Chapter 2

A grand feast of eating came to an end.

Whether it was dinner, breakfast, or lunch, he ate to his heart's content.

Luge rested his head on the Black Book, propped his legs up, shook his small feet twice, paused slightly, pulled a thin blade of grass from the edge of his grass skirt, picked his teeth while continuing to shake his dirty feet.

For this meal he performed beyond his usual capacity, eating a full half of a Fat Meat Worm.

He had always strived to eat more and sleep more to grow taller and stronger, but the cycle of eating then sleeping and sleeping then eating was never smooth; fortunately, he later found this treasure of a book.

He felt that the black covers on both sides of the book were made of something like a worm shell.

Suddenly, a sound of footsteps rang out.

Echoing through the interconnected cave.

Luge sat up bit by bit, reaching his hand toward his usual Long Stick.

The leisurely time after the meal ended so inexplicably.

The footsteps were not noisy, but like hurried drumbeats, indicating there was only one person coming, and they were very anxious inside.

He held his breath, pricked up his ear missing a chunk, and pressed his back tightly against one side of the Cave Wall.

But gradually, he relaxed again.

As if confirming the guess in his mind, that familiar voice rang out immediately.

"Brother Luge, I knew you'd be here, have you eaten your fill?"

The figure stopped before him, a Kobold wearing a grass skirt just like him; though a Kobold, she could be called a maiden for now.

A Kobold maiden taller than him.

"Aijin, I've told you, you don't need to run when coming to my place."

He looked at the Kobold maiden somewhat angrily.

Doing this was terrifying; he was a neurasthenic little Kobold who often lost fur from insomnia.

"Oh, it's because, happy!"

The Kobold maiden Aijin did not speak very fluently, and her inverted sentences often made Luge feel very tired listening.

This was the result of often chatting with him; before, when she wanted to express something, it made people anxious enough to want to pull out the dog hair on both sides of their head.

And such a her was already an oddity among this group of Kobolds; he had even suspected whether she came from another world like him. Unfortunately, facts proved he was thinking too much; the Kobold maiden only barely looked human when getting along with him, and ferocity and bloodiness were her other side.

"We have a master! A powerful, mighty, wise master! Hui Chang Jing Sheng Zhu!" The Kobold maiden Aijin was so excited she was incoherent, paused as if organizing her words, then said, "The master wants to see all the Kobolds now, all of them, Brother Luge, let's go welcome the Saint Lord together..."

He looked at the excited Kobold maiden, for a moment unable to turn the corner.

Mouth slightly open, silent, as if frozen in place.

Oh, I see, I see that I am not yet a qualified Kobold, haven't regarded myself as a Kobold, he thought.

This distinction was not about losing fur or not, not about having worms or not, it was ideological, a fundamental difference in thinking patterns.

He just wanted to eat well and sleep well, to improve his thin and weak body. He fundamentally didn't want to get himself a master, or even if the tribe had this so-called master, he wouldn't go gather to appear; he would rather continue to go it alone.

But Aijin obviously didn't think so; she came to pull him to see the master, she ran all the way, to share with this friend, for this only friend among the Kobolds who could chat, to share the joy in her heart, she was sincerely happy.

This group of Kobolds of theirs occupied this place, naturally numbering not a few, but by Kobold standards it was just a small tribe.

To be precise, they were a small tribe driven out after failing in competition, breeding and surviving here.

The legendary powerful Kobold tribe served the towering Dragons; sparks splashed from the Dragon's breath could melt rocks; those Kobolds were taller than ordinary Kobolds, with thick powerful tails, and their bodies were no longer just patchy miscellaneous fur, but all grew scales similar to Dragons.

All these things were in Luge's mind, as if engraved in every Kobold's mind from birth.

And they, as exiles eliminated in competition, didn't even have mines to dig.

"Now?" he said.

His curiosity had always been urging him to take a look.

Aijin nodded vigorously, looking truly very happy.

The so-called serving a master meant that while receiving protection, the Kobolds needed to hunt and offer food to the master; this was the most basic rule.

"What does the Saint Lord look like? Won't it swallow us in one bite?"

