Ramsoda 1

After leaving Nancy's room, Anglie finally took a deep breath. The smile on his face slowly faded.

He glanced down the corridor on either side. There were no apprentices in sight, only the faint sound of footsteps drifting down from above, slowly drawing closer.

Anglie tightened his collar, covering the scars on his neck, then strode toward the stairwell and headed downstairs.

"Zero, how much radiation energy did you absorb just now?"

"1.35% of the energy in the necklace. The escaping energy was extremely weak. The item's surface has comprehensive anti-radiation measures, so absorption cannot be accelerated," the Chip replied precisely.

"Good. Any more, and she might have noticed."

Anglie hurried down the stairs toward the fifth floor. He had only just reached the level of a First-Rank Apprentice, yet an opportunity to speed up his breakthrough had fallen into his lap. How could he not be impatient?

"I might have offended Nancy, but at most she'll have a bad impression of me. We don't even know when we'll be able to return after setting out this time. According to Instructor Adolf, even letters can only be sent when the once-every-three-years ship transporting new recruits departs. Going there and back, it'll probably take at least four years to get a reply. By then, such a trivial matter will surely have been forgotten long ago."

Anglie quickly returned to his room and locked the door behind him. He was feeling somewhat excited. He casually took the Wizard's Book from the desk drawer and gently opened it to the page he had last read. What appeared on the page was not Wizard meditation material, but the autobiographical recollections of the Wizard who had written it.

He needed to calm and focus himself. Being too excited was not conducive to entering a meditative state quickly.

"But I have to be able to truly sense energy myself before I can use the absorbed energy to speed up my progress. Otherwise, my foundation may end up unstable." Anglie understood the importance of foundations very well, and silently warned himself.

Fifteen days later, the merchant ship carrying the many apprentices separated from the convoy and turned toward the nearby coastline. It ran aground on a desolate beach strewn with jagged rocks.

Most of the apprentices aboard disembarked here after reporting the names of their destination organizations. Led by a black-robed figure waiting on the shore, they left the coast. Among those who departed were Nancy, Eli, and Jia De, who possessed fourth-level aptitude.

Anglie, Yuri, and Villet remained behind. Lü Lando also got off the ship. The Wizard organization he was heading to also had to be reached on foot from here.

After leaving the coast again, only a dozen or so apprentices remained aboard the ship.

The salty sea breeze struck his face, while the warm evening sunlight shone over him. Anglie felt a contradictory mix of coolness and warmth.

The dim yellow light of the sunset dyed the ship and sea a golden red. Standing by the rail, Anglie watched the coastline gradually vanish from view. He said nothing, simply gazing quietly into the distance.

Beside him, Yuri stood in the same way. All around the ship, the water shimmered with golden-red ripples.

"The whole ship suddenly feels so much emptier. It feels deserted," Yuri said, scratching his head.

"After leaving this time, we might never see them again," Anglie said calmly.

"I heard there are more than ten thousand kilometers of land between here and our destination. It really will be hard to meet again." Yuri sounded somewhat wistful. "By the way, what's the name of the organization you're going to? Maybe we'll end up in the same place."

"Ramsoda University."

"Ramsoda University?" Yuri looked confused. "I don't think I've heard of it..."

"It's perfectly normal that you haven't." A cool female voice came from behind them. The two turned and saw Villet approaching in a white fitted short dress, a longsword in her hand. Her chest rose and fell slightly; she had likely just finished sword practice. Her black ponytail streamed rightward in the sea breeze, giving her a valiant, dashing air. "There are more hidden Wizard organizations in this world than the hairs on an ox. How could anyone possibly know every name? Besides, names like 'university' were used by Wizards a very, very long time ago. It might be an ancient name. This organization may very well have another name now."

"You really know a lot." Yuri chuckled.

"My father was once a Wizard. He told me all this," Villet said flatly. "My destination is the Six-Ring Tower."

"I'm going to White Fang Castle, an organization over in the White Fang Heights. I hear it's very powerful." Yuri smiled. He had a good personality, entirely untouched by the vain and superficial vices of noble-born youths. He was a very forthright person.

"It doesn't matter if we don't know. As long as the black-robed sir knows." Anglie smiled. "Lü Lando said the Six-Ring Tower and White Fang Castle are in the same place. The black-robed sir said I'd be getting off nearby as well. We probably won't be too far apart. Maybe we can keep in touch and help each other in the future."

"No problem." Yuri agreed immediately. "We all boarded at Maruya Port. Once we reach a new place, we'll be one group." He wore a bright, sunny smile.

Villet bit her lower lip. "You... don't mind that I only have first-level aptitude?"

"Aptitude is only the starting point. It isn't what Wizards value most. Constant learning, constant research, perseverance, unwavering resolve, strong learning ability, rich imagination, and creativity—those are what Wizards value." Yuri's smile faded as he spoke solemnly. "Those are my grandfather's exact words, and now I'm passing them on to you. He is an Official Wizard at White Fang Castle."

