Neighbors in the Forest

With his mouth full of grease, he patted his belly in satisfaction, having eaten a dozen skewers or so until his stomach swelled up quite a bit.

He placed the remaining venison on the fire to smoke and dry out the moisture, making it into venison jerky.

As for selling fresh meat, that was out of the question; without preservation methods, it would spoil before long. Venturing into town to sell it would fetch a much higher price, but it would interrupt his progress in cultivation.

He planned to smoke the venison into jerky and sell it to the town's butcher shop, and sell the deer skins to the town's leather shop. His routine in the future would probably consist of heading to town early in the morning to sell the jerky smoked the night before and the tanned deer skins.

The afternoon would be the regular hunting time, which was also Dago's practical training for Air Bullet.

As for after sunset, that was definitely reserved entirely for gaining skill progress points.

Perfect, a triple win.

The days that followed proceeded according to his planned daily routine.

Before he knew it, half a month had passed.

In the clearing outside the shelter, a fist-sized air bullet flew rapidly toward a tree too thick for a man to wrap his arms around.

"Bang!"

A violent explosion rang out, blowing a large amount of wood chips off the stout tree, and a palm-deep indentation was embedded in the trunk's surface.

In the distance, Dago, who had just released an air bullet, wore a strange expression and lowered his head, seeming to ponder something.

As the skills on the system panel enter the novice stage, the difficulty of gaining progress points is also getting harder and harder.

It seems that when skills reach the later stages, there is an upper limit. Well, after all, it is unrealistic to touch the source directly relying solely on low-level spells.

Thinking this, Dago called up the system panel.

[Universal Wizard Meditation Method (Novice 78/1000); Air Bullet (Novice 56/1000)]

Ever since Air Bullet entered the novice stage, the speed of compressed air and flight has become much faster, and the power has increased a lot as well.

He felt that his understanding of the spell Air Bullet had become much deeper.

The essence of its release was actually his mental power manipulating energy particles to form a film that compressed the air.

However, further on, the difficulty of compressing air increased exponentially, and once it was compressed to roughly the size of a fist, it was basically impossible to make any further progress.

Currently, his total mental power allowed him to cast four air bullets in a short period of time.

This undoubtedly greatly increased his hunting speed. Galloping deer were basically met and killed instantly, while as for magical beasts, he hadn't encountered a single one yet, though that might require heading deeper into the forest.

During this period of hunting, his diet improved, his physique was enhanced quite a bit, and the color in his face gradually turned for the better.

He fumbled around in the deer skin pouch he kept close to his body.

"One, two, three... nine pieces. I've already saved up nine low-level magic stones."

This was the result of Dago's hard work over the past half month, with the bulk of his magic stone income coming from the deer skins.

His skinning technique had improved immensely, producing intact and beautiful deer skins that greatly increased their price.

As for the venison, in truth, a good deal of it had ended up in Dago's own belly. After all, he was still at an age where he was growing, so naturally his appetite was a bit larger.

Dago pulled out a brass pocket watch to check the time; it was four-thirty in the afternoon.

He intended to visit a neighbor in the forest, a new friend he had made a few days ago.

The two had met on the shore of a small lake. At the time, the atmosphere had been tense—after all, the wizard world operated on a dark forest system.

However, after flashing their wizard apprentice badges to each other, they shook hands, made peace, and engaged in friendly communication.

Within the [Wizard Alliance], killing a wizard who held an official badge was a severe crime; once discovered, it meant a full-alliance bounty hunt, and countless bounty wizards would come in pursuit.

This could be considered one of the few protective regulations the [Wizard Alliance] had for low-level wizards: either you had a hundred percent certainty of not being discovered after killing a wizard, or you lived in peace.

Dago finished his daily cultivation, returned to the shelter, and set off into the forest carrying a bag of venison he had hunted not long ago.

He headed all the way west, walking for about thirty minutes or so, until an unusually secluded and low wooden house built among large trees appeared in his field of vision.

He walked over slowly, arriving at a small patch of grass beneath the treehouse.

"Is Wizard Marico in? It's Dago."

Dago shouted loudly from beneath the treehouse.

"You're here, my friend. Wait for me, I'm coming down right now."

A brown-haired old man wearing a tattered gray robe poked his head out of the treehouse to reply.

Then he nimbly climbed down from the treehouse using the vines.

Old Marico was stronger than Dago, being a Third-Level Wizard Apprentice, but he had a rather optimistic personality with few desires and no particular ambitions.

According to him, he had completely given up hope of advancing to a formal wizard.

Old Marico was an old resident of this forest and got along well with the other wizard apprentices living in it.

He had a decent skill for barbecue, and Dago had come to his residence to barbecue in the few days since they met.

After coming down, Old Marico gave Dago a warm hug, and upon seeing the bag of meat Dago was carrying, he immediately understood Dago's intention.

He laughed heartily and started a campfire in an empty space.

Soon, the tender venison was placed on the grill, sizzling and dripping oil under the orange-red charcoal fire.

Old Marico skillfully controlled the barbecue heat, reaching into his pouch to grab a large handful of special seasonings and scattering them over it, the rich fragrance instantly filling the woods.

The two of them sat on a bare, fallen tree trunk lying horizontally in the clearing, and Dago picked up the dagger at his waist to cut the roasted venison.

