Wizard: My skills can be upgraded indefinitely.

When we left the Osborne Valley, the morning mist had not yet dissipated.

The quack maintained its outstretched wings posture and glided smoothly beneath the clouds.

Ian sat on its broad back, the wind whistling past his ears and his robes fluttering.

"Ian, where are we going now?" Gaga's voice rang directly in Ian's mind.

"Go home," Ian said. "Back to Marcus's territory."

"Hometown?" Gaga's heterochromatic eyes darted around. "Is there anything fun to do there?"

"It's not much fun," Ian paused, "but I have family."

He took out a dimensional bag from his pocket, probed it with his mental energy, and confirmed that everything he had prepared the night before was inside.

Several bottles of healing potions, some basic alchemy materials, and a bag of standard magic stones.

Most importantly, there was the box containing the family crest and what was inside it.

Father Latour Marcus... Ian closed his eyes.

When I left two years ago, my father stood at the castle gate, his eyes filled with restrained expectation.

He said, "Go ahead, don't worry about things at home."

Then, every two months, twenty magic stones would be sent to him on time.

For a mortal count, twenty magic stones meant consuming nearly half of the output of that miniature magic stone mine.

It means competing with those envious jackals for mining rights, and it means fighting with wandering wizard apprentices.

Ian opened his eyes and looked at the gradually widening view ahead.

"Can it arrive in ten days?" he asked.

"It won't take that long!" Ga Ga's voice carried a hint of smugness.

"I'm very fast now, eight days, at most eight days, I'll be able to see your castle."

"it is good."

On the first day of their flight, they flew over the edge of the mountains on the east coast.

The north side of the mountain range is wetland, and the south side is plain.

Ian saw herds of horned deer running below, hunters setting traps, and caravans kicking up dust on the dirt road.

As you move away from the wizarding community, the concentration of magic in the air begins to decrease.

Gaga opened its mouth, took a breath, and then exhaled: "The air here... is so thin."

"Keep going west, it gets even lighter," Ian said. "That's the Magic Desert."

"So how did your father send you the magic stones?"

"He has a miniature magic stone mine," Ian said. "It's very small and difficult to mine."

But it is precious enough.

It is so precious that wandering wizard apprentices would covet it, and other nobles would be envious.

The quack stopped talking, flapped its wings, and sped up a little more.

On the third day, they left the mainland and entered the airspace above the ocean.

The ocean is deep blue and stretches to the horizon.

Occasionally, huge shadows roam the surface of the sea; these are sea creatures, some docile, some dangerous.

Around noon, Ian saw a giant whale with bony spikes on its back rise from the sea, spouting water hundreds of meters high.

Sunlight refracted into a rainbow through the mist.

"It has no aggressive tendencies," Ian said.

"It's too big, it can't be bothered with us."

Caga flew around the edge of the water column, "But there are also fierce creatures in the sea."

No sooner had the words left his mouth than the sea in front of him suddenly exploded.

A sea serpent with three eyes poked out half its body; each of its heads was as big as a carriage. It hissed and sprayed venom at them.

The venom froze into black ice blocks in mid-air and then fell into the sea.

Ian raised his hand, and twelve crystal cones silently appeared.

But before he could make a move, Ga Ga suddenly swooped down, its wings sweeping across, and the resulting wind blades severed the throat of the left side of the snake's head.

Blood splattered, and the snake's head howled as it retreated back into the sea.

The other two snake heads wanted to retaliate, but Gaga had already increased its altitude, its heterochromatic eyes glaring as it activated [Ominous Eyes].

The movements of both snake heads paused simultaneously.

The next second, Gaga opened its mouth and spat out two sharp gusts of wind, which accurately hit the snake's mouth.

The smell of blood and gore from the minced meat wafted up.

The sea snake struggled violently, stirring up the surface of the sea, but soon stopped moving and its body slowly sank.

"Done." Gaga turned her head triumphantly. "How about that? I'm pretty awesome now!"

"That's quite an improvement." Ian patted its neck. "Keep flying."

At night, they found a deserted island to rest.

Ian used witchcraft to clear a space and lit a campfire.

He took out dried meat and blood essence from his dimensional bag and gave them to Gaga, while he took out a bottle of Moon Essence Dew and took a small sip.

His mental strength slowly increased, but he was unable to meditate in this magical desert.