Villet stared blankly at him, then nodded hard. Her eyes had reddened slightly.

Anglie, however, quietly shook his head inwardly. Yuri was right. From what Anglie now understood about Wizards, aptitude truly was not the most important thing; it merely gave everyone a starting point. The Wizard's Book had also mentioned that aptitude only mattered in the early stages, while everything afterward depended on accumulation and comprehension. Constant learning, constant research—knowledge was the greatest power and wealth. But for Villet, with her aptitude, even completing that initial starting point would take a great deal of time. If she could barely reach Third-level Apprentice by the age of thirty, that would already count as extraordinarily smooth progress.

Though he thought this, Anglie naturally could not say it aloud. He joined Yuri in offering Villet a few comforting words, then entered the cabin and went to the fourth floor for dinner before returning directly to his room.

As of yesterday, he had successfully sensed traces of that tiny amount of unknown substance. He just did not know whether it was the so-called energy particles.

Sitting cross-legged on the bed, Anglie closed his eyes and entered a meditative state.

The second hand of the crystal clock on the table ticked continuously. Time passed second by second. The hour hand moved swiftly from six in the afternoon to ten at night.

The room rapidly darkened with the passing time until it was pitch-black.

Suddenly, a tiny green light flashed in the darkness, then vanished. Beside Anglie's face, a sesame-seed-sized point of green light flickered for an instant before immediately going out.

Anglie's eyelids began twitching violently, and beads of cold sweat slowly seeped across his face.

A moment later, another green point of light flashed before his forehead, then vanished just as quickly.

Gradually, the green lights began to appear around Anglie in an extremely steady rhythm, flashing up and swiftly going out again.

About half an hour later, Anglie's expression began to calm. The green lights finally stopped appearing, and he opened his eyes, exhaustion filling them.

"I finally did it." He muttered softly. "The entry stage of a Second-Rank Apprentice. As long as I can sense energy particles, everything else becomes easy. Now I just need to let my body adapt to these radiation particles."

"Zero, begin mobilizing the stored radiation energy. Release the radiation slowly, with my body's saturation level as the limit."

"Task being established... Energy mobilization initiated... All energy is expected to be depleted in 271 hours, 43 minutes, and 12 seconds."

"More than ten days? That's quite good." Anglie nodded slightly in satisfaction.

The Chip had only just finished its feedback.

A faint layer of green fluorescence suddenly lit up over Anglie's skin. The glow quickly dimmed and rapidly returned to normal, leaving no trace behind.

But Anglie knew the radiation release was still continuing. He could feel an unknown energy brimming with vitality steadily pouring into his body. It was as though a tiny sun had appeared inside him, warming his entire body in a most comfortable way.

The dampness and chill in the room were immediately driven away. The fresh scent of green grass filled Anglie's nose and mouth.

"It's positive energy from the Plant Department." Anglie immediately identified it.

Based on the basic knowledge in the Wizard's Book and Instructor Adolf's teachings, only positive energy from the Plant Department possessed such obvious characteristics.

The Wizard's Book recorded that space in this world was filled with all kinds of basic energy particles. Wizards called the particles capable of catalyzing plants and healing injuries Plant Department energy, while the energy particles capable of igniting flames were called Fire Department energy, and so on. According to their uses and functions, they divided most known energy particles into various categories. They further divided them into positive energy and negative energy categories according to whether they brought beneficial or harmful effects to living beings.

The energy absorbed from Nancy's necklace was clearly Plant Department energy particles, and it was also classified as positive energy. Naturally, the Plant Department also had negative energy. Certain mutated forms of catalysis, catalysis that disrupted balance, belonged to the negative-energy category of the Plant Department.

There were countless kinds of energy particles in space, and even Wizards had not fully understood them all. According to the Wizard's Book, negative energy of the Water Department had only been proven to exist a few centuries ago, by chance, through a Wizard's research. Before that, no one had been able to prove that water also possessed a negative-energy category.

"Zero, can you define a unit level for this special radiation energy?"

"Please establish an equivalent conversion formula for the unit."

Anglie pondered briefly. "Set the unit name as: degree. One degree of radiation energy will be defined as the energy released by one burning match. Convert the stored energy into degrees." Degree was the unit of measurement used by Wizards, and he simply copied its definition. Anglie directly synchronized the Chip's measurements with those of this world, making it easier to assess the total amount of energy.

"Conversion complete. Current stored radiation energy: 17.4 degrees. Continuous consumption is underway."

Only then did Anglie nod in satisfaction.

"According to this progress, if I can keep being irradiated for another half year or so, I'll be able to begin the next step: guiding energy particles into my body to form a cycle. Compared to normal circumstances, that cuts the time by severalfold." Anglie calculated inwardly.