“…I have finally found it.” Longjing Tea took a deep breath and carefully took down a heavy book… “Edict Theory” from the shelf.
It was quite a heavy book because its book cover was neither paper nor cowhide…
Instead, it was a steel cover about 3 millimeters thick.
Looking at it from the side, the inscribed calligraphy on the book’s spine reminded Longjing Tea of the stainless steel soap engraved with a brand.
Rather than describing it as a book, it felt more accurate to say that it was an iron box that could be opened sideways.
But he was used to it.
This was his fifth day at Swamp’s Black Tower.
When he first came to Swamp’s Black Tower as a transfer student, he didn’t go to class directly with other students because he had no foundation. Given his age, he didn’t want to sit in the classroom with fourteen or fifteen-year-old children.
So after staying in his room for another day, he finally got the library access card from Salvatore that allowed him to go for self-study.
The Swamp’s Black Tower had 13 floors of living areas, and the card gave him access to the library on the 5th and 6th floors. Below the fourth floor was the lodging area, eating area, and fitness area. From the 5th floor and above, each floor had libraries and classrooms with different access levels. The higher the floor level, the higher the access level required.
With Longjing Tea’s current access level, he could take the books in the library on the 5th floor back to his dormitory. On the other hand, he could only read the books on the 6th floor and couldn’t bring the books out from that floor.
At the same time, those were the resources Longjing Tea had been looking for.
He currently couldn’t enter any dungeon instance, so he could only do the weekly and daily missions of “Secret Eye” every day.
[Transcribe 3 valuable books (1/3) that have not been entered into the archives yet. This mission is limited to three times a week.]
[Transcribe a spellbook (0/1). This mission is limited to once a day.]
[Transcribe a book that records occult knowledge (0/1). This mission is limited to once a day.]
Although they were scheduled to be weekly and daily missions, at Longjing Tea’s current “transcription” speed, it basically took him three days to finish transcribing a book.
The “transcribing” process didn’t mean copying through handwriting. Longjing Tea couldn’t write the words of this world at all. He could only understand it under the automatic translation of the system.
The characters in this world were somewhat similar in appearance to Latin. With the aid of two-way translation, Longjing Tea could indeed write it out unless it was a long sentence with complicated grammar. Otherwise, the task was still manageable. The main problem was his handwriting.
He had no experience in writing this kind of text. Even if he copied it, it would take a long time for someone like Salvatore to understand it.
From then on, Longjing Tea didn’t really want to write anymore.
[Transcribe] was actually a general skill under the Secret Eye faction, or rather a life skill.
When Longjing Tea activated this skill and concentrated on reading, the words he had read and understood would be highlighted green. The words he was reading and comprehending would be highlighted in yellow, and the words he had missed out or misunderstood would be highlighted in red.
When the green part of a book exceeded 95%, the entry would be completed. The lesser the words were highlighted in red, the higher the reward.
In the beginning, Longjing Tea just regarded this as a skill for gaining experience, just like typical game keys such as “mining” and “sorting”.
But after he activated these skills and read a “worthwhile book” under the [Transcribe] skill, Longjing Tea immediately realized the importance of this skill.
I could utilize this function to aid my learning!
The [Transcribe] function was like a portable teacher following him around. It could remind him at the first time whether he should proceed to read or go back for revision just in case he had missed something important.
Even if the function didn’t strengthen Longjing Tea’s memory, he could remember what he learned after reading “Basic Outline to Curse”.
So, Longjing Tea now planned to start completing his daily mission and transcribe the spellbook.
The books on the fifth floor were all books such as “Outline”, “Introduction”, “Summary”, and some books with low secrecy in history, mathematics, human physiology, and many other types. Many of the pages included diagrams, mainly for the foundations.
After reading the book “Basic Outline to Curse”, Longjing Tea felt like he had read a set of basics and nothing special.
Anyway, he still had to read.
Then, it was better off to try to understand and learn the spells while completing the daily mission.
Longjing Tea’s profession, [Wizard Apprentice], had reached Level 7.
He had two instant spell slots and one guided spell slot, but only one slot was occupied [Movement Prohibition].
At this moment, he finally figured out that the advanced requirement of [Wizard Apprentice] was to use two instant spells and two guided spells to form a spell combo. Generally speaking, he had to write a thesis on the spell combo, make some adjustment and finally send it to his tutor to check on it. After it was ensured that the spell combo consisting of four spells could be used to fend for himself, only then was he allowed to advance.
Generally speaking, the stricter, more powerful, and more practical this spell combo was, the higher the evaluation ratings would be.
Longjing Tea had no mentor at present, and the others did not need a mentor.
Although he didn’t know much about spells, he had excellent game knowledge.
He had good self-awareness of his magic pathway and what abilities the players needed — control, amplification, and weakening buffs.
Indeed, this particular system was unlike what typical wizards would adopt.
From the very beginning, Longjing Tea never planned to go solo.
He had to consider how to improve his teamwork with other players.
For example, this spell was good.
[Emergency Dodge (Instant): Chant the edict so that the target who was willing to obey the command immediately interrupted the current action and performed emergency dodge. When dodging, the dodge success rate depended on the spell caster’s “Perception” attribute instead.]
Below the spellbook, there were also detailed explanations and specific uses of this spell.
To put it simply, Longjing Tea could activate this spell immediately after seeing a surprise arrow attacking one of his comrades who didn’t notice it. It would enable the spell target to evade the attack. Of course, the dodging speed depended on the spell target’s physical fitness but evading the attack’s type relied on Longjing Tea’s observation.
It was in another world, but it was one of the three magical Pokemon Trainer’s skills, shouting [Dodge], [Hold on], and [Stand Up Now].
Such a powerful support spell was actually just an instant spell that didn’t consume much magic?
And the magicians here don’t evaluate the skill highly.
Longjing Tea was stunned when he noticed this situation.
He finally realized in the end.
…I see.
No wonder these wizards have no teammates.
Each and every one of them is pretty individualistic!