Ancient Wizards: A Little Progress Every Day

Dago sat down next to old Marico and thanked him.

Old Maric waved his hand and said, "I haven't thanked you yet, so it's a draw."

He followed old Marico's example, throwing dry branches into the campfire, through the misty night...

I saw a face illuminated by flickering firelight, a face bearing a worried expression.

"How have you been lately? You don't seem very happy," Dago asked.

"You must already know about the invasion of the black-robed wizards from the Dark Crystal Plateau today. The war has begun again!"

Old Marico stared blankly at the campfire, and said anxiously.

Dago remained silent; the war had come too suddenly, and he didn't know how to deal with it.

"I experienced a war in the wizarding world, and I know how terrible it is."

"While destroying everything, it also grinds the extremes of humanity—cowardice and courage, selfishness and sacrifice, forgetting and remembering—into dust and scatters them in the winds of time. We must take it seriously."

Old Maric, his eyes glazed over, reminisced as he spoke.

"In my experience, the war is currently only local and small-scale, and the day of full-scale invasion has not yet truly arrived."

Old Marico's aged, deep voice once again echoed through the flickering campfire.

"How long will this take?" Dago asked.

"It could take one to two months, or even less. This is the time for hostile wizards to test our strength, gather intelligence, and carry out assassinations and betrayals."

"The prices of all kinds of items in the town of Aynak will rise significantly in the future, especially those related to extraordinary items."

"It's too late to move to the town of Aynak now. People from the surrounding villages are flocking to the town, and the rent has gone up outrageously."

Old Maric analyzed the course of the war, then thought for a moment and said, "There's no need to follow the trend and move to the towns now. Once the towns are breached, living inside them will be the most dangerous thing."

"We wizards scattered throughout the forest are actually the most troublesome for our rival wizards. We are familiar with the environment and slippery, just like old hunters in the forest."

We are usually wary of each other, but now that war has come, we must stand together like brothers and sisters, helping and supporting one another.

Dago listened silently to old Marico's analysis, nodding repeatedly.

"My proposal is to establish a forest mutual aid society. Although there are only two of us now, I will go and find more people living in the forest to join."

Old Maric looked intently at Dago and said.

"I'm fine," Dagger nodded, and after a moment of silence, said.

"Thank you for your support, Dago," old Marico said, standing up and patting Dago on the shoulder.

Dago shook his head without saying anything, then got up and left old Marico's cabin, picked up a burning piece of wood, and walked back to his shelter.

He had already witnessed a corner of the war in the wizarding world, and his mentor Rosalind was the first wizard who had been kind to him when he came to this world.

But it was destroyed by war in the blink of an eye.

"The black-robed wizards of the Dark Crystal Plateau?"

Dago gritted his teeth and suppressed his anger.

An apprentice wizard like him, living at the very bottom of society, might not even qualify to become an urn.

He also considered leaving the area of ​​the Enark Wizarding Academy and choosing to become a wandering wizard in another place.

Putting aside how many magic stones he had left to start the next leg of his journey, the burning desire within him continued to scorch him.

When the world sheds its fairytale filter, madness is the last candle of idealists—between lucid despair and gentle obsession, I choose to become Don Quixote, using fictional glory to fight against real mediocrity.

Dago composed himself, buried his sorrow, and entered a berserk training mode.

Only strength can extinguish the fire in one's heart.

......

For the next ten days or so, Dago practiced diligently as if he were a madman.

He reduced his natural sleep time to less than four hours a day, spending almost all of the remaining time on ascetic practices.

In between, he took a break to go to town to replenish supplies and found that the situation was much more serious than he had imagined.

The entire town of Aynak seemed to be gripped by a tense and anxious atmosphere.

From medicines and equipment to grains, bread, and other daily necessities, almost everything is experiencing a crazy price surge.

The most outrageous increase was in rents in town residential areas. Rumors spread that some villages had been completely wiped out by black-robed wizards, so people flocked to the towns.

The town, originally planned for a population of 300,000, has ballooned to nearly 400,000, and even the cheapest rent now costs four or five magic stone fragments per month.

Meanwhile, the wealthy merchants and nobles in those towns had long since fled to areas unaffected by the war to avoid trouble.

War, like a whirlpool, devoured everyone's lives.

On the morning of the fourth day, at the forest shelter.

Fully armed, Dago squatted on the open ground, chewing on roasted venison. He had already finished the delicious monster meat.

He finished eating in no time, slung his bag over his shoulder, picked up his machete, and straightened his tight hunting clothes.

Today he was going to Moonlight Lake to pick Moonlight Flowers again, so he brought up the system panel.

【《巫师通用冥想法》（蜕变11/10000）；《冰晶炮》（蜕变97/10000）；《共鸣术》（入门855/1000）；《探测术》（入门787/1000）；《魔药炼製》（新手1/100)】

This is his confidence; his two skills have undergone a transformation, becoming faster and stronger.