This isn't a no-go, it's a recommendation for the treasure book "The Wizard: My Skills Can Be Limitless":

He took out the first-tier sorcery he had exchanged a few days ago and began to study it. This was one of the few benefits that Shadowmoon offered to newly promoted wizards.

As for core lineage meditation methods and the like, forget about it; you'll have to sign a strict contract first.

"Ian." Gaga swallowed a blood essence. "What are you planning to do after you get home?"

"Settle them in." Ian looked at the flickering flames.

"Leave them with enough resources and defenses, then return to the tower."

"Why not take them to the wizarding community?"

"They don't want to go," Ian shook his head.

"My father is an earl, his roots are there, and... the wizarding world is too dangerous. For them, it's safer to be a wealthy nobleman in the mortal world."

Gaga tilted her head: "What about that miniature magic stone ore?"

"The mine isn't important," Ian said. "The important thing is to prevent anyone from getting their hands on it again."

His tone was calm, but Gaga understood.

"Don't let anyone try again" means that if anyone dares to reach out, they should all be burned alive.

On the fifth day, the magic concentration decreased further.

Ian could clearly feel the slow metabolism of his mental sea.

In such an environment, any wizard would feel uncomfortable, like a fish in shallow water.

But for ordinary people, this is the normal world.

There is no demonic pollution, no monsters running rampant, only the changing of seasons and the cycle of birth, aging, sickness, and death.

Ian recalled that when he was a child in the castle, someone said that this land was called "the Barren Land" by the wizards.

But at that time he didn't understand why the sky was so blue, the fields so green, and there were deer and rabbits in the forest.

Later, I went to the Shadowmoon Tower and saw the starlight flowing into the top of the tower, the boiling potions in the laboratory, and the wizards casually summoning lightning and frost.

He then realized that this place was truly barren, and even intermediate apprentices probably wouldn't want to stay here.

On the seventh night, they flew over an archipelago.

Ian saw lights on the island; they were from a fishing village, scattered like stars along the dark coastline.

With a day's journey still ahead of him, his heart grew increasingly calm.

That calmness wasn't indifference, but rather the calming down of all thoughts.

Whether you're worried or hopeful, with his current strength, nothing can stop him.

"It will arrive by noon tomorrow," Gaga said.

"Hmm," Ian responded softly, then closed his eyes and began to meditate.

Unseen by him, Marcus's territory is experiencing an unseen winter.

The candlelight flickered in the study, casting shadows on the walls.

Latour Marcus sat at his desk, holding an opened letter in his hand.

The edges of the letter were crumpled from his grip.

The letter arrived three days ago from the Marquis of Holden in the south.

The content is simple and straightforward.

"Regarding the allocation of mining rights for the Blackrock Canyon Magic Stone Mine, I hope Earl Marcus will reconsider. I will be waiting for you in White River City within ten days."

"Reconsider?" Latour sneered.

He had seized that mine from several wandering wizard apprentices at the cost of half his fortune and his left arm.

At that time, in order to protect the mining area, he fought head-on with that group of greedy apprentices.

A grey-robed apprentice's corrosive energy struck his left arm, causing excruciating pain that exposed the bone.

The wound eventually healed, but it would always ache faintly on rainy days, as if insects were gnawing at my bone marrow.

But he held onto the mine.

Why? So that I could mine dozens of rough stones from the mine every month, and so that I could send Ian twenty standard magic stones every two months.

At that time, Ian had just entered Shadowmoon Tower and wrote to say that he needed resources during his apprenticeship, and that he needed magic stones to exchange for knowledge.

He said, "Father, I will become a wizard, I definitely will."

Latour believed in him. So he poured all the money his family could muster into it, teaming up with a great knight friend to snatch the mine from the wandering wizard apprentice.

When the first batch of magic stones was sent out, Ian replied with a neat handwriting.

He was told he had switched to a basic meditation book, and Latour read the letter ten times.

Later, it was twenty every two months, without fail.

The stewards in the territory complained that expenses were too tight and that other nobles were gossiping behind their backs.

Some people are saying the count must be crazy to bet his entire fortune on a son whose success is uncertain.

Latour ignored him; he had been stuck at the peak of the Great Knights back then.

Because of a lack of resources, they could only watch helplessly as they reached higher thresholds but were unable to cross them.

Ian has the qualifications; he can't let his son suffer the same fate.

Until a year ago, Ian's replies suddenly stopped.