The Wizard: Starting with Infinite Part-Time Jobs

Aiden made way, only to see that the apprentices were carrying a mangled, bloody body.

The man's body was limp like a tattered sack, with dark red blood dripping from his trousers, pooling into dark stains on the ground and emitting a foul odor.

Intestines, like vermicelli, spilled out of his stomach. Half a leg was missing. The man clutched his abdomen tightly with his palm, mumbling incoherently. Blood and foam continued to ooze from the corners of his mouth; he looked like he was about to die. The severed intestines were still twitching slightly.

"hiss--"

Aiden gasped, feeling a surge of stomach acid. A sour, rotten smell hit his throat, and he bent over, gagging, but only managed to vomit some bitter liquid.

A passerby asked him a question.

"What's wrong with him?"

"When we went hunting in the forbidden forest, we encountered an angry mother bear. He was slow and got caught."

Looking at the man's pained face, Aiden felt a pang of sympathy. These people were clearly commoner wizards like himself, and they seemed to be from the previous cohort, not from their own group.

The combat strength of a prospective wizard apprentice is no different from that of an ordinary person, so naturally they are no match for wild beasts.

Just then, a wizard apprentice in a dark gray robe appeared, blocking their path and exuding a stern and oppressive aura.

The two sides seemed to know each other, and the gray-robed youth in the lead roared, "Grom, what are you doing? Get out of the way!"

"Give him to me. I need to conduct some occult experiments on him to make him valuable. A dying human body isn't easy to come by." Grom's voice was cold and mechanical, without any inflection, and his eyes looked at him like he was looking at a chicken waiting to be slaughtered.

"Weren't we comrades before? You're insulting him." The young man stood in front of the stretcher, his fists clenched, his body trembling slightly with agitation.

"I'm not discussing this with you. As an old acquaintance, I advise you to leave the Forbidden Forest Basin. The animal servants will provide you with a potion of oblivion. Drink it and return to the Empire to live your former life." Grom raised his hand, his fingertips shimmering with an eerie green light.

In the end, the injured person was taken away in exchange for a magic stone.

……

At this moment, in Aiden's cabin.

He just vomited, and he's much better now, but his complexion is terrible; his face is completely bloodless.

"How realistic. For magic stones, dignity and former comrades can be traded." He muttered to himself.

"You have to be strong yourself to succeed. Everything depends on your own strength. You can't rely on anyone but yourself. I need to start using my meditation stone fragments. I'll also train a few small animals to improve my mastery of the 'Acrobat' profession." Aiden suddenly stood up, knocking over the wooden chair behind him.

Aiden learned from Bondi that the meditation stone fragments only needed to be ground into powder, and a small pinch could be held in the mouth each time one meditated to improve meditation efficiency.

He carefully picked up a pinch of gray powder, feeling a slight tingling sensation on his fingertips.

……

Four months later, Aiden still had 14 magic stones left.

"The meditation stone fragments are completely used up, and the effect is unexpectedly good." Aiden carefully climbed out of the wooden meditation chamber and muttered to himself, a glint of light flashing in his eyes as he opened and closed them.

"So far, I've memorized 6000 color blocks, which is about a third of the total. However, while memorizing, I'm also forgetting; the more I remember, the more I forget." Aiden rubbed his throbbing temples hard with his fingers.

"Compared to the commoner wizards of my generation, my training conditions are already quite good. Mr. Ford gave me 20 magic stones, which is much more than them. Although my memory is slow, I can stay for longer," Aiden comforted himself.

"I don't know if Mr. Ford did it on purpose, but the cultivation resources were just right, not so much that I would give up hope, but also making me constantly worried that there wouldn't be enough time."

He looked towards the corner of the room and whispered, "Little Qing, quack, come here."

A slender green snake flicked its tongue and twisted its body as it slithered toward Aiden, followed closely by a brown toad leaping up and down. Each leap of the toad landed heavily on the floor with a dull thud.

Aiden found them both in the nearby bushes and spent nearly a month getting them to live together harmoniously.

"good."

"Today's training exercise is for Guagua to ride on Xiaoqing's back and circle the hut 10 times."

The green snake raised its head, flicking its tongue repeatedly, as if expressing its displeasure. The toad, however, gripped the green snake's body, its eyes narrowed, seemingly enjoying itself. The green snake swished its tail in annoyance.

Aiden reached out and tapped the green snake's forehead, laughing, "Listen to me, tomorrow you'll be riding it, and you'll be on the other side."

The green snake lowered its head and began circling the room as instructed, occasionally collapsing to the floor and flicking its tongue in exhaustion. Its body left a winding, wet trail on the floor.

Looking at this strange pair, Aiden sighed, "Everything has a spirit. Before mastering animal taming skills, we would only see them as oddities."

Just then, a line of text appeared before my eyes.

[Acrobat's professional mastery level: 39% → 41%]

"Very good. After this period of animal training, the mastery has increased to 41%." Aiden looked at the numbers jumping on his retina and breathed a sigh of relief.

"I need to find a few more animals so they can grow faster." He frowned slightly as images of the ferocious beasts in the Forbidden Forest flashed through his mind.

dong dong!

There was a knock on the door, and Bondi's voice came through.

"Aiden, are you dead or not? If you are, just let me know so I can collect your body."

Aiden's face darkened, and he opened the door.

After spending these past few months together, he discovered that Bondi, despite being a noble imperial prince, was not arrogant towards him and had no ill intentions. The two became good friends.

Bondi was holding a small red-headed bird, about the size of a palm, that was fluttering about. He handed it to him.

The bird flapped its wings frantically, feathers flying everywhere, each struggle producing a "fluttering" sound.

"If it weren't outside the Forbidden Forest, and if we didn't have those conditions, I could have any animal I wanted with just a word." Bondi handed the red-headed finch forward, his palm still bearing the red marks pecked by the bird, which he casually wiped on his clothes.

"Now we can barely catch a small bird."

"So, will it work for you?" Bondi asked expectantly.

"Of course it will work." Aiden was overjoyed and immediately grabbed the red-headed bird.

"Be careful, don't let it fly away!" Bondi stamped his feet anxiously.

"No, you're holding it the wrong way," Aiden chuckled.

Aiden easily used basic animal behavior to pinch the little red-headed finch's hind feathers and patiently began to groom them.

Two minutes later, the little sparrow perched on Aiden's shoulder, buried its head in its feathers, and drifted off to sleep.

Its little paws gripped the collar tightly, its body rising and falling slightly with its breath, emitting a soft snore.

When Bondi saw this, his jaw almost dropped.

"Aiden, as expected of you."

"Thank you so much, little sparrow," Aiden said with a smile.

He turned his head and rubbed his cheek against the bird's soft downy feathers.

"It has become very trusting of you."

Galatea's voice came from the garden. She came out carrying a book that looked like a parchment scroll and looked at the little sparrow on Aiden's shoulder with some surprise.