When Kent practiced, he felt the qi rising from the soles of his feet, passing through his abdomen, and finally vanishing at the point between his brows.
At first, only his feet had tingled that way; now the sensation crept up into his calves as well.
The flow from the feet seemed as thick as a chopstick when it began, but by the time it reached his brow, it was barely a wisp.
Of course, it was only a sensation—but the benefits were unmistakable.
No matter how worn out he was, holding the posture for an hour restored his spirit completely and brought his body back to seventy or eighty percent.
That was the only reason Kent, with his safety-first philosophy, kept at it.
What Kent failed to notice was that, whenever he was asleep, his body gave off a faint, hazy white glow.
The strange egg lying on his pillow also glowed—except, if you looked closely, the egg was actually absorbing Kent’s light.
This went on until dawn, when the weak shimmer became impossible to see.
“Time to go.” Kent wore straw sandals, with strips of rag wrapped around his calves for leggings and a hat on his head.
On his back hung an old cloth sack left over from carrying grain.
At his waist sat the little knife he’d bought with a few dozen copper coins.
In his left hand was a wooden stick, good for testing the ground and steadying his steps; in his right, the well-honed sickle that served as his weapon.
Torry had assured him there were no dangerous beasts around here, but wild beasts weren’t in the habit of checking in with Torry before showing up.
Safety first, always.
From Torry, Kent had learned that Terry Town actually sat near the heart of human territory.
The forests were dense, but there were no large predators and no magical beasts.
The mountain soil was poor, though, which made the land bleak and desolate—and that was why Terry Town was so poor.
Apart from a little grain and some timber, the ground yielded mostly rocks.
Today, luck was not with him.
He hadn’t found anything edible so far.
There were plenty of wild berries around, but he didn’t dare eat any—none were ones he recognized.
So Kent had no choice but to gnaw on his own bread.
It was simple fare: he boiled wheat-like grain with mushrooms and dried fish until soft, mashed it into lumps with his hands, and roasted them by the fire.
It tasted fine when fresh, but once cold it hardened like iron.
He had to break off small pieces, pop them into his mouth, and drink water to soften them before he could swallow.
“Oh!
Did something explode here?” Kent stared at the chaotic stretch of ground—several hundred square meters covered with scattered rocks and the occasional scraggly bush.
Judging by the way the stones were strewn about, it looked exactly like the aftermath of a bomb blast, shaped by a shockwave.
No wonder he blurted it out in surprise.
“Wait—not one explosion.
Two.” Kent studied the area carefully and concluded that the shockwave pattern couldn’t have come from a single blast site.
There had to be two.
“Forty-five paces right here, radius of forty-five paces.
That puts the center of this blast around here…” Using nothing but his own measured steps, Kent identified the centers of the two explosions.
One had been more powerful, leaving a wider, more sprawling blast zone; the other had been weaker, leaving a smaller one.
“Still about four hours of daylight left—time to start digging.” Kent checked the sun and got to work.
In truth, he was digging out of sheer restlessness.
He was starting to feel that if he didn’t find something to occupy his mind, he’d either sink into depression or split into a dozen personalities.
And he was genuinely curious: what kind of force could have caused such massive destruction?
“Damn it!
Not even a single hair.” Kent cursed loudly.
At first glance, the ground had looked like solid rock, but when he started digging, he found the stone had been completely shattered by the blast—it crumbled like sand.
In under two hours, he had scooped out a pit a meter wide and forty centimeters deep.
He stopped only because he hit a solid stone slab beneath.
Even if he’d wanted to keep going, his tools couldn’t possibly break through it.
His only implement was a shovel, with a freshly made wooden handle.
“Might as well dig up the other blast site too.
And if nothing turns up, I’ll head to Harri City for a visit—nobody’s coming up here anyway.” Kent mulled it over.
In all honesty, he’d been itching to see Harri for a while.
In theory, no one would visit the horse ranch for the next three months.
Just thinking about all the unknown wonders the city might hold filled him with energy.
“Hey, what’s this?
A piece of cloth?
Or pages torn from a book?
There’s a lot of them.” He drove the shovel down and brought up several sheets of parchment-like material, covered edge to edge with dense lines that made his head swim.
“Forget it.
Time to go home.
Wasted the whole day.
Tomorrow, I’m going to Harri.” The current Kent was no longer the simple, obedient boy he’d once been.
He now carried the soul of a man nearing thirty.
The old Kent would never have dared to travel to Harri City alone.
By the time he got back to his hut, it was already dark.
He lit a fire, boiled some water, and filled his belly first.
Then, while heating more water for a bath, he examined his finds from the day.
“Odd.
Why is this so clean?
Not a speck of dust.” Kent rubbed the three parchment-like sheets between his fingers.
Not only were they immaculate, but they were covered with strange, unconventional lines.
The lines themselves were nothing special—it was the cleanliness that bothered him.
That was suspicious.
“Maybe I should tear one open and see?” Kent decided to find out what he was dealing with.
He picked the sheet with the fewest lines, as far as he could tell, and ripped it apart.
Boom!
The instant he tore it, his head spun violently.
It felt like countless worms were boring into his brain.
Taken completely off guard, he pitched forward and slammed into the iron pot of heating water.
“Ow!
Ow!” Kent hurriedly plunged his red, scalded arm into the bucket of cold water.
At least the water itself wasn’t that hot—it was the pot that had burned him.
After tending to himself, he looked down at the torn sheet in his hand.
And what he saw made his eyes go wide.
“Contract Scroll: Fireball.” Kent realized, to his astonishment, that he could now read the squiggly characters on the other two parchment-like sheets!
