"Chirp, chirp—"
Sunlight and birdsong gently woke the sleeping Emerald Forest from its sweet dreams.
"Creak~"
The door of the shelter hidden within the earthen slope slowly opened, and Dago, dressed in a linen-gray robe, stepped out.
He took a deep breath of the fresh morning air, stretched lazily, and carelessly performed a set of calisthenics in the clearing to loosen up his exhausted body.
He had stayed up late last night, too absorbed in studying wizard books and the system. His spirits were low and his body was utterly weary. Rubbing his empty stomach, he turned and went back inside to prepare breakfast.
There was barely any grain left in the nearly empty rice jar, probably only enough for two more meals.
Dago bent down, scooped two wooden ladles of rice from the bottom of the jar, poured it into a small iron pot to rinse it, then lit a fire in the fireplace to cook.
He wolfed down the plain rice porridge with some pickled wild vegetables in just a few bites. Now he finally understood why this body was in such poor condition.
The food he ate every day was far too simple. To a palate that had come from a land of cuisine, this was simply torture.
"Looks like I'll have to go to Aina Town today to restock supplies and report that black-hearted merchant while I'm at it."
Dago silently set his plans for the day.
Now, as he continued practicing the Meditation Method, he felt that his mind had become much sharper. The memories of the previous owner of this body had also mostly fused together.
Dago sat at the wooden table and summoned his system panel with a thought.
[Universal Wizard Meditation Method (Beginner 9/100)]
After staying up late training last night, he had gained quite a few progress points.
"It feels great to see tangible rewards for hard work!"
Dago could not help but sigh as he looked at the system screen.
At the same time, he had noticed something else: his cultivation of the Universal Wizard Meditation Method was becoming smoother and smoother.
According to the previous owner's memories, there had been many obscure and incomprehensible parts of the Meditation Method. It had taken weeks, even a month or two, to successfully work through them.
Yet his training last night had gone smoothly from start to finish. That was without anyone guiding him, with him figuring everything out on his own. He felt the reason might lie with the system.
The system seemed to possess some miraculous ability to "solidify" every bit of his progress. Once he corrected a mistake, he would never make the same mistake again.
After each session of practicing the Universal Wizard Meditation Method, scattered insights naturally arose within him and became nourishment for his next improvement.
The effects of refining mental power had also improved significantly each time, though the issue of his soul becoming dizzy from mental power remained.
Then the next step was simple. He only needed to keep training, and he would keep improving.
Judging roughly from the sun's height in the sky, it was probably around eight in the morning. There was still plenty of time.
The weather was excellent today, so Dago jogged all the way to the large tree by the small lake to practice the Meditation Method.
A gentle breeze brushed across the lake, stirring countless ripples.
"This body's constitution is way too weak. It took more than half an hour just to run a few kilometers."
Dago panted as he leaned against the tree by the lake, grumbling inwardly.
After resting for a moment, he found a patch of grass beneath the tree, closed his eyes, sat cross-legged, and began practicing the Meditation Method.
Casting aside the distracting thoughts in his mind, his thoughts shifted, and in an instant he entered the Mental Space. Mental Mist filled the area around the sphere of light, while the black ocean below continued to churn endlessly.
His consciousness controlled the sphere of light, slowly drawing in the Mental Mist to refine it. In the end, it transformed into mental power that nourished the Soul Body at the center of the sphere.
According to the description in the final pages of the Meditation Method book, excessively refining Mental Mist within the Mental Core would produce [Soul Entropy], an almost unavoidable phenomenon.
It seemed this was the true reason his soul became dizzy from mental power. At present, it was an unsolvable problem in the Wizarding World.
Once Soul Entropy accumulated and clogged the Mental Core, it would erode the Soul Body and inflict varying degrees of damage upon it.
Therefore, whenever the [Soul Entropy] inside the sphere of light accumulated to a certain amount, he had to leave the Mental Space and rest, waiting for the Soul Entropy to dissipate on its own.
After the sphere of light refined a certain amount of mist, Dago's consciousness chose to leave the Mental Space.
The system screen in his vision shifted. Dago was already used to the movements of the system panel.
[Universal Wizard Meditation Method (Beginner 10/100): Progress Value +1]
[Soul Entropy] would undoubtedly greatly slow Dago's rate of progress.
There was a method in the wizarding world that could accelerate the expulsion of [Soul Entropy] from the Mental Core: consuming mental-type potions.
This was one of the main reasons why the Wizarding World was so obsessed with taking drugs.
The Low-Grade Mental Potion that the previous owner had drunk was one of the worst varieties, but the method was currently useless to Dago. Mainly because he was flat broke.
Dago sighed and muttered gloomily, "Sigh... I'll just keep training for now. One step at a time."
He got up and stretched, casually checked the surroundings for danger, then entered another session of Meditation Method training.
He trained and rested like this, and before he knew it, nearly three or four hours had passed.
After gaining around a dozen progress points, he planned to return to the shelter and eat the remaining food.
Dago headed back the way he came. While walking, he was surprised to discover traces of people and animals moving through this part of the forest.
"Looks like I have neighbors in this forest. I wonder what kind of people they are. Doesn't matter. Friends get good wine, enemies get hunting rifles."
Dago blurted out a line in Chinese to bolster his courage.
About half an hour later, Dago returned to the shelter.
He picked up the water jug on the wooden table and gulped down several mouthfuls. After sitting on a stool to rest for a while, he scooped out the last of the rice and began preparing his meal.
