Kobold Wizard's Journal

Chapter 241 Malice and Gifts

In his terror, Luger felt a throbbing pain; his head ached, his eyes hurt, and his eyeballs seemed to be bulging. Fortunately, he could move again, though with great difficulty. Squeak noticed something was wrong and immediately bit his leg, which he hurriedly tried to stop. With Squeak's pull, his eyeballs almost popped out of their sockets, as if an invisible thread was pulling them apart.

It was a puddle of water floating in front of me.

This strange thing, gathered from his falling tears, clung to his eyes.

Ruger wasn't afraid; he was more surprised by the novelty, and even felt a bit good from the effects of the foul-smelling skin.

This indicates that the foul-smelling skin is related to the power of origin. After the last encounter with the Nightmare Demon, Raiden mentioned that the power of origin is a power that ordinary wizard apprentices or even first-ring wizards rarely come into contact with. Even if they do, it is not necessarily a spell that can be used for combat. Unless the Nightmare Organ is cultivated to an extremely powerful level, only spells and bloodline abilities involving the power of origin can harm the Nightmare Demon.

Origin power is also divided into levels, but even the lowest level of origin power is a very rare and valuable thing for him.

Despite the discomfort in his eyes and the throbbing in his head, Ruger unleashed the second form of his foul-smelling skin without any hesitation. He knew that this second form was probably the only one that involved the power of the source. In order not to expose his solidified spell, he rarely used the first form, since it was just a simple stench. Although it could knock people unconscious, it should only slightly interfere with a fifth-level wizard apprentice.

He felt that if he hadn't seen that white skeletal hand that resembled a giant tree, he would have put in more effort in his first form, trying to make himself smell worse. Perhaps that would have been more interesting. He might even have had to learn other spells to cover up the lingering smell on his body after he stopped using spells.

But it is precisely because of this characteristic that it is hard for anyone to imagine his magic being associated with foul-smelling skin.

The enormous eyeball began to tremble violently, as if someone were tickling it with a feather or something dirty had gotten into its eye.

Ruger kept trying, and his fingers and toes could move again. His headache had worsened, and Leiden's eyeballs were almost bulging out; he must be in a similar state.

"Squeak!"

Luger roared.

The giant eyeball in the pool suddenly blinked, in the blink of an eye.

Squeak grabbed onto his and Raden's robes and legs, and suddenly ran away into the distance.

"Campfire—" Leiden said, covering his eyes.

"Squeak!"

Luger shouted and squeaked as he headed straight for the campfire not far away.

Leiden's face was covered in blood, and he seemed to be in much worse condition than Leiden. He had taken out a magic stone from his hand.

Seeing this, Luger hurriedly retracted the squeak, and the two of them rolled on the ground due to inertia and fell into the campfire. The moment they entered the fire, there was an explosion.

With another roll, Ruger opened his eyes.

The two had returned to the place where they had parted ways with the rabbit Tuzel. The campfire they had left behind was still not completely extinguished after so many days.

Leiden struggled to sit by the fire and began to pour himself bottle after bottle of medicine.

Ruger pursed his lips, thinking he wasn't seriously injured and was already starting to recover. The cultivation of his Nightmare Organs seemed to have given him a tiny bit of tolerance for these strange things in this wretched place. As he thought this, he wiped his face, but still found his hand covered in blood.

He wiped himself off casually and sat down by the campfire.

Leiden had rekindled the campfire with his eyes closed and even started brewing tea.

“It seems you are indeed confident in your ability to contend with those individuals,” Leiden said with a smile, but with his eyes still closed. “Is it a power that involves some kind of primordial force?”

"I don't know either." Luger called out to Zizi again, using it as a backrest, and relaxed on the ground, waiting for the tea to be brewed.

"I should say I'm more curious about what the primordial power actually looks like."

As Ruger spoke, he took out the few tufts of hair and played with them in his hands. The blood on his face couldn't be wasted; it could be used to make a blood curse doll. He applied the blood to the tufts of hair with the Spirit Hair Nourishment spell, and perhaps he would need to pluck more hair later.

"I don't know much either. It's said that the origin of the underground world manifests in many forms... different appearances. People constantly discover and try to utilize certain of them, attempting to control them through magic. This is the power of origin. Some powers, when they reach a higher level, will naturally involve the power of origin. For example, fire. Specializing in a certain high-level fire-related spell will inevitably involve a trace of the power of origin. But some power of origin is very rare and difficult to find. The spells created from it are mostly strange and unusual, not used in combat..."

As Leiden spoke, he tried to recall what he had prepared as a thank-you gift for Ruger.

Ruger slowed down his stroking motions, only casting the Spirit Hair Nourishment spell every few breaths, listening and pondering as he went.

The second form of the Foul Skin actually has many drawbacks. First of all, it is relatively passive and cannot take the initiative to do anything. For example, if Luger wants to be a villain or a scoundrel and use the Foul Skin to ambush someone, it will be very difficult to do so. Even though this is his most proficient solidification spell, he cannot use it directly for a sneak attack. He may need to lay some groundwork in advance. If the person is cautious and timid, he may seize the opportunity to run away.

But he never cared. It wasn't that he didn't have evil intentions, and that ambushes weren't necessarily used only when doing evil. Rather, what he had always been exposed to was that the more limited something was, the more powerful it was. For example, spells, ascension rituals, or potions. Imperfections were often a prerequisite for their effectiveness.

Perfection is rare.

Now, the so-called primordial power, the changes in the foul-smelling skin, or rather, that unknown bone hand, have once again risen in his heart.

Ruger began to ponder what kind of primal power might be involved in the foul-smelling skin.

Gududu!
The aroma of the tea, which I had never been able to appreciate, had already begun to dissipate.

Ruger shifted and adjusted the angle of the creaking chair to make himself more comfortable. At the same time, he took out his teacup. When Leiden brewed tea at times like this, he would definitely add something to relieve discomfort.

The scalding hot brown tea tasted quite good when I took a sip.

These days, when Zhizhi isn't running around, I use him as a chair or simply a backrest. This clever little guy has successfully mastered this skill and will even adjust the angle of his leaning back according to the terrain.

Luger picked up his teacup with satisfaction, his eyelids slightly lowered, but before he could even taste the tea, a strange feeling appeared before his eyes.

He raised an eyebrow and tilted his head slightly.

The puddle formed from the tears he shed before still lingered in the spot before his eyes.

It never disappeared; it's just that you can't see it when the angle is wrong.

Tick ​​tock!

A strange dripping sound came from the teacup. A drop of water floated up from the cup, flew vertically into the sky, and disappeared without a trace.

Leiden had clearly also heard the distinctive sound of dripping water.

The atmosphere around the campfire suddenly became tense, but fortunately the two of them were still able to move.

Luger dared not look into the teacup anymore, and Leiden put the lid on the pot.

Suddenly, the two looked at each other and burst out laughing.

Ruger put away Squeak and the few tufts of fur in his hand, and drank the tea in one gulp. The temperature of the tea was only slightly hotter than the mark on his shoulder, and it tasted just as good as he had imagined.

(End of this chapter)