Goblins with equipment?

Dean went over it once in his mind. Simple, far too simple—as simple as Basic Illumination. Yet he felt it was almost too simple.

The spell was so simple that Dean did not even bother checking it again. He began probing at once. In less than ten seconds, a ripple of magic spread out from him, sweeping across roughly fifty meters around him.

But just a short distance beyond fifty meters, the ripple shuddered and shattered.

He had failed. Dean went pale as the failed spell brought a backlash, but to his surprise, it was incredibly mild. He only felt a little dazed, and after a few minutes, he was completely back to normal.

Nor had his mana decreased, as though what he had just felt had not been backlash at all, but a fluctuation in his own mana.

"Lamore, look! Did Dean just release a ripple of magic?" Kana's eyes widened, as though she had never stopped glaring at Lamore.

"Well... I think so! Has our little Mage turned into a genius? But that doesn't make sense either. How did he learn the spell? I didn't see him take out his spellbook. Actually, Dean hasn't even opened his eyes," Lamore said, puzzled. Kana, however, had long since tuned out his barrage of questions.

Between watching Dean's reaction and listening to Lamore's pointless questions, Kana naturally chose to watch Dean.

Dean's face was pale, but after a few minutes, his normal color returned. He felt very strange—truly strange—because he had only used five points of mana.

Basic Life Detection Magic required ten points of mana, even if it failed, barring special circumstances.

Of course, Dean hardly considered himself special, and he had indeed cast the detection spell just now, even if it had failed.

No, perhaps Dean was rather special after all. He had grown a horn, a horn given to him by a demon.

Normally, Basic Life Detection Magic lasted ten minutes and consumed ten points of mana. These conditions could vary depending on the caster, but that required an advanced Mage.

Dean was only a Level-One Magic Apprentice. Could he really alter the conditions of a spell?

One more try. Dean cast Life Detection Magic again, this time with greater focus and care.

The ripple of magic spread out once more. This time, it was not as fast, but Kana and the other two could all sense that it was more refined.

Through Life Detection Magic, Dean sensed Kana and the others almost instantly. As it spread farther, however, there was nothing else—except overhead, where a row of large, unfamiliar birds flew past.

It was marvelous. Nothing more than a ripple of mana, yet it let him sense places beyond his field of vision.

A hundred meters. Exactly a hundred meters. Any farther, and he could see nothing.

Right at the hundred-meter boundary, Dean spotted a Burrowing Beast roughly half the size of a person, buried dozens of meters underground.

The Burrowing Beast seemed to sense that it had been detected. It raised its head to investigate, then went back to sleep.

It was only a level-one magic beast, and it ate nothing but little bugs and other pests. It rarely broke through the surface, and it and the farm above practically kept to their own wells, their waters never mixing.

Besides, it was dozens of meters underground. In this impoverished corner of Blue Town, no powerful being would be bored enough to dig it out.

So the Burrowing Beast went on sleeping without a care in the world.

As for the other little bugs, those were not lives Dean could detect. They were too small. For a weak mage like him, searching for such tiny insects was far too demanding; there was no chance of success.

"I've learned Basic Life Detection Magic. One scan every thirty seconds, lasting ten minutes. Let's get started!" Dean said, somewhat excited. Fun. This spell is actually pretty fun.

Yanxi looked at Dean with a hint of admiration. Although it was arguably the simplest spell, mastering it completely in just a few minutes was unbelievable.

Lamore was dumbfounded too. He still had so many unanswered questions, and now something else so incredible had happened. Learning magic out of thin air? And learning it so quickly, too?

"You little brat. Dean, have you awakened? Or did your brain start working better after I tore down your house this morning?" As she spoke, Kana raised a hand to rap him on the head.

"What are you all staring at? Hurry up and look for the goblins, or my mana will go to waste." Dean rolled his eyes. Aren't they happy I've gotten a little better?

The four-person team got moving, though they merely circled the area, working their way across the farm. Every thirty seconds, a ripple of mana spread out from Dean.

Aside from Dean, Lamore knew the most about magic. Many priest skills resembled spells, so he knew a little about Life Detection Magic as well.

Yet what Dean displayed was somewhat different from what he knew.

First, ordinary Life Detection Magic sent out a scanning pulse once a minute. Only as a mage grew stronger would that interval shorten, yet Dean needed only thirty seconds between scans on his first use.

That left only two possibilities: either Dean had some special item, or he was a genius whose talent had awakened later in life.

Lamore did not pry. All he needed to know was that Dean was his teammate. The stronger his teammate was, the better; it certainly did him no harm.

Kana and the other two all felt that Dean seemed to have awakened and become a genius. Did that mean their team would now soar into the heavens in a single leap?

Perhaps they could formally apply for promotion to a Level-One Adventurer Team.

A Level-One Adventurer Team was still at the bottom of the ladder, but it was far better than their current standing as a Junior Adventurer Team. "Level one" and "junior" might sound like the same thing, but they represented two different stages.

Junior teams barely qualified as adventurer teams. They took on small, troublesome, time-consuming tasks that posed no danger.

Dean's group lacked both strength and numbers, so they could only be rated as a junior team. Of course, there were plenty of teams like theirs—as countless as the hairs on an ox.

A single cast of Life Detection Magic cost five points of mana and lasted ten minutes. After nearly two hours, all four of them stopped.

"How much ground is left?" Dean asked, wiping away his sweat.

"About a third, I think. Why don't you hang in there a little longer? Maybe we'll find them just a few dozen meters ahead." Kana glanced around as she spoke, sounding rather distracted.

They were too idle. The three of them had nothing to do.

Yanxi handed Dean a waterskin of spring water enchanted with a little stamina-restoring magic. It was worth ten copper coins.

Anyone who saw Dean panting and drenched in sweat would have felt a pang of sympathy.

Dean certainly did not stand on ceremony. He drained all the water in one go and even let out a burp.

"Are you... are you trying to squeeze every last drop of mana out of me?" Dean had drunk too fast and nearly choked at Kana's words. Breathing hard, he shot her a look.

Meanwhile, Lamore seemed to have spotted a warm mound of earth in a nearby rice paddy, a thin wisp of smoke still rising from it. There was also a dazzling glint in the grass beside it, but it was tiny and vanished in a flash. Only with considerable effort did Lamore catch that bright reflection again.

It was a bloodstained dagger.

(End of chapter)