Once he was back to his room, the impatient Merlin quickly opened the wrapped parcel hidden in his arms. Inside was a handful of dark soil and a hard item.
Merlin could not identify the shape of the item as it was covered with dirt. Hence, he fetched some clean water and began rubbing gently on the hard item in an effort to remove those soil stuck to its surface.
Soon enough, the treasure that had been given a thorough cleansing gradually revealed its true identity. It was a pendant. The small pendant was in the shape of an inverted triangle. A ruby gem about the size of a soybean was placed in the middle of the inverted triangle.
Under faint candlelight, the ruby glistened with a lustrous brilliance.
However, Merlin was not bothered with the gem inlaid on the pendant. Although a ruby was a rare treasure, its value was nothing compared to a casting tool. Merlin was more curious if that pendant was actually a casting tool.
Therefore, Merlin rapidly gathered his Mind Power to shroud the pendant.
"Swish."
In the blink of an eye, Merlin felt a horrifying whirl trying to draw his Mind Power into the pendant. Merlin was overjoyed. He stopped resisting and allowed his Mind Power to be absorbed into the pendant.
Merlin's Mind Power induced that inside of the pendant was a completely enclosed space. It was constructed by hundreds and thousands of confined tiny cells. Every cell seemed to possess a certain mysterious power.
Some tiny cells seemed to be trapped with rather active Wind Elements. However, it appeared that these cells were broken due to unknown reasons. As a result, some Wind Elements had leaked out of the casting tool.
Perhaps that was the reason for the peculiar wind that appeared outside of the castle.
"What an incredible casting tool!"
Merlin, who was shocked to his mind, finally retrieved his Mind Power.
The tiny cells inside of the pendant were out of Merlin's current knowledge, but he did a daring estimate that they were utilized to store spells.
The concept was similar to certain Spell Scrolls. Powerful Spell Casters could adopt special methods to cast spells unto Spell Scrolls. By possessing any of these Spell Scrolls, even with a weak capability, a slight trigger using Mind Power could easily activate the spell stored and eventually erupt a compelling force.
A typical Spell Scroll could only store one spell at a time. Once the Spell Scroll was activated, the spell being stored would be released. In other words, Spell Scroll was a one-time depletion casting tool.
However, the pendant in Merlin's hand could possibly store more than just one spell. The seemingly infinite number of tiny cells in the pendant was indeed empty space to store spells. Each tiny cell could hold in a spell.
Merlin utilized his Mind Power to carefully count the number of tiny cells inside the pendant. There was a total of one hundred and fifty-eight cells, that was to say, this casting tool was able to store one hundred and fifty-eight spells.
A casting tool like this may be rated as a ghastly one. It was not something that any Spell Caster could easily produce.
Merlin turned the pendant around. On its back was engraved a couple of words in Molta language.
"Bell."
On the back of the pendant was engraved the name "Bell." In Etha's Spell Manual, the old man mentioned the long tradition for Spell Casters to carve their own name on each casting tool they invented.
Hence, "Bell" should be the inventor of this casting tool.
"I wonder if this 'Bell' is still alive."
Merlin murmured to himself. He looked at the pendant in hand. There were numerous broken tiny cells on this pendant, which were the cause for the leaking of Wind Elements previously stored in there, and later produced that gush of peculiar wind outside of the castle. It was safe to say that this pendant was probably an invention of several hundred years ago, perhaps even longer.
No doubt a Normie would have been gone in such a long time. But it was different for Spell Casters, especially Spell Casters which possessed forceful power. They could live up to two or three hundred years.
Merlin naturally had no idea if there was any Spell Casters that lived up to hundreds and thousands of years. Even old man Etha had no clue about this. After all, old man Etha was only an Entrance-level Spell Caster. How much could he possibly know about the untellable secrets in the world of Spell Casters?
This pendant was produced by "Bell," hence Merlin simply named it as the Bell Pendant. Merlin could not care much whether this "Bell" was still alive. He was only eager to find out if this casting tool was still usable.
Therefore, once again, he quickly focused his Mind Power into the pendant. This time around, he checked those tiny cells carefully. There was a total of one hundred and fifty-eight tiny cells, but most had been destroyed and left emptied.
Perhaps someone else had already released the spells stored in this Bell Pendant, which resulted in those shattered cells. That, or they had been left alone for too long and eventually broke down.
Merlin counted attentively and realized there were only eighteen tiny cells in the pendant that remained in good shape. This meant that he could still store eighteen more spells in this casting tool.
"Eighteen more spells… That should be enough!"
Merlin chuckled to himself. He thought this casting tool had completely lost its function, but who knew. Still, he had to get it tested out before he was sure he could still store spells in this pendant.
He made up his mind and gathered his Mind Power into the pendant once more. In some of those tiny cells still held spells that had been stored in there since who knew when. Due to the prolonged time span, countless Wind Elements was leaking out from those broken tiny cells little by little, waiting to erupt when the time came.
Merlin was not going to let such unpredictability happen. Right away, he utilized his Mind Power to activate those broken tiny cells in Bell Pendant.
"Whoosh… whoosh… whoosh…"
All of the sudden, waves after waves of a mad wind appeared in the room. They were the remnants of spells being left inside of those tiny cells in the Bell Pendant. The destructive force was not too strong; hence it did not result in a massive disaster.
Still, the room was turned into a complete mess.
After destroying all the remnants of spells left in Bell Pendant, Merlin started to think about casting spells into the pendant. At the moment, Merlin knew only one spell, which was Fireball. However, due to special reason, Merlin could also release Large Fireball that was as powerful as a First-level spell.
If he were to store any spell, undeniably he should store Large Fireball which was powerfully forceful in order to maximize the potential of Bell Pendant.
However, that raised another question – could the Bell Pendant withstand Large Fireball, which was almost similar to a First-level spell?
Merlin was not able to make an accurate inference for now. At least not until he had tried it out.