Fire

"Congratulations, little Duke."

"Not bad, not bad. If you have any problems with meditation in the future, come and ask me."

After learning that Duke had opened his Spirit Sea, Card Masters Dilanke and Sane both expressed their goodwill.

Only Best, the Card Master Duke had previously followed, showed no reaction after hearing the news. Instead, he snorted and busied himself with card repairs.

When he passed Duke, he muttered indistinctly, "So what if you opened your Spirit Sea? You only got there by taking drugs. That's all the talent you have."

Duke heard him.

But he did not bother arguing.

A vast transcendent world had unveiled itself before him, with endless mysteries waiting to be explored. He had neither the energy nor the interest to get entangled with a bottom-feeder cultivator like Best.

Old Sam did not assign him any work.

So he spent the entire morning trying to repair the energy pathways in Spirit Cards. From time to time, he would ask Dilanke and Sane for advice, but most of the time he analyzed and summarized things with Xiao Yi.

Time flew, and before he knew it, it was time to get off work.

"Bob, I'm leaving."

"All right. Go back and get some rest." Bob waved with a smile.

Duke returned to the small courtyard he had newly rented at No. 237, Second Vertical Street. It was only a small alley away from Little Sam's Card Shop, making his commute extremely convenient.

He did not hurry to cook.

He put on a pair of sturdy cowhide boots, slung a tattered canvas bag over his back, and left home, walking toward the farms on the outskirts of town. Once he passed beyond the outskirts, he could see quite a few knights patrolling.

Most of the knights were on horseback, but the knight leading them was not riding a horse. Instead, he rode a tall wolf-like Spirit Beast.

They wore leather armor instead of metal armor, each suit bearing the crest of the Black Snake Family. Clearly, they belonged to the Black Snake Family's knight patrol guard.

Duke walked along the field ridge without attracting the knights' attention.

After crossing the farm, just as he was about to enter the thicket ahead, he saw warning signs planted beside a canal at regular intervals.

They read: "You are leaving the patrol zone. Danger!"

Duke looked around. Aside from the farmers working the fields, whom he could see near the farm, there was no one else around.

He silently manifested the Desert Eagle pistol, gripping this First-Ring Arcane Artifact that had never fired a shot. Then he quietly climbed over the ditch and walked into the thicket.

Humans had never been the masters of the primeval wilderness. The settlements they had carved out were merely one part of it.

Thus, beyond the safe zones and patrol areas around the towns, unknown dangers lurked everywhere. But as long as he did not venture too deep into the thicket, it would certainly be no more dangerous than the shipping routes.

In fact, many hunters from the small towns crossed the patrol zones to hunt in the dangerous forests.

The high-level Spirit Beasts that had once prowled the surrounding area had been completely wiped out by human firepower during one Pioneer War after another, leaving only some ordinary Spirit Beasts to hop around.

"All right."

"This is deep enough. If I fire here, no one should hear the gunshot. I'll hunt here." Duke climbed a large tree on all fours. "Xiao Yi, pay attention to recording the Desert Eagle's firing data."

"Yes, Master."

There were many small beasts in the thicket. Duke had crouched in the tree for less than fifteen minutes when a rustling sound caught his attention. Looking closely, he saw a black-haired wild boar, rooting around for food while periodically raising its head to survey its surroundings.

It was nearly twenty meters away.

Duke gripped the Desert Eagle pistol with both hands and aimed at the black-haired wild boar's head.

Before the black-haired wild boar sensed anything, he swiftly pulled the trigger. A single bang rang out, and Duke felt a tremendous force slam back through both his arms. He nearly lost his grip on the Desert Eagle.

At the same time,

a spray of blood suddenly burst from the black-haired wild boar's head.

The next moment, the black-haired wild boar collapsed onto the ground, squealing and convulsing. In less than ten seconds, the spasms stopped, and the black-haired wild boar was completely dead.

"Whew!"

Duke exhaled a breath of foul air.

As the Desert Eagle in his hand scattered into specks of shimmering light and vanished, he realized that this single shot had been enough to make it impossible to maintain its manifestation. Nearly forty drops of Spirit Liquid in his Spirit Sea had been completely drained by one shot.

He waited for a moment, making sure there were no other beasts nearby, before jumping down.

He hurried over to the black-haired wild boar.

The bullet hole in the black-haired wild boar's head was still gushing blood. The Desert Eagle's shot had pierced straight through its skull, then continued into its shoulder blade.

"Not bad."

Duke rolled the black-haired wild boar over and suddenly discovered that its shoulder blade had also been pierced. After carefully searching the ground, he found the mark left by the bullet.

It had even penetrated nearly half a meter into the earth.

However, after digging through the soil, Duke did not find the bullet head. "It must have dissipated. After all, the Desert Eagle is now a First-Ring Arcane Artifact, not a real pistol."

He was extremely satisfied with this result.

That way, after the Desert Eagle finished a hunt, it would leave nothing behind except bullet holes.

"By the way, Xiao Yi, what do you think of the power of that shot? Could it kill a 1-Ring Spirit Beast?" Duke struggled to cut open the black-haired wild boar's hind leg with a small knife. He planned to take one leg home and salt it.

There was no way he could carry the entire boar back, and it would also be difficult to explain how he had hunted it.

Xiao Yi replied, "According to the existing data, ordinary beasts have weaker physical qualities than 0-Ring Spirit Beasts. Since the Desert Eagle's shot pierced straight through the black-haired wild boar's body, it could definitely kill a 0-Ring Spirit Beast. However, 1-Ring Spirit Beasts have extremely powerful physical qualities. Unless the shot hits a vital weakness, or the target is a Spirit Beast with a weaker body, killing one will not be easy."

"What about a 1-Ring Great Knight?"

"There is insufficient data. Unable to deduce."

"All right." Duke cut off the boar's hind leg, shook off the blood, and roughly stuffed it into the canvas bag. "A 1-Ring Great Knight is tough and thick-skinned, so it's hard to say. But if a 1-Ring Arcane Mage isn't paying attention and I ambush them with a shot, I'm afraid I could blast their soul apart... But then again, it's hard to say. I heard that 1-Ring Arcane Mages can solidify arcana. What if they have an instant defensive arcana..."

He had only just stepped into the transcendent world. Everything was unknown to him.

He wiped his hands.

With a black-haired wild boar's hind leg on his back, Duke hurried toward Snakehead Town beneath the afterglow of the setting sun. Although his Spirit Liquid had been wrung dry and his body was somewhat fatigued, his spirit remained feverishly excited.

No knights came to question him, and he returned to town without incident.

He bought a bag of salt, scraped the hair from the boar's hind leg, carefully salted it, and hung it in the stairwell to air-dry. It was already the end of May, and the weather was growing hotter. Without salting it—and with no refrigerator—it would spoil very easily.

After dinner,

he read until late at night, then washed up and went to sleep once he grew drowsy.

Even after lying in bed, he continued chatting with Xiao Yi. "Xiao Yi, share with me what you gained from reading just now."

"All right, Master. Tonight, you read Ring of Skills, which discussed the construction of spell models through energy circuits. A 'ring' is an interpretation and record of Spiritual Arcana. For a ring to be considered complete, it must first achieve the circulation of energy. Only circulating energy can reveal the endless mysteries of Spiritual Arcana..."