Borrowing Money to Develop

"Did he offend someone?" Thor asked.

"I heard he brought a high-level Elvish language book with him, thinking he could study it once he became an apprentice. Turns out, he was found in the flowerbed this morning." Keli leaned in close to Thor, deliberately using a low, raspy voice to scare him. "They say he cut his own legs into several strips and buried them in the soil like plant roots. By the time he was discovered, he had almost bled to death."

"Can he still be saved?"

"Who knows? Anyway, he had already been hauled away by the time I rushed over." Keli sounded somewhat regretful.

"Aren't you afraid?" Thor looked at Keli, this ten-year-old girl, with some surprise.

Keli rested her chin on her hand and muttered, "I knew what the Wizard world was probably like before I came here. It's not much different from my home; people are always dying for no reason."

The incident with the crazed new apprentice was just a minor interlude. Keli quickly shifted the topic to her experience of carrying a bucket to see Mentor Gudo yesterday.

"...I feel like Mentor Gudo is quite willing to teach me, but he just can't stop vomiting. The large bucket I prepared for him was half as tall as a person, yet it was filled to the brim in less than an hour. I really can't fathom how he manages to eat so much!"

"Heh..." Thor felt both nauseated and amused.

Keli suddenly tilted her head to look at Thor. "You finally smiled. When you first walked in, you were like a walking corpse."

Thor's smile faded, and he rubbed his face with his hand.

Was he really looking that haggard?

Only the blunt and straightforward Keli would point that out.

The person responsible for teaching the course on Basic Cognition of All Things was a Level 2 apprentice.

He was skin and bones with sunken cheeks, looking even more like a corpse than Thor.

He didn't pay any attention to interaction during class; he just droned on in a flat, monotonous tone, reading the content from the textbook, which made Thor feel drowsy.

Thor simply opened the book to read it himself.

Because of yesterday's eventful experiences, he hadn't had time to preview today's material.

Basic Cognition of All Things was like a hodgepodge that fused biology, chemistry, history, and geography.

Anything recorded in a Wizard apprentice's textbook possessed, to some degree, the characteristics of sorcery.

For instance, Thor saw a type of grass in the plant section that could increase one's magic power.

But the price was that the person who consumed it would become a mindless puppet; rather than helping someone increase their magic power, it was more like sacrificing oneself to refine magic crystals for others.

There were ten volumes of Basic Cognition of All Things in total, each ten centimeters thick. It was impossible to finish reading them quickly.

Thor picked the parts that interested him and occasionally looked up to stretch his limbs.

At this moment, he saw Keli's two former followers, Duoze and Luoke, sitting beside Duke and whispering about something.

Keli, sitting to the side, showed no reaction to this.

"What are you looking at?" Keli noticed Thor's gaze, followed it, and also spotted the little scheme Duoze and his group were pulling.

She curled her lip. "They want to isolate you. How childish, just like little kids."

This class turned into a self-study session; eventually, some people even started studying knowledge from other courses.

The Level 2 apprentice on the podium had only read through the content of the first section of the book, and once finished, he went back to reading his own books, completely ignoring the people below.

"No wonder I didn't see many old apprentices in this class. I suppose they all know it's useless," Keli muttered. She regretted not bringing other books with her.

"Keli, could you lend me some magic crystals?" After brewing over it for a long time, Thor finally gathered the courage to ask Keli.

"What do you need magic crystals for?" Keli looked at him guardedly. "I don't do deals where the money goes out and never comes back!"

"I want to go to the library to borrow two books."

"Someone just went crazy from reading books randomly; aren't you afraid?"

Thor said sincerely, "I won't read randomly, but I really need some special books right now."

Keli didn't ask specifically what books Thor wanted to read. After hesitating for a moment, she poured five black, translucent diamond-shaped pieces out of her purse.

"I can only lend you five. You have to pay me back in three months... pay me back..."

"Ten."

"Deal!"

"Do we need to write an IOU?"

"Of course!"

