Despite always needing to stop and restore his magic power with meditation, Saul was also one of the newcomers in the room with the fastest progress in learning the runes.
A good number of people had not been able to draw their first rune even by the end of class.
But Saul wasn't much prouder.
He knew in his heart that it was such a struggle just to depict the runes now, and if he wanted to cast a sorcery in the future, he didn't know how many more hurdles he would have to encounter.
So instead of rushing to be fast, Saul constructed a few repeated runes over and over again to reduce the escape of magic power, so that he could construct more runes with the same amount of magic power.
Instead of constructing one rune, the magic power fluctuated so much that it was like thunder.
After class, Saul politely declined Korie's request to accompany him and went to test his current magic power first.
He wanted to know just how wasted his magical talent was.
Soon, he walked out with a lost face.
Although he had already prepared himself mentally, a mere 3 joules of magic power still made him feel that the road ahead was bleak.
It was absolutely impossible to reach 10 joules within three months using conventional methods!
"What happens if I fail the test? The probability is death, right?"
Saul followed the slope of the East Tower to the library on the ninth floor, and the moment he stepped through the door of the library, he had already made up his mind.
"Instead of failing the test and dying, it's better to fight to the death to pass the test."
At the entrance of the library, there was a man sitting straight against the wall, looking at the clothes, he seemed to be the administrator here.
Saul went up and wanted to ask about the rules of borrowing books from the library.
But the man looked up at the ceiling in horror for a moment, and then carefully squinted and stared at the ground, as if something horrible was about to emerge from above his head and feet.
He simply ignored Saul's questioning.
Saul followed him as he looked at his feet and the top of his head, but found nothing out of the ordinary.
He had to return to the entrance of the library and look warily at the towering rows of bookshelves.
The library was filled with a light mist, and only the two or three rows of bookshelves near the door could be seen clearly. The further back they went, the blurrier they became, and in the end they were even completely hidden under the white fog.
On both sides of the bookshelves, there were obvious signs, on which were written in fist-sized letters, "Level 0", "Level 1" and so on.
The bookshelves here were graded according to the level of sorcery.
The higher the level of the bookshelf, the higher and more dangerous the knowledge.
Saul walked inward along the only straight passage in the library.
His footsteps stopped at the place where the zero-order and one-order bookshelves were divided.
He glanced at the exposed spines of the books on the shelves, many of which were labeled with names.
It was just that some of those books were written in wizard languages, and Saul didn't recognize any other kind of wizard language besides Noah's.
And the writing on top of the 0th order books was just a little uncomfortable, not a strong sense of vertigo.
Thinking of the new apprentice who had cut strips of himself and planted them in the flower bed only this morning, Saul didn't dare to look at those unrecognizable words more than once.
Pausing at the demarcation for a moment, Saul lifted his steps inward again, his figure hidden behind the white mist.
With the first to try, naturally a second and third would soon follow.
One after another, new apprentices entered the library, curiously surveying everything.
Some went up and tried to wake up the keeper who was sitting in the doorway.
But as his hand rested on the keeper's shoulder, the figure of the keeper suddenly disappeared and his hand fluttered into the air.
It was as if everything that had just happened was an illusion.
A few newcomers looked at each other in disbelief, recalling what a spooky place this wizard's tower was, and hurriedly turned back to come together.
"Do we really have to go in? This place looks like it has a weird atmosphere, it doesn't feel as safe as the dormitory gives off." A somewhat timid girl named Jenna said.
"That servant even went in, you wouldn't be inferior to an underling, would you?" Another one with an open brow immediately retorted.
"We can wait here for a bit and see if he'll encounter any danger going in." This time the one who spoke was Duke who looked much gentler than before.
After being threatened by Saul, he seemed to have tempered the hostility in his body.
It was just that whenever he looked in the direction where Saul had disappeared, a trace of resentment would flash in his eyes, as if he very much hoped that Saul would just disappear and never come out again.
However, to his disappointment, Saul reappeared from the white mist in no time, with a book in his hand.
