Kobold Wizard's Journal

Chapter 99: Luxury and Miserliness

The animal cart moved quickly all the way.

Ruger sat in a corner by the window, looking at Master Lorigo, who might become the first heir of the Fanxing family.

Lorigo remained silent the entire way, his back straight and his head tilted at a slight angle as he gazed out the window at the passing street scene, lost in thought. No one knew what he was thinking, not even Myrtle, his longtime friend. Ruger could see the worry in the red-haired woman's eyes, the sense of helplessness that Lorigo had brought to her.

Another reason why Ruger didn't want to stay in the arena was to let the red-haired lady stay with Lorigo, instead of disrupting their years of getting along because of his arrival. Lorigo must have had his reasons for bringing such a spellcaster with him for safety protection.

Of course, there are many reasons for not wanting to be there, such as not wanting to be disturbed by those nobles after Lorigo left, and leaving with Lorigo is a statement and is more in line with his own interests.

As he thought about this, he silently took out the newly acquired Spirit Heart Potion and checked it. The marks on the bottle seal and other places were all intact. This thing was also his strongest reason for not wanting to stay in the arena.

Including the one bottle he had left, he now had two bottles of Spirit Heart Potion, so he might be able to splurge a bit.

He sat by the window, thinking over and over again, confronting and weighing the impulses in his heart.

The axle made a creaking sound as it twisted.

The animal cart stopped in front of the manor.

Luger and the butler stepped off the animal cart and saw a sturdy young man who bore a passing resemblance to Lorigo. He was riding a bipedal underground beast, its upper body tilted back, its four front claws like sickles. Its body, bent almost backward, seemed to be trying to find balance while standing still.

"Second brother!"

The young man shouted with joy after confirming the frame.

Lorigola opened the window as wide as possible and also looked delighted.

"I guess you are in your own manor. Sure enough, I saw you just after I arrived." said the strong young man.

"Well, let's go to the castle together," Lorigo interrupted him. "You can get on and sit, and the beast will follow you."

The young man did as he was told and suddenly jumped up from the beast and jumped onto the beast cart.

Ruger saw all of this and slowly turned around and walked deeper into the manor.

As he approached the two-story hut, he had already made up his mind. He would use two Spiritual Heart Potions to attempt to master the art of stinginess, a rather strange zero-level spell.

He did this not to compete with the wine-loving old man, but because he thought in his heart that this was a spell worth paying for.

He also believed that the spell would be successful. In addition to the party host's guarantee that the old man was telling the truth, he also made his own judgment and believed that he had not been deceived.

He returned to the cabin on the second floor and began his daily meditation routine. Then he asked the maid Daisy to bring him a lot of food, which he enjoyed with the two dog-headed men.

He didn't rush to start.

Until a day later, Master Lorigo had not returned to the manor as he had expected.

There was no unexpected news.

After basking in the sun, he and Ai Sijin returned to the cabin together. After instructing Daisy not to be disturbed, he entered the abyss bedroom space.

With his stomach filled with food prepared in advance, he was going to use the spiritual heart potion here.

He sat alone on the stone bed. His spellbook of Miserly was almost torn to pieces by him, but he still took it out and read it quietly, then raised his head and drank the first bottle of Spirit Heart Potion.

As he swallowed the potion, he entered a state of extreme concentration that was almost transcendental, and the elusive side of the spell model was unveiled. Those naughty little creatures seemed to become docile, or rather, their noise was nothing in his eyes at this moment, and everything was under his control.

A little throbbing came from deeper in his heart. That was the part he had always believed to involve the soul, and it was also the most difficult to understand and control. It was the basis for him to doubt several times whether this spell was from the old man's hands. He also jokingly thought that if these things could be from the old man's hands, it must have been done when the guy was drunk, and the wine he drank was the strongest.

The confusion of many days, as well as those places that proved he was not mistaken but had always been unable to grasp, were all sorted out one by one. The Spirit Heart Potion had indeed not disappointed him. Before he drank the Spirit Heart Potion, his biggest worry was that he would not be able to fully master the art of stinginess even after using up both bottles.

Now it seems that his worries were unnecessary. Perhaps there would be some time left for the second bottle of potion, and he could also learn the zero-ring spell writing method.

I've seen in the diary before that a general zero-ring spell model will have about twenty nodes. For example, Stinking Skin has nineteen nodes, Arcane Mark has only fifteen, and Bull's Strength has twenty-one nodes.

One of the difficulties of this miserly technique is that it appears to have fifteen nodes on the surface, but there are fifteen nodes in the dark that cannot be directly constructed. Those little naughty things hidden in the dark are like the moon and flowers in the water mirror, elusive and untouchable. They are related to the nodes on the surface, but they are not as simple and easy to understand as mirror images. It is necessary to master the rules and adjust the nodes on the surface to reflect and construct them. It was this kind of thing he had never seen before that made him determined to use up two bottles of spiritual heart potion.

It was not until the discomfort after the effect of a bottle of spiritual heart potion wore off interrupted his train of thought that he stopped thinking, covering his forehead.

He had originally planned to give himself a day to rest between two bottles of potion, but the strong desire and the obsession of being about to complete it made him rest for only half a day. Even so, he was afraid that his poor condition would affect the effectiveness of the medicine, so he tried hard to convince himself.

At this moment, he also understood those official wizards who did not dare to approach the maze city.

Finally, after forcing himself to take a short rest, he drank the second bottle of spiritual heart potion.

It was as if an unknown door was opening to him. Unexpectedly, the final stage was extremely difficult, and the time that was expected to be left for writing did not exist at all.

The spell model, which already affects the entire body, is more than doubled in difficulty under this situation of light and dark reflection.

Time passed little by little, and when the spell model was successfully constructed, he had no time to be happy before he was overwhelmed by the abnormal dizziness brought by the loss of the potion.

He collapsed onto the stone bed, grinning through the intense discomfort.

Aisijin and Dashaheng had been staring at him nervously from a distance. When they heard his laughter, they hurried over, but Ruger only vaguely heard them say a few words, and after being fed some water, he fell into a deep sleep.

When he woke up, he blinked on the stone bed. He didn't feel refreshed at all. His head was no longer dizzy, but it was very painful.

Ai Sijin was not far away.

"Aiskin, how long have I slept?" Ruger asked her to stare at the crystal clock.

"Brother Luge, two days! You slept for two whole days!" she said.

Ruger nodded, and looking at the food that Dashaheng had brought over, his appetite immediately increased. He was not too worried about his body. The dragonborn dog-headed man was very strong, and he was also transformed from the blood of a strange dragon with the ability to recover.

After a hearty meal, he left the abyss bedroom space contentedly.

When they came out, it was just the brightest time, and the three dog-headed men once again basked in the sun on the lounge chairs in front of the door.

He was basking in the sun while meditating to restore his mental strength. When he saw the dozen or so spell models that had unknowingly appeared in his mental space, revolving around the three magic marks, he inexplicably felt a sense of satisfaction in his heart.

He opened his eyes and called Daisy, the maid.

"Is Master Lorigo not back yet?" he said.

"Reporting to you, sir, the young master has not returned yet. However, someone came to visit you yesterday. I followed your instructions and said that you were practicing magic and had no time to spare." Daisy said meticulously.

"Visiting me? Who is it?" Ruger asked in surprise.

"He was wearing the clothes of a spellcaster, didn't leave his name, and his face couldn't be seen clearly. Judging from his voice, he might be a middle-aged man." Daisy said seriously.

Luger leaned back in the recliner and nodded.

As Daisy retreated, he had almost recovered and was finally about to start the long-awaited experiment on the art of stinginess.

(End of this chapter)