Chapter 6: Drawing

Leaving aside the two mages' guidance for the two novice mages, Shaoke simply put on his cloak, said goodbye to the mages, and headed toward his own hut. Since Mage Feiyi and Mage Loki's residences were not far from the town, Shaoke decided to go to the town to purchase some food and daily necessities. Making the most of the remaining daylight, he quickened his pace and arrived at the town's only tavern, where he bought some wheat bread, tea, several pounds of cured meat, and a small bag of fortified wine. Next door, at the general store, he bought some candles, small cloth strips, and other daily necessities.

Shaoke had originally intended to have a cup of sweet wine at the tavern, but it was too crowded inside, and the sky was already growing dark. So, he packed his purchases into a bundle and carried them back to his residence. Since there were still two months before the routine wilderness patrol, he had to prepare more daily necessities. He planned to spend this time thoroughly researching his spell experiments and engaging in magic training, aiming to meet the requirements for promotion to the mage rank as quickly as possible.

Upon returning to his residence, Shaoke checked the alert ward "Eyes of the Night" he had set up outside the hut the previous day. This ward was a planar-type magic circle constructed from a small amount of magic powder, with an effective range of fifty meters. Any creature entering this range that met the conditions defined by the caster would trigger a special magical fluctuation to alert him. Typically, its effective duration was twenty-four magic hours. However, if an alarm was triggered, the duration of the magic circle would significantly decrease, as it was only constructed with a small amount of magic powder and lacked sufficient energy support. After carefully replenishing some magic powder on the circle, this alert ward could operate for another twenty-four magic hours, saving the time needed to redraw it.

By the time he returned to his residence, it was already late. Shaoke lit the thick, honey-made candle placed on the table and began his routine meditation. Usually, his meditation during this time period lasted for one magic hour. Afterward, he started his dinner for the day. Although the mage wasn't particularly hungry, he still ate some bread and a small amount of cured meat, as he had many tasks to attend to later in the evening. Often, he would be so busy that he would work until midnight, only to be interrupted by hunger, forcing him to stop and replenish some food.

Although the dinner wasn't lavish, it was still quite palatable. After living here for over twenty years, Shaoke had gradually grown accustomed to this dietary culture, which was somewhat similar to that of the West on Earth. Occasionally, the mage thought about making a fortune in this world using Earth's culinary delights, but he only knew a pitifully few dishes. Moreover, ever since he came into contact with magic, he had been deeply captivated by its wonders, immersing himself in spell experiments to the point of obsession. Thus, his thoughts of getting rich slowly faded. Besides, his current magical studies were entirely supported by the empire, and at this stage, a mage didn't require too many gold coins to sustain his spell experiments.

After dinner, a cup of tea somewhat alleviated the mage's busy mind and body from the day. After a brief rest, Shaoke began a long-prepared experiment in his small hut, which served as both his residence and laboratory: "The Construction and Embedding of Magic Circles." He intended to draw a low-tier magic circle and successfully embed it onto his hooded cloak. For this purpose, he had spent a full half-year thoroughly understanding the entire process of creating and embedding magic circles and had prepared ample materials for his use.

After tidying up the desk, he took out a thin piece of lambskin from a wall compartment and gently placed it on the table. Then, he retrieved a fist-sized, squat glass ink bottle inscribed with several magic scripts. This ink differed from what he usually used for writing and copying. It was made from a few drops of blood taken from the very tip of the heart of a ewe lamb less than three months old, mixed with some precious medicinal herbs and magic powder. The magic scripts on the bottle ensured that the ink inside would not coagulate or evaporate over time. This special ink was primarily used for drawing magical structures and depicting low-tier magic circle patterns, and it was quite expensive. For just this one bottle of ink, the basic lamb blood alone required at least three hundred lambs to collect, not to mention the precious medicinal herbs and magic powder.

Of course, drawing magical structures also required special brushes. Different magical structures needed brushes with different attributes to be successfully drawn. Moreover, high-tier spell structures required dozens of different brushes paired with various inks to be completed. For now, Shaoke only intended to draw a zero-tier spell structure, so he didn't need to consider so many factors.

