Abe the Wizard

Abel made up his mind, “We’re going to the Double Moon Forest, Loraine.”

Loraine widened her eyes in surprise, “But you aren’t a wizard yet, Abel! It’d be dangerous for you if you went to the Double Moon Forest now. The elves don’t like having humans around where they live.”

“Yeah, about that,” Abel smiled in confidence, “I know what I can do about it.”

Loraine’s eyes were full of doubt when she heard Abel say that. She’s lived in the Double Moon Forest before. She knew how humans were treated there. Without the skills for self-protection, most ordinary men had no way of surviving there.

Abel smiled as he lifted his necklace for a bit, “Trust me. I know what I’m doing.”

White Cloud was flying fast. As big as the carriage seat that’s on its back was, it wasn’t exactly a good spot to get some rest. Abel was okay with it, but Loraine was trying to keep herself awake even when she looked so tired.

Abel thought about using his Akara’s tent here. If he could open it up here, it’d be a good resting spot for Loraine to use.

After waking Loraine up from her nap, Abel told her to stand aside so he could take out the Akara’s tent. He took out the tent, placed it in the middle of the carriage, and after pinning all corners, he made a gesture to invite Loraine to have a rest inside.

Loraine was watching this whole time curiously. Since she was watching from outside the tent, she thought that there wasn’t much space inside.

“If Abel is sharing the tent with me…” Loraine’s face flushed as she thought about this.

When Loraine walked inside the Akara’s tent, she was amazed at what she was looking at.

“Is… this a portal tent?” she asked as she turned her head around.

Abel smiled, “That’s one more secret I’ve taught you.”

Loraine looked towards the alchemy table. There was a whole set of crystal equipment on top of it. The Akara’s alchemy bottle wasn’t there, of course. Abel took it away and replaced it with an ordinary bottle.

“An alchemy bottle!” Loraine said excitedly, “Can I use it to make my own potion?”

Abel tilted his head for abit, “Of course, Loraine. You know how to use alchemy?”

“Not really,” Loraine stuck her tongue out in an embarrassed manner, “The most I can do are perfumes.”

“Perfumes? I didn’t know they can be brewed from alchemy bottles.”

Loraine explained, “If you are an elven girl that’s born in a well-off family, you have to learn to make your own perfume. It’s kind of a tradition for us.”

“How come I don’t see you put on any perfume, then?” Abel asked in confusion.

“Well, I didn’t have any elven perfume before!” Loraine said with a troubled look on her face, but she quickly switched to a smile, “Now that I can use the alchemy bottle here, I can make more of my own supplies!”

As she said that, she looked at the alchemy table with a nostalgic expression. It’s a shame that she didn’t have the materials right here. She must’ve really missed the smell of the elven perfume.

When Loraine walked into the other part of the Akara’s tent, she was even more surprised than before.

“How did you get so many meditation jades, Abel?”

Inside Abel’s secret bedroom, the entire floor was covered with meditation jade tiles. Loraine knew that Abel’s rich, but this…. This was just on a whole other level.

Abel smiled as he watched Loraine’s reaction to his collection. He knew how knowledgeable she was at these kinds of things. Unlike him, who had to read Wizard Morton’s account to figure out what these treasures could do, she was able to recognize them by sight.

“This table is made from an ambergris tree! This chair, too! Even the bed as well!”

Loraine thought that she would stop being surprised a lot sooner. As an elf herself, she knew how ambergris trees came to be. That being said, she knew how hard it was to collect the timber in the first place.

For the royalties amongst the elves, each household would have their own small item that was made from ambergris timber. Because of how rare ambergris timbers were, anything that was made from them would be passed down as family treasures.

Elves couldn’t grow their ambergris trees. They had to trade with the dragons for them, and dragons were an extremely stingy bunch. Every year, only a handful of the timbers would be bought over. If you weren’t the most powerful or wealthy family, you pretty much had no chance of obtaining it.

And that’s why Loraine was so shocked when she saw the ambergris bed. After actually seeing the thing, she wasn’t sure if it’s a good idea to sleep on it.

As though having made her decision, Loraine turned her head back to Abel, “It’s a very big bed. I think it will do for both of us.”

Abel smiled and tapped Loraine on her head, “What are you talking about? You sleep on the bed. I sleep on the floor. There’s meditation jade on the ground as well.”

Without waiting for Loraine’s response, Abel sat at the wooden chair. He took out the two sheepskin books Wizard Morton gave him. Without saying anything, he immediately went to study mode.

The first book was titled “Things to Know About Magic Runes.” Apart from the seven words that Abel already knew (El, tir, ist, tal, ral, ort and shael), it also included some other ones that he hadn’t learned before, like ahm, sol, dol, hel, ko, fal, and lum. Since he wasn’t an official wizard yet, he wasn’t able to use some of the more advanced ones.

As far as Abel saw it, these runes were not complete at all. If his only source was from Wizard Morton, he would be learning only fifteen words in total. That wasn’t even half of the entire list. Besides, they were all words that belonged to the middle-low tier.

“Ahh!” Loraine suddenly let out a high-pitched scream.

“What’s wrong, Loraine?” Abel asked in surprise as he saw Loraine pointing towards the pillow.

Loraine was looking kind of strange, “You’re kidding… is this the heart of the meditation jade?”

Abel tried to reply as calmly as he could, “Yeah. What’s wrong about it?”

Loraine explained in a somewhat defeated tone, “You know how much it’s worth, right, Abel? Regular meditation jade pieces are already so expensive that people wouldn’t sell them in shops, but the heart! According to the myths, if you get close to one, you’ll actually double your chance of promoting your rank!”

“And look at how big this pillow is! With a heart about this size, you can make more than thirty necklaces that can be used to promote your rank! Why did you decide to make it into a pillow?”

Abel shook his head in silence. The one who did it wasn’t him. It was Fowler, and he probably spent a lot of effort carving that jade heart into a pillow.

According to Wizard Morton’s account, the heart of a meditation jade could counteract against the hallucination syndrome during a promotion. Abel really did underestimate what this “pillow” could do. If it really could double his chance of promoting his ranks, everybody would be after his head because of it.

“Well,” Abel said, “Let’s keep this as a pillow. I didn’t know how much it’s worth before, but after I do now, I think it’s best if I just keep here. If I take it to the outside world, who knows, maybe some kind of disaster will be coming after me.”

In a not-so-sure manner, Loraine nodded her head. When she jumped on the bed to have a nap, instead of laying her head on the pillow, she hugged it with both of her arms.

Abel watched as Loraine fell asleep. Soon, he went to take out the second sheepskin book Wizard Morton gave him. It was an advanced textbook for his future training. Inside this more difficult book, there were training guides for low and intermediate level wizards. Apart from that, there were some spell guides that he didn’t know about before.

Abel had to train alone from now on. Because of that, these books he was given were extremely important for him. Just now, he felt really grateful for all that Wizard Morton’s done for him.

It’s a shame that Loraine was beside him right now. And since they were flying on top of White Cloud’s back, he couldn’t just go inside the Rogue’s Encampment to start training. Oh well, the most he could do now was to memorize the content of the textbooks.

The thought of Wizard Cliff came to Abel again. Not only did he break his promise to come alone, but he also lied about waiting for half of a day to initiate the arrest.