[Landon Duchy Calendar: September 1, Year 222, clear.]
My first day as a serf!
Working for someone else was impossible, absolutely impossible in this lifetime. Seeking extraordinary power was the proper business.
Because I failed to complete the day's total workload and slacked off, I got whipped. What a shock—the serfs actually had a contracted responsibility land system?
My skin split and flesh tore. It hurt!
[Landon Duchy Calendar: September 3, Year 222, overcast.]
My third day as a serf!
Working for someone else wasn't entirely impossible, but without even a single copper coin in wages, where was the motivation?
This time, having learned my lesson, I decided to feign illness and slack off. It was flawless—there was absolutely no way I could be exposed.
Jeroen Hoven used two miraculous lashes to cure my illness with a healer's deft touch.
And said, "You should be glad you were faking it. Otherwise, you could have been buried directly!" It hurt!
[Landon Duchy Calendar: September 6, Year 222, light rain.]
My sixth day as a serf!
Working for free was not entirely unacceptable, actually.
It was just that the black bread tasted truly awful. I strongly condemned this black-hearted factory—they had to improve the food provisions.
Little Jack, my roommate, exceeded his workload and was rewarded with a small piece of white bread.
He actually started competing over a piece of white bread!
What a pathetic fool!
I hadn't been whipped, and my injuries had healed quite a bit. Slight pain.
[Landon Duchy Calendar: September 11, Year 222, overcast.]
My eleventh day as a serf!
Count Golden Lion came to inspect Tulip Manor. He was a middle-aged man with golden hair.
All the serfs saluted as Jeroen Hoven had taught them.
Norman, my roommate, happened to spit once after turning around.
Then Hoven brutally beat him to death alive, and gave everyone else a lash while he was at it.
After nightfall, Jack, Randy, and I mourned Norman together. It really hurt!
[Landon Duchy Calendar: September 21, Year 222, clear.]
My twenty-first day as a serf!
As usual, Hoven delivered his indispensable daily lecture.
Conflict had broken out between the Landon Frontier and a neighboring country. It was expected that many free folk would be displaced. Without a lord's protection, they would not even have black bread to eat.
"You should hold gratitude in your hearts and learn to be content. You only work a dozen or so hours a day—it's not as if you can't sleep."
[Landon Duchy Calendar: October 2, Year 222, light snow.]
My thirty-second day as a serf!
I exceeded my assigned task of turning the soil, was named the day's best serf, and received an entire loaf of white bread.
"..."
Nightfall!
Yin Ming divided the white bread into three portions and handed one each to Jack and Randy.
They lived under the same roof.
Perhaps they could not offer much help, but they could report you to Jeroen Hoven and get you a whipping—or even beaten to death.
"Today is Professor Romandy's Arcane Language lesson. After today, I'll have completely mastered this language."
Yin Ming pulled the blanket over himself and pretended to sleep. Then his soul left his body, and a small gourd floated from between his brows. It flew over the manor toward Golden Lion Castle, following the familiar route to the study on the castle's second floor.
The room was furnished with exquisite luxury, its bookshelves crammed with books. Beneath the bright crystal lamp, one old and one young figure were writing with quill pens.
"I really don't understand why I have to learn this kind of crooked, twisting script. I should be learning the Knight's Breathing Method and becoming a mighty Grand Knight galloping across the battlefield."
The child was named Adams Hank. He was Count Golden Lion's most favored youngest son, and famous professors of history, natural science, heraldry, and other subjects had been hired to teach him.
Count Golden Lion turned a blind eye to the other subjects. Only for this Arcane Language did he demand that little Adams master it.
"Wind, lightning, fire, wood... My progress is still so slow!"
Yin Ming recognized the cipher Adams was writing at a glance.
Thanks to the powerful spiritual force of the Corpse-Liberation Immortal, he had developed an ability to remember everything he saw.
After a month of study, Yin Ming's general knowledge was no weaker than that of an ordinary noble in this world. His command of Arcane Language was several streets ahead of little Adams.
Fortunately, he did not need to stop and wait for little Adams to catch up.
While little Adams was writing from memory, Professor Romandy would translate a famous work into Arcane Language: The Grand Ceremony of Landon Alice.
When Landon Alice drank red wine, tore away her golden hair, and danced while murmuring mad words as she pursued her beloved, Yin Ming, too, completely mastered the profound Arcane Language.
"Thank you, sir, for your teaching. This little immortal ought to offer you a bow. As for tuition, there definitely isn't any!"
The lesson ended. The book slowly closed, and little Adams impatiently fled the study.
Yin Ming clasped his hands and bowed to Professor Romandy, though at that moment he was but a wandering soul no one could see!
"..."
Yin Ming's Primordial Spirit drifted out of the second-floor study and passed through layer upon layer of barriers.
He headed for Count Golden Lion's underground secret vault, where the count stored his treasures.
Arcane Language was, in truth, Wizard Script—the writing used by wizards.
Count Golden Lion insisted that little Adams learn Wizard Script because his secret vault contained a piece of snakeskin recording a wizard cultivation method.
Every detail of the patterns on the snakeskin had long since been etched into Yin Ming's mind.
Today was merely the final time. He was not entirely at ease about it while his Primordial Spirit was out of his body, so he decided to memorize it once more.
Inside the secret vault were chest after chest of gold coins, famous paintings handed down from the previous century, and antiques excavated from Lost Civilizations.
In the most secret location stood a crystal platform cut from a millstone-sized crystal. Spread across it lay a sheet of white snakeskin covered in crooked, twisting words.
"Vast Sea..."
Yin Ming silently recited it once in his heart.
His spiritual fluctuations seemed to align with some special frequency.
A point of white light suddenly shot from the snakeskin and swiftly merged into Yin Ming's Primordial Spirit. The powerful spiritual force possessed by the Corpse-Liberation Immortal rapidly digested and deciphered the information within the light.
"Divine Sense! This is an inheritance left behind by a One-Ring Wizard."
That point of light!
It was the true essence of the Vast Sea Cultivation Method.
Just as Zhu Bajie had left Divine Sense within an incense-powered Divine Statue, this was Divine Sense left behind by a One-Ring Wizard.
It could prevent ambiguity caused by erroneous interpretations of the text and help later inheritors understand some of a wizard's technical terms.
However, to trigger the method's true essence, one first needed immense spiritual force—the talent required to become a wizard—as well as a basic understanding of Wizard Script.
Although one could still cultivate normally using the Wizard Script translated by Professor Romandy, possessing the method's true essence would undoubtedly spare one many winding roads.
"..."
"Now that I have a wizard cultivation method, I still cannot cultivate it. The Dao Fruit of an immortal suppresses me—no cultivation method can possibly succeed."
"The first thing I need to do next is forge an artifact. Using the Corpse-Liberation Gourd as the vessel, I will forge the Dao Fruit of my True Immortal cultivation into a Divine Artifact."
Yin Ming had long mastered the Primordial God-Devil Forging Art. The reason he had delayed forging an artifact was so that his Primordial Spirit could leave his body, making it easier to learn this world's knowledge.
Otherwise, with the lowly status of a serf, gaining access to knowledge would have been nothing but a fantasy.
Being able to learn Wizard Script and a wizard cultivation method at Count Golden Lion's castle had been an entirely unexpected gain, and it had also accelerated the artifact-forging process.
Now that the wizard cultivation method was in hand, the time to forge an artifact had finally ripened.
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