This time, Shaoke planned to draw the zero-tier spell "Mist's Attachment." This spell could create a faint white mist around the target, slightly increasing the caster's concentration during spellcasting, minimally reducing interference from the opponent's spells, and providing some degree of facial concealment. Due to the nature of this spell, he selected a brush made from water-attribute snow fox fur for this drawing. This brush was meticulously bound from a few strands of fur from a snow fox's tail and had been treated with snowstone powder and ice crystal powder. Therefore, the requirements for mental power and magical power when drawing this zero-tier spell structure were somewhat reduced, making the task less strenuous for Shaoke.

Both drawing magic circles and creating scrolls shared a fundamental requirement: the entire structure must be drawn in one continuous stroke. If there were any interruptions, both the carrier and materials of the entire magic circle would lose their effectiveness entirely. However, for Shaoke, who had prepared for half a year, this wasn't a serious issue. The drawing of the magic circle took about a quarter of an hour, and he successfully completed the zero-tier "Mist's Attachment" circle.

The magical energy on the entire lambskin scroll slowly flowed according to the spell's structure, emitting a faint white glow to indicate its presence. After a short rest, Shaoke began writing dozens of magic scripts in ancient magical script around the circle. These scripts served to maintain the circle's operation and its connection with the carrier, while also adding minor functions: automatically drawing a small amount of external magical elements to sustain the circle's operation, activation and deactivation commands, automatic dust cleaning, and so on.

Generally, the quality of a magic circle depended not only on the drawer's proficiency, rank, and the circle's tier but also on the magic scripts surrounding it. Typically, the more ancient the magic scripts, the better their effects. Of course, these magic scripts had to be compatible with the circle. However, the vast majority of mages didn't have the opportunity to learn and understand ancient scripts. Generally, modern magical scripts or ancient magic scripts were used around circles. But those powerful mages would use different ancient scripts—such as dragon script, abyssal script, primeval script, Mayan script, and other magically potent scripts—to enhance the circle's effects based on the circle they were drawing. However, these scripts were beyond Shaoke's current ability to write. Even if he could read and chant some of these ancient, powerful scripts, successfully writing them required reaching the rank of archmage. Some languages even required the rank of magus to be written.

After successfully drawing his first magic circle, an irrepressible joy surged within Shaoke. Every step of progress had cost him who knows how much effort. After a while, when his emotions stabilized, Shaoke placed the newly drawn pattern into a prepared silver basin containing magic powder, crystal powder, and a mixture of specific magical beast blood for soaking. Since this circle was low-tier and required little magical power, it only took one magic hour to complete the circle's creation.

By the time all this was done, it was nearly midnight. Shaoke sat cross-legged on the bed and began meditating to recover the magical and mental power he had just expended. Then, using a silver knife, he sliced a few pieces of cured meat, sandwiched them between honey-spread bread slices, lightly toasted them over charcoal fire, and began his midnight snack. Since he still needed to tend to the pattern later, he skipped his usual hot soup. He simply lay on the bed, stretching his somewhat stiff body vigorously, thinking, "With this first successful creation, magical equipment in the future doesn't seem so distant anymore! Today it's 'Mist's Attachment,' tomorrow 'Elemental Guard,' the day after 'Solidified Fireball'... No, that's thinking too far ahead. The right path is to successfully advance to mage rank first. The subsidy the empire gives now is simply not enough for my expenses. Sigh! The mage rank provides so much more—a hundred common gold coins a month, as many elemental papers as you want, haha!" Shaoke quickly shook his head. That was too unrealistic. But advancing to mage rank was still necessary, all for the sake of the even more mysterious magic in the future. While cheering himself on, he remembered the circle pattern was still soaking in the basin. He immediately stopped his wild thoughts and got back to work.

Looking at the pattern in the basin, he noticed the faint white glow on it had disappeared. Unknowingly, a magic hour had already passed. So, Shaoke quickly took the pattern out of the basin. Holding it in his hand for a while, the magical solution on the lambskin vanished due to magical power. Carefully examining the circle pattern in his hand, he felt quite satisfied. Magical power flowed gently within the spell structure, and the magic scripts seemed to come alive, wriggling slightly from time to time. This filled Shaoke with both amazement and mystery, even though he had created it himself. After all, he didn't fully understand the specific principles behind it, even though he had read about them in books before.

After admiring it for a while, Shaoke carefully laid the magic circle pattern flat and placed it back into the previous wall compartment. Although these patterns weren't afraid of being rolled or folded, he still figured it was better to be safe.