However, the progress points required for this transformation are quite high, and his family has found that it has become more difficult to obtain progress points.

In the beginner stage, you can get one progress point by releasing a skill once. After entering the transformation stage, you need to release two to three skills to get one progress point.

This may be related to the surge in his total mental energy after he was promoted to the third-level apprentice wizard.

He set off for Moonlight Lake following the route he had marked earlier, the detection technique clearing the way for him like radar.

He had just finished eating the monster meat, and he was also interested in hunting some monster meat to take back and eat.

Putting aside its delicious taste, its health benefits alone make it worth hunting for him.

However, the monster meat that was brought to old Marico last time seemed to have been eaten without him saying anything, so it seems that the monster meat's effects are insignificant to wizards.

It's just a type of meat that's more delicious than regular meat, used for a treat or sold.

The shadow leopards in the dense forest seemed to have all died, and they did not attack him along the way. Dago arrived at Moonlight Lake with regret and saw the patch of moonlight flowers.

The traces of the moonflowers he picked last time were still there; this time, he planned to dig them all up at once.

If we stay here any longer, we might be harvested by those wizards who come out to scout.

Dago glanced at the few pieces of driftwood in the lake, pretending not to see them, and walked casually toward the flower field.

He pulled out a shovel and started digging furiously. In no time, a large patch of moonflowers grew, looking as if it had been dug up by a dog.

Dago filled his bag to the brim, then sat on the open ground to enjoy the breeze and scenery.

Until one of the bronze crocodiles couldn't hold back any longer and rushed towards him.

"I've been waiting for you," Dago said, a deep blue halo swirling in his eyes. With a wave of his hand, he launched an air blast.

"Boom!" The impact struck the bronze-colored back of the crocodile, but it did not cause much damage to the hardest part of the five-meter-long bronze crocodile's back.

The shockwave from the air blast slowed the bronze crocodile's running speed, and the pain increased its ferocity.

Dago remained seated on the open ground, muttering the incantation for an ice crystal spell. In the blink of an eye, snowflakes drifted through the air, and an ice crystal pillar rapidly condensed into shape.

"Go!" Dargo shouted, and an ice crystal pillar thicker than an arm flew away.

With a "thud," the ice crystal pillar struck the bronze crocodile's back directly, emanating a chilling aura, but it wasn't very deep.

The bronze crocodile roared in pain a dozen meters away from Dago and continued charging.

Like a bullfighter, Dago chanted incantations and pierced the bronze crocodile's back with ice crystal pillars until the fourth one. Then, it slowly stopped, let out a mournful howl, and died.

Not feeling reassured, Dago fired an air blast at its wound, only breathing a sigh of relief when it stopped moving.

The other bronze crocodiles on the lakeshore were also stirring restlessly, and Dago calculated his remaining mental energy...

They could probably kill another ten or so, without showing the slightest sign of panic.

He fired an air blast into the lake, scaring them into retreating back into the water.

Seeing this, Dago quickly grabbed a machete and ran towards the dead bronze crocodile, chopping at its limbs and tail.

Every few minutes, he fired air bullets into the lake. It took Dago more than ten minutes to cut off the bronze crocodile's limbs and tail, and his knife was worn dull from the effort.

I tied its limbs and tail with the rope I carried with me. It weighed at least twenty or thirty pounds, and I hoisted it onto my shoulder.

Back in the open space, with his bag on his back, Dago quickly slipped away.

He discovered that over time, the air bombs became less and less effective at deterring the bronze crocodiles on the lakeshore.

He could kill them now, but he didn't want to take the risk.

Back at the shelter, Dago felt relieved of his burdens.

He placed the moonflower in the corner to air dry as before, washed the bronze crocodile's limbs and tail, and then put it into his wooden refrigerator.

Dago left the sanctuary and began his daily practice, a practice that had become ingrained in his very being.

Before he knew it, it was almost lunchtime. Dago stopped his cultivation, lit a fire, and set up an iron pot.

The frozen bronze crocodile meat was taken out, put into a pot of cold water, brought to a boil, and the foam on top was skimmed off.

Then add some forest berries and fine salt and stew.

Almost an hour later, Dago finally got to eat the stewed bronze crocodile meat, which was firm and elastic.

You can feel the distinct texture of the meat fibers when chewing, but it's not overly tough.

He licked his lips with lingering satisfaction. With a new hunting spot for bronze crocodiles, he would never have to worry about not having delicious monster meat to eat again.

However, the price of monster meat in towns has plummeted because many of the nobles and wealthy merchants who could afford it have left, much to Dago's dismay.

"If no one's selling them, we'll keep them for ourselves. We'll send some to old Marico this afternoon," Dago said with a sigh.