Dago left the Academy Academic Affairs Office and casually found a long bench in a corridor somewhere in the castle. He sat quietly, watching the people passing by.
There were quite a few people in the corridor. Most wore apprentice robes, while a small number wore instructor robes. The two were easy to distinguish: apprentice robes had a gray base, with the Academy emblem embroidered on the chest in silk thread.
Instructor robes were different. They had a white base, beautiful patterns embroidered along the edges, and the Academy emblem on the chest was stitched in silver thread.
Dago also noticed that the collars and cuffs of these instructor robes were embroidered with intricate wizard runes. Every rune seemed alive, flickering faintly in the light.
The fabric looked incredibly soft, as though woven from delicate spider silk, yet it possessed a resilient texture.
As time slowly passed, fewer and fewer people walked through the corridor. It seemed they were preparing for class.
"If this keeps up, these ten Low-Grade Magic Stones will turn into admission tickets for an Academy tour!"
Dago thought anxiously.
He could not worry about that anymore. Clutching the black book to his chest, he followed behind a wizard wearing an instructor robe patterned with blue dots.
From behind, she appeared to be an elderly female wizard. Her hair had turned completely white, like the first snow of winter.
After turning two corners, Dago followed the elderly instructor into a small arched classroom. The old desks, chairs, and blackboard all carried a sense of age, proving that this was an old classroom.
Small groups of apprentice wizards sat at their desks. Some flipped through books, while others whispered to one another. There were not many apprentices in total, only around ten.
Holding his book, Dago casually found an empty desk in the corner of the classroom and sat down. He glanced toward the podium.
The elderly instructor sat quietly on the podium, looking at the sparse students below with a hint of disappointment in her eyes.
Deep in her gaze, it was as if she had crossed through time, carrying the ancient weariness of memories long past.
"Apprentices, today we will mainly study beginner ice-element spellcraft—the detailed pronunciation technique for the sixth syllable of the Hail Spell incantation. First, press your tongue against the roof of your mouth..."
A kindly smile hung on her face as she adjusted her reading glasses. Her slightly weathered voice rang out, like a rusty key turning the locks around the students' eyes, instantly drawing in the apprentices' attention.
Dago stared at the podium in utter confusion. He felt that her words were like seeds from proliferating vines; once they entered his ears, they took root, their veins growing into Roman columns within his cochlea.
He listened through the entire lesson in a fog. After thirty minutes, he had learned absolutely nothing.
When class ended, the apprentices packed up their books and left the classroom.
Only Dago remained seated, negotiating with his brain in an attempt to salvage some lingering scraps of knowledge.
The elderly wizard saw his comical appearance and smiled as she shook her head. She packed away her thick teaching materials and prepared to leave as well.
Dago picked up his book and quickly rose to follow her, stopping her in the corridor outside the classroom.
"Hello, Instructor Rosalyn. I'm Dago, an apprentice who just enrolled at the Academy. I accidentally followed you into this classroom. Could you be my guide at the Academy?"
Dago asked Rosalyn sincerely. He had only learned the elderly instructor's name by asking an apprentice sitting two seats away during class.
For that, he had received several vicious glares from the apprentice, but at least he had gotten the elderly instructor's name.
"Did you not know that this classroom specifically teaches ice-element spells? Still, I can see that your attitude toward learning is very sincere. I can become your guide at the Academy."
"However, I have been rather busy lately and do not have time to teach apprentices individually. I have an ice-element spell here, which I will give you as a meeting gift."
Rosalyn pulled a thin manuscript from the thick teaching materials in her arms and handed it to Dago. It was covered in her elegant handwriting.
At that moment, Dago felt that she was like a warm stove at the entrance of an old alley, always providing warmth when someone needed it.
"Your sincerity has moved me. Although the number of wizards studying ice-element spells has gradually declined, I still hope to do my part for it."
"However, I must emphasize that ice-element spellcraft has its drawbacks. As your cultivation deepens, it will gradually affect your mental power and even your soul, causing you to reject spellcraft from other schools."
"That is why fewer and fewer apprentices practice ice-element spellcraft. I hope you will consider this carefully. This is a path that becomes harder and harder to turn back from."
Wizard Rosalyn earnestly advised Dago for a while.
Dago took her words to heart. He accepted the A4-sized manuscript and thanked her with tears in his eyes.
Wizard Rosalyn said nothing more. She gave him a deep look, then turned and left.
Dago carefully tucked the manuscript into his black book. Afterward, he wandered around Academy Castle to familiarize himself with the surroundings until he was tired, then returned to his little shelter.
At the shelter, Dago changed into a light hunting outfit and sat on a tree stump outside. It was already past five in the afternoon.
Using the soft sunlight, Dago read the manuscript in his hands. He had actually skimmed through the black wizard book before, but it was obscure and difficult to understand, requiring a certain foundation in reading.
After weighing his options, he chose the simpler ice-element incantation spell—Ice Crystal Technique.
It was the spell recorded on the manuscript Wizard Rosalyn had given him.
The principle behind Ice Crystal Technique was simple. It used an incantation to call forth the strange energy particles hidden within the Spirit World, then used mental power to control and gather them.
