Chapter 157: Mastery of Spellcasting
Boom!
With the last Bipedal Wyvern’s body hitting the ground, Soren couldn’t help but stand up, panting. He gritted his teeth as he pressed down on his arm, which had nearly dislocated from being swept by the dragon’s wing. In front of him lay three slain Bipedal Wyverns; one had just returned from hunting, and at the foot of the mountain was a zebra it had thrown down.
“What are the casualties?”
Soren moved his arm a bit and then turned to look at his subordinates. Someone had just been struck down by a Bipedal Wyvern near the dragon’s nest, and since it was several hundred meters from the foot of the mountain, survival was nearly impossible.
A slender pirate lieutenant counted the numbers and said somberly, “Your Excellency! Four are dead and seven are injured.”
“Hmm.” Soren nodded silently.
The casualties were still within an acceptable range; after all, they were dealing with Lesser Dragon Species, and the chances of having zero casualties were very slim.
One Bipedal Wyvern had given him almost five thousand points of Killing Experience, and clearing this area allowed Soren to amass nearly thirty thousand points of Killing Experience, enough for him to raise his Wizard Profession Level.
However.
He decided to hold off for now, as he had already received two hints for the “Mastery of Spellcasting” specialty; after one more, he would directly grasp the “Super Magic” specialty.
Combat spellcasting progress was relatively slow.
But mastering Spellcasting Mastery would increase the speed of Combat Spellcasting, as many specialty abilities complemented one another.
So many Bipedal Wyverns’ bodies could not be quickly transported back.
Soren could only lead his men back first, then arrange for other subordinates to transport the bodies. Such matters could be handled by lesser lieutenants. Soren himself would bring back five dragon eggs, ensuring that the area near the camp was completely safe now. Unless some dangerous creatures migrated over, there shouldn’t be any attacks in the near future.
Within the camp.
As soon as Soren returned, he saw the attendants of Lady Wealth, the priestess. They were obviously observing the area, but because of Soren’s orders, they could only secretly observe the layout. The position of the shadow fissure was near the warehouse, which was off-limits to others. They could at most observe the situation at the south and east gates.
“Brother!?”
Not long after Soren’s return, Vivian’s figure appeared.
Today, she wore a black princess dress, her beautiful long hair tied with a bow. Her big, round eyes wandered restlessly around the room before settling on the neatly arranged dragon eggs in front of Soren. Behind the little girl was a petite Cat Girl, who seemed very subdued today, nervously trailing behind Vivian, completely unlike her laid-back self yesterday. It was unclear whether it was because the girl in the black princess dress was putting more pressure on her today or for some other reason.
“Eh?”
The little girl opened her eyes wide and tilted her little head, saying, “Brother! Are these all dragon eggs?”
Oh no.
As soon as Vivian spoke, Soren thought to himself that it was bad, as he knew the little girl had always wanted to keep a magnificent pet. Now that she had seen these dragon eggs, there was a good chance she would want to raise one.
“Oh my!”
The little girl hopped over to the table, reached out her small, white hand to touch one of the eggs, and then cheered, “They really are dragon eggs! I’ve wanted to raise one for so long!”
“Brother is really nice!”
Plop.
Vivian stood on the chair, tiptoed, and kissed Soren on the side of his face, then turned and dashed off with one of the dragon eggs.
She ran like the wind!
According to the little girl’s judgment, there was a 90% chance that Soren would disagree with her raising such a dangerous creature. However, she had always really wanted a majestic pet. So in the end, she decided to take action by kissing her brother and running off with the dragon egg. In a couple of days, when the baby dragon hatched, her brother should not oppose it.
“Vi! … Vivian! …”
Soren opened his mouth but then hesitated, ultimately letting out a gentle sigh.
He was indeed worried about allowing the little girl to raise a dragon, even a Lesser Dragon Species. This was because dragons had genetic memories, and the wild nature of Lesser Dragon Species was innate; it was not that whoever hatches them would immediately be seen as their parent. That scenario is often depicted in bard stories; in reality, when a dragon egg first hatches, the young dragon instinctively attacks. The genetic memory of dragons teaches them their instincts; true dragon taming requires compatibility with spell control and brainwashing.
“It’s fine.”
Gloria’s figure appeared outside the door. She was dressed in a long black gown, her hair casually tied up with a headband. After glancing at Lulu, who was sneakily slipping out, she turned to Soren and said, “With Vivian’s current strength, raising a Lesser Dragon Species should still be safe.”
“If it were a Pureblood Dragon, it might be a bit dangerous.”