"Want some wine? I brewed this berry wine myself."

Old Marico pulled a delicate silver hip flask out of his tattered cloth robe and asked Dago.

"No, I have to head back later."

Dago chewed on a large piece of roast venison and shook his head in refusal.

The two ate and chatted idly. Dago had learned a lot from Old Marico regarding the academy and the [Wizard Alliance].

In his youth, Old Marico had also been to many places, but he had never stepped outside the territory of the [Wizard Alliance].

This showed just what a colossal entity the [Wizard Alliance] was. Its highest authority was the High Council, which had a total of seven seats belonging to seven transcendent wizard organizations.

The High Council operated on the principle of the minority obeying the majority; once a motion was passed by more than four seats, the remaining seats could not block it and had to support it wholeheartedly.

The High Grand Chancellor was jointly elected by the seven seats for a term of one hundred years, primarily responsible for maintaining the normal operation of the High Council.

The Emerald Forest was one of the wizard territories belonging to the seven seats, and the transcendent wizard force lingering there was named [Emerald Life].

Most wizards within [Emerald Life] were nature wizards, loving peace and worshiping nature.

They specialized in life sorcery, potion making, and the modification and development of the physical body. Their core philosophy was: only an immortal physical body can forge an immortal soul.

Meanwhile, the Ainak Wizard Academy was one of the countless small wizard organizations surviving within the Emerald Forest.

"Have you heard? Those madmen from [Dark Crystal Eulogy] are coming over to kill."

Old Marico looked at the small campfire and said worriedly.

[Dark Crystal Eulogy] was likewise one of the seven seats of the [Wizard Alliance]. Unlike the philosophy of [Emerald Life], they believed that only souls born from the mire of death could achieve soul immortality.

Their favorite thing to do was to grind dark crystals into powder, then mix it with bone powder and inhale it. However, they were undeniably strong in terms of individual strength, belonging to the type who grew stronger the crazier they got.

As fellow members of the seven seats of the High Council, it was impossible for them to directly take the field and wage war; instead, they fought proxy wars.

These matters were all too distant, and Dago shook his head without responding.

Right now, he only wanted to save up magic stones properly and then go to the academy to learn new spells.

"By the way, how far off are you from a third-level apprentice?"

Seeing he didn't speak, Old Marico asked again.

"Sigh~, still a long way off!"

Dago sighed and said helplessly.

Old Marico patted his shoulder and comforted him: "You're still young with plenty of time, take it slowly."

Dago nodded, and neither of them delved too deeply into the topic.

Advancing from a Second-Level Wizard Apprentice to a Third-Level Wizard Apprentice required meeting two conditions.

First, master three spell-formula magic arts proficiently; second, undergo a transformation in mental power.

To put it bluntly, spells cost money, and mental power required training.

After eating and drinking his fill, Old Marico actually became drunk and began to dance a chaotic belly dance in the glow of the campfire.

Seeing him drunk, Dago wore a wry smile as he laboriously hauled him up to the small wooden house in the tree, supported Old Marico's limp body, and laid him on the bed to sleep.

After finishing all this, he gently closed the door, climbed down the wooden house, and prepared to return to his shelter.

He walked briskly all the way back to the shelter and began cultivating in the clearing once again.

Over the past half-month or so, the stout trees surrounding the shelter had suffered terribly.

The surrounding clearing grew larger with every training session, and the firewood for the shelter piled higher and higher.

With the system panel, he was practically a different person compared to his past life. Right now, he barely let slip any moment that could be used to grind progress points.

Watching the progress points on the system panel tick up bit by bit, even the most boring cultivation failed to make him feel the slightest bit tedious.

He had to earn enough tuition fees as soon as possible to go to the Ainak Wizard Academy and learn new spell-formula magic arts.

Spell-formula magic arts were spells containing incantations that wizards derived through thousands of years of research and summary on ancient extraordinary species, possessing even greater power and more terrifying effects.

They were basically monopolized by the seven seats of the High Council, and could only be learned within their spheres of influence.

Therefore, Dago had no choice but to go to the Ainak Wizard Academy, because that was where spell-formula magic arts could be found.

Dago picked up his waterspout to take a drink, then continued his diligent cultivation, constantly refining his mental power and releasing air bullets...

He cultivated for a full four or five hours.

I'm about to drop dead from exhaustion...

Dago returned to the shelter and collapsed flat onto the small bed. His entire body completely relaxed; he didn't want to think about anything, didn't want to do anything, and stared blankly at the ceiling with unseeing eyes.

[Universal Wizard Meditation Method (Novice 88/1000); Air Bullet (Novice 90/1000)]

The growth speed of Air Bullet surpassed that of the meditation method, though that was quite normal.

The cultivation of the meditation method faced the obstruction of [Soul Entropy], whereas Air Bullet only required mental power.

As the meditation method progressed, his total amount of mental power was also constantly increasing, but [Soul Entropy] kept hindering the meditation method's advancement.

It looks like if the meditation method keeps progressing, perhaps it can eliminate the influence of Soul Entropy. If that's the case, my progress won't be much slower than those wizards who pop pills, and it won't waste the sweat I've shed.

Dago anticipated inwardly, and harboring this expectation, he would be able to sleep soundly tonight.