Although he did not know what sort of flower bud this was, it was still better than a dog's face, he thought.
He picked up the storage pouch, linked it with his mental power, and pressed the back of his hand against it; imprinting the arcane mark this way took less effort.
He did not know how the little pouch was constructed, but in an instant it formed a connection with him, and from then on it was entirely under his control.
Probing inside with his mental power, he found the tiny pouch was nearly the size of two small wardrobes. Its interior was irregular and kept shifting shape, so only a rough estimate was possible, but he need not worry about items being crushed: whenever the shifting space met something inside, it would spring open.
Once branded, storing things in the pouch was easy: bring it near the opening and a thought would suck items inside with a whoosh. To retrieve something, he probed the pouch with his mental power, and the item appeared directly in his hand.
When everything was packed, he finally held a Bull's Strength inheritance scroll for a long while before stowing it away and never taking it out again.
He stood at his usual spot, looking at the shorts materials carefully arranged on the cave wall, but in the end he did not put them into the storage pouch either.
The time spent organizing his belongings let him calm down, figure some things out, and think more clearly.
He parted the sparse hair on his arm. The Fetid Skin spell remained active, his skin had taken on a strange black-purple hue, but he felt no discomfort.
When he tried to end the spell, the black-purple color faded away in an instant.
After a moment's thought, he took out the mental-power testing stone strip used by apprentice wizards.
He gripped it tightly and focused his mental power. A single dot lit up on the strip, as before, but it seemed a little brighter.
The strip had ten dots. Each dot represented one standard unit of mental power, and the first five dots corresponded to the five ranks of apprentice wizard. Lighting five dots meant his mental power had reached the qualifying standard of a fifth-rank apprentice wizard.
But the path of apprentice wizard did not end there. A fifth-rank apprentice's upper limit was ten standard units of mental power; only reaching that height could one prepare to advance to formal wizard.
Thus, even among fifth-rank apprentice wizards, mental power varied. Many old apprentices had lingered at this stage for years, so their accumulated spell knowledge differed as well. Consequently, the strength of fifth-rank apprentices could be worlds apart.
He began maintaining Fetid Skin once more, intending to keep it going indefinitely. The less he felt any drain, the more he wanted to test his limits.
As long as he kept the spell going, he could at least sleep soundly.
He suddenly realized that being able to maintain this spell constantly made him the safest kobold in his clan—perhaps even the only one who could venture into the hunting area alone.
Unconsciously, a sense of security arose in his heart.
Perhaps he would not suffer insomnia again.
With that thought, he took out the Black Codex he had always treasured.
Now that he was an apprentice wizard, it was time to try turning the next page. He also needed to continue studying the Demonic Mark Meditation Method in preparation for constructing another demonic mark.
As his fingers rubbed the pages, he suddenly wondered whether Half-Man also practiced the Demonic Mark Meditation Method.
Although the book was a gift from him, the Black Codex might have come from the owner of that diary—the apprentice wizard Kaliu, known only by his words, never seen in person.
Half-Man looked as strange and frightening as ever, and he did not know whether the man was dead or alive. Absent necessity, he truly did not want to lay eyes on Half-Man's malformed head again. But there was no such thing as a free lunch. Presumably it was because he was still too weak that the great Kobold Grub-Catching Master had been spurned.
He raised his brows and opened an unread section of the Black Codex, flipping many pages at once.
In one breath he saw six new, more complex runes. The second demonic mark required the six runes he had already mastered, plus these six he had not—twelve runes in all—to form the second demonic mark and advance to second-rank apprentice wizard.
The Black Codex's unprecedented generosity made him a little uneasy, but it also showed that his mental power had grown to a certain stage. After becoming an apprentice wizard, his mental power was denser and better able to withstand impact.
"A short-lived species? Short-lived? That means I'm no longer young."
His first thought was that his plan to grow tall and strong would probably fail.
"I wonder if I have enough time to advance to formal wizard successfully."
Looking at the new content in the Black Codex, he was lost in thought.
Turning to a new page, the first paragraph described a way to speed up mental power recovery—exactly what he needed now. He had originally planned to use the Bull's Strength zero-ring inheritance scroll tomorrow.
Following the instructions, directly above the first demonic mark in his mental-power space, he meditated and traced the six runes that composed the mark. The runes traced in this state cost nothing; instead, they absorbed something through the demonic mark, promoting his mental power recovery.
Mental fatigue quickly faded, and the drain from continuously building spell models and the demonic mark was replenished.
He felt vigorous once more.
His natural recovery speed seemed far greater than what the Black Codex described.
After a brief rest, he tore open the Bull's Strength inheritance scroll without hesitation and began constructing the spell model.
Bull's Strength's spell model had twenty-one nodes. Once constructed, he immediately began empowering it. The Bull's Strength and arcane mark spell models rotated and drifted around the demonic mark in the void. When empowerment was complete, under his guidance, a phantom with the same twenty-one nodes was drawn out of the spell model and projected toward the demonic mark.
The demonic mark's temporary spell slot finally had its first tenant.
But this twenty-one-node guest was destined not to stay long.
He began meditating to recover his mental power.
Since he could no longer grow tall and strong, he would make up for it with the power of spells, arming himself with spellcraft.
Hair Removal and Boiling Spirit could wait; his mental-power space had endured enough upheaval for one day, and he had one more thing to do.
By his estimate, with his mental power fully restored, he could empower the arcane mark spell model about twelve times—meaning he could cast the zero-ring spell arcane mark twelve times in short order—and Bull's Strength about eight times.
That was roughly the capability of a first-rank apprentice wizard.
These were his estimates, and they should be roughly accurate.
He ended his meditation and picked up his long staff. The Black Codex was already stowed in his pouch, so he no longer needed to carry it on his back. All that remained was the final step: he had to verify it to set his mind at ease, testing whether this spell that was supposed to stink had gone wrong.
After the spell's solidification, he increasingly felt that choosing Fetid Skin was superior to Fire Bolt and the like.
As long as there had been no deviation, he would be very glad he had made that decision."}]},
Chapter 9