The Bookish Apprentice

Having found a direction for further optimizing his spell model, Taylor went straight to Oak and exchanged for the most basic apprentice book on the Chaos Concept from the Apprentice Library.

Over the past half year, Taylor's mental power and magic power had also improved greatly. His frenzied task-taking earned him the title of task maniac among the other apprentices.

In the White Tower Alliance of the past, every wizard apprentice took on as few tasks as possible. They only accepted more when they needed to save up points, while the rest of their time was spent studying knowledge and conducting experiments. Their points were always in short supply.

Normally, a wizard apprentice accepted tasks about once or twice a week. Taylor, however, took tasks every single day and would not stop unless he was injured.

Moreover, Taylor carried out all kinds of apprentice tasks during the day, then set aside plenty of time at night for study and experiments. He even replaced sleep with meditation. It seemed that, compared with the other wizard apprentices, he had lost his daytime hours for studying and experimentation, but in reality, he had not fallen far behind them.

It was not until they learned that Taylor had frantically taken tasks, accumulated a huge number of points, and then leisurely studied his own knowledge, conducted his own experiments, and researched his own spells that they understood what it meant to suffer first and enjoy later.

Thus, all the wizard apprentices began imitating Taylor's method of suffering first and enjoying later. They first squeezed themselves dry, diligently took tasks, and farmed points. Once they had enough points, they exchanged them for the experimental materials and spell knowledge they needed to conduct their own research.

By himself, Taylor had suddenly driven the apprentice system into fierce competition. The wizards who issued tasks were surprised, and some of them also took notice of the apprentice who had led this competition and possessed considerable talent.

Wizard Krite also recalled what Wizard Mendes had told him back then and began to take a slight interest in Tate.

Taylor had spent a great deal of time farming points and had even used quite a few points to heal the injuries he suffered while carrying out tasks. The fruits of such desperate effort were naturally large and sweet.

In truth, as long as they treated their tasks seriously and maintained sufficient caution and confidence, apprentices would not encounter much danger while carrying out tasks with the various round medals distributed for those tasks—unless they were patrolling dangerous Monster Forests.

Apprentices were helpers, not disposable goods.

After obtaining enough points, Taylor not only exchanged for Basic Apprentice Analysis of the Chaos Concept from the Apprentice Library, but also traded with Oak for the Gale Spell spell model, the Spider's Eye Witchcraft Tool crafting method, and finally, the Flame Medal.

The Flame Medal Oak had sponsored as a friendly favor truly came at a friendly price. Of the four things Taylor had exchanged for, the Flame Medal was actually the cheapest. If handled properly, a witchcraft tool crafting method could become a gold mine, so its price of six hundred points was justified. As for spell models, according to Oak, every additional spell model became more expensive the further one advanced.

After all, every spell model—even lesser spells for apprentices and unranked spells—was a foundation for apprentices to strengthen their own power.

The Chaos Concept was extremely uncommon among wizard apprentices, and it was rare knowledge. Some wizards themselves did not have particularly deep research into chaos. That was precisely why Basic Apprentice Analysis of the Chaos Concept was worth three hundred points, three times the price of ordinary apprentice knowledge.

Over the half year of desperately taking tasks, Taylor had grown familiar with the three-headed lion he often fed. Perhaps because it was terribly bored from staying in its cage all the time, or because Taylor was the only one who frequently accepted the task of feeding Stitched Beasts, the three-headed lion gradually became increasingly gentle toward him under his regular feedings.

Just a month earlier, after completing a feeding, Taylor had given the three heads of the lion three names: Blazing Fire, Venom, and Gale. They were simple names, but they suited their abilities well.

Although Taylor had gained a little fame, he had very few friends. He was unwilling to carve out time from studying, research, meditation, or tasks for socializing, so while carrying out tasks, he had built a good relationship with the three-headed lion, one of the few powerful Stitched Beasts.

There was no particular reason for building that relationship. A Stitched Beast was still a Stitched Beast, and an apprentice was still an apprentice; whether it could help him in the future was another matter entirely. Taylor had befriended the three-headed lion simply so that he had someone to talk to. Keeping everything bottled up without saying a word could easily drive a person into psychological madness.

Taylor held a quill and rapidly wrote all kinds of conjectures about Black Mist, along with some extended concepts of mental power, in his notebook on the Chaos Concept.

He also wanted to transfer this chaotic concept from the Black Mist spell he had already learned to the Spider's Eye Witchcraft Tool, the first witchcraft tool he wished to try crafting.

With that thought in mind, Taylor opened another notebook. It recorded material analyses for the Spider's Eye Witchcraft Tool, analyses of the monsters involved, the extent to which the quality of a spider's eyes affected the Spider's Eye Witchcraft Tool, the crafting steps for the Spider's Eye Witchcraft Tool and its corresponding twelve spell runes, as well as the web and binding Illusion Ray carried by the Spider's Eye.

After flipping through more than a dozen pages, nearly twenty in total, Taylor dipped the quill in his hand into ink and continued writing below.

If the Chaos Concept is added to the Illusion Ray, can it completely overturn the opponent's mental space on the level of illusion, thereby prying open mental flaws and creating further chaos...

There are still two vacant slots among the spell runes of the Spider's Eye Witchcraft Tool. This is probably the most primitive witchcraft tool crafting method, intended to let apprentices further update and modify it, creating witchcraft tools of their own. To that end, spell runes representing chaos and weakness can be added to this system of twelve spell runes, forming a more stable closed loop and enhancing effects such as the Illusion Ray and web binding.

Taylor wrote down all his recent insights and thoughts regarding the countless aspects of researching the Spider's Eye Witchcraft Tool and Basic Apprentice Analysis of the Chaos Concept. He had developed new views on the Apprentice Library's knowledge system, witchcraft tool crafting, and spell models.

If Oak had still been here at that moment, he definitely would have told Taylor that his so-called new discoveries and new ideas were actually old, familiar notions.

Powerful wizards greatly encouraged innovation and creation. Therefore, all witchcraft tools, crafting methods, spell models, and the like were merely the most primitive versions, leaving ample room for updates and modifications.

No matter how great or small knowledge was, as long as it contained innovation and further deduction, it would flourish. That was also what the White Wizards pursued.