Luge was not frightened by the enthusiastic recorder.
He had to admit that spells with high compatibility really were extremely smooth to learn. He felt as if his mind had been thrown open; his understanding and his thoughts were so apt, as if he had gone in an instant from a stupid clod to a clever fellow, from Big Dumb Hum to Aisjin.
When abstruse, hard-to-grasp things turn smooth, they become a kind of enjoyment, and right now he felt he was enjoying it immensely, as if one puzzle after another were unraveling before him, each step so effortless and natural.
He set down the book, humming a tune, and added a bit more dragon blood to the pools of each of the three fellows.
By rights, a single cup was normally enough to make a kobold change.
This kind of bathing-in-dragon-blood transformation was an extravagance; the dragonborn kobolds it produced were naturally stronger than those produced otherwise, and the concentration of true dragon bloodline in their bodies was higher too. As for the success rate of the transformation, that was something that need not even be considered.
Luge thought for a moment, put away the book, and stepped out of the space.
At last he had time to catch his breath. Looking at the space, he found it a little monotonous, and wanted to transplant a few things inside to see whether they could take root and live.
The first thing he thought of was that tree, and as soon as the thought came he acted on it. Under the spell's blessing he charged out through the settlement's little hole, and following the road he had taken with Aisjin last time, he raced toward the place where the wingless aberrant dragon slumbered. Though the black fruit was no longer of any use to him, looking at the soil in the space that had been soaked through when the dragon blood first flooded in, perhaps if he planted it there the fruit would grow stronger, and he could give it to the other kobolds to eat, or feed it to the companion familiar as a snack.
He ran the whole way at a breakneck pace.
When he saw that tree again, it was still tenaciously alive. Though a great deal of soil had been dug away from around it, this did not affect it much; its roots and stems still strove to spread in every direction to keep it living, only today they would meet their day of severed roots.
Following the traces left last time, Luge went on digging deeper, and further shrank the area of the lone island.
The overly lush branches were a nuisance too; though many of them hung with fruit, they still had to be ruthlessly hacked away.
After some effort, the half-wrecked fruit tree was finally packed into the Abyssal bedroom space. He found the spot with the thickest soil and planted it there, but clearly it would need more soil still to support its later growth; he could only hope the dragon-blood soil would help it hold on to life for the time being. He also tried transplanting a few little mushrooms in and tucking them beside the tree.
On his way back he stopped wherever looked pleasing to him and took in great quantities of soil and stone; after his mental power was fully restored he would go on in the same way, and the terrain on one side of the Abyssal bedroom space would change once every little while, while vast amounts of dragon-blood-stained soil were all shifted over by him to the area around the tree.
At the same time, before he knew it, he also took in some fat grubs. After his experience at the old castle he still felt nothing but fondness for these bugs, as the saying goes: better to be prepared and have no want.
He walked on, pausing now and then, and occasionally, when he entered the Abyssal bedroom space, he could still hear Big Dumb Hum's snoring.
Back in the big bedroom open on three sides, he lay down in the familiar spot and began another round of meditation. On the way he had turned over a problem in his mind: if he kept hiding in the Abyssal bedroom space, the Half-Man would have a hard time finding him.
In the newly opened portion of the Black Codex, the number of meditation runes had doubled again; there were twelve somewhat more complex new runes to master. As with the previous advancement, forming the third demonic mark required twelve new and twelve old, condensed out of twenty-four runes. At this point he realized that the difficulty of meditation had quietly changed: perhaps it had shifted from mastering new runes to the challenge of swiftly and steadily constructing twenty-four different runes in a single breath.
He slowly opened his eyes and let out a long breath.
Twenty-four runes, third-rank apprentice wizard—about that he still felt confident; his rate of advancement would not be too slow. But beyond that he dared not let himself think, because the answer had already surfaced naturally in his heart.
A round of unhurried, composed footsteps came from the left.
He sprang up at once.
Could it be the Half-Man? He felt a small thrill of excitement.
Amid that excitement, he had already tiptoed to the corner of the passage on the other side and tucked himself away, pressing tight against the wall.
Of the spells still left to him and not yet mastered, there were Ear Seed, Scribing, and Demonic Form. He had always lacked a spell for scouting. Ear Seed could indeed make mushrooms, plants, and the like temporarily grow false ears to relay the sounds they picked up to the spellcaster—it counted as a proper scouting spell—but it still was not direct or visible enough.
"Little kobold, are you still in there?" A pointed-ears figure in a wizard's robe emerged from one side of the passage.
It was exactly that dark elf apprentice wizard who had pestered Luge several times before.
Luge's heart gave a leap—it really wasn't the Half-Man.
He thought it over and over, and chose not to go out and meet her. He quietly retreated two steps, and with a wave of his hand opened the spatial door.
Wouldn't it be nice to lean comfortably against the stone bed and read the Demonic Form spell book? he thought. That spell should be mastered very soon.
But he raised his foot, and yet did not cleanly step through.
He thought of how Old Gold Tooth, gazing at the roast meat, had been so at ease, showing his contentment with the life before him; yet at the time, watching it, Luge had felt a different taste in his heart. And now, in the place of an apprentice wizard, he was another Old Gold Tooth, and these few spell books were that piece of roast meat. Especially when Old Gold Tooth had cheerfully spoken of how the Red Horn Tribe and the elves were locked in a fight so fierce neither could spare a thought for this place—that feeling was just like his own present one: ease cannot be built on what lies outside oneself; it must lie within.
Though he had joked before about hiding away to meditate and learn spells undisturbed, once he finished learning Demonic Form, only Scribing and Ear Seed would be left to learn.
He slowly drew back the leg he had extended.
If some mishap befell the Half-Man, or if he simply never came back, was his wizard path to be cut off? Of course it could not be cut off! But in the vast Earth Cave, with great caves nested inside small ones, how was he to find his own road? So it was best, while the apprentice wizards gathering here grew ever more numerous, to secure one more path. He might even try to see whether he could join some wizard faction—something like the wizard academy mentioned in Kaliu's diary, for instance. A smart kobold cannot hang himself from a single tree.
"Fair elf wizard lady, I'm here!" he called out loudly, stepping out from the corner.
The elf before him—his dealings with her last time had been passable enough; at least she hadn't flown into a rage even when he had watched her bathe, and she had even gotten through the test of his Fetid Skin. It was worth the risk of a try.
And watching her every movement, it seemed she still had something she wanted to ask of him.
As he came out, Luge casually threw on his earlier robe, making himself look more the part—after all, he was someone who had lived through a great battle among fifth-rank apprentice wizards.
His warmth seemed to make the elf a little uncomfortable.
"You've put on a wizard's robe—looks like you don't mean to go on playing kobold here." The elf looked him up and down.
"Fair lady, you've come here to find a stinking kobold—is there something you need him to do for you?" Luge said, walking up to her.
The elf was in no hurry to speak; instead she circled halfway around him.
"You seem a little different," she said with certainty. "More confident, it seems."
Chapter 66