It was still plain rice with wild vegetables, sprinkled with the remaining dried meat. He dug right in.
"Looks like I can't train this afternoon. I need to go to Aina Town and replenish my living supplies. Good thing the previous owner left behind some Magic Stone Fragments, or I really would starve to death in this shelter."
Dago thought as he ate.
After quickly eating and drinking his fill, he efficiently cleaned the table.
He crouched in a corner of the shelter's stone wall, felt around in a crack between the stones, and pulled out a palm-sized cloth bag.
Walking to the wooden table, he poured everything from the bag onto it. They were some finely broken gemstones, each about the size of soybeans and varying in color.
Dago picked one up and examined it for a while. He found it was not much different from the gemstones of his previous life, except that a faint current of energy flowed within it, making it quite beautiful.
Dago carefully counted the fragmented gems on the table several times. There were sixteen in total.
This was already his last bit of money. He could not even scrape together one whole Magic Stone.
According to his memories, around ten Magic Stone Fragments were worth one Low-Grade Magic Stone.
Of course, the size and weight of the Magic Stone Fragments also had to be reasonable.
As for Magic Stones, they were the official currency designated by the Wizard Alliance. Their exchange and issuance were controlled by the authorities, and they were guaranteed to work throughout Wizard Alliance territory.
Naturally, precious metals like gold and silver were also accepted, and the two circulated together. However, Magic Stones were superior to gold as currency and held greater purchasing priority.
This was a world ruled by wizards. Gold might not be able to command a wizard, but Magic Stones certainly could.
"With Magic Stones, you can make a wizard grind grain." This was a famous saying of the Wizard Alliance.
Therefore, even the mundane world under the Wizard Alliance recognized Magic Stones as currency, because they could be exchanged for gold and silver of equivalent value at large wizard organizations.
Once he had prepared everything, Dago locked the shelter's rickety door, chose the direction of Aina Town from his memories, and strode forward.
Before long, his figure disappeared into the forest.
Dago walked for a long time, probably over an hour. He opened the waterskin at his waist, took a large gulp of water, and wiped away the fine sweat on his forehead.
Before long, the rough mountain trail beneath his feet became broad and level, and more and more people came into view.
The outskirts of Aina Town were covered in sprawling farmland, crisscrossed by countless paths.
The main body of the town in the distance and the Academy on the farther mountains were already visible. Though it was called a town, it was not small at all. According to his memories, including the floating population, it had roughly two hundred thousand people.
Most of the farmland outside the town was planted with rice, along with some cotton and hemp. Dago did not recognize most of the rest.
Following the broad road between the fields, Dago crossed the outer farmland and arrived before a long stone wall built from gray stones. It stood three or four meters tall, covered in green moss and steeped in age.
These stone walls had been left behind centuries ago, when Ainak Wizard Academy had only recently been established.
Many magical beasts had lived in the Emerald Forest then, and beast tides often broke out.
Only after the surrounding magical beasts were gradually cleared out by wizards did Aina Town slowly develop to its current scale.
Dago passed through an unguarded gate opening. Before him was a brick road wide enough for three horse-drawn carriages to travel side by side.
All kinds of shops lined both sides of the road. Crowds flowed through the streets, and the cries of vendors never ceased.
Dago stopped on the main street and looked around. Most of the buildings along the main road were brick structures, uniformly two to five stories high.
They generally had balconies or porches with columns by the doors, and their railings were made of iron or wood in distinctive styles.
As he observed along the way, he found that the outskirts of town had simple wooden houses, while the central areas were filled entirely with sturdy, durable brick buildings.
The streets of the town's commoner districts were overflowing with garbage and sewage. Food scraps, animal carcasses, and broken containers littered the roadside.
Cows, sheep, and pigs occasionally wandered freely through the streets, relieving themselves directly on the road.
The countless mixed odors were almost unbearable for Dago, yet the people passing through the streets seemed long accustomed to them.
Most of their clothes were made from wool or linen, difficult to wash and thick with the smell of sweat.
According to his memories, nobles and wealthy families wore luxurious fabrics such as silk, but they also changed and washed their clothes rarely, merely using perfume to improve the smell.
Only after quite a while did Dago adapt to the pungent odor.
He walked and stopped along the relatively clean main road. He did not dare enter any of the more imposing shops, only standing at the entrances to peek inside.
He had only sixteen Magic Stone Shards on him in total. He simply did not have the confidence to spend freely. In the end, he found an ordinary bakery in the commoner district and walked inside.
The fragrance of freshly baked bread stirred his hunger, but after looking at the prices marked above, he helplessly swallowed his saliva and decided to endure it for now.
Inside the bakery, he saw only a sturdy, plump woman with quite a strong smell about her, arranging the freshly baked bread.
A kind of... sour, stale smell.
When she saw Dago enter, she immediately approached with a smile and asked, "Handsome young man, what would you like to buy?"
"Do you have flour?"
"Yes, yes."
"How much? I'll pay with Magic Stone Shards."
"One Magic Stone Shard for twenty jin. I'll throw in a cloth bag for you too."
Without another word, Dago removed the black cloth bag from his waist, poured out one Magic Stone Shard, and handed it to the plump woman.
Her smile bloomed like an oversized chrysanthemum, and she immediately hurried into the baking room behind the shop.
Dago wandered around the small bakery, examining the prices and estimating the town's price levels.
Before long, the plump woman emerged from the baking room carrying a bag of flour.
Before you continue