Chapter 5: Books
Chapter 5: Books
After turning in his assignment and receiving the reward, Nolan immediately ran back to his room, obviously intending to sleep and rest. After all, each inspection trip would push one’s nerves to the limit and truly exhaust one’s stamina. In contrast to Nolan’s actions, Leon hesitated for a moment, then turned and walked towards the library.
It was around noon, so there weren’t many apprentices inside the library.
It was a simple stone room with dozens of yellowing wooden shelves placed against the walls. On top of these shelves were all kinds of magical and spell books made of various materials and in all shapes and sizes. The man who managed these books was a middle-aged Intermediate Mage Apprentice.
For these Intermediate Mage Apprentices, who had only reached this level with the help of age-related experience, the Mage Tower would never put in more effort to cultivate them. Moreover, this group of Apprentices had abandoned their ambitions. They were unwilling to undertake these excessively risky missions, yet at the same time, they refused to return to the life of ordinary humans.
Therefore, they had become a unique group within the Mage Apprentices.
Although a librarian received only one knowledge point every seven days, it was an easy job with no danger involved. This was also the reason why this task had been taken on by these Intermediate Mage Apprentices. For someone like Leon, who had no one to rely on and was always alone, all he could do was take on those dangerous missions.
Leon did not rush to the shelves in the deeper area, as he usually did. Instead, he was browsing through each bookcase, occasionally picking up a book and flipping through a few pages. All the books in this library were magic books.
When they were not borrowed, only the introduction was visible to a reader, while all the other content of the book was perpetually covered by a layer of dark floating mist, ensuring that no one could read it.
Leon never dared to underestimate this dark mist because it was personally designed by the master of this tower, the formidable Mage Eclivel. Without undergoing treatment from a special magical formation, no apprentice could read the content of the book, not even a single character.
If someone began to think about breaking this mechanism, they would trigger a hidden magical formation, attracting the wrath and punishment of the Mage himself.
Although the consequences could be quite terrible, Leon still wanted to test whether the BioChip could give him an advantage in this situation. After all, knowledge points were very hard to gain, and currently, Leon only had 7 points. The knowledge points alone were not enough to meet the necessary requirements for Spirit growth.
He picked up the book "The History of the Mage" and pretended to be seriously reading the introduction. But in reality, in the back of his mind, he was silently issuing commands to the BioChip.
"Scan this book. Try to see if you can obtain the content without triggering the magical formation!"
Command received, processing mission... initiating deep scan...
Leon lowered his head.
When the BioChip was scanning things outside of his body, his eyes would take on a red hue. This required him to mask his eyes to prevent anyone from noticing something abnormal through his gaze.
After submitting his task, Nolan immediately ran back to his room, obviously intending to take a nap. After all, every inspection trip would push the nerves to their limits, and it really drained his stamina. In contrast to Nolan’s actions, Leon hesitated for a moment, then turned and walked toward the library.
It was around noon, so there weren’t many apprentices inside the library.
It was a simple stone room with dozens of yellowing wooden shelves placed against the walls. On top of these shelves were all kinds of magical and spell books made of various materials and in all shapes and sizes. The man who managed these books was a middle-aged Intermediate Mage Apprentice.
For these Intermediate Mage Apprentices, who had only reached this level with the help of age-related experience, the Mage Tower would never put in more effort to cultivate them. Moreover, this group of Apprentices had abandoned their ambitions. They were unwilling to undertake these excessively risky missions, yet at the same time, they refused to return to the life of ordinary humans.
Therefore, they had become a unique group within the Mage Apprentices.
Although a librarian received only one knowledge point every seven days, it was an easy job with no danger involved. This was also the reason why this task had been taken on by these Intermediate Mage Apprentices. For someone like Leon, who had no one to rely on and was always alone, all he could do was take on those dangerous missions.
Leon did not rush to the shelves in the deeper area, as he usually did. Instead, he was browsing through each bookcase, occasionally picking up a book and flipping through a few pages. All the books in this library were magic books.
When they were not borrowed, only the introduction was visible to a reader, while all the other content of the book was perpetually covered by a layer of dark floating mist, ensuring that no one could read it.
Leon never dared to underestimate this dark mist because it was personally designed by the master of this tower, the formidable Mage Eclivel. Without undergoing treatment from a special magical formation, no apprentice could read the content of the book, not even a single character.
