Chapter 117: Invitation and Gratitude

After two attempts, Luge mastered that seemingly simple rune; it was indeed simple, but only from the perspective of construction — the interference with spiritual power from what knew not whether sadness or something else was the difficulty, an extra dimension. He calmed his mind and constructed it twice more in succession, ensuring he had completely mastered it, before opening his eyes after meditating to recover.

He had originally wanted to accomplish it in one go, to make the other party look at him with new eyes; unfortunately he did not achieve the effect in his mind. Perhaps letting him understand the properties of this kind of rune in advance, there was still that sliver of possibility, he thought.

Luge blinked and discovered the woman was staring at him blankly.

"I think we can start work now," he said.

This young-looking female Wizard Apprentice, judging by her face alone, had the biggest problem that her expression rarely changed, including when she visited his home to invite him.

Without expression, it was hard to sense emotion, so she always gave people a feeling of being difficult to communicate with, not easy to deal with. The greatest emotional change Luge had ever seen from her was perhaps on the day of the Star Festival; under the bonfire's glow, she sat on a stone strip by the wall lightly stroking a harp, and Luge sat beside her. Although her expression was flat even then, from close up he could still feel her sadness and desolation.

"Your way of communicating makes it very hard to make friends," Luge said.

Luge found her behavior, as if her words and deeds were misaligned, extremely unadaptable — comparable to early Dasha. At least when Dasha didn't know how to answer he would still hum a couple of times, which counted as relatively respectful; but the woman before him was clearly looking at him yet didn't even let out a single hum.

"Having no friends isn't a bad thing," she said. "It lets me focus more; the Supernatural Path is always lonely."

Luge felt he had heard something that sounded very reasonable again, but no matter how reasonable he only took it as reference; as the world's first Kobold Wizard, he had to be unique.

Speaking, she led Luge to the magic array in the center of the basement.

The surrounding bottles and jars were very much in the way underfoot, yet she didn't even glance at them, walking around the array with every step nimbly and precisely clearing them; there were also alchemical devices like large boxes connected with various pipes to the side, and these almost made Luge unable to keep up with her footsteps.

That array seemed to have been engraved on the ground and then poured with some material; at this moment specific positions inside the array already held some things that were obviously the items to be operated on next. She took out a few more and placed them in the array, then a large amount of magic stones were filled into the alchemical devices and around the array.

"We can begin," she said calmly.

Luge was actually somewhat nervous.

He tightly gripped one end of the alchemical device the woman handed him, stood by the array, and began his first job assisting a Wizard Apprentice.

As his rune construction succeeded, the alchemical device in his hand trembled slightly, and the spiritual power consumed to maintain the rune doubled here. He strove to keep the rune from collapsing while trying to stay steady; it seemed the extra consumed spiritual power all passed through the alchemical device in his hand, transformed into another form, and surged toward the array before him.

He wanted to look closely but dared not distract himself, so only after grasping the balance of this consumption did he use his peripheral vision to steal a slight glance.

Just one glance reminded him of that Dragonborn Kobold most suitable for adventuring — Old Gold Tooth with light silk growing on his body. At this moment similar threads were growing inside the array, but Luge could feel that the glowing threads in the array were a peculiar product born from spiritual power transformed and combined with something.

The female Wizard Apprentice operated steadily; some inconspicuous tiny things were strung through one by one by those vast quantities of threads.

Those peculiar threads seemed to be weaving, simultaneously linking the small objects placed in advance at specific positions in the array; gradually Luge saw a clue.

The threads wove, cooperating with the many small objects, and what they formed seemed to be a section of a finger.

This is an alchemical magic puppet?

Does a magic puppet require this degree of intricacy? In his understanding, alchemical magic puppets were the rather crude kind, like the alchemical device box to the side — big fellows with edges and corners.

But the one before his eyes — a single finger section was exaggeratedly complex, with that many small things, simply more complex than a real human hand.

Spiritual power consumption suddenly increased; he dared not look further, lowered his head and concentrated his mind.

After a while longer, consumption returned to normal.

He raised his head to look again; one finger had already been completed, and it seemed about to begin construction of the second.

"When you can't hold on, you can stop to meditate and recover; I'll watch for the timing and find a chance to recover myself," she said. "With your help, this time is very likely to succeed."

Luge was already finding it somewhat strenuous at this moment and had no attention to spare to answer her.

Vast quantities of threads glimmered faintly, intertwining and weaving with incomparable agility, stringing together one peculiar small object after another.

Preparing these small objects probably also cost a large amount of resources and time.

When the second finger reached halfway, Luge finally couldn't hold on; he signaled and sat down on the spot, beginning to meditate and recover.

One round of meditation was as refreshing as sweet rain after a long drought.

Luge rose and first stretched lazily, not rushing to pick up the alchemical device.

"Your spiritual power recovers very fast," she said distractedly.

"My talent is pretty good."

Luge replied with boastful shamelessness.

The two began maintaining the array by taking turns recovering.

But after several rounds.

Gradually Luge discovered something was wrong; this guy really was someone who wouldn't have friends — she seemed to have no plan to stop and rest, meaning she might persist like this for ten days straight.

Luge felt eighty magic stones a day was absolutely too little, and by a lot.

This guy was either short on funds or deliberately deceiving him.

Luge even suspected that the words about his spiritual power foundation being solid and excellent were also a link in the deception; in reality maybe any random Wild Wizard would do.

Things indeed developed as he predicted; days of torment made him lose quite a lot of the shiny fur he had grown during this period.

More and more things were taken out by her and placed into the array; magic stones were also replenished several times; the devices she used increased as well.

Luge could only silently hold on; curiosity about the magic puppet and not wanting to be looked down on were also a major motivation for him.

"I need to recover again," he said.

After enduring several days, he was already able to communicate while distracted — this also counted as a kind of progress.

"No need; the rest I can handle alone. I'll send you some magic stones later as thanks," she said in a deep voice while taking out a potion and drinking it with her head tilted back, then continued, "But the exact quantity depends on how many magic stones I have left after a while."

Luge was stunned for a moment upon hearing this.

He didn't know if she truly didn't need his assistance, or if the final steps she didn't want outsiders to see.

Calculating carefully, it actually wasn't quite ten days; that was her initial estimate, which included the time he might need to learn the rune.

Luge was already hungry enough that his front chest stuck to his back; he nodded and turned to leave.

As he walked, above the basement large quantities of light silk also spread downward, upper and lower corresponding, as if becoming a world of light silk. When he passed the living room, the array there corresponding to the basement's position was indeed operating as well.

He stretched lazily back to his home next door; the somewhat haggard Daisy immediately revived and bustled about.

The first thing he did sitting at the table was release Aijin and Dasha; although cautious he had long prepared various food and drink in the Abyss Bedroom Space, suddenly not seeing them for several days inevitably made the two Kobolds worried.

"How many days was I gone?" he lay on the dining table lazily saying.

"Counting the day you left, Master has been gone exactly eight days."

Daisy spoke and first brought a platter of fruit for the three Kobolds to enjoy.

At the same time, a gorgeous invitation was placed before him.

"Miss Motel sent someone to deliver this," she said. "She says Master Lorigo told her that what you expect has come to pass; please arrive early on the day of the wedding. By then, the things should be ready, and he will hand them to you personally, fulfilling his promise. Also, thank you for your secret help."

Daisy spoke almost word by word, afraid of missing any crucial word.

(Chapter End)