Chapter 17: Low Profile and Exploration

This place lacks everything, only roads are not lacking; he twisted and turned, turning until even he started to get dizzy, only then did he set his mind at ease.

But he merely no longer ran with full strength, yet had absolutely no intention of stopping. Two ruthless short legs swung at a constant speed, as if wanting to fling both feet away. He had always felt that the kobold's cowardly habit was bad, restricting them, causing them to struggle to become powerful, but after experiencing the situation just now, he felt this seemed to be nothing much either, completely understandable.

The kobold's cowardice can save lives; in most situations they will not be scared stiff, will not do the foolish thing of freezing in place; once they fall into fear they scatter in all directions, instinct driving them to run wildly toward the distance.

Just as he is doing now.

Ever since he had the small storage bag, even fleeing became convenient; he sighed with emotion in his heart.

For a kobold, everywhere in this place are big houses suitable for settling down; four-sided transparency means escaping is convenient.

He arrived at a spacious and pleasing place; pity this is the junction of three passages, so it can only count as three-sided transparency.

Calmed his mind.

The little Chong Ren's expression when leaving was very wrong.

The only problem now is no food, but that doesn't matter; he can go hungry first; after all, the kobold's other specialty, hunger resistance, has not been exerted for a very long time; first quietly wait until tomorrow to explore a way out.

"My reserve rations, are you alright?"

He held the cultivation bag, opened the bag mouth, brought it close to his face and spoke softly.

That large worm egg actually shook, seemingly trembling.

This thing can actually understand speech?

He saw the little Chong Ren used Ground Common Language when communicating with him, so this time teasing the worm egg he also spoke Ground Common Language. Before, he had thought the two brothers could inexplicably communicate, using pheromones or such means.

Teased for a while, also calmed down.

He leaned against the cave wall and sat down, took out the Freezing Ray spellbook, continued flipping through it.

Starting directly from zero, learning a spell, is not the imagined starting from spell models; previously he had learned that spell models are equivalent to a special rune that can be extremely simple or extremely complex, a kind of artificial construct.

Not using inheritance scrolls, lacking that assistive force; simply put, wanting to build an excellent spell model relying on one's own power, one must first figure out a pile of even smaller, more fragmented things; if even one point is not mastered transparently enough, it is difficult to construct even the simplest spell model.

Those little things can be understood as even smaller runes, somewhat similar to the collision of all things, all matters, all principles of the world with spiritual power that transcends the mundane, a strange element thus revealed; it can also be said to be the world's expression. If the world is viewed as a speaking person, a person can speak one sentence at a time, while the world can simultaneously speak a hundred sentences, ten thousand sentences. A not-too-accurate analogy: these little things, even the great runes in meditation methods, are all captured, seen, understood words and phrases spoken by the world, even merely punctuation marks.

And these little things, seemingly cute, are actually mischievous to the point of mental exhaustion; merely observing them simply comes at the cost of continuous spiritual power consumption.

At first glance they all look the same, yet actually they are completely different; even broken into two and reassembled they are different; they fuse and yet repel; multiples together produce different changes; if mastery is not thorough, constructing spell models becomes unsustainable. And this is still considered good, because predecessors have already walked the path out; the book already gives the scope, one-to-one corresponding to every single mischievous sprite this spell needs, not one more, not one less, complete and reliable.

Perhaps in a Grand Wizard's eyes, this kind of book belongs to the foolproof, hand-holding teaching type.

He flipped through the book while scratching his head, bit by bit understanding and mastering; the page-turning became slower and slower, sometimes a whole day without turning a single page; fortunately becoming a wizard apprentice, the spiritual power's metamorphosis made his brain a little more useful than before.

He suddenly thought: from another angle, isn't he equal to conversing with the world?

Only the world is a chatterbox even more exaggerated than Old Gold Tooth, speaking non-stop since birth without ever pausing. And what he disassembled and learned over several days might merely be half a character the world spat out, or the gap might be even larger, too large to describe; so this exaggerated inequality makes calling it a conversation a bit far-fetched. When they learn and explore these runes, it is more like attempting to touch the world's echo. Perhaps the world's echo from tens of millions of years ago.

He raised his head to look at the crystal stone lamp standing in the corner; the rhombus crystal stone embedded in the hourglass-shaped frame had already lit up, completed the switch, and finished one rotation.

In the blink of an eye he had already been hungry for five days; he repeatedly admonished himself: this is not because of excessive caution, but the selfless realm of first-time self-study of a spell, together with the kobold's hunger-enduring talent, defeated hunger. It seems after becoming a wizard apprentice, the ability to endure hunger also became stronger.

He finally decided to move.

Several days of self-study, he had already accumulated quite a few gifts for Half-Man.

Perhaps he could also consider bringing Half-Man a worm; just uncertain whether this guy would eat a bite and then leak out from somewhere.

He did not walk according to the route in his memory.

Having hidden for so many days, he cannot be incautious at the very end.

Wasted half a day's time before exploring his way out, smoothly arriving at the long-missed Gouhe Xiao Liechang.

At first glance he saw a dark-skinned, beautiful pointed ear.

Should be the dark elf Old Gold Tooth spoke of.

At least by his human eyes, it is considerably beautiful; perhaps kobolds and lizardmen would have different opinions.

After coming out, he kept a low profile and did not cast the Stinking Skin Spell; he looked just like an ordinary little kobold.

At this moment he made an action conforming to the ordinary kobold image and temperament.

He howled, waving his arms, turned and ran.

This black elf's height is similar to a human's; standing there casually, waist and back straight, there is a kind of upright, sharp feeling; upon detecting Luge's footsteps, he did not look over at the first time, but only glanced when he started to flee.

This is also the effect Luge wanted.

At this moment he is an ordinary kobold; at least in others' eyes, the first impression is like this, and that is good.

This dark elf being able to leave home alone, wandering solo in other ground races' territories, is enough to show he is a formidable guy.

Now there are many places to catch worms; that place can just be left to the other party.

Seeing the elf not chase for a long time, he began to slow down, lightened his footsteps, closed his mouth, carefully recalled: just now that pointed-ear guy standing there seemed to be observing the whole Gouhe, not coming to catch worms to eat.

Luge thought a bit, decided not to care about those; catch worms and hurry back, learn the spell as soon as possible.

He had already decided: no longer wait to become a Second-Rank Wizard Apprentice; once he learns this spell he will set out, first search the two relatively nearer Wizard Fallen sites. Thanks to the Crybaby Chong for delivering the Wizard Inheritance Map.

Since parting with the little Chong Ren last time, it might already be the last meeting; if there truly is any danger, it certainly revolves around the little Chong Ren; he is just a passerby bit player.

(Chapter End)