Above the mage

Chapter 237: Upgradeable Wilderness Soul

The Snowfield clan operated as many as five shops in the camp, demonstrating their considerable wealth and power.

Gaode Maps visited the largest of the five stores.

"Sir, we don't actually have any Blue Butterfly crystal powder in stock. Although Blue Butterflies aren't exactly rare, their crystal powder isn't used in many places, so we haven't collected it in particular. Sorry."

Inside the tent, the Snowfarer, who was in charge of running the "shop," spoke politely.

Just as Gaode had imagined, given the scale of this "shop," the owner must be an Iceborn mage who could understand his language and communicate with him.

"Could you help me keep an eye out for some? I'll be staying here for about a week. If you can produce any Blue Butterfly Crystal Powder during this time, I'll buy it. I can offer extra compensation for it," Gao De said.

The other party thought for a moment, nodded, and said, "Okay, but what kind of reward can you offer?"

"Is this okay?" Gao De took out another one-ringed ice wolf pelt.

Both it and Blue Butterfly Crystal Powder are Tier 1 materials, but Ice Wolf Fur, as a superior "warm clothing," is clearly far more valuable in the North than Blue Butterfly Crystal Powder.

The boss's eyes lit up instantly. If this deal went through, they would make a small profit.

"make a deal!"

"Thank you very much then," Gao De replied politely.

"Also, do you sell maps of the North here?"

With the matter of the spell potion materials temporarily settled, he then asked about the map, which was of most concern to him, but was met with repeated shakes of the head.

"We do have maps in our clan, but we don't sell them here, I'm sorry." The shopkeeper's attitude was polite, but his refusal was firm.

"Could you help me apply to your tribe so I can use ice marrow for trading?" Gao De offered his biggest bargaining chip.

"Sir, it's not that I don't want to do this business, it's that I don't have the ability. Maps are something that the tribe has figured out little by little over the years. Why would we easily sell them to outsiders?" The boss remained unmoved.

This is the absolute truth, not a tactic to inflate prices.

In this world, maps are extremely valuable, especially in a primitive and wild place like the North.

Seeing the other party's expression and posture, Gaode understood that there was indeed no room for negotiation on this matter.

Unless the Snowflakes clan needs something from him, or he can offer something the Snowflakes clan cannot refuse, then there is no chance.

But no matter how hard Gaode thought about it, he couldn't come up with anything that would make the Snowford Clan willing to exchange a map for it.

Having no clue what to do for the time being, he didn't bother with pointless entanglements and simply left the tent.

Afterwards, Gaode started looking for accommodation in the camp.

Naturally, there are no hotels here.

If outsiders want to spend the night at the Snowver camp, the most common way is to find a Snowver and negotiate with them to spend some supplies in exchange for lodging.

After thinking for a moment, Gao De arrived at the tent where Lana was staying and made a soft sound from outside the animal skin curtain.

Soon, Lana's voice came from inside, "Who is it?"

A few seconds later, Lana lifted the animal skin curtain and stepped out of the tent.

Upon seeing that it was Gao De, she looked surprised. "Isn't it still not dark yet?"

She thought Gaode was there to "take a class".

Gaode made the "transaction" gesture again, then pointed to another tent next to Lana's tent that was obviously smaller, and made a resting gesture.

Lana thought for a moment, then asked uncertainly, "You want to stay at my house overnight?"

Gaode nodded.

He pulled another piece of ice stone from his pocket and handed it over.

Gaode was very generous in his offer, although part of the reason was that he didn't have anything else of value to sell.

Lana was instantly captivated when she saw the Ice Soul Stone.

Although she doesn't need the Ice Soul Stone, its value is undeniable, and she can easily resell it later to exchange for items she needs.

She thought about it carefully, but in the end she couldn't resist the temptation of the Ice Soul Stone.

"How long do you need to stay?" Lana asked.

After Gaode made a "seven" gesture with his hand, he then made a "ten" gesture.

"Seven to ten days. That's fine, but you can exchange this stone for many things. It's obviously unfair to you to only stay for seven to ten days."

"If you don't mind, I can also provide you with three meals a day during this period. Of course, it won't be anything fancy, just the food I usually eat, with an extra portion prepared for you."

"how?"

Gaode nodded, indicating that he needed to.

In the North, obtaining and preparing food is too troublesome and a huge waste of time.

The easiest way is naturally the best.

Although he has high standards for the taste of food, Gao De is actually quite capable of enduring hardship when it comes to it.

