Moonlight Flower

The successful first casting of Detection Technique was promptly followed by a notification from the system panel.

Choosing to inscribe Detection Technique, the soul of a grind-loving emperor slowly awakened, and he entered cultivation mode.

Five peaceful days passed, and the morning of the sixth day arrived.

The air carried the coolness of last night's rain, mixed with the rich, earthy sweetness of turned soil.

It was as though the earth had just taken a bath, carrying the damp scent of grass and trees.

In the clearing outside the shelter stood Dago, dressed in a brand-new, thick hunting outfit.

He had bought it in town yesterday. Besides a dagger at his waist, he also carried a one-meter-long machete.

No one who saw him would recognize him as a wizard apprentice. He looked more like a seasoned hunter.

Dago brought up the system panel. These were the results of his five days of hard training.

Universal Wizard Meditation Method (Beginner 611/1000); Ice Crystal Cannon (Beginner 832/1000); Resonance Art (Beginner 187/1000); Detection Technique (Beginner 135/1000)

All his skills had reached the Beginner level. As Resonance Art improved, he could now use dormant ice elements to form two pairs of white gloves.

The range in which Detection Technique could detect fluctuations in energy particles had also increased by ten meters.

Most importantly, Air Bullet and Ice Crystal Technique had improved tremendously. He had even combined the two skills into his brand-new personal skill, Ice Crystal Cannon.

Now that compressing the air for Air Bullet had become increasingly difficult, he could use mental power to control the direction in which the compressed air was fired.

However, its explosive power was also limited.

Although the system panel's bonuses had helped him improve, they were mainly reflected in Air Bullet's compression speed.

Because of this, he found another path for Air Bullet: using it as an auxiliary method for casting Ice Crystal Technique.

When he had first learned Air Bullet, it had been intended as an auxiliary cultivation method for meditation rather than a spell-type wizard technique.

In other words, Air Bullet could be cast simultaneously with Ice Crystal Technique.

Thus, an entirely new skill had been born from one of his sudden ideas...

He used Air Bullet as gunpowder, while the ice pillar formed by Ice Crystal Technique served as both the shell and the barrel...

By stuffing the two skills together, he formed the combined skill, Ice Crystal Cannon.

The power of Ice Crystal Cannon had pierced straight through two large trees. No carbon-based creature would want to take a hit from that.

It was currently his most destructive shaping wizard technique. After casting it for the first time, he had even received the system's official recognition, which merged Ice Crystal Technique and Air Bullet into a single skill.

It had scared him into thinking that Air Bullet and Ice Crystal Technique could no longer improve, but after checking, he found that it had been a false alarm.

The two skills could still improve. Casting Ice Crystal Cannon could grant simultaneous progress to both sub-skills.

It was just that he now had to use his consciousness to select Ice Crystal Cannon to check the progress of its two sub-skills.

Did anyone know how he had spent those five days? He trained whenever he woke up, then slept whenever he trained until he was delirious.

As for meals, it was always cornbread and roasted magical beast meat. He even had to train while eating. Just thinking about it brought tears to his eyes.

"Today, I will conquer the lake southwest of the forest. Not even Shadow Leopards can stop me. I said so."

Dago made a token gesture of wiping away tears and spoke with firm determination in his eyes.

Dago slung his pack over his back and strode toward the dense forest, following his markers. A cool breeze swept over his sharply defined face.

The branches and leaves swayed in the wind.

Yellowing leaves drifted down one after another before Dago's eyes.

Watching them slowly fall to the ground, he suddenly realized that autumn had arrived without him noticing.

A halo of increasingly deep blue swirled through his pale blue eyes as he entered the forest where he had encountered the Shadow Leopard last time...

Dago kept Detection Technique active the entire time, monitoring the flow of energy particles ahead.

The dense forest remained packed with bizarre, impenetrable trees. The sunlight was shut out, and the surroundings grew dim.

Dago held his machete and advanced slowly, keeping his guard up.

Though the machete was not a supernatural piece of equipment, its cold, gleaming blade still gave him a considerable sense of security.

Flashes of cold light flickered as he hacked through vines blocking his path.

Based on his observations and analysis around the edge of the dense forest over the past few days, this forest stretched on for a long way.

It was essentially impossible to go around. The lake described by that Second-Level Wizard Apprentice was likely enclosed within the forest.

He needed to remain on guard against the Shadow Leopards and other fierce beasts living in this forest.

By now, more than an hour and a half had passed since he set out.

Following the route taken by the Shadow Leopard he had killed last time, he estimated that he would pass through this section of forest and reach the lake in another half hour.

He carefully cleared a path through the thorns, advancing slowly and cautiously.

As sparse sunlight filtered down through the leaves, Dago knew he was about to pass through this dangerous forest.

The closer he was to the end, the less he could relax. A ship was most vulnerable when it reached shore.

When his machete cleaved through a tall patch of brush, his view suddenly opened up...

He saw the most beautiful lake he had ever seen in both his lives.

The lake's surface was like silk woven from crushed moonlight, lying quietly upon the earth. The morning mist had yet to fully disperse, draping it in a pale white veil that even the wind seemed reluctant to disturb.

