Apprentice

Even more fortunately, Evan learned from the diary that only those who truly possessed the aptitude could see the notebook's strange phenomenon beneath the moonlight.

This proved that Evan himself possessed the most important prerequisite for becoming a wizard!

The only thing Evan found somewhat regrettable was that the notebook contained only one most basic meditation method and a mere three potion formulas that could be considered a legacy of knowledge. If Evan chose to become a part-time wizard, he would have to seek out all the mysterious knowledge required for future advancement himself. It would be nowhere near as convenient as training as a knight.

However, after careful consideration, Evan ultimately decided to take it on part-time!

There might be some risk, but the benefits were clearly greater. After all, wizards stood at the top of the extraordinary hierarchy. Anyone who had the opportunity and still refused to take it would be an idiot.

Even Uncle Gell, a peak Second-Order Extraordinary Person, was somewhat dissatisfied with the knights' current situation. Naturally, Evan did not want to define himself as nothing more than a high-level thug.

Only those who had experienced it understood how important it was to have more choices at a critical moment!

"Phew—!"

Having made such a major decision, Evan felt as though a weight had been lifted from his heart. Only after carefully stowing the notebook against his body did he realize that he had gone nearly a full day without eating.

Patting his growling stomach, he simply called Gary along to a restaurant to settle his belated breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

Only then did he get the chance to learn from Gary what happened afterward last night.

"We waited at the docks for ages. The strange thing was that after they finished counting, they said nothing was missing. But we clearly saw that thief carrying a package!"

Last night, after the officers on the Supply Ship finished their inventory, they found that no valuables had been lost. They merely assumed the thief had been frightened off in time and had not managed to steal anything.

After thanking Gary and the others for their warning, the matter was left unresolved.

Evan touched the item hidden in his clothes, finally quietly setting aside his last trace of concern.

What he did not know was this.

This precious Sorcery Notebook had actually been treated as an ordinary book and mixed in with a pile of at least a hundred books of various kinds, ready to be transported to the next Naval Base to replenish its library collection.

On the Supply Ship's inventory list, the unit used for those books was "one pile." That was why the officer escorting the shipment had not noticed at all what had gone missing.

"How strange!"

How had "Zorro" learned in advance about something even the quartermaster had failed to notice? And judging from the layers upon layers of "packaging," he had clearly treated this book with great care. He obviously already knew its true nature.

Evan himself only realized after reading Leon's notebook that he had done something reckless again.

The best way to deal with an inexplicable sorcery item was not to touch it. Even if one had to touch it, one should at least take sufficient safety precautions like "Zorro" before doing so.

Fortunately, Leon's notebook contained neither curses nor sorcery traps, allowing Evan to escape a possible stroke of misfortune.

In the middle of the night, the entire city had fallen silent. The faint sound of waves occasionally drifting in through the window only made the room seem even more secluded and lonely.

The moonlight was soft and cold as it shone over the youth on the bed.

Strangely, he was not lying on the bed, but sitting cross-legged with his eyes lightly closed and a smile on his lips, as though his entire body had sunk into a state of strange tranquility.

The wall clock ticked away, and no one knew how long this state had lasted.

"Ding—! Spirit attribute unlocked!"

Evan's eyes flew open, and a line of data slowly appeared within a field of vision no one else could see.

Name: Evan Garratt

Gender: Male

Military Rank: Captain (Third Fleet of the Faletis Kingdom, Silver Wing)

Class: Peak Apprentice Knight / Apprentice Wizard

Attributes: Constitution 0.95

Strength 0.92

Agility 0.98

Spirit 0.28

Skills: Basic Meditation (Beginner) White Sail Swordsmanship (Mastery) Faletis Sabre Art (Mastery) Archery (Mastery) Grammar (Mastery) Navigation Knowledge (Beginner) Apothecary Arts (Beginner)

The principles behind Data Vision were far too mystical, and Evan had already stopped trying to investigate them. Now, it could even quantify the ethereal Spirit Power. He felt that he had underestimated this "Golden Finger" before. When he first acquired it, calling it a "Golden Fingernail" had truly wronged it.

The intelligence attribute that had originally been in the attribute panel had now been replaced by the spirit attribute, and its initial value was as high as 0.28 rather than starting from zero as he had imagined. Thinking about it carefully, this made sense. Failing to use a meditation method to activate one's Spirit Power did not mean that Spirit Power had never existed in the first place.

It was like how, before knight training, one's constitution, strength, and agility already possessed baseline values.

Although Evan did not know what level an initial value of 0.28 represented among wizards, judging from how he had entered the meditative state after only one session and quickly unlocked the spirit attribute, his aptitude should have been fairly good.

After closing the attribute panel, Evan discovered that his senses had become much sharper with the activation of his Spirit Power. Everything in his eyes became more vivid, he could hear the rustling of tiny insects outside the room, and his sensitive skin seemed able to feel the almost imperceptible flow of air within the room.

This was an experience he had never encountered during knight training. For some reason, a saying from a Taoist scripture from his previous life suddenly popped into Evan's mind: "To cultivate life but not nature is the first sickness of cultivation; to cultivate nature but not life leaves one a yin spirit, unable to enter sainthood through countless eons."

Could cultivating both magic and martial arts be the correct approach? However, Evan would not learn the answer to that question until much later.

He jumped down from the bed.

Evan reopened Leon's notebook and marked the only three extraordinary methods within it: three potions. They were all Leon's own proud inventions, capable of producing miraculous effects comparable to magical potions using relatively cheap ingredients.

Although none of them possessed the magical offensive abilities Evan had imagined wizards would have, he did not feel disappointed. In terms of combat ability, an Apprentice level wizard might not even be a match for an ordinary sailor who was fully armed. As a knight by profession, Evan did not lack that little bit of combat power.

What he valued most were wizards' auxiliary methods. With these, Evan was already quite satisfied.

The three potions were as follows:

The first was Birdsong Potion. This potion was not for humans to drink. Instead, after being prepared, it was fed to birds as an Assistance Potion, nurturing spiritually aware birds. It could turn these spirits of the sky into excellent scouts, spreading their eyes and ears far and wide and greatly expanding the scouting range.

The second was called Whale Potion. It was a cultivation Assistance Potion for Formal Knights. A knight's daily routine generally consisted of combat, training, and one other extremely important thing... eating. Eating was a crucial part of a knight's life. Sufficient energy intake was the foundation of a knight's powerful physical fitness.

Its effect was to greatly accelerate digestion. The more one ate, the faster the body would undergo Savage Body Transformation, eventually allowing one to stand shoulder to shoulder with large predatory beasts such as lions and tigers. In Evan's eyes, it was simply an enhanced version of "chew a digestive tablet before and after meals."

The third was called Extraction Potion. Used together with Whale Potion, it could transform the essence of flesh and blood from savage animals or large Sea Beasts into nutrients humans could absorb. It was practically a holy medicine for those walking the Knight's Path, and it also provided extremely strong assistance to the fragile bodies of wizards.