
A thought struck him, and he immediately entered meditation.
Normally in this state, he could feel imperceptible particles filtering through his demonic mark to aid the recovery of his mental power. This time, no sooner had he begun tracing the runes than a swarm of clearly visible motes of light, glowing with diverse colors, surged straight into the mark.
As his mental power surged back at breakneck speed, vivid scenes flooded his mind.
It felt like opening a long-anticipated biographical novel—only better, as though he were experiencing the story firsthand.
Like an unseen spectator.
Luge even caught a fleeting glimpse of himself among them. These appeared to be the most profound memories from the predecessor's life; he had not expected that his own brief appearance would earn a place in those visions, which meant the impression he had left must have been indelible.
Gradually, the images rotated. Luge saw the predecessor in his youth, full of vigor and ambition; he saw the grotesque turn as bodily modifications steadily stripped away his humanity; he saw unimaginable agony of every kind; he saw the wizard tower he belonged to despised by other wizards for its madness; and he saw the youthful light vanish from his eyes. Yet those myriad sufferings were not the clearest, deepest impressions—the obstacle blocking his path to becoming a formal wizard, the barrier he could never cross, was his most profound torment.
The visions shifted again, flashing past in reverse from middle age to youth, before finally settling upon his boyhood.
That day, he had received the very first gift of his life: a book.
Within its pages were the legends of the surface world he so desperately yearned for, filled with all manner of wonder and dreams. And on the final page, a single sentence was written:
*Only wizards may walk upon the surface.*
That was the day the young boy first learned the word "wizard."
Chapter 30