If someone began to think about breaking this mechanism, they would trigger a hidden magical formation, attracting the wrath and punishment of the Mage himself.
Although the consequences could be quite terrible, Leon still wanted to test whether the BioChip could give him an advantage in this situation. After all, knowledge points were very hard to gain, and currently, Leon only had 7 points. The knowledge points alone were not enough to meet the necessary requirements for Spirit growth.
He picked up the book "The History of the Mage" and pretended to be seriously reading the introduction. But in reality, in the back of his mind, he was silently issuing commands to the BioChip.
"Scan this book. Try to see if you can obtain the content without triggering the magical formation!"
"Command received!"
"Processing mission..."
"Initiating deep scan..."
Leon lowered his head.
When the BioChip was scanning things outside of his body, his eyes would take on a red hue. This required him to mask his eyes to prevent anyone from noticing something abnormal through his gaze.
Upon opening the door and entering his room, the first thing Leon did was glance at the floor beneath his feet.
On the floor, near the door, there was a faint ripple of fire elemental energy.
The energy came from elemental fire particles intentionally placed near the door. They had no significant function, but when someone passed through that point, the elemental energy around that person would inadvertently alter the arrangement of those fire elemental particles. With this, Leon could easily tell if someone had entered his room while he was away.
People in this community of Mages rarely revealed their true faces. Those who were not proactive in their preparations and self-defense would not last long in this tower.
Gently closing the door, Leon impatiently infused all the magical notes he had copied over the past few years. After serious calculations, Leon believed he currently possessed five complete magical books.
The first book was undoubtedly the "Glossary of All Things." It was the fundamental book for all Mage Apprentices.
Leon sat down at his wooden desk, thoroughly reading this "Glossary of All Things." Although he had memorized most of the book’s content, it was inevitable that he would still forget some, especially the small details.
At first, he did his best to recite the book as he read. He was making the BioChip copy all the content through his eyes to store, classify, and categorize it according to its specifications.
As time went on, Leon stopped wasting his energy thinking or even reading. He simply became a human copying machine, his eyes continuously shimmering as they scanned over each word, magical inscription, and image… all being copied at high speed.
In less than fifteen minutes, the "Glossary of All Things" was completely saved in the Chip’s memory!
Even Leon himself could not control his shock at such extreme speed.
As the fundamental book for all Mage Apprentices, this "Glossary of All Things" recorded over ten thousand different races and unique creatures discovered on the Mage Continent. It also recorded most commonly found plants, animals, minerals, special magical materials… In total, this book had over thirty thousand entries.
During the first two years, Leon spent 17 months creating copies and memorizing the entire book, but now it took less than fifteen minutes to save it completely.
Overcoming his shock at the Chip’s incredible speed, Leon closed the book and slowly began to recall the copied memory in his mind. Information about any species, fauna, or flora would appear in his mind as soon as he thought about it. The Chip would also project related information and data in his mind. This, indeed, saved Leon a lot of time.
Good. This was really useful! He would never have to worry about struggling to memorize that difficult-to-understand magical knowledge.
Being completely taken aback with excitement, Leon did not pay attention to the growing pain in his head. He couldn’t wait and quickly took out the second book, starting to duplicate it using the same method.
"The Beginning of Spiritual Force," an orthodox book on Magic Theory. It primarily explained the raw source and application of Spirit energy used by Mages. It also contained some simple methods for exerting Spiritual Force.
After finishing the copy of the second book, Leon gently touched his head. He felt incredibly dizzy and fatigued at the same time.
These… these were the symptoms of Spirit energy exhaustion!
As a Mage Apprentice, he was extremely familiar with this situation. During the period when he had just learned the Burning Hand spell, since he still couldn’t master the production of his magical energy, he always depleted his pitiful reserve of Spirit energy.
In the later stages, as he became more familiar with casting Burning Hand, he finally gained a level of proficiency in using Spirit energy without being taught by anyone. When someone controls magical energy, the Spirit energy is proportional to the strength of their soul. The stronger the soul, the more Spirit energy it could utilize. Thus, that person would be able to cast more magical spells.
Take Leon as an example! He had a Spirit of 8, and his magical energy was ten times his Spirit. In this case, 80 points. There were some Mages who liked to refer to Magical Energy as "Mage Energy."
In any case, those 80 points of Mage Energy were all the abilities Leon had at that moment.
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