Settlement

[Evaluating your Monster Tide performance...]

[You have earned the title: [Lone Flame]!]

[Title effect: While outside your shelter's range, all attributes +3%, Mana recovery speed +5%, fire spell damage +5%]

[Final wave defended against: Wave 6]

[Kill statistics: Normal monsters of all levels ×87, elite monsters of all levels ×11, boss monsters of all levels ×0]

[In recognition of your Monster Tide performance, you have received the following rewards]

[Survival Coins ×12000, Wooden Chests ×12, Iron Chests ×8, Gold Chests ×3, two pieces of Fine-quality equipment, one piece of excellent-quality equipment, Intermediate Skill Experience Stones ×8, random green Skill Books ×2]

So Monster Tide rewards were based on monster kill statistics. That meant Su Luo's Monster Tide rewards fell short of Song Shige's and Ye Xu's by a few level 0 and level 1 mobs.

Apart from the Survival Coins, which appeared in the system but could not be used, all the other rewards clattered into a heap in front of Su Luo, forming a small mountain.

Rubbing his hands, Su Luo made a rough inventory.

The supplies were as follows: Survival Coins ×32000, Selectable Supply Vouchers ×60, Selectable Special Supply Vouchers ×9, Basic Skill Experience Stones ×20, Intermediate Skill Experience Stones ×17, Exemption Stones ×5, five pieces of Fine-quality equipment, two pieces of excellent-quality equipment, Floating Flares (Fine) ×8, Random Building Blueprint Chests (Fine) ×4, Random Building Blueprint Chest (excellent) ×1, Stamina Potions ×20, Mana Potions ×14, random green Skill Books ×4, random blue Skill Book ×1, Wooden Chests ×12, Iron Chests ×8, Gold Chests ×3, a few pieces of rotten wood and broken stone, three melee weapons, Story Instance Scroll ×1.

Since he didn't have a shelter, there wasn't much Su Luo could use.

Survival Coins were shit. He couldn't use them.

He would save the supply vouchers for now and see what they were good for later.

Experience Stones were good stuff. Su Luo planned to use them to shore up his weaknesses.

Su Luo looked at a skill on his panel.

[Basic Body-Strengthening Technique (white), level 1 (95//100)]

He looked up at the Dungeon's point of light again. Su Luo used wind to hold the large pile of items close against his body and entered the Dungeon.

[Dungeon: Wizard's Abandoned Experimental Field]

[Recommended level: 0–5]

[Enter?]

"Yes!"

[You have entered the Dungeon: Wizard's Abandoned Experimental Field]

[Maximum stay: 48 hours]

[Possible drops: Skill Books, wizard manuscripts, Class Change Certificates...]

[Clear condition: Kill Experiment Subject 003]

[Teleporting...]

After the familiar shift of light and shadow, the fresh scent of forest and stream filled his nose once more. Su Luo piled the supplies on the grass and began by inspecting the equipment.

[Glan Shuriken (Fine)]

[Otto Flying Blade (Fine)]

[Black Iron Armor (Fine)]

The first three pieces were Fine equipment geared toward melee combat, and Su Luo could barely contain himself.

"You're deliberately giving me stuff I can't use, aren't you?"

The armor was too heavy. Su Luo couldn't walk in it.

He took a breath and turned his attention to the remaining two pieces of Fine equipment.

[Apprentice Staff (Fine)]

[When used, it absorbs Mana from the surrounding environment, slightly reducing your Mana consumption]

[Environmental Stabilization Barrier Generator (Fine)]

[When activated, it generates a continuous energy stabilization field in a designated area, suppressing chaotic fluctuations and improving lighting efficiency. Note: This field provides no physical protection]

The staff was a deep blue throughout, with a gemstone set into it. Su Luo raised it and sent more than a dozen fireballs flying.

"In the Dungeon's Mana environment... it reduced Mana consumption by about 5–8%... not bad!"

