Chapter 26: I Love Studying—Studying Makes Me Fulfilled
Chapter 26: I Love Studying, Studying Fulfills Me
From that day on, Saul entered full-on study mode.
In the dorm—he studied.
In the classroom—he studied.
In the corpse chamber—he worked and studied!
He had never lived such a fulfilling life!
Whenever someone asked, he simply said he was preparing for the test in three months.
Even Keli, who had always seemed composed, started to feel a bit pressured by his relentless studying.
But to some others, Saul’s efforts looked more like the final struggles of a desperate man.
The news that Katz required Saul to reach 10 joules of magic power for his first test had unsurprisingly spread throughout the tower. Some thought he had a chance. Others believed it was completely hopeless.
Everyone here had meditated. Everyone knew how much magic power could increase in a month.
Although no one knew exactly how low Saul's starting point was, from what Duke had said, it was clearly far off the mark.
Saul had later gone to secretly test it again. His current magic power was still only 3 joules, while the passing line was 10.
In other words, Katz expected him to reach the standard level for a new first-rank apprentice in just three months.
It was essentially a punishment for sneaking into the apprentice ranks.
Even though Katz had given him a new job, he never said Saul was off the hook for the magic power requirement.
And Saul wasn’t willing to gamble on whether Katz would go easy on him just because he worked hard.
Not when he had Kongshe eyeing him like a hawk, and Syd waiting to return from his trip—probably with vengeance in mind.
Saul now wished he could survive on only two hours of sleep a night. But if he didn’t rest properly, his learning efficiency would tank in the long run.
Luckily, his talent for mental strength allowed him to fully recover with just four hours of sleep.
That was the only reason he could sustain this intense grind.
One day, during the All Things Cognition class, they moved onto the section on animals.
Saul had already read the entire animal section in his dorm and even memorized some common knowledge he thought would be useful.
He was flipping through the book at a speed far ahead of the lesson.
“Flip.”
The pages turned again.
“Ghosts and Monsters section?”
Saul blinked in surprise and immediately began to read closely.
In stories and shows from his previous life, morgues were often haunted hot spots.
While he hadn’t run into anything truly dangerous in the corpse chamber yet, weird things did happen all the time.
Like one time, while sawing off an arm, the corpse suddenly complained that it hurt.
If the body hadn’t already been sliced in half, Saul might have tried to get a doctor to save it.
All he could do was shove cloth into both of the corpse’s half-open mouths.
Lately, Saul had been diving into Grimm’s Understanding of Wizard Body Modifications and the Guide to Corpse Refining, so the word “ghost” was particularly sensitive for him.
“When life ends, it generally involves material death and mental force dissolution...
Dissolution of mental force comes in many forms. When not under the full control of the individual’s own will, it's typically called a 'ghost'. When controlled by another’s will, it’s referred to as a 'monster'...
When the material vessel is destroyed or damaged, ghosts often temporarily latch onto other physical carriers. Common ones include dolls, clothes, corpses, etc...”
Dolls?
Reading that line, Saul thought of the little girl puppet used in the mental strength test.
Was it hiding a ghost inside?
Could he borrow one for research?
And what about the color-changing trash can in Katz’s lab was that a ghost or a monster?
Most fear came from the unknown.
After several days of study, when Saul thought back to that terrifying night in the lab, his fear had been replaced—at least partially—by curiosity.
He quickly skimmed through the Ghosts and Monsters section and found that most of it focused on classifications and traits.
There was hardly any explanation like what he’d just read.
Maybe it was too complex—too much for a first-rank apprentice.
Beside him, Keli happened to glance over and noticed his page.
“You’re already reading the Ghosts and Monsters section?” Her mouth fell open, and her eyes darted between Saul’s face and his book.
“Just flipping through.” Saul suddenly made a decision.
He glanced toward the second-rank apprentice at the front of the class, who had already finished reading the lesson summary and told everyone to self-study.
The classroom was half-empty. The rest of the students either goofed off or napped.
Saul quietly stood up, packed his things, and leaned over to whisper to Keli, “I’m heading out.”
Keli opened her mouth to say something, but Saul was already halfway gone.
She pouted, looked down at her own Introduction to Rune Construction, and sighed.
Maybe I should at least finish all the basic runes...
Those with strong mental strength were really born with a golden ticket when it came to foundational studies.
Even though she knew Saul was scrambling to boost his magic power, she couldn’t help but feel a bit envious.
…
“Senior Mark!” Saul burst into the lab, books in his arms.
Sure enough, second-rank apprentices rarely attended group classes anymore. They all had one-on-one mentoring or did self-study.
Mark had made the lab his personal study room.
Saul wondered if he’d ever experienced the kind of terror Saul had felt that night.
“You’re skipping class?” Mark recognized his voice instantly and smiled as he stood up.
After all, Saul had been handpicked by Katz and never brought back to the group class—meaning Katz saw something special in him.
Unlike the other two—Angela and Duke—who still had to show up for self-study.
Mark had already collected plenty of tuition from them, but hadn’t even bothered to remember their names.
After all, who knew if they’d even survive the three-month mark? Let alone make it to a year.
Low-level apprentices were disposable.
To wizards, everything was about survival.
“Senior Mark, I ran into some issues while studying compound runes and hoped you could help me.”
Mark instinctively glanced at his own study planner to double-check the date.
“You’ve already finished the basic runes?”
Saul nodded.
Mark rubbed his chin. “You're moving fast. If you can sort out your magic power problem, advancing to second-rank apprentice is just a matter of time.”
“All right, I’ll explain one compound rune to you—for free. But just this one. If you want to learn more, you’ll have to pay.”
This one free lesson was essentially Mark’s way of settling their debt over what happened in the lab.
Whatever his role had been, as the lab’s overseer, he had definitely been negligent.
This little favor was his way of balancing the scales—not because he cared that Saul had faced danger.
“Thank you, senior.”
Saul flipped to the last few pages of Introduction to Rune Construction.
“Can we start with this compound rune?”
It was a dark-element compound rune. If he mastered it, he could combine it with basic runes to learn multiple tier-zero spells of the dark element.
In other words, once he got this rune down, he’d be able to start learning actual wizard spells.
Even though Instructor Gudo had warned them not to be too eager to learn sorcery so early…
Saul had no choice. He was running out of time.
“Of course. First, you need to understand that compound runes aren’t just stacking basic ones. There’s a lot of nuance to how the magic channels through it—”
By the end of the lesson, Saul had skipped the second half of his first class and all of the second class.
And what he had learned was:
Compound runes are freaking hard!
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