"Then I'll go tidy it up for you. That used to be my tent. After my parents left, I moved to their tent. I used my tent as a storage room and put a bunch of odds and ends there," Lana said, pointing to the tent that Gaode had his eye on.

"But don't worry, it has all the necessary facilities, including the most important one: the hearth."

Just as Gao De had suspected, there were no adult men in Lana's house.

What Gaode didn't expect was that there was no one else there, only Lana.

Fortunately, the people of the North are more outgoing and their views are not as conservative as those of the outside world. Otherwise, his behavior of asking a "woman living alone" to stay overnight would definitely not have been accepted.

Lana is very efficient, so she finished packing up the tent in just over half an hour.

The fire in the hearth, already lit, brought warmth to the tent.

Gaode glanced at it and found that Lana had only done a simple cleanup of the clutter, and there was still dust accumulated in many places.

It's not that they're lazy; it's just that the people of the North aren't as particular as people from outside the region.

However, since he was going to stay here for a while anyway, Gao De casually used his "magical trick" to clean the tent again until it was spotless and dust-free.

So much so that when Lana brought some "bedding" into the tent again, she almost didn't recognize it and thought she had entered the wrong tent.

"Did you do this?" Lana asked in disbelief.

Gao De spread his hands, indicating that it was nothing serious.

"You outsiders' magic is truly bizarre and wonderful," Lana muttered.

She put her things down and tactfully left.

After Lana had walked away, Gao De put down the package he was carrying.

At that moment, the pocket on his chest moved, followed by a clear, thin voice:

"Master!"

Gao De was startled and couldn't help but slap his forehead: he had completely forgotten about this little rascal.

However, he dared not let Flora know that he had forgotten about her, and said with a calm expression:

"Lady Flora may now show herself."

As soon as she finished speaking, Flora immediately popped out of his pocket, flew to eye level with God, and stared wide-eyed at God.

"Is Lady Flora someone you can't show your face to others?"

She's still holding a grudge.

Earlier, while queuing to enter Camp Snowford, God put her in his chest pocket and gestured for her not to stick her head out.

"That's not how it works."

"What is it like?"

"It's because Lady Flora is too conspicuous. I noticed that those two guards seem to pay special attention to non-human creatures. If you show yourself, I'm afraid they'll target you."

"Master, aren't you supposed to protect Lady Flora?"

"Yes, I will protect Lady Flora, but when you're out and about, it's always better to avoid trouble," Gao De advised patiently.

Flora didn't speak for a moment, but just stared into God's eyes and met his gaze.

Gao De did not shy away, and looked honestly into Flora's clear eyes.

A moment later, Flora withdrew her gaze, flapped her small wings, flew to the entrance of the tent, cautiously peeked out, and then withdrew.

"Master, there are so many mushrooms here!"

In Flora's eyes, the tent was just a giant mushroom.

"."

"Yes, a lot," Gao De replied helplessly.

That's how kids are; one second they're in the east, the next they're jumping to the west.

It got dark very quickly.

Dinner was a hearty meal, made by Lana using snow wolf meat that Gaode used to trade for magical plants.

After finishing dinner and cleaning up, Lana got into the swing of things and started teaching Godes the language.

Of course, although she is a fairly clever person, she is definitely unqualified as a "teacher" because she has no method at all.

Lana's teaching method was the most rudimentary: she spoke Gaode.

She started with "noun instruction":

Lana simply read out the Ace language pronunciations of common everyday items to Gaode one by one, saying whatever came to mind.

This teaching method, under normal circumstances, would absolutely be considered misleading and harmful to students.

However, given that Gaode possesses the ability to "understand language" and can clearly understand the specific meaning of each syllable Lana utters, it can surprisingly be considered an efficient teaching method.

Gao De's English learning journey quickly got on track.

Without a doubt, Gaode is an excellent student.

If the students are good enough, the teacher's teaching methods are not that important.

After two nights of studying, and once he had memorized the Aesin pronunciations of most of the items, Lana's teaching shifted to "short sentence instruction."

Gao De studies the Ace language at night and cultivates during the day. He also goes to the shop every day to check if the Blue Butterfly Crystal Powder he needs has arrived.

In addition, I wandered around the Snowfield camp, hoping to find a way to buy the map, and also practiced my Ace language.

On the fourth day after entering the Snowfield camp, the Blue Butterfly Crystal Powder that Gaode had been waiting for finally arrived.

