Luge was awakened by his own snoring. Whenever he was overly exhausted, his snores would rumble loudly. From that opening note as he drifted into deep sleep to the lingering rasp that startled him awake, those two remembered sounds alone were enough to pass for a folk tune from back home. Whenever he slept in an awkward posture, the pitch would rise a few tones higher.
The grub meat he had held and nibbled a few bites of before sleeping had fallen to the ground at some point. Bleary-eyed, he picked it up, dusted off the dirt and grit, and stuffed it into his mouth in a couple of bites.
He smacked his lips, then ate a jar of shaved ice.
Flipping through the Black Codex as he ate, he reminded himself that if a kobold didn't work hard, even a genius amounted to nothing.
A second-rank apprentice wizard? He still hadn't drunk the Mind-Awakening Potion Half-Man had given him, which was supposed to increase mental power and purge side effects.
He had no intention of using it right now. His mental-power progress from practicing the meditation method was already far faster than Half-Man had anticipated.
It was time for a long-awaited session of calm meditation.
The second demonic mark required twelve runes to construct: six old and six new. Before setting out, he had already mastered two of the new runes. The runes were growing increasingly difficult, but his speed in mastering them had barely slowed.
At times, he even wondered whether meditation methods had compatibility just like spells. If so, he and the Black Codex—or rather, the Demonic Mark Meditation Method—had to be extraordinarily well matched. That sense of steady progress made it hard for him to imagine hitting a bottleneck in mental-power growth. Of course, it was also possible that his level was simply too low, and the truly grueling obstacles lay ahead, waiting to leap out beyond his wildest imagination and give him a fright.
His mental-power space remained just as breathtaking, possessed of a serene beauty that hovered between reality and illusion.
A calm sea stretched into the mysterious distance, while the demonic mark, resembling an illusory canyon, hung suspended high in the sky. Numerous spell models flanked and revolved around it. At the very zenith shone a brilliant star—the zero-ring spell slot solidified with Fetid Skin. Adding another star would likely have to wait until he became a formal wizard.
Collecting his thoughts, he tackled the new runes in the Black Codex, only to find that everything progressed even faster than he had imagined.
He still remembered that apprentice wizard of peculiar form.
And that crumbly, pale gray translucent crystal.
His mental power really had grown. He just hoped there wouldn't be any nasty side effects, he thought.
He had anticipated this back in the wilderness, but out there he hadn't dared to conduct exhausting meditation training or spell testing. Through this meditation session, he mastered two new runes in succession. Once he had recovered, he began constructing them continuously from the very first rune, barely managing to complete ten in a single breath.
*Just two more,* he thought.
After recuperating for a bit, he decided to bring some roast meat to Aisjin and the others. Although the space inside the storage pouch was special and things wouldn't spoil, he didn't know if it would still taste as delicious after so many days. He had resisted eating it all along the way. Looking back now, he had been too nervous at the time; he should have thickened his skin and asked that fire-wielding apprentice wizard for some seasonings.
Just as Luge was about to get up, he sat back down.
A patter of footsteps was already approaching from a distance. He judged it to be Aisjin, who had likely learned from Bald Tooth that he was back.
"Brother Luge, every time my belly gets hungry, I come here to look for you, but you're never here," the young female kobold said, without the slightest hint of complaint in her voice.
Luge knew in his heart that she was merely stating a fact.
"Look!"
Aisjin cupped a black fruit in both hands.
"Big Hum-Hum and I went out searching every time our bellies were full, staying out until we got very hungry before coming back. We finally found it—a strange-looking tree! Every time I came, I wanted to tell you, but you weren't here..." Beaming, Aisjin held the black fruit right up to Luge's eyes, nearly shoving it against the bridge of his nose.
"Is this the fruit Big Dumb Hum ate?"
Luge was somewhat surprised. They had actually found it.
One had to remember that Big Dumb Hum hadn't found or picked that fruit on his own; it had been given to him by the former Black Claw Holy Lord. There had been virtually no clues to go on.
"Mm-hmm!" Aisjin nodded happily. "There are more on the tree. I only took a few. Old Gold Tooth wouldn't let us eat them. He said we had to wait for you and listen to you. I'll listen to you too."
Luge took the fruit, held it under his nose to sniff it, then clutched it in his hand and began pacing back and forth.
The shackles of a kobold's short-lived nature didn't just constrain and threaten him. For these friends who had helped him, it was equally an inevitable noose from which they could hardly escape on their own, wrapped tight around their necks, slowly tightening bit by bit. He looked at Aisjin. This simple, straightforward smile might disappear before anyone realized it, and he felt that such a smile deserved to remain in this world a little longer.
He recalled Old Gold Tooth saying that Big Dumb Hum eating the black fruit had actually squandered a precious opportunity, since an initial transformation had the highest chance of success. Coupled with what Bald Tooth had recounted about the Red Horn Tribe, attempting to transform into a dragonborn kobold using items with scarce true dragon bloodline aura or impure subdragon beasts would most likely end in failure.
So this fruit could not be eaten rashly.
However, Big Dumb Hum's extraordinary self-healing ability was likely unique to this fruit, since Old Gold Tooth had mentioned that normal dragonborn kobolds possessed no such trait.
"Can you still find that place? Take me there. I want to see this tree," he said.
For a tree to bear such a peculiar fruit that even carried the aura of a true dragon, there had to be something unusual about that place.
He only hoped it wasn't some bizarre scenario where an injured true dragon had flown by decades ago, spilled a negligible drop of dragon blood that happened to water the tree—the kind of far-fetched tale that held value only in legends.
Hearing his words, Aisjin nodded vigorously, looking as though she had prepared for this long in advance.
Watching her excitement, Luge suspected that she might have even rehearsed leading the way beforehand, picking out the shortest and easiest route. She was certainly capable of doing so; although he had never pointed it out, deep down she always harbored a desire to appear a bit clever.
The two kobolds set out.
At first, Aisjin remained as cautious as ever out of habit.
Gradually, however, she realized that being with Luge meant she didn't need to act like before. It was even more relaxed than traveling with a hunting party.
The two ventured further and further from the settlement.
Luge felt a touch of admiration that they dared to venture so far. At the same time, he remembered having warned Aisjin to only catch grubs nearby and not wander too far away.
Given Big Dumb Hum's temperament, he would never have dared to disobey. The only possibility was that Aisjin had forced Big Dumb Hum to go out searching with her.
Seeing how she still seemed somewhat ill at ease, Luge decided in his heart to give this reckless girl a proper scare.
As they pressed forward, the terrain grew increasingly treacherous.
A small band of lizardfolk they could easily have bypassed was led right into their path by Luge until they ran headlong into each other.
Aisjin dropped low at once, attempting to hide in a hollow.
Yet at this crucial moment, Luge seemed to space out and miss her movement entirely. He was a beat too slow, completely failing to hide, and simply stood there looking dumbfounded.
This sight scared Aisjin out of her wits.
She had never seen Luge fight a pack of lizardfolk, so naturally she couldn't imagine such a scene.
Standing there, listening to the lizardfolk screeching just paces away, everything unfolded in the blink of an eye. Only when a flying short spear drew close did he turn his head toward Aisjin.
"I recall telling you that a kobold running around on their own is in grave danger. Even dragging Big Dumb Hum along doesn't change much."
Chapter 42