Potential

After the battle ended, Huo Ling did not dare to rest. After taking a brief break, he threw away his bloodstained outer clothes and wore only the stab-resistant vest.

Then, carrying his backpack and all his belongings, he followed the road onward.

He definitely could not stay where he was. The corpses of six goblins were there, along with a strong smell of blood. Who knew whether it would attract other dangers?

Besides, he still did not know if there were other goblins nearby. He had just finished fighting these goblins and had expended a great deal of stamina.

If several more goblins showed up, it was hard to say who would win.

After carefully walking for half an hour, Huo Ling slipped into another building.

After a quick search revealed no danger, he found a relatively clean room and settled in.

After briefly clearing away the dust and trash, Huo Ling lay directly on his backpack. This whole ordeal had exhausted him.

Thinking back on the battle, he could not help feeling lingering fear. Thankfully, he had taken out most of the goblins in a sneak attack. Otherwise, if all six had attacked together, he would have been in serious trouble.

Thinking of that, he recalled how, after two of the goblins had died in battle, two faint points of light had flown toward him.

What were those two points of light?

Huo Ling checked himself over, but found nothing extra on his body.

With a thought, he summoned his status panel.

Sure enough, the status panel had changed.

Name: Huo Ling

Bloodline: Human

Rank: Tier 0 Apprentice

Strength: 1.3

Constitution: 1.1

Agility: 1.1

Mental Power: 2.1

Mana: 21/21

Skill: Dark Breath Meditation Method

Potential Points: 2

The Potential Points that had always been at zero were now at 2. How had they come about? Could they have been obtained by killing those two goblins?

But why had he not gained Potential Points from killing the other four goblins? That left Huo Ling puzzled.

Huo Ling tried to use the Potential Points on attributes such as Strength, but he could not do it.

So what exactly were these Potential Points? What was the point of saving them up?

After pondering it without finding an answer, he gave up. ...He would ignore it for now.

After fighting and walking for so long, Huo Ling was hungry too. He took out some compressed biscuits and started chewing.

He did not dare eat too much. After such intense physical exertion, eating until he was full would make it easy to get sleepy.

He still was not sure whether he had escaped danger. This was not the time to sleep.

After resting for a while, he leaned against the window again so he could gather information through sound.

Then he summoned his spellbook and prepared to continue studying the spell White Bone Fangs.

Suddenly, the status panel that had faded away popped back up, along with a line of text.

"Would you like to use Potential Points to accelerate learning?"

What!

Potential Points could speed up the learning of spells? Huo Ling was shocked. After thinking it over, he selected yes.

The panel immediately shrank away again.

Seeing this, Huo Ling did not dare delay. He lowered his head and began studying the spell.

This round of study was incredible. It felt like a sudden enlightenment. The runes that had once been obscure and difficult to understand now seemed as simple as one plus one.

He easily outlined them in his mind. If learning spells before had been as difficult as an elementary school student learning advanced mathematics,

then now it was as easy as a university student learning addition and subtraction.

Was this the power of Potential Points?!

Potential Points, come on! Let me see where your limits are!

A storm raged in Huo Ling's heart, but he did not dare stop. He could not waste this precious study time.

As evening arrived and the sun dipped westward, Huo Ling woke from his absorbed study.

The boost brought by the Potential Points had run out, and Huo Ling had left that exhilarating state of learning.

But he had already benefited enormously from this period of study.

He silently outlined the magical runes in his mind. Three seconds later, a sharp tooth the size of a peanut floated beside him.

White Bone Fangs had been successfully cast!

"Whoosh!"

The White Bone Fang shot out with a sound of tearing air, striking another building across the road more than thirty meters away.

It left a crater the size of a human head in the building's wall. Though it had not pierced through the wall, the damage was still not to be underestimated.

If it had hit a goblin's head, it would have burst open on the spot.

The attack range was still not very far. Based on his Mental Power, 2.1 × 25, it was only fifty-two meters. Still, that was already a decent range for an apprentice.

As he continued meditating and training in the future, his Mental Power would keep growing, and his attack range would certainly grow farther as well.

He summoned the panel and looked over his attributes again:

Name: Huo Ling

Mana: 18/21

Skill: Dark Breath Meditation Method Tier 0 Spell: White Bone Fangs

Potential Points: 0

Sure enough, the Potential Points had been used up. They really were a good thing.

Unfortunately, he had no idea how to reliably obtain Potential Points. The two points of light that had appeared when he killed the goblins should have been Potential Points.

But why had Potential Points appeared after two of the goblins died, while the other four had yielded none?

If he could get hundreds or thousands of Potential Points, then learning spells would be as easy as a fish taking to water.

Judging from the mana consumption, one White Bone Fang used three points of mana. In his current state, he could only cast the spell seven times in total.

On the other hand, casting spells consumed relatively little Mental Power. With his current 2.1 Mental Power, it was definitely enough for now.

Still, this was far better than before. At last, he now had a ranged attack.

If he had possessed this ability when fighting the goblins earlier, he would not even have needed to show himself. From dozens of meters away, he could have blown all those goblins' heads apart.

Channeling his Mental Power, Huo Ling scanned all the dilapidated buildings within fifty meters. He found nothing else present.

Now he could rest peacefully. He had only learned how to use Mental Power after mastering his first Tier 0 spell.

With the help of Mental Power, scouting would be much easier in the future. At the very least, whenever he entered a new building, he would not need to run up and down searching it. He could simply scan it with Mental Power.

However, this kind of Mental Power scan also consumed quite a lot of Mental Power.

After playing around for just a few minutes, Huo Ling's Mental Power had dropped from 2.1 to 1.9.

By that calculation, even if he scouted at full power, he could use his Mental Power for less than half an hour.

As for exhausting all of his Mental Power, recovering from that would have to be measured in days.

Mental Power was different from mana. It recovered relatively slowly. Even if he sat down and began meditating, it recovered more slowly than mana.