Dago walked toward the lakeshore, scanning along the bank until he spotted the purpose of his journey.

A vast patch of silver-white Moonlight Flowers swayed gently by the lake. His eyes lit up, and he ran over.

He set down his pack and crouched on the ground to examine them. Just as described in Wizard Rosalyn's manuscript—it was undoubtedly Moonlight Flower.

Recalling the details about Moonlight Flower from Mentor Rosalyn's manuscript...

He took out the tools he had prepared in his pack and carefully dug them up whole, roots and all.

Before long, he had filled an entire pack.

Wiping the sweat from his forehead, Dago remained alert to danger around him even as he dug.

Especially the calm lake surface. He always felt as though something was watching him from there.

Only after slinging the full pack onto his back did he have the mood to admire the lake in the distance, though he did not approach the water.

Sunlight slanted into the water, which was an extremely pale blue tinged with emerald green.

The branches of old trees along the shore drooped into the water, their shadows stretched long. Several dead logs floated near the bank, creating faint ripples.

The scene was so beautiful that Dago was briefly lost in thought as one of the dead logs gradually drifted closer to shore.

Then traces of moving energy particles flashed through Dago's mental vision.

He instantly became alert. Blue halos swirled in his eyes, his lips murmured softly, cold air began to gather, and the wind started to howl.

A magical beast crocodile nearly five meters long erupted from the water more than ten meters away, its back green like bronze armor...

A hissing sound came from deep within its throat as it charged toward Dago at high speed.

Using all four limbs, it crawled to within ten meters of him in the blink of an eye, its flattened, axe-blade-like snout opening slightly...

Two rows of fangs slanted upward, gleaming coldly in the sunlight.

Dago stared fixedly at it. The blue light in his eyes flared as his white-gloved hands kneaded together an ice crystal shell as thick as a leg, with an equally sized compressed air bullet embedded in its tail.

His trembling pupils watched the enormous Bronze Crocodile rush to within five meters, staring at its slowly opening maw full of fangs and its savage, grinning face.

Then he activated the ice crystal shell.

The powerful airflow shoved Dago backward. The spinning ice crystal shell shot toward the Bronze Crocodile, trailing a beautiful tail of white mist.

"Bang—!!!!"

Amid the thunderous crash of earth and stone exploding apart, countless snowflakes burst into the air and drifted down.

The nearly five-meter-long Bronze Crocodile had lost half its head, its skull blasted wide open.

The powerful impact sent it rolling backward twice before it crashed onto the ground amid churned-up dirt, utterly motionless.

Trailing a powerful stream of air, the ice crystal shell fell into the distant lake, splashed up a spray of water, and vanished without a trace.

The other "floating logs" were startled into sinking beneath the surface, only to float back up after realizing they had not been harmed.

Dago turned and ran without even touching the magical beast's corpse.

This was a group of magical beast crocodiles. Even ten of him would not be enough to feed them.

He had just escaped a wolf's den only to enter a tiger's lair. No wonder the Moonlight Flowers grew so lushly—they were protected by two major magical beast species.

Gritting his teeth and gasping for breath, Dago stopped at the border between the dense forest and the lake.

Dago supported himself with his machete. He had run too hard just now, and his breathing had yet to settle.

A charged Ice Crystal Cannon could kill a Bronze Crocodile, but that was far from enough to let him survive the encirclement of a group of Bronze Crocodiles.

Although he could still fire several more Ice Crystal Cannons, the casting windup and cooldown were both too long. Once surrounded, he would be in a very passive position.

Before long, his breathing steadied, and Dago began retracing his steps.

I hope I won't run into any more clueless little cuties on the way back, Dago prayed inwardly.

Just as he wished, the return trip was peaceful. He was not attacked by any Shadow Leopards while passing through the dense forest.

Only when he saw the small hill where his shelter stood did Dago finally relax.

The outside world was truly dangerous. His own little nest was much more comfortable.

With a creak, Dago pushed open the shelter's wooden door, set the pack on the wooden table, and removed his equipment.

Dago washed his face and checked the time. It was already one in the afternoon.

He took out a frozen piece of Shadow Leopard meat from his homemade "refrigerator" to thaw, then cast Ice Crystal Technique on the refrigerator to replenish its ice.

Dago had been living well these past few days, eating magical beast meat every day. His body had grown much stronger.

His old hunting clothes no longer fit him, though his apprentice robe was still fine.

Sitting on a wooden stool, Dago closed his eyes and performed a round of meditation as if resting his mind...

The sphere of light in his mental space had grown considerably larger, and the area in which it could refine mental mist had also expanded.

He took out the Second-Level Wizard Apprentice badge he had not used in a long time and poured mental power into it. The crystal lit up...

Its color was getting closer and closer to deep blue. It seemed he was not far from becoming a Third-Level Wizard Apprentice.

Seeing that the Shadow Leopard meat had mostly thawed, Dago picked it up and went to the clearing outside the shelter to start a fire and roast it.

Truly good ingredients required only the simplest cooking methods.