Gaven took out a spare blanket from his warhorse and tossed it to Vick, saying, "You sleep first. I'll take the first half of the night. When needed in the latter half, I will naturally wake you."
"Understood." Vick treated Gaven's division of labor as an order, accepted the blanket, curled up not far from Gaven, lay down, and then there was no more movement.
As for Gaven, of course, he wouldn't idle away his time but continued to employ autohypnosis, a technique of Psychic Sorcerers, to mine treasures from his memory.
In terms of the volume of information contained in memory, the Legendary Warrior was no match for Zhang You, because the society in which Zhang You had lived was in an era of information explosion. The staggering amount of information he absorbed daily, including many pieces of knowledge, were passively taken in—billboards by the roadside, pop-up ads, push notifications glimpsed inadvertently, and so on.
Of the now eighteenth-point Intelligence attribute Gaven possessed, four points were derived from his past life as Zhang You.
According to the Magic Network's method of assessing Intelligence attributes, a person with fairly normal thinking averages around ten points. Someone who has received a standard education generally reaches eleven to twelve points, and if they've had elite education, they would hit thirteen to fourteen points.
On Earth, having completed a high school education would be considered elite education in Felen, even surpassing most elite education because of Earth's more systematic and broad-ranging knowledge—this refers solely to the quantity of knowledge, since there are huge fundamental differences between the two worlds, and the scholarship naturally differs.
However, in terms of value, the knowledge of the Legendary Warrior was a bit more substantial, some of the information being highly useful for future plans, especially those with time stamps.
Gaven had to dig them out bit by bit to serve his plans.
As the memory excavation progressed, Gaven's destination became crystal clear—the Rocklands of the Komeer Kingdom, where he would mine his first pot of gold.
With frequent practice, Gaven's autohypnosis became more and more adept. He had now integrated memory extraction with his trance state. Although it wasn't perfect, he could essentially do it at will, entering and exiting in mere seconds.
That meant, even in sleep, Gaven still had a tight grasp of his surroundings within a dozen meters, ever ready to awaken.
It was not necessary to use Vick as a sentry, but Gaven still woke him up on time, assigning him to guard until just before dawn, for a four-hour watch.
You could say that Gaven was overly suspicious or cautious.
In any case, he adhered to the principle that you can't go wrong with being careful. He would give Vick as much trust as possible, but necessary precautions still had to be taken.
The Goblin Sorcerer on guard duty was loyal and diligent, sitting still five steps away from Gaven from beginning to end, without even nodding off once.
He did not think to use the time to prepare breakfast.
Although Vick had been a slave, his status as a Sorcerer had made him a special slave, at least never having done the kind of servant work common to ordinary Goblins.
Gaven, in a trance state, couldn't help but sigh; it seemed Vick needed a lot of instruction and improvement. Fortunately, Gaven hadn't expected Vick to join the team from the start and was already prepared. He took a long stick and, while pushing the extinguished campfire to one side, taught Vick some basic life skills and the duties he should perform when on sentry duty.
At the moment, except for his ability to cast spells, Vick was like a blank slate. If no one told him what to do, he would never figure it out himself.
The one advantage was that he was obedient; he would do what he was told, learn what he was taught, even if it was not well done or he couldn't pick it up right away.
That didn't matter. As long as he was willing to work and learn, even if he was a piece of rotting wood, Gaven could sculpt a flower out of him. It was just a matter of how much effort it would take.
Besides, Vick was not a piece of rotting wood, but a smart person lacking knowledge in certain areas.
Let's put it this way, there are no fools among spellcasters, whether it's the Magicians whose key attribute for casting is Charisma or the Priests who attune with the Magic Network through Perception.
The Magic Network only endowed them with the knowledge related to casting spells; to truly complete the casting process, they still had to dig and learn on their own.
Take Gaven, for example. He had become a Psychic Sorcerer several days ago, but aside from the Psychic Blast that he could cast before his class change, he was still unable to cast any other psychic magic spells.
His main focus these last few days had been on military strategy books and deeply delving into the Legendary Warrior's memories, leaving him no time to practice the psychic abilities that the Magic Network had passed on to him.
While speaking, Gaven cleared away the palm's thickness of soil under the campfire, revealing the steaming treasure beneath—three clumps of earth larger than a human head.
In Vick's puzzled gaze, Gaven cracked open the hard outer layer, and a delicious aroma immediately filled the air.
These earthy lumps were stuffed with various foods, thoroughly roasted by the overnight fire.
One contained a fat, juicy wild rabbit, weighing a good seven or eight pounds, its gutted belly still stuffed with a small plump chicken weighing about three or four pounds.
Another was stuffed with seven or eight fist-sized potatoes, and another had three or four thick tuberous roots, also roasted soft.
This was the authentic game Gaven had prepared for himself as provisions for today's journey—he had hunted and foraged them along the way yesterday. With his experience as a Legendary Warrior, Gaven's wilderness survival skills were at their peak.
Because of the rampant monsters and incessant wars, all living creatures were confined to their own settlements, including the majority of the monstrous tribes.
Most of Felen's land was still undeveloped, dominated by nature. Describing it as "knocking out pheasants and scooping up fish, with wild chickens flying into the cooking pot" was no exaggeration at all—as long as someone had some wilderness survival skills, it was not difficult to survive. The precondition being, you weren't hunted and eaten by another creature.
Vick's eyes nearly popped out, not from shock at Gaven's unique cooking skills, but from hunger. He didn't have Gaven's skill for survival in the wild. Since escaping from the caravan, he had been subsisting irregularly, mostly on raw food. Last night, he had come by on a whim, and Gaven hadn't saved him any dinner. Now his stomach was still empty.
"Eat up!" Gaven said, tearing the small chicken in half and pushing it along with several potatoes and root tubers towards Vick.
Whoosh!
Gaven only saw a shadow flicker before the food disappeared, grabbed into Vick's embrace, without caring that the small chicken was still dripping with grease.
"Wait," Gaven called out to Vick.
"This is mine, mine!" In that moment, Vick's face showed a hint of aggression.
Vick's reaction didn't surprise Gaven. Back in the caravan, he was obedient most of the time, but his behavior changed when it came to food. This was a common problem amongst slaves.
All slave masters would use hunger as a means of controlling their slaves, keeping them on the brink of starvation year-round.
Over time, this would trigger their instinct to defend their food. When it came to eating, they would disown all kin, and only the whip could make them cower slightly.
Vick refrained from snatching the food not because of his moral conscience, but out of fear of being beaten.
Back in the caravan, Gaven had regarded Vick as a passerby, naturally not bothering with these behaviors. Now, if he planned to make Vick an important future companion, he couldn't let him continue this way and was prepared to transform him gradually, "I am not taking back the food, but when you receive a gift from someone, you should say thank you. Just say thank you, and the food is yours."
"Thank you!" Vick said without hesitation.
He had done far more disgraceful things for a bite to eat, let alone say a single word.
"Alright, you can eat now," Gaven knew his task of reformation was a long and arduous one.