"Look, how beautiful these lights are. Prettier even than the lamps those pointed-ears brag about—ah, though I've never seen the multicolored lamps they speak of either," Old Gold Tooth said. Perhaps lacking the strength to turn his neck, he didn't even look at the two who had come to his side, staring straight upward instead. "This is good. This is very good. Better than dying slowly of old age, and better than getting bitten to death while hunting. To be able to see light growing out of my own body, sprouting and becoming more and more beautiful..."
"Did you know? You surely don't know, but legend has it that long ago, we kobolds also lived where we could see the light."
Old Gold Tooth didn't blink for a good while.
The old kobold seemed entirely convinced that he was about to depart this world.
"Look, look at these beautiful little things. They're spiraling upward, trying their best just so I can see this light," Old Gold Tooth said, finally taking a moment to glance to the side. "It makes eating all those foul things worthwhile, especially those tiny, hard-to-find pointed mushrooms."
"How much longer can you hold out?"
Luge had no choice but to interrupt the old kobold.
Old Gold Tooth didn't seem in the least bit hurried; his calm composure made him look even less like a kobold than when he was telling his outlandish stories.
"I already told Aisjin not to disturb you. They're just growing a little faster, that's all. I still have plenty of time left to live! At least... at least enough to get hungry several dozen more times, maybe a hundred." Old Gold Tooth stared unblinkingly at the luminous threads as he spoke.
Despite what the old kobold said, Aisjin wasn't Big Dumb Hum; she had judged from details like his inability to eat before finally deciding to seek out Luge.
If measured by how long a normal kobold could hold out after a single meal, Old Gold Tooth could indeed survive for a fair amount of time—provided he was telling the truth and his judgment was accurate.
"I believe you," Luge said. "I've already found a way to save you. For the sake of guaranteed success, some preparations are needed, so I'll plan around the timeframe you gave me."
Finished speaking, he gave Aisjin a few instructions and turned to leave.
After walking a few paces, he could still hear Old Gold Tooth whispering questions to the young kobold girl behind him.
He made his way back to his three-way ventilated bedroom.
Leaving here to visit Old Gold Tooth had also served as part of an experiment: during the time he had been away, the spatial door had remained open on that cave wall.
His earlier plan to take Aisjin on a tour of this peculiar space had been interrupted by the matter with Old Gold Tooth and never came to fruition.
Therefore, he intended to go in himself.
Not just yet, of course. He retrieved a book, sat down to the side, and began leafing through it.
He wanted to see roughly how long this door could stand with zero interference—with no one entering or leaving.
The appearance of that strange dragon had disrupted his plans, and with them, the order in which he had intended to learn spells.
His choice of spells had to be rearranged.
Since Old Gold Tooth could still hold out, there was no need to waste a Clear Mind Potion. He had only one bottle left of this potion, which practically boosted one's comprehension.
The pages turned steadily beneath his fingers.
The spell in this book was one that had originally fallen outside his plans—ranked near the very bottom of the spells he most wanted to learn—yet now he had to strive to master it as quickly as possible.
A zero-ring spell: Body Lightening.
His reading strategy now was to skim through the book first without seeking complete comprehension, gaining a general overview before starting from the first page to study it meticulously.
Just as he flipped to the final page on his first pass, the spatial door before him flickered several times and vanished with a whoosh.
He glanced up, then went back to reading.
This spell did not appear overly difficult, yet it would not go as smoothly as Demonskin. Demonskin, after all, had caught the wind of a boosted brain, blessed with nearly half a bottle of Clear Mind Potion.
Still, there was no need to overthink it; taking his time to learn was fine. If Old Gold Tooth had been lying, he would surely send Aisjin in a couple of days to make a clean breast of things.
The old kobold was quite smart and knew how to read the situation and keep things in moderation.
Luge had drawn many thoughts from what he had seen and heard during his last excursion—such as contemplating broader applications of spells: different methods, different occasions, or even casting them on targets other than the primary mark. Baonte, for example, had used Ghost Sound to sway the judgment of two targets at once, sending away the fellow he disliked—even though it was later proven that the hated fellow had hardly left on his own, having in all likelihood become a contributor to the burly man's latest spoils.
Luge had calculated roughly that even factoring in the skirmishes with those lizardfolk along the way, he had cast Bull's Strength far more times to travel than in battle.
Employing spells in daily life could well be considered an essential component of training and exploring new ways to apply magic.
He raised his hand and cast Boiling Spirit on himself. He had recently realized that this was a premier tool for burning the midnight oil over books, with results far better than he had imagined.
Yet the inheritance scroll had contained only a brief sentence mentioning that after casting, it could temporarily invigorate one's mental power and maintain alertness, followed by an evaluation that the spell had little overall utility. Luge felt that deeming it of little utility was unfair. Making someone more energized and focused might seem minor, but accumulated over years or decades, the boost to study efficiency would be immense.
He even slapped a Bull's Strength on himself as well. Who said reading didn't bring aches and pains? Good physical stamina meant that no matter how much he studied, he wouldn't tire—a formidable advantage in its own right. The boost to his strength also kept his reading posture from slumping, which on another level reduced the buildup of fatigue. In any case, he was now a second-rank apprentice wizard with more ample mental power, and holed up in his cave, he had no fear of expending such trivial amounts of it.
Time always slipped away quickly when one was focused.
Five days passed.
He stood up and stretched, his small frame letting out a series of crisp pops.
Finished stretching, he warmed up again, sank into a squat, and leaped vigorously. The result was startlingly good.
With a dull thud, his head smacked into the cave ceiling.
Body Lightening had been mastered.
A spell model of nineteen nodes drifted within his mental space.
Come to think of it, he had never cast a spell on anyone else. Not spells like Ray of Frost, of course, but spells like Body Lightening and Bull's Strength, which he could cast on Aisjin and the others. The spell's effect on them might be somewhat diminished, depending on their affinity with the magic, whereas spells like Fetid Skin and Demonskin could only be cast on oneself.
After eating his fill, he prepared to begin arranging the Abyssal bedroom space.
The illusory, luminous spatial door appeared once more. Over the past few days, during breaks from reading, he had practiced opening this door. Though the practice hadn't yielded dramatic progress, he hadn't given up, and at the very least, he no longer needed to lean against the cave wall to trick himself into opening it.
The effect he envisioned—or rather, the effect he desired—was to do it at will, throwing open a door with a wave of his hand and slipping inside to escape with ease.
He took a slow step, sticking one foot in first and giving it a wiggle.
This was already his second time entering, yet the feeling remained wondrous. He finally stepped through the doorway and stood on the ground he had laid himself. In the distance, a dark-red fissure flickered, while on the other side lay several large stones cobbled together to serve as a dining table or a makeshift bed.
He set to work, and after a bout of labor...
...with the aid of spells, a large pool composed of stones and permafrost was soon constructed, reaching a marginally usable state.
He placed his hands on his hips in satisfaction, standing by the pool and gazing down.
Since Old Gold Tooth was already mortally wounded and near death, he would use this pool to grant him a second spring. While saving the old kobold, it would also let him make a contribution; bathing in the strange dragon's blood would require a test subject anyway, so Old Gold Tooth could pave the way for them.
Once Old Gold Tooth succeeded and an observation period confirmed everything was normal, he would consider letting Aisjin and the others partake.
He could also have Bald Tooth cut in line to give it another try and see what happened, he thought, hands on his hips.
Chapter 46