He touched the fur on his chin, tilted his head to look at Aijin, trying to make this friend develop misgivings. He believed she possessed a thinking ability different from other Kobolds, just temporarily buried by joy.

For weak Kobold tribes, the masters they served were generally smarter, stronger Underground Beasts, and the protection gained was just to embolden them.

They had once had a Saint Lord; that powerful master, it was said, was stabbed to death by a group of Lizardmen with Short Spears in a conflict; Luge hadn't witnessed it, only remembered it was called Hei Chang Mao, or Hei Ya Saint Lord.

"Maybe I should like it like you do, but every time before I get a chance, a new master is changed." He said.

Aijin fell into contemplation upon hearing this.

Luge just tilted his head and quietly watched her.

Aijin suddenly stuffed something into his hand, then strode away, walking silently further and further, but unlike her running when she came, this time she walked very slowly.

Until Aijin's figure completely merged into the Darkness, invisible even to Kobold eyes, did he lower his head to look at the thing in his hand.

It was a neat, glossy worm shell, presumably a gift Aijin had prepared for him.

A small interlude is the seasoning of life.

He arranged the worm shell, choosing the most suitable and beautiful spot.

That spot happened to be the right size; after slightly adjusting the angle, it was precisely accurate, and placing it there made one feel comfortable; he placed it carefully, the simple action as if he had accomplished a tremendous thing.

Luge examined it, raising his eyebrows.

He was dazed for a moment.

Then, according to plan, he continued his pre-sleep preparation work that he had repeated countless times, opening that thick black-covered Sleep Treasure Manual.

He flipped it open, glanced once, and his heart calmed down.

Quieter than any time before.

In that instant he became the center of the world, as if in this pitch-black world only he existed.

The words and patterns he had seen countless times twisted before him as usual, but this time unknowingly they faded until disappearing; when he came to, he felt as if he was rising, the distance between him and the book pages unchanged, but a strange perspective seemed to drill out from his crown and ascend.

A dim, hidden light flashed within the book, the sensation of riding clouds and mist vanished instantly, and his consciousness crashed back down.

At the same time, he opened his eyes, which had been closed for who knows when.

In the moment before opening his eyes, he saw a quiet space with a calm sea surface.

"Magic Mark Meditation Method."

Luge muttered to himself, lightly stroking the cover of the black book with his hands full of scars and grime.

He finally recognized the characters on it.

After that flash of light, he gained some kind of inheritance—not just recognizing these characters, but being able to speak and write them in an instant.

"Di Ku Shi Jie Tong Yong Yu? Wait, it seems so; it can no longer help me fall asleep, and I probably won't have time to sleep anymore……"

He bared his dog teeth with a beaming smile, his words full of no regret, his eyes wide open as if glowing.

He held a long, angular small object in his hand, picked up along with the black book; he had always not known its use, but it was well preserved and not casually discarded.

At this moment he knew its use.

The long object was like pure white jade, with ten small dots on it, each dot representing a standard amount of spiritual power.

This is a testing device for measuring the spiritual power of wizard apprentices, and after successfully cultivating the Magic Mark Meditation Method from the black book, one can become a wizard apprentice.

Although he still did not understand what a wizard apprentice was.

But he knew this was an opportunity; he followed the usage method in his memory, gripped one end of the white stone strip forcefully and concentrated his spirit, and the stone emitted a soft, faint white light, but not a single dot on it lit up.

This showed he had not yet reached the spiritual power standard of a first-rank wizard apprentice.

He flipped open the black book and began reading carefully from the first page.

Spiritual Power Space is also called Meditation Space; those who successfully open the Meditation Space and see the Mental Power Sea have already made preparations and possess the conditions to cultivate a meditation method, but the impact of opening the Meditation Space makes one's spirit exceptionally tired, so at this time it is not suitable to begin the first meditation, and one needs to rest for at least one day.

He looked back and forth; the descriptions of the Meditation Space and Mental Power Sea in the front of the book, combined with himself, were indeed correct—he indeed already possessed the conditions.

But the one thing that did not fit was that he felt no fatigue at all, and was even very spirited.

He could begin cultivating the meditation method immediately.

(Chapter End)