Wizard World, [Efficient Scholar]

Alvado Continent,

Karugusha Highlands,

within Shadow Crow Holy Tower Arcane Academy.

The biting cold wind blew into the room through the gaps in the wooden cabin, and Luo Lin, curled up on the wooden bed, could not stop shivering.

At that moment, he felt as if he had been thrown into a rapidly spinning drum, with memories from two different worlds being forcibly kneaded together in his mind.

On one side was Luo Lin, a young man from Blue Star who had been traveling around the world.

On the other was Luo Lin, a youth from Shadow Crow Holy Tower Arcane Academy who had fallen into despair and taken his own life.

The intense headache slowly receded like the tide, leaving behind lingering aches and an icy clarity.

Luo Lin—or rather, a new Luo Lin formed from the fusion of two souls—slowly opened his eyes.

The first thing he saw was a faint layer of frost on the wooden ceiling. The crude, rough surroundings were worlds apart from the warm, comfortable hotel rooms he remembered from Blue Star.

Struggling to sit up from the wooden bed, Luo Lin braced himself against the bedframe with one hand and covered his face with the other.

He remembered setting out to sea on a boat, only to encounter a storm.

Then, when he opened his eyes, he had arrived in this unfamiliar place, with the memories of another youth named Luo Lin suddenly added to his mind.

After quickly reviewing the young Luo Lin's memories, he finally realized that he had come to an unfamiliar world.

Or rather, he had transmigrated into a world ruled by supernatural wizards.

And now, he was a wizard apprentice at Shadow Crow Holy Tower Arcane Academy, about to face an examination that would determine his future fate.

Luo Lin raised his hand and looked at his left wrist, where an unhealed wound still remained.

That wound was precisely why he had been able to occupy this body.

According to the original owner's memories, every wizard apprentice recruited by Shadow Crow Holy Tower Arcane Academy received five years of free training.

As long as they passed the examination in the fifth year, or reached the standard of a Third-Rank Wizard Apprentice during that period, they could remain and continue their studies, advancing toward the legendary rank of formal wizard.

If they failed to meet the apprentice examination standard by the fifth year, they would be saddled with the enormous debt incurred by the academy's five years of training.

And if an apprentice could not repay those debts, they would directly become experimental material for formal wizards.

Under such immense pressure, many poorly gifted apprentices who saw no hope ahead chose to kill themselves in various ways.

The original Luo Lin had been one of them.

"Wizards... individuals with supernatural power?"

"I never expected to transmigrate into such a wondrous world."

"What surprises me even more is that I have a complete mess waiting for me after transmigrating."

Luo Lin muttered to himself.

While reviewing the memories just now, he had also discovered that only two months remained until the so-called apprentice examination.

That meant that if he failed to reach the required standard in two months, he would inherit the original owner's massive debt and begin a repayment journey that could last an unknown number of years.

And if he had no way to repay it, then just as the memories said, he would become a guinea pig on a formal wizard's experimental table.

For a moment, Luo Lin felt his temples throbbing.

But he did not become discouraged because of it. Instead, he began considering whether there was any way to break this predicament.

Just then, a pale blue panel visible only to Luo Lin appeared before his eyes.

[Subject: Luo Lin]

[Race: Human]

[Status: Mild mental concussion, weakness, malnutrition]

[Level: First-Rank Wizard Apprentice (Progress 15%)]

[Attributes:

Constitution: 0.8

Spirit: 1.5

Mana: 3/15]

[Knowledge Mastered:

Basic Meditation Method (Beginner 36%)

Basic Rune Identification (Beginner 17%)

Basic Magical Botany (8%)

Basic Potion Material Processing (22%)]

[Specialty: Efficient Scholar (Passive)]

"This is..."

Seeing this familiar interface, Luo Lin felt that it closely resembled the status panel players had when he had once been addicted to games.

The panel's cold, objective data reflected Luo Lin's predicament.

The original owner's talent had indeed been mediocre enough. Most of the knowledge he had mastered over five years remained at the beginner level.

Even the apprentice's most fundamental Basic Meditation Method had progressed slowly.

At this rate, there was absolutely no chance of passing the examination two months from now.