With one hand paying the money and the other hand delivering the goods, Gao De received a whole ounce of Blue Butterfly Crystal Powder after giving up an Ice Wolf pelt. The extra amount was considered a bonus.

Inside the tent.

Gaud borrowed a small pot from Lana and then took out all the potion ingredients he had collected.

He placed the small pot on the fire pit and then put all the ingredients into the pot in no particular order.

As the temperature rises, a strange change occurs between these materials. Regardless of their original form, they quickly fuse together and transform into a pale green liquid.

When a faint medicinal aroma wafts over, the magical potion is considered successfully prepared.

Gaode didn't mind burning his mouth; he poured the freshly prepared medicine directly into his mouth—even if he got burned, he could consider it as progressing for the "Adaptive" feature.

The fragrant medicinal liquid melted upon entering the throat, flowing into the magical starry sea and transforming into a cloud of mist.

Immediately, Gaode cast a [Divine Guidance+] spell on himself, then meditated and began to attempt to construct the [Wild Agility] spell model.

In the past few days, he had already taken the time to convert the spell model of [Wild Agility] into the corresponding coordinate system and memorized all the ternary arrays representing the nodes of the spell model.

Gao De had been looking forward to this spell for a long time.

Once you master it, navigating the snowfields will be a breeze.

This time, they were lucky. After failing only once, on their second attempt, Gaode successfully constructed the spell model of "Wild Agility" in the spell universe.

Looking at the newly appeared entries in the spell bar, Gao De revealed a satisfied smile.

"Let's see what changes occur."

He focused his attention on the flashing yellow "+" sign after "Wild Acumen" and made a decisive move.

The essence of the Snowfield Hyena instantly surged from the Wind Spirit Moon Shadow, merging into the newly constructed spell model, quickly taking root and sprouting, radiating new brilliance.

At this moment, [Wild Agility] also became [Wild Agility+] (Transmutation, 1st Ring):

You summon the spirits of the wilderness to assist you.

Additional: The Wild Spirits you summon can evolve by absorbing energy and gain new abilities.

At the same time, many mysterious pieces of information inexplicably surfaced in Gao De's mind.

This information mainly explains the specific effects of the [Wild Agility+] change.

[Wild and Agile] The wild spirit summoned by the spell was originally an illusory soul that could only perform the simple tasks described in the spell's effects.

The only change brought about by [Wild Agility+] is that Wild Spirit can absorb energy and advance accordingly.

You can advance to the next level a total of three times.

The first stage involves absorbing a certain type of energy to shape the illusory soul into a physical entity.

This is the foundation of everything.

At this step, the nature of the energy absorbed by Wild Spirit will determine the future direction of Wild Spirit's abilities.

For example, if it absorbs fire element energy, then the Wilderness Soul will advance to the Flame Demon Soul in the future, and the physical entity it creates will have abilities similar to fire elements. Its future abilities will also develop towards fire elements.

However, it is important to note that the energy provided to the Wild Spirit must be of the same nature.

If it absorbs multiple types of energy, the Wild Spirit will become disordered due to the conflict of energy types, and then collapse on its own.

The second stage is the condensation of the energy core.

Once this stage of advancement is completed, the Wild Soul will gain the ability to absorb free energy from the outside world to complete its own advancement.

It's somewhat similar to the spiritual abilities of a Buddhist monk.

Otherwise, if the Wilderness Souls rely solely on external resources for absorption, even if they have a mine at home, they will eventually be depleted.

The third stage is the final form.

At this point, the Wild Soul already possesses a physical form and an energy core, allowing it to grow stronger over time with the accumulation of energy. As for its upper limit, that remains to be seen.

"Wind Spirit Moon Shadow" may seem to only give the Wild Soul the ability to absorb energy, but in reality, it grants it infinite possibilities and an unlimited future. Gao De murmured to himself.

The combination of rare spells and Wind Spirit Moon Shadow always brings him unexpected surprises.

However, there is a limitation: from now on, the Wild Spirit he summons will always be the same one.

If it dies due to some accident, the next Wild Spirit summoned will be a "blank slate," equivalent to "level reset," and everything will have to start from scratch.

Of course, this is not a restriction.

If Wild Spirit could revive in optimal condition an unlimited number of times, it wouldn't be a spell, it would be a bug.

It seems that Frost Soul doesn't need to consider the advancement path of Wild Soul much.

Because this was the only choice he had.

After all, he is currently in the Northern Territory, and the most convenient energy for the Wild Soul to absorb is ice elemental energy.

(End of this chapter)