The incantation looked extremely simple, with only two syllables. Dago tried pronouncing it according to the description on the paper.
"Kryos... Thalassa..."
But after putting it into practice, Dago found that the actual pronunciation was far from simple.
After babbling away for an hour, Dago's mouth was dry, yet he had not succeeded even once.
"This is way too hard!"
He looked at the thin manuscript, wondering whether he had practiced something incorrectly.
"Forget it. I'll eat first. I'll have the energy to practice again after I'm full."
With a sigh, he quickly went to wash rice and cook it, then sliced some dried meat and boiled it together. It made for a simple meal.
Before he knew it, the sky had darkened, and the twin moons hung overhead.
Night fell over Emerald Forest like an enormous black curtain. Moonlight struggled through layers of leaves, scattering mottled fragments of silver across the ground.
The sounds of the forest resembled an eerie symphony. The cold wind swept over the treetops, producing low, mournful cries.
Dago lit a campfire in the clearing, driving away the darkness and bringing warmth.
By the firelight, he carefully studied the manuscript again. This time, Dago was determined to carve it firmly into his mind.
Instructor Rosalyn's handwriting on the manuscript was beautiful, filling the entire page. Much of the knowledge was explained in meticulous detail, raising Dago's understanding of the Wizarding World to a new level.
Instructor Rosalyn believed that an incantation was like a "key" that opened a door connecting to another layer of the world.
Those strange energy particles could then emerge from behind that door and descend into the natural world.
Some strange energy particles disliked the heat of the natural world and transferred that heat through an unknown method to strange energy particles that liked heat.
Energy could only be transferred; it could not vanish from nothing. This was a truth the Wizarding World had discovered only within the past century.
The strange energy particles that disliked heat were known in the Wizarding World as ice elements.
The strange energy particles that liked heat were naturally fire elements.
Spellcraft that controlled these energy particles governing the world—whether elements such as fire, earth, ice, and wind, or acid, alkali, electrical energy, and mechanical energy brought about by the progress of civilization—were collectively known as evocation wizardry.
These spells could inflict massive destruction upon the natural world in a short time. Of course, Ice Crystal Technique did not possess that kind of power. It was merely a basic ice-element spell.
Most of the knowledge had been expanded upon by Instructor Rosalyn through Ice Crystal Technique.
After tucking the manuscript back into the black book, Dago closed his eyes and carefully savored every sentence on the page. When he opened them again, a sapphire-blue glow flowed through his eyes.
"Kryos... Thalassa..."
The strange, awkward syllables left Dago's mouth without the slightest error.
The instant the incantation ended, a large portion of his mental power vanished, as though something had gnawed it away.
Dago looked around. Specks of ice elements, like dust, suddenly appeared around him, floating in the air as they continuously drew heat from the atmosphere.
The temperature around Dago plummeted, making him shiver from the cold.
He hurriedly used his mental power to gather the ice elements one meter in front of him.
The ice elements rapidly gathered before him into a blue energy sphere the size of a pigeon's egg. Vast amounts of moisture rapidly condensed and grew around the blue energy sphere as its core.
As more moisture replenished it from afar, the blue energy sphere grew according to his will into an ice crystal pillar as thick as an arm, floating in the air.
Countless ice blossoms slowly drifted from the ice crystal pillar. Under the moonlight, they looked dreamlike and illusory. With a slight shift of Dago's thoughts, the ice crystal pillar shot out with a whoosh.
Ice blossoms trailed behind the ice crystal pillar in a dazzling tail. With a bang, it embedded itself in a large tree more than ten meters away, then vanished as it melted into a puddle of water.
An immense wave of joy and accomplishment enveloped Dago as a system notification appeared.
[Detected an improvable skill: Ice Crystal Technique. Choose to improve it?]
Dago immediately chose yes, and the system panel changed.
[Universal Wizard Meditation Method (Beginner 111/1000); Air Bullet (Beginner 123/1000); Ice Crystal Technique (Novice 1/100)]
"So it seems that any spell I successfully cast for the first time can be loaded into the system."
Seeing Ice Crystal Technique loaded onto the system panel, Dago thought with relief.
His heart unexpectedly calmed considerably. Rather than indulging in his joy, he continued practicing.
With his current total mental power, he could cast Ice Crystal Technique about twice before exhausting himself. Ice Crystal Technique required far more mental power than Air Bullet; one Ice Crystal Technique was roughly equivalent to three Air Bullets.
So now, each time he meditated, he cast Air Bullet three times and Ice Crystal Technique once, repeating the cycle over and over.
After cultivating for three hours, Dago finally dragged his exhausted body into the shelter. He changed out of his sweat-soaked hunting clothes, washed up quickly, then collapsed onto the small bed lined with deerskin.
He reviewed his evening's cultivation. As Ice Crystal Technique improved, he became increasingly adept at controlling ice elements. Not only that, but as its improvement value rose, the requirements for the incantation's syllables were actually decreasing.
Perhaps in the future, he would be able to cast spells without chanting. With beautiful fantasies of the future in his heart, he gradually drifted into sleep.
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