Thor tore a page from his blank notebook, and the two of them concluded their first financial transaction.

The first class passed, and the second class was the one everyone was looking forward to immensely: Rune Construction.

Rune Construction was the foundation for casting sorcery.

However, to everyone's disappointment, the lecturer for this class was still just a Level 2 apprentice.

This guy was even worse; he only explained the most basic rune drawing once and then told everyone to practice on their own.

Many newcomers only understood half of what was said and wanted him to explain it again, but the guy actually wanted to charge money for a repeat explanation!

As soon as Thor heard about the money, he simply gave up.

He recalled the knowledge points that had just been explained, felt that he remembered them quite clearly, and began to trace the first basic rune in his mind.

With his eyes closed, the first basic rune was clearly imprinted in Thor's mind.

He opened his eyes, stunned for a moment, feeling somewhat incredulous.

"I think I've... already memorized it?"

To prevent a situation where his eyes had memorized it but his hands had not, Thor picked up a pen and wrote it out on a blank sheet of paper.

He opened the book and compared the rune he had written with the one in the book.

They were identical!

Even the curvature of every line was exactly the same!

Thor closed the book and tried again. This time, he switched to a special pen and ink, and as the lecturer on the podium had instructed, he began to channel the mana within his body to the tip of the pen.

The strokes were difficult this time.

The mana had to be output evenly and coordinated with the manipulation of mental power to construct a basic rune.

If any step in this process was not performed well, it would cause the rune to collapse, rendering the mana ineffective and leaving nothing but an ordinary pattern on the white paper.

Thor was fully focused.

And then, Success!

Although it was only drawn on ordinary white paper, the surface of the rune shimmered with strange colors, and the emanating mana fluctuations were clearly perceptible.

"You, you succeeded?" Keli widened her eyes and murmured.

She had originally intended to spend some money to hear the explanation again, but seeing Thor succeed on his first try, she suddenly felt that if she studied it a bit more, she should be able to do it too.

Thor did not notice Keli's voice; his gaze had already shifted to the next basic rune.

The second one.

Success!

A great success!

The third one.

Success!

The fourth one.

...Failure.

Thor frowned.

This failure was not because the rune he memorized was wrong, but because he had run out of mana.

Could his own mana only sustain three runes?

Or was there a problem with the way he was outputting his mana?

Thor finally felt the profound danger of having insufficient mana.

No wonder Kongsha felt she had him cornered, and no wonder Instructor Kazi was not even willing to spare him a second glance.

Thor's chest heaved violently a few times, but he finally calmed down slowly.

What are you panicking for? he said to himself in his heart, Haven't you already made up your mind?

Thor took out the crystal ball and the Human-Monster Walking Diagram and began to meditate to restore his mana.

There was an advantage to having little mana: it recovered quickly.

One must learn to view things dialectically.

Thor's success in drawing three runes in a row had long since attracted the attention of the entire class.

It was not just the new apprentices; even the veteran apprentices and the Level 2 apprentice on the podium were shocked by the series of mana fluctuations coming from Thor's direction.

A few newcomers who had intended to spend money to have the Level 2 apprentice teach them even faltered in their steps, preparing to ask Thor for guidance instead.

However, when these people saw that Thor had only drawn three runes before starting to meditate, they began to hesitate.

Could there be some problem with the newcomer's rune construction? Besides, one couldn't just go over and interrupt someone's meditation.

Duke, sitting in front, rolled his eyes, turned around to say something to his two companions, and then picked up his own rune and rushed to the podium—every apprentice who came from the outside had prepared at least some magic crystals.

The Level 2 apprentice on the podium seemed very satisfied that Duke was the first to approach him; he lowered his voice and told him a great deal, making the newcomers below look on with envy.

And Duke always cooperated by wearing an expression of sudden realization, as if to say, "So that's how it is."

Sitting at the edge of the classroom, Angela slowly shifted her large, cute eyes from the podium toward the back of the room, finally landing on Thor, and revealed an expression of interest.