She walked up to the table, glanced at the remaining dragon eggs, and said softly, “Do you intend to tame them?”
Soren nodded slightly, “I’m considering it.”
Gloria reached out to touch the dragon eggs and frowned slightly, saying, “This one has no life force. Taming dragon species is quite difficult; only those from Dragon City know the secrets. Hatching them might be easy, controlling them might be easy, but making them obey is exceptionally difficult.”
Upon hearing this, Soren placed his palm on the dragon egg Gloria was pointing to and indeed felt that the life force was quite weak.
This dragon egg couldn’t hatch.
Even dragon eggs from Pureblood Dragons had a chance of not hatching.
Sometimes it was similar to chicken eggs.
In a clutch of dragon eggs, the proportion of hatching into young dragons could only be considered average.
Soren set this dragon egg aside and replied, “Let’s give it a try. The Drow have techniques for taming petrified lizards. During this time, they’ve relied on me for material supplies but only sent a team of Drow warriors to serve. It’s about time they did something, and it’ll help test the attitudes of those female Drow!”
“If these female Drow still can’t recognize the situation, then they can’t blame me for being ruthless!”
Soren’s eyes glimmered with a hint of cold light as he spoke.
Gloria gently brushed her long hair aside, her expression somewhat worried, “The Drow are a race accustomed to deception and betrayal, so I still can’t trust them. You should be extra careful!”
Underground creatures do not trust surface creatures, and surface creatures do not trust underground creatures.
Soren remained silent, simply nodding lightly, “I know. They won’t stir up trouble. If there’s any unusual movement, I will wipe them out immediately.”
Gloria lightly acknowledged this before taking out a scroll and handing it to Soren, saying, “During this time, Vivian and I have been either studying how to set up a teleportation array connecting to the Shadow Plane or deciphering the mysteries of this spell scroll. The little girl’s talent is truly impressive; her learning speed astonishes even me. I fear it won’t be long before she completely surpasses me.”
“The deciphering of ‘Mayoufu Meteor’ has been completed.”
“This is our recorded backup. It has been annotated in words you can understand. However, there is a segment in the original secret script that we couldn’t decipher; it seems not to be part of the spell but more like a modification technique from a certain Archmage. For now, neither Vivian nor I have been able to decipher it; those are letters created by an individual, and fully understanding them may take a long time.”
Words.
In this world, there are many languages. Once a certain level of power is attained, wizards also enjoy creating their own secret script languages.
For example, if you draw a wavy line, to others, it may just be a wavy line, but in your created language, it represents something entirely different. Such personal secret script created by wizards is the hardest to decipher; unless one finds the corresponding spellbook or uses certain special abilities to comprehend it, even well-learned individuals like Gloria cannot solve it in a short time.
“Finally decoded!”
Soren reached out to take the scroll in front of him, then nodded, “Good. I will memorize it as quickly as possible.”
Gloria’s arrival provided significant assistance.
The spell “Mayoufu Meteor,” which Vivian had spent over a month attempting to decipher, was nearly fully parsed shortly after she arrived, and Soren was quite looking forward to this spell.
“Mm.”
Gloria smiled at Soren for a moment before turning and leaving the hall.
………………
As night fell.
After simply arranging the night watch, Soren returned to his room.
He carefully spread open the spell scroll before him, then picked up a quill and began transcribing onto the white paper. Page after page filled with dense symbols. He had written enough to fill a stack of white paper when he finally rubbed his forehead and sighed.
“Why is it so hard!”
Feeling a bit dizzy, Soren stood up to open the window for some fresh air before sitting back down again.
The difficulty was too high!
Although this was merely a third-ring spell, Soren felt that the difficulty of mastering it was greater than that of fifth-ring spells and above.
He had spent half a day without even completing the rough model of the spell, and at this pace, it seemed it would take at least half a month to complete the memorization. It was rare for a spell to be so difficult for him since he began his part-time wizard career.
A night quickly passed.
Soren had hardly slept, and near dawn the next day, he finally put down his pen to rest for a while.
The progress of parsing the spell model was still less than 3%, with nearly ten centimeters of written paper covered with various symbols piled on the table. Soren rubbed his forehead to relax his nerves, then began to memorize the spells he had previously mastered.
As dawn began to break.
Soren got up and left his room to establish his connection with spells, and just after completing all first-ring spells, the long-awaited notification finally appeared:
“Ability Improved!”
“After long-term practice, you have obtained partial information for the specialty ‘Mastery of Spellcasting.'”
“You have mastered the specialty ‘Mastery of Spellcasting!'”
………………(To be continued ~^~)
