Luge was not in a hurry, although he had already considered that this might be something similar to the magical spring described in the Revealing the Secrets Handbook. He stood to one side and watched for a while, watching the people being rinsed over and over by the pool water, then looked at the towering palace in the distance. An inexplicable sense of holiness arose in him, and with the light reflected from the white buildings all around, once he thought of it that way, the scene looked even more sacred; those people seemed to be receiving a holy baptism.
Only when several apprentice wizards who had been watching nearby also entered the water one after another did he move his feet and try to step into the first tier of the pool. When the water soaked the hair on his calves, a feeling of utter clarity surged through him.
He immediately sat down, took out the Demonic Form spell book, and began reading from where he had left off. His head felt as if it had exploded; all his thoughts raced, as though he could think of many things at once. He gathered those scattered thoughts and focused solely on the spell. The spell, already so compatible with him, hardly seemed like something to learn—it was more like eating it bite by bite. After finishing the book, he slowly closed his eyes. The principles of the spell and every detail of the spell model surged before his eyes. Constructing a spell model was no longer as cautious as it had once been; it had become direct and simple, as if he could do it effortlessly.
Luge opened his eyes excitedly and turned to scan the apprentice wizards around him. There seemed to be a few more than before, and most of them, like him, were holding various books and reading. One had even set up a small experimental bench, which was rather exaggerated.
He immediately took out the Black Codex and began practicing the Demonic Mark Meditation Method. He felt as if the rank of third-rank apprentice wizard were frantically beckoning to him.
One rune after another was conquered and mastered in his mental-power space. Soaked in this water, it truly felt as if everything were falling into place naturally. From time to time he had to leave his meditation to glance at the Black Codex; this had never happened before. By the time he paused for breath and looked around, quite a few people who had earlier been like him had already moved up to the second tier or even higher.
He also tried to step up onto the second tier of the pool, and the moment he made contact, his whole body shuddered.
He immediately wanted to step onto the third tier, but after thinking it over he held back, sat down, and continued practicing the Demonic Mark Meditation Method.
In the distance, someone was already trying to climb to the very top.
Luge ignored them. The runes of the meditation method were mastered one by one, and the runes became a little harder. Under this training, his mental power was also steadily increasing. What surprised him was that the growth of his mental power did not feel strenuous at all. Logically, such rapid growth over such a short period should have entered a slack phase; it seemed all thanks to this pool water.
At last, he fully mastered all twelve new runes that would form the third demonic mark. He began his first attempt to continuously trace twenty-four runes—twelve new and twelve old. In his previous judgment, this, like the growth of mental power, would also be a point requiring gradual progress and difficult to break through quickly.
But now, soaked in the pool water, he seemed tireless. Once, twice—he kept trying continuously until the eleventh attempt. This kind of attempt itself also trained mental power, so his mental power increased again.
On the twelfth attempt, he suddenly opened his eyes.
He rose and turned to glance back. Apprentice wizards like him, on the first and second tiers, had instead become the odd ones out.
Many were scratching their heads and fidgeting in painful contemplation, unconsciously stepping onto a higher tier. Then the problem would solve itself, and they would show an enlightened expression. When they met a new problem again, they would think of going higher, as if they were continually acquiring thinking abilities that should not originally belong to them.
Luge's third demonic mark was complete. As he had envisioned, the phantom image projected by the highly compatible Demonic Form after being empowered was now stored in the new demonic mark. The third demonic mark was likewise arranged in parallel within his mental-power space.
Splash! The sound of an apprentice leaving the pool beside him brought him back to his senses.
This temptation—this feeling of being almost omnipotent, of every problem being solved with ease—made him somewhat afraid. Watching those figures who had at first been cautious but gradually climbed frantically upward was even more unsettling.
He watched the apprentice leaving the pool and moved to follow. He was not the only one with such thoughts.
"In the world of wizards, how could anything be so easy..." another apprentice, also leaving the pool, said in a panic.
This man had climbed a little higher than Luge, and the fear on his face was more obvious.
The sound of water flowing and splashing kept rising. More and more apprentice wizards who had only briefly sampled it began leaving the pool, while even more kept climbing upward. Among them, wild wizards made up less than half. This surprised Luge, since at the beginning it was the wild wizards who had climbed higher, and they ordinarily lacked opportunities to gain knowledge, making them more likely to be stuck at various bottlenecks. But on second thought, it might also be that their harsh living environment had made them more wary.
Luge thought for a moment. Before leaving, he took out several bottles and filled them with some pool water to take with him. If there were fewer people here, he would have tried to open a spatial door and take a whole pool of it.
When he reached another street corner and looked back, someone had already climbed to the highest point.
He took two more steps, then suddenly felt his mind fill with an unprecedented fatigue, as if it were about to split. He braced himself against the stone steps at the street corner and took a long while to barely recover.
He rubbed his head as he walked.
He wondered what those fellows who had climbed past twenty tiers and stayed there for a long time would look like when they left.
Actually, when he stepped from the first tier to the second—especially while watching those fellows climbing in the distance—he had already understood in his heart. But the exhilarating feeling of every problem being solved easily, the temptation of such ease and freedom, had left him itching inside. And his own difficulties were only minor problems in meditation practice; the older apprentices who had put in many years might have accumulated years of unresolved confusion. When those confusions were untangled one by one, what an enormous temptation that would be.
He rubbed his head and looked around, searching for where the little crybaby worm-person might be.
The white that could be seen everywhere—after seeing so much of it—no longer gave him the feeling of cleanliness and tidiness it had before. Walking around, it was the same everywhere, and he only felt monotony and a kind of discomfort.
It seemed this should not be a place where people lived.
Several apprentices were hesitating in front of a tall building. Luge tapped his temple and looked up, immediately realizing it should be a library.
In a city with such a legendary background, upon seeing such a building, any apprentice wizard would find his feet refusing to carry him past.
"Nice-smelling big brother, don't go there. It's very dangerous..."
A voice reached Luge's ears—it was the little crybaby worm-person he had not seen for many days.
"Where are you?" he said in a low voice, scanning around.
"I'm in the middle of the succession, so I can't talk now. When I officially become the City Lord of this city, I'll come find you to play. I can make you a resident here, and you can stay here forever. Then you'll be able to go anywhere you want, and you'll never go hungry..." The little worm-person's childlike voice was full of delight.
"No, I don't think I need that."
Luge said this, but he received no further response from the little worm-person.
Chapter 73