Mining? Grabbing territory? Ancient blood feuds between city-states? Delicious food? The blood of dragons?
Luge turned these thoughts over in his mind as he walked.
Things that seemed so disparate and unrelated might, from another perspective, prove intimately intertwined. Some might look at them and say they were all desire, all resources. Looked at from yet another angle, they might be called duty, the entanglement of fate, the natural laws that every living thing in this world had to obey. And he had found an angle of his own: transcendence. Of course, he could not manage that yet; his strength was nowhere near that level. But as long as he could become a powerful wizard, none of this would be a problem anymore, nor would it matter.
Luge considered himself a lazy fellow. After learning that dragonborn kobolds existed, he had even fantasized about truly turning into a dragon so he could grow stronger just by sleeping lazily away. It was the wonder and mystery of the wizard's path in Kaliu's diary, along with an offhand mention of expensive draconic experimental materials, that had reined in those notions.
Because of where he had set out from, he had taken a slight detour, though thankfully he had chosen the right fork in the tunnel.
At last, he drew near the great boulder where Half-Man was.
As he walked, it suddenly struck him that he had truly become a kobold. It felt as if he were not merely taking favors and running errands, but also clinging to the coattails of Half-Man, a powerhouse, for the sake of the wizard's path. In a way, it was different from the so-called kobolds relying on their holy master, and yet not entirely different at all.
A booming rumble broke out. Luge stopped his wandering thoughts and scrambled aside to hide.
The sound felt more familiar the more he listened.
He poked his head out to look and saw Baonte's burly figure speeding away down another fork, soon vanishing from sight.
Luge shook his head, unsure whether the other had noticed him.
Resuming his journey, he soon arrived before the great boulder once more.
This time he waited a good while before Half-Man's hazy silhouette gradually coalesced, just as it always did.
"It appears you are ready, little kobold who has become a second-rank apprentice wizard," Half-Man said slowly.
Luge nodded.
Half-Man probably assumed he had drunk that bottle of Mind-Awakening Potion to purge the side effects, he thought.
"Is there anything else I should be mindful of?"
Luge adopted an attitude of humble inquiry.
In his mind, however, flashed thoughts of Kaliu's diary and the possibility of further volumes.
As a kobold, his channels for acquiring extraordinary knowledge were far too limited. To say nothing of personal advancement, without enough experience and insight, he was prone to getting swindled even in ordinary transactions.
"That fissure is most likely in a wasteland. Over there, you can still enter the corridor space at any time, but the fissure's position cannot be changed. In other words, if you venture far away and fall into danger, you can return through the corridor to where you first entered the Abyss. You may use this cleverly to your advantage, but take care not to expose yourself. So long as you do not expose yourself, ordinary demons will not be able to discover the fissure," Half-Man instructed.
"I understand. I wonder if you happen to have the continuation of that diary... the one you gave me back then..." Luge ventured.
Without the slightest hesitation, a small notebook of identical make flew over.
Luge reached out to catch it at once, flipped through a couple of pages with delight, and cinched it tight inside his storage pouch.
"Over there, you must take care. Even if your disguise is not seen through, danger will still find you. They are not like kobolds, who share love for their own kind and help one another survive. Relationships among demons—from the clumsy and barbaric to the shrewd and treacherous—amount at most to compromises born of sheer strength..."
"Generally, scattered across the wilderness or among ruins, there will be several broken abyssal altars. For me, that will suffice. You are an outsider from an alien realm; as you draw close to an abyssal altar, you will feel it. It is not a difficult task."
As he spoke, Half-Man sent over another bottle of that dark green potion from before, a precaution against Luge getting injured and dying.
Luge accepted it in silence as the figure before him slowly faded until it was gone.
After a moment's thought, he decided to return to his large bedroom open on three sides and embark on his first journey into the Abyss from there.
Opening the spatial door, he stepped inside.
A brief check showed that plenty of the grubs he had prepared last time remained, and that half-face was there as well, its eyes closed and still utterly motionless. After some consideration, he took off both the storage pouch and the nurturing bag, setting them down on the stone bed in the Abyssal Bedroom.
He walked up to the abyssal fissure at the edge of the space.
This was the first time he had come so close to it. Reaching out to touch it lightly, he felt no sense that he could pass through, so he pressed his hand against it and tried to open the fissure just as he would each time he opened a spatial door.
The dark crimson fissure parted slowly, yet nothing could be seen of what lay beyond.
After a moment's hesitation, he picked up a small pebble and tossed it through. It produced only a fleeting ripple; he saw nothing else.
Zero-ring spell, Demonskin.
Hesitating no longer, he took a fierce stride forward.
His vision darkened as he stepped straight through. First came the solid feel of ground beneath his feet, which instantly set his mind at ease.
He raised his eyes, only to freeze in shock.
Before him was a room thick with dust, furnished with tables, chairs, and a bed. The bedding was tattered and ragged, yet one could tell it had once been exceptionally exquisite, from the neat pleats and patterned embroidery of the bed hangings to the pendants dangling from its four corners.
He slowly turned his head. The room had a window; the curtain on one side was rotted away, while the remaining portion on the other side likewise showed glimpses of former opulence.
Thick dust coated both the bed and the floor. The door on one side was shut tight, and from the layer of dust, it was clear that for a very long time, he was the sole uninvited guest to leave footprints in this chamber.
The Abyss?
In the wasteland he had imagined, there should have been a few strangely shaped, bare trees, and according to Half-Man's description, an occasional wandering imp.
Yet no matter how he might have imagined it, it would never have looked like this.
He walked toward the window.
*Knock, knock, knock!*
"Young Master, your Abyssal lesson is about to begin. The Abyssal tutor has already been waiting in the classroom for quite some time."
Following the dull knocks came an aged, courteous voice.
Standing in the room, the hair on Luge's back stood straight on end.
Soon, however, he let out a long breath.
He remembered that he could still duck back into that space, return to his familiar bedroom open on three sides, and eat a cup of shaved ice to calm his nerves. But right after, he realized that the position of this fissure was fixed. Did that not mean Half-Man's commission could not be completed?
Was this path to be severed just like that?
"Young Master, I know you are inside."
The aged voice came from outside the door once more.
*I'll head back first and confer with Half-Man,* he thought.
In any case, he already had dragon blood and could rid himself of the shackles of a short-lived species on his own. If things did not work out with Half-Man, he could make other plans for his path as a wizard.
*Knock, knock, knock!*
Raising his hand, he moved to open the spatial door.
"Young Master, you cannot run outside to play any longer. The tutor has been waiting for a very long time."
The moment the polite words were spoken, the spatial door that had just begun to materialize instantly collapsed into nothing.
Chapter 51