[Meditation Staff]

After hurling the fireball, An Kai quickly ducked back into the stairwell.

Once the blast died down, he cautiously poked his head out. Ripples spread across the barrier the old president had left behind.

An Kai saw that the barrier only provided protection and did not retaliate.

Relieved, he began conjuring fireballs one after another.

In an instant, the third floor of the Mage Association blazed with light!

Thunderous explosions rang out!

They echoed through the deserted town.

After An Kai launched his forty-fifth fireball, the barrier the old president had left behind shattered...

It had already endured attacks from countless people over the past year. An Kai's fierce barrage of fireballs was the last straw that broke the camel's back.

It could hold out no longer!

The barrier vanished, revealing the door.

An Kai did not act rashly.

Instead, he conjured another Fireball and blasted the door!

Bang!

With a deafening crash, the door shattered into fragments across the floor!

The room's furnishings came into view!

A bed, a desk, and a row of bookshelves that made An Kai's eyes light up!

Even then, he did not enter.

Suppressing his excitement, he picked up a skeleton from the third floor and hurled it into the room with all his strength...

Whoosh!

The moment the skeleton entered the room, a Wind Blade appeared, slicing it into fragments that scattered across the floor!

"You vicious old bastard! I knew it!"

An Kai was not surprised in the slightest. He did not believe there were any good people in this nameless town...

Least of all the old president, who had lived here for decades. There was no way someone like that could be innocent...

In no hurry, An Kai picked up another skeleton from the third floor and threw it into the room...

Every skeleton that entered was met with a Wind Blade...

Once he ran out of skeletons on the third floor, he went looking on the second and first floors.

Toward the end, An Kai even began regretting that he had blasted the skeleton at the third-floor stairwell into bone dust...

After exhausting the skeletons in the Mage Association, An Kai ran out to the streets, gathered two or three skeletons from either side, and returned to the old president's room to keep throwing them in...

The first shattered, then the second...

Until the third...

Thud!

The skeleton hit the floor of the old president's room and fell apart from the impact...

An Kai's eyes lit up!

Just as he was about to enter, he took the "Tier 1 Mage" badge out of his clothes.

He pinned it to his chest. "We're all on the same side. Surely the old president wouldn't be angry if he saw this!"

Muttering to himself, An Kai walked inside with light steps...

Once inside, he headed straight for the bookshelves without hesitation!

He took down every book and searched through them one by one for anything he needed...

The old president had gone to great lengths to protect this room. There had to be something worth all that effort!

"Curious Tales of Life in the Booklin Duchy," "The Booklin King's Romantic Affairs," "The Untold Secrets of the Booklin Princess and the Mage Association," "An Analysis of the Differences Between Humans and Beasts"...

An Kai pulled out book after book, slipping the one about the Booklin princess into his clothes...

There was no other reason. He simply found secrets interesting.

"An Analysis of Tier 1 Spells," "A Survey of Tier 1 Spells," "The Complete Guide to Tier 1 Spells"...

An Kai kept all three books on Tier 1 spells.

By then, he had searched two-thirds of the bookshelves.

Most of the books were useless to him.

Five minutes later.

An Kai frowned. He had finished searching every book on the shelves.

If this was all there was, it should not have been worth protecting.

After all, to the Tier 2 old president, these things were as good as trash...

An Kai sat at the desk with the three Tier 1 spellbooks in front of him.

He had no desire to read them just then. Instead, he wondered where his assumptions had gone wrong...

The desk was made of mahogany and had only one drawer.

Seeing it, An Kai instinctively pulled the drawer open...

He had no expectations whatsoever for a drawer like this.

What decent person would keep valuables in... here...

As the drawer opened, a smile spread across An Kai's face.

A staff came into view!

[Meditation Staff: Lv1]

[Quality: Superior]

[Requirements: Intelligence 10, Constitution 10, Strength 10, Endurance 10.]

[Note: Hold it while meditating, and you might get a special effect~]

Superior quality. If An Kai remembered correctly, the staff the old president treasured had only been ordinary quality.

That was just one grade above blank quality, the lowest of the low!

And superior was the grade above ordinary!

"Old president... you're a true philanthropist!"

Holding the half-meter-long staff, An Kai could not help marveling...

Its requirements were practically tailor-made for him!

From that moment on, the [Meditation Staff] had a new name: An Kai's Meditation Staff...

Just then, a message suddenly appeared on the desk in front of An Kai...

"Oh? Is that you, An Kai, lad? The staff is yours. Take good care of it, and don't forget to return to the Mage Association in three years. I'll pass the presidency on to you."

The sudden message instantly left An Kai drenched in cold sweat!

His experience in the game told him that no Tier 2 mage could possibly do something like this!

As for returning to the Mage Association in three years, An Kai did not believe a word of it. He had no doubt that the old president would beat him senseless upon seeing what he was holding...

Thinking it over, hadn't the old president given him twenty-eight magic stones for no apparent reason when he left? Had he been plotting something?

An Kai grew even more terrified!

He suspected the old man was hiding some secret from him. Otherwise, why would the old president treat him so well?

At the border of the Bukelin Duchy.

In a castle hidden deep within a forest, the old president, Dong Lin, opened his eyes after finishing his cultivation.

"Hah! That little bastard An Kai can actually use the Meditation Staff?!"

"Very well. I'll let you hold on to it for a while!"

Mage Donglin's eyes were icy. There was not a trace of kindness on his face.

He had left the staff behind because the [Meditation Staff] had another hidden requirement.

Anyone who failed to meet its requirements would suffer backlash if they forced themselves to use it. Even carrying it would have the same effect!

And the old president would never be able to meet its requirements in his lifetime...

He knew An Kai had taken it because a concealed spell he had set up had detected An Kai's aura...

After muttering a few words, Mage Donglin resumed his secluded cultivation.

Beside him, a notebook floated in midair, with several pieces of information recorded on its pages...

"An Kai. Gifted twenty-eight low-grade magic stones. Time required to absorb them all: three years. Potential Tier 1 necromancer. Growth potential: Low."

A gentle breeze brushed past, and the word "Low" after growth potential changed to "Medium."

It was the only "Medium" entry in the old president's notebook...

Skeletons filled the castle, but rather than lying scattered haphazardly across the floor, they stood in orderly ranks...

Like so many guards!

Clutching the [Meditation Staff], An Kai searched the room once more, selected a few useful books, and left...

After exiting the Mage Association, An Kai intended to leave immediately.

Then he suddenly changed his mind.

If the old president of the Mage Association had hidden a staff, might the mayor, whose strength was on par with his, have hidden something too?

At that thought, An Kai changed course and quietly crept toward the mayor's residence...

The contract's signed. So happy...

Thanks for your recommendation votes, everyone~