"Recently, I haven't gone out much to carry out Academy missions. Mentor got me four months of extended leave, so for now, I don't have any Magic Beast Cores or flesh and blood to give you."
"But in an experiment I just completed today, an exhausted blank crystal was left behind. I wonder if you'd be interested?" Saine pulled a transparent, crystal-clear Energy Crystal from his robes.
The surging, abundant Element Power once contained within this Energy Crystal had been completely drained away.
Only faint yellow threads of elemental energy, too fine for the naked eye to see, remained intertwined within the crystal, marking that there were still a few scraps left inside.
Owl Qi was not picky. Or rather, it had no room to be picky.
With a slight lift of its brown hooked beak, the blank crystal in Saine's hand flew into its mouth.
The hard Energy Crystal was chewed into fragments beneath Qi's hooked beak.
Its excellent teeth and powerful bite had astonished Saine more than once in secret.
"Gugu, gugu. Being the disciple of a Formal Black Wizard really does have a future, especially when your mentor is Master Moxidu."
"In the entire Black Wizard Academy, I imagine no Black Magician besides Master Moxidu possesses such a large stockpile of Energy Crystals," Owl Qi said with a series of gugu calls.
Even in Mentor Moxidu's laboratory, Energy Crystals of this grade counted as high-end goods.
As for Energy Crystals of an even higher grade, Saine had only seen them a handful of times in recent years. They were treasures known as Level-One Energy Essence.
Owl Qi ate very quickly.
With a single gulp, the blank crystal that had been as large as a fist in Saine's hand was completely swallowed by the creature.
After chatting with Owl Qi for a few more moments, Saine walked over to a tree stump marked with obvious cuts and sat down.
His eyes narrowed slightly as Saine began his routine Mental Strength meditation training.
Starting three years ago, Saine had discovered that the elemental concentration deep within White Crow Forest was not low.
Moreover, the atmosphere here was exceptionally tranquil and comfortable, making it most suitable for Magic Apprentices like him to meditate.
Its meditation efficiency was actually a notch higher than that of the small side room in Mentor Moxidu's quarters, where an Energy Gathering Magic Array had been inscribed.
Once Saine entered his meditative state, Owl Qi stopped disturbing him.
It did not even make the slightest sound with its wings. Who knew when it had silently departed.
For the next while, only the faint calls of insects and birds, along with the soft rustling of wind through leaves, could be heard throughout White Crow Forest.
In such an atmosphere, Saine's meditation efficiency rose considerably.
When Saine emerged from his meditative state and looked up, Academy time had already reached evening.
Owl Qi had flown off somewhere. Academy Supervisors like it were sometimes quite busy; perhaps it had gone to deal with some unexpected incident.
Shaking his Magic Robe, which had been slightly dampened by forest dew, Saine left one footprint after another as he slowly walked out of White Crow Forest.
Unlike when he had arrived in the morning, White Crow Forest was now dotted with tiny white lights.
These white lights were, in fact, the origin of White Crow Forest's name.
According to Saine's research, the source of those white lights was a thumb-sized white insect. After drawing tree sap at a particular time, its tail naturally emitted white light.
Beneath the reflection of those brilliant, beautiful specks of white, Saine's black figure gradually disappeared.
He came to White Crow Forest to meditate every few days, so he was no longer as thrilled and curious as he had been when he first saw these white lights.
Yet the white lights scattered throughout every corner of the forest reminded Saine of the boundless brilliance of the deep stars in the night sky of the Surface World, buried deep in his memories.
When Saine returned to the dormitory, his girlfriend Lina came back at almost the same time.
Because she had assisted Mentor Feilunna with a Dark Magic experiment today, Lina looked somewhat exhausted.
But when she saw Saine busy in the kitchen, Lina still roused herself and went over to help him prepare dinner.
After several years, Lina's cooking had improved somewhat.
At the very least, she no longer made a complete mess while cooking, and sometimes she could even independently prepare relatively simple dishes.
Seeing Lina appear beside him to help, a faint warmth rose in Saine's heart.
His daily time with Lina allowed Saine to temporarily forget the perils of the Underground World and the heavy burden of his magical studies.
Lina likely felt the same way, because Saine increasingly felt that, through their long years together, their hearts had come to understand each other without words.
Yet the one thing that made Saine feel somewhat uncomfortable and weighed down today was the request Senior Sister Fei'er had made of him during the day.
Saine did not know whether this counted as betrayal, much less whether he should mention it to Lina.
From what Saine knew of Lina, if he told her about it, the hot-tempered Lina would very likely go straight to Senior Sister Fei'er for a duel.
Both women were close people who had helped Saine greatly. He did not want to see anything terrible happen.
There was something off about Saine's mood and state, and Lina, who had lived with him for more than a decade, naturally noticed it quickly.
But since Saine did not say anything, Lina did not rashly question him either.
Nearly everyone thought Lina was a "crazy woman." Her way of doing things in particular made many apprentices of the same level, and even some stronger than her, wary of her.
But only Saine knew that deep down, Lina was actually quite calm.
Every time she did something impulsive, Lina had already instantly considered the consequences and whether she could bear them.
Perhaps it was precisely because of this that, despite her reputation as a "crazy woman" spreading far and wide, she had survived until now and was even doing better and better.
A true madwoman or fool could never have reached the level of an Advanced Apprentice, much less become the disciple of a Formal Black Wizard.
A few years ago, or even earlier, when faced with Saine acting like this, Lina would have directly asked whether something had happened.
But now, Lina did not rashly ask.
Because she knew that if Saine wanted to tell her, he would naturally speak.
If Saine did not want to say it, she was unwilling to force him.
At some point, Lina had also begun to care deeply about Saine's feelings.
Together, Saine and Lina prepared a dinner that would have been excessively lavish for other Low-Level Apprentices.
At the dining table, Saine still did not say anything. As usual, he merely held a book of Magic Books and read while eating.
Saine had read this book of Magic Books more than twenty times from beginning to end. For some reason, the more he read it, the more flavor he found in it.
Each time he came across certain detailed notes, Saine gained new insights.
This book of Magic Books was none other than the Ankeda Annotations. Saine guessed that its author, Master Ankeda, was very likely no ordinary Formal Magician.
He might have been someone even stronger than Saine's mentor, Moxidu, perhaps already at the level of the Academy heads.
For example, Saine was currently reading this passage—"Wizards are the source of all Spellcaster professions in the Wizard World. Wizards have never divided the systems and contents of knowledge they explore too rigidly. So long as knowledge is useful to wizards, they will study and master it."
Saine wholeheartedly agreed with this annotation.
Just like how he was ostensibly a Fire-element Magic Apprentice and an Alchemy Apprentice, yet had also dabbled in a small amount of Dark Magic and potion-making knowledge.
It was not that Saine was greedy for too much. He was simply genuinely interested in these fields.
Moreover, he believed that even a cursory study would bring him immense benefits.
Besides, who said that because Saine had relatively high Elemental Affinity for fire, light, and darkness, he could only study magic from those three elements?
Plant Element, Earth Element, water element, wind element... and even the relatively rare lightning element, poison element, Mystic System, Summoning Element, and other fields of magical knowledge he might encounter in the future—as long as Saine was interested, he would try to dabble in them.
After all, the acquisition of knowledge and the exploration of the mysteries of magical elements were the inexhaustible driving force behind the continued growth of Magicians like them.
Carefully using a magic quill to leave a line of notes in the corner of a page in the Ankeda Annotations, Saine closed it securely.
Looking at Lina, who had also finished eating, Saine said, "Let's not clean up today. Let's rest early."
Before you continue