Luo Lin shifted his gaze and finally fixed it on [Specialty: Efficient Scholar].

Soon, the detailed information for [Efficient Scholar] appeared on the panel.

[Efficient Scholar (Passive): Time required for learning is halved; time required for crafting with tools is reduced by 25%]

"Learning time halved! Crafting time reduced by 25%!"

Luo Lin softly repeated the words above, his heart accelerating uncontrollably.

Wasn't this an ability made specifically for him!?

Time was the resource he lacked most right now!

And this specialty directly doubled his effective learning time!

Luo Lin took a deep breath and forced himself to calm down.

The winter wind still poured in through the gaps, but the cold in Luo Lin's heart was being driven away by a blazing warm current.

Since he already had a solution, he could not keep sitting here waiting for death.

Rising from the wooden bed, Luo Lin wrapped his apprentice's gray robe tightly around himself, trying to reduce heat loss as much as possible in the freezing cabin.

He glanced around the room. Leaving aside the drafts coming in from every direction, even its furnishings were pitifully shabby.

A wooden bed, a wooden chair and table, a water vat for washing his face, and a wooden chest for storing things—those were all that could be seen inside the cabin.

Shabby. That was Luo Lin's first impression.

However, the squalid conditions did not stir any unusual emotions in him. He walked over to the water vat used for washing.

He scooped up the water, still carrying bits of ice, and splashed it over his face.

The biting chill instantly made him shudder, while also dispersing the last trace of muddleheadedness from his mind.

"Two months is enough!"

Looking at his wavering reflection in the water vat, Luo Lin's gaze turned resolute.

After wiping the water from his face, Luo Lin returned to the wooden bed, wrapped himself in the thin blanket atop it, and focused his attention on [Basic Meditation Method (Beginner 36%)].

This was the foundation of all wizards and the primary method of increasing spirit and mana.

Luo Lin sat cross-legged on the bed, tugged the blanket tighter around himself, then followed the method from the original owner's memories and tried to enter a meditative state.

The process of meditation was more difficult than he had imagined.

The cold wind, his anxiety about the future, and his physical discomfort all interfered with him.

But after slowly calming down and entering a meditative state, he began concentrating on guiding the faint mana within his body to form a cycle.

At that moment, the effect of [Efficient Scholar] began to show.

He could clearly feel that his control over spirit had become more precise. Those guidance techniques for spirit that had once been obscure and difficult to understand now became much clearer in his mind.

After completing one full meditation cycle, Luo Lin immediately looked at the panel.

[Basic Meditation Method (Beginner 37%)]

His progress had increased by 1%!

Luo Lin's heart trembled.

According to the original owner's memories, he had previously needed to cultivate diligently for an entire day, or even longer, just to gain such a tiny amount of progress.

Yet now, a single focused meditation session had achieved it!

The flames of hope blazed fiercely in his heart.

Luo Lin no longer hesitated. He shifted over to swallow the chunk of black bread on the table, hard enough to be no different from a stone, gulped down several mouthfuls of cold water, then returned to the bed and immersed himself in meditation once more.

Time passed in silence.

Only when the sounds of other apprentices rising and moving about drifted in from outside the window did Luo Lin awaken from deep meditation.

He slowly exhaled a breath of turbid air. A trace of exhaustion flashed through his eyes, but there was even more excitement.

[Basic Meditation Method (Beginner 41%)]

[Mana: 5/15]

[Spirit: 1.5 (↑)]

Five meditations had increased his progress by 5%, and his mana had recovered by 2 points.

More importantly, his spirit attribute seemed to have loosened, showing signs of growth!

The satisfaction brought by such visible growth was impossible to describe in words.

However, an intense hunger and a weakness even more pronounced than before soon followed.

Luo Lin knew this was a lingering side effect from the original owner's suicide the previous day. His body had yet to recover after his transmigration.

As for the hunger, that went without saying. Just by looking at it, one could tell that black bread was not enough to fill the stomach.

"Nutrition has to keep up, or my body will collapse first!"

Luo Lin frowned. He had to find some food that could fill his stomach and restore his health.

Grrr—