After coming out, Saul realized that the nervous man at the door had disappeared.
There was no one else in the library except him and a few newcomers.
"How are we going to lend out this book, just take it away?"
Given that the seniors wanted money for imparting knowledge, Saul didn't think the library was open for free. "Two magic crystals for a one-day loan."
Just as Saul was looking left and right, an old man suddenly appeared at the door.
If one looked closely at the old man's appearance, one would realize that he resembled the man who had just sat in the doorway, only his appearance was a dozen years older.
So expensive!
Saul expected that borrowing books wouldn't be cheap, but he didn't expect it to be this expensive.
He didn't haggle and directly handed out two magic crystals to the old man and quickly rushed out of the library.
Now he had to race against time.
"Do you guys want to borrow books too? If you want to borrow a book, hurry up and get it, don't delay me." The old man collected the magic crystals with satisfaction, and with a twist of his head, he said with a stern face to the other few newcomers.
The several newcomers shook their heads repeatedly.
Just kidding, there was a test in three months. They hadn't even learned all the basics of sorcery, who was going to read those esoteric books? And spending two whole magic crystals?
That Saul was really crazy!
"Borrow or get lost." The old man chided and his figure suddenly disappeared again.
A few newcomers' cheeks burned, bowing their heads as you pushed and shoved your way out of the library.
After a short break, at two in the afternoon, Saul came to the lab holding his newly borrowed book and a blank tome.
Finding an empty table and chair at random, Saul threw the book on and buried himself in it to begin transcribing.
Not long after, Angela and Duke also came.
The three of them still sat far away from each other and did not disturb each other.
It was almost three o'clock when Mark, the second level apprentice, slipped into the lab, a nervous looking man at his side.
Mark smiled and talked to the man while sweeping across the lab as if he had no intention of doing so.
A momentary complexion flashed across his face when he saw Saul sitting perfectly still.
"You go on back, I'll find you if anything comes up." Mark nodded to the man and crossed over to Duke, who was closer to the door, and walked over to Saul.
Duke, who had been on his feet, sat back down with a smirk.
Mark's arrival didn't bring Saul, who was concentrating on his copybook, back to his senses.
It wasn't until a hand gently knocked on Saul's desk that he realized someone was standing beside him.
"Senior Mark." Saul immediately stood up, respectful with a hint of caution.
"You did a good job yesterday, cleaner than I could have cleaned up myself." Mark had a smile on his face, "But I thought about it, organizing the lab might still be a bit difficult for you, so you still don't need to do this job in the future."
Saul's fingers curled a little as he pressed on the booklet.
Could Mark's sudden change of heart have anything to do with the big pink that appeared last night?
Or was there some other reason hidden?
Saul was a little torn, last night's experience was indeed horrific, but without doing the work of organizing the lab, he didn't have the money to ask Mark for advice.
"But Senior ...," Saul spoke hesitantly.
Mark immediately knew what Saul wanted to say, and said directly and cheerfully, "If you have any questions in the future, just ask me directly, Mentor Kazi has asked me to bring you along properly."
"Thank you senior!" Sol immediately lifted his chest in a very excited manner.
The two of them had a look of unity and friendship, neither of them mentioning yesterday's encounter.
Since Saul was able to survive last night, he was certainly not simple himself.
Without a sufficient price, Mark wouldn't randomly strike out at an apprentice.
He didn't want to be randomly stirred into deeper muddy waters.
At the same time, he decided to give this awesome newcomer a little bit of compensation, sort of putting yesterday's matter behind him.
"You're copying a book?"
"Yes. I borrowed a book, but I can only borrow it for one day, so I thought I'd transcribe some of it first and read it slowly."
"Let me help you see what's useful." Mark enthusiastically picked up the book.
One look at the cover of the book and a surprised glance at Saul.
This book, surprisingly, was the one he had mentioned to Sol yesterday, in the category of Witch Body Transformation!
Grimm's Cognition of Sorcerous Body Transformation
"You, really want to read this book?"
Facing Mark's inquiry, Saul calmly nodded his head.
(End of chapter)