He picked up the generator and activated it. A faint circle of light roughly three meters in diameter spread out around the octagonal disk.

Su Luo immediately noticed that the airflow within the circle became unusually steady, dust in the air slowly settled, and even the light seemed more concentrated and less prone to scattering.

"...But... wouldn't putting up a ring of wind walls around me do about the same thing?" Su Luo was a little puzzled.

"No... the Mana flow inside the circle has slowed down too." Su Luo closed his eyes and used his mental power to sense his surroundings.

It effectively suppressed air turbulence and energy dissipation. Perhaps it could be used for precision experiments, but unfortunately, Su Luo currently had neither the conditions nor the need for experiments.

[Cursed Figurine (excellent)]

[When used, it can inflict numerous debuffs on the target and has an active effect: Heart Curse

Heart Curse: After being activated at the cost of lifespan, it forcibly deals damage to the target]

[Spell Recording Crystal (excellent)]

[Can record the complete Mana construction models, energy flow paths, and release details of three mastered spells. Once a spell has been successfully recorded, the crystal will permanently display its corresponding glow]

Both items were absurdly powerful. Su Luo picked up the Cursed Figurine first. It was only about the size of his palm.

He squeezed it, hung it from his waist, then picked up the Spell Recording Crystal.

It was a set of three thin, transparent crystal pieces, each with a small hole in the center just big enough for Su Luo's finger.

"They look like fidget spinners..."

He instinctively cast Fireball, the spell he knew best, while directing a thread of mental power into one of the blank crystals. In an instant, countless intricate red energy lines lit up inside the transparent crystal, as though it had suddenly been infused with life. Finally, it settled into a stable state, with light flowing slowly through its interior.

Su Luo immersed his mental power in it. The sight he "saw" in the next instant made his breath catch!

It wasn't a simple image of the spell, but an extraordinarily complex, intricate, three-dimensional holographic energy diagram. Every detail was perfectly clear: how Mana was generated from the core, how it surged through specific "channels," how it was transformed and amplified at each node, and how it finally took shape. He could even zoom in on an individual microscopic energy node to examine it.

The enormous amount of data dazzled Su Luo. He hurriedly withdrew from the crystal and fell silent for a moment.

In other words, he could now obtain precise data on spell models and spell releases—and the precision was extremely high!

Once he had finished learning the Skill Books, could he even use this crystal to further optimize complex spell models, or even create new spells?

Su Luo began to look forward to it.

Having finished inspecting the equipment, Su Luo turned his attention to the random Skill Books.

[Elemental Perception (green)]

[Lightness Guidance (green)]

[Conductivity (green)]

[Earth Escape (green)]

Su Luo picked up the Skill Books and gave them a cursory look.

[Earth Escape] overlapped with [Earth Collapse Spell], while [Lightness Guidance] overlapped with [Gale Step]. He would leave them all off his learning list for now.

Su Luo hesitated over [Elemental Perception], then decided to learn it later.

[Conductivity] didn't fit his primary discipline, so he would file it away for reference.

[Spell Permanence Technique (fragmentary) (blue)]

"What the heck? The fragmentary version is already blue? Wouldn't the complete version be purple?"

Stunned, Su Luo picked up the Skill Book and read it. He flipped through it for ages without reaching the end. It had a full thirty chapters, and the page count was enormous.

This was where the peculiar nature of the system's Skill Books needed explaining.

No matter whether a Skill Book contained hundreds, thousands, or tens of thousands of pages, it always looked the same thickness from the outside.

It was just bizarre.

After flipping through it for a long time, Su Luo got a general idea of what it did.

He immersed himself in the book, and the principles it described shocked him. It described a forbidden technique that separated a spell model, reverse-compiled it, and "welded" its effect onto physical matter or a spatial structure.

In the system's words: It allowed you to temporarily make a mastered spell effect or model permanent within an object or area, continuously consuming your Mana. The duration and strength of the effect depended on your mental attribute, skill level, and the spell's complexity.

In plain language: Enchanting!