In a panic, he pulled out all his books and started flipping through them one by one: Legend of the War God, The Thoughts of a Noble Lady, Alia’s Poetry Collection, The Nature of a Man…
“Junk!” Kent was stunned to discover he could indeed read the words on the covers.
But the contents were either love stories, romantic poems, or guides on how to seduce noble ladies—nothing useful at all.
“Still, there are two more books—Continental Magical Beast Compendium and Foundations of Alchemy.
Now those are interesting.
Looks like I won’t be going to Harri City after all.” Kent didn’t rush to read them.
For one thing, it was nighttime and the light was poor; for another, Kent had plenty of everything except time.
“Could this contract scroll be the kind used to subdue magical beasts?
And what kind of spell is Fireball?
How powerful is it?
It seems even a non-mage can use these scrolls.” Kent lay on his bed, tossing and turning, unable to sleep.
Magic was simply astonishing—one tear and he could suddenly read every word.
His heart itched like a cat scratching at him, and he couldn’t wait to see what the other two scrolls could do.
“Sleep.
Just sleep.” He tossed the contract scroll aside and tried to rest.
He was exhausted, after all.
But as luck would have it, the scroll landed right on top of that strange egg.
Kent’s body began to emit its faint white glow, and the egg beneath the scroll started glowing in response, doing what it always did—absorbing Kent’s light.
But this time, the contract scroll lay in between.
As the egg’s light passed through the scroll and met Kent’s glow, the scroll burst into flames all by itself.
“Ah!
Damn it!
A soul-binding contract scroll!” A shrill, panicked voice rang out of nowhere.
“Ow!
Who hit me?
Who hit me?” Kent was in the middle of a dream when a sharp pain shot through his head.
He woke up and touched the spot—a lump was already forming.
Then his jaw nearly hit the floor.
Floating in the air before him was a tiny, palm-sized beauty with a pair of translucent wings, clutching a wooden stick several times her own length.
Judging by her pose, she was clearly the culprit.
I can’t tell him the truth—that would be a disaster.
Besides, no one would ever guess I’d signed a soul contract with a human.
The little beauty’s eyes darted around as she thought quickly.
“Wh-who are you?” Kent stammered.
This was far too bizarre.
“I don’t know either.
I just came out after you signed a contract with me.” The little beauty wore a perfectly blank, innocent look.
“What!
So you’re the one who came out of that egg!” Kent scrambled to look around and found that both the strange egg and the contract scroll were gone.
The evidence was right there.
“I don’t know anything about it!” The little beauty wore a perfectly confused expression—though inside, she was already cursing up a storm.
This despicable creature.
If my father hadn’t been ambushed, with my status as a Diamond Angel, you wouldn’t even be worthy of licking my toes.
I’ll endure this for now.
You’ll get yours later.
Even though it’s a soul contract, the gap in our ranks is too wide—I can read your thoughts, but you can’t read mine.
If I hadn’t fallen into slumber and instinctively absorbed elemental energy all around me, I would never have ended up contracted with you.
And a soul contract, no less!
“So…
can you leave?
You know, I can barely support myself.
What if I voluntarily dissolve the contract?” Kent stammered, finally managing to blurt out words that made the little beauty want to smack him.
“Why?
Isn’t it nice to have a magic pet?” she asked, tilting her head curiously.
“No!
I just…
I don’t have any money.
Even these clothes are hand-me-downs.” Kent had heard that raising a magic pet was an expensive endeavor, so he was determined to get rid of this good-looking but costly companion.
“I’m sorry, but we’ve signed a soul contract.
That means if either of us dies, the other dies too.
Do you still want me to leave now?” the little beauty said with the purest look on her face.
“No!
No, no, no!
Stay right here with me.” Kent felt like crying.
What kind of mess was this?
His life was now tied to someone else’s.
“Your name will be Niu Niu from now on, alright?” After a long while, Kent finally accepted the reality before him and began naming his newfound companion.
“That’s fine.
Niu Niu sounds lovely.” Niu Niu had green hair and translucent wings, just like the grass spirits described in the magical beast compendium.
Grass spirits had lifespans similar to humans, and if one was lucky enough to obtain an elemental grass spirit, it was like finding a treasure.
There was a story about a warrior who once bonded with a light-attribute grass spirit—one fought while the other healed, making them the perfect team.
Most alchemists also favored grass spirits as assistants: they were clever and would never betray their masters.
Kent had learned all this from Foundations of Alchemy and the Continental Magical Beast Compendium.
He also learned how to meditate, because to become an alchemist, one first had to become a qualified mage.
For now, though, his most pressing task was memorizing the properties of the ten thousand-plus plants, animals, minerals, and materials listed in the Foundations.
“How much wealth do we have?” Niu Niu asked Kent.
“Six gold coins.” Kent knew better than to put all his eggs in one basket, so he said one fewer than the truth.
“Give them to me.” Niu Niu held out her tiny hand.
“What for?” Kent asked warily.
“I’ll be in charge of our finances.” Niu Niu answered through gritted teeth, though she was muttering inwardly: If it weren’t for the fact that your death would drag me down with you, do you think I’d bother with this?
“Oh.” Kent had no choice but to hand them over obediently.
Niu Niu was incredibly strong for her size, and if he did anything wrong, she’d whack Kent’s head with her stick.
After all, she was a first-rank magical beast—a rank above ordinary wild animals.
No matter how fierce a beast might be, it was no match for even the weakest first-rank magical beast.
And in human terms, a first-rank magical beast corresponded to an apprentice mage.
Kent couldn’t even qualify as a magic student.