“From farm work,” Zelier answered honestly.
“Oh? You’re from a farming family?”
Gray’s interest was piqued. His hands did not stop moving, but his mouth had no intention of staying idle.
“I thought you were some young lord who’d run away from home to experience life… Come to think of it, aren’t mages all supposed to be rich? Buying scrolls, wands, robes and the like—every single one costs a fortune.”
“There are exceptions now and then.” Zelier curled his lip.
According to the memories Zelier had inherited, the original owner’s background was nothing remarkable. He had merely been a poor peasant on the kingdom’s border.
From birth, Zelier and his parents had spent their days dealing with the crops in the fields, living with their faces to the loess and their backs to the sky. Each year’s harvest, after taxes were paid, was only barely enough to keep them alive.
But a turning point came when Zelier was seven.
It was an ordinary summer afternoon.
The work in the fields was not too busy that day, and his father, rarely, did not urge him on. He allowed Zelier to rest for a while beneath the old locust tree by the ridge between the fields.
The cicadas cried loudly. In the distance, the air was distorted by waves of heat. Sunlight filtered through the gaps between the leaves, scattering mottled patches of light across the ground.
Everything was the same as it had always been, ordinary enough to make one drowsy.
Zelier lay on his back in the grass, narrowing his eyes as he watched the leaves sway gently in the wind, bored out of his mind.
But in that very instant, the world suddenly changed in his eyes.
It was not a change in vision so much as an indescribable perception.
He saw the wind. The wind was no longer formless, but strands of pale cyan thread.
He heard the earth. Deep, steady rumbles sounded continuously, like a heartbeat.
He felt the light. Countless golden motes danced within the sunlight above him, warm and gentle.
Immediately after, an irresistible, immense suction force erupted with a roar, dragging Zelier’s consciousness into a boundless, dark universe.
At the center of that dark universe floated a faint point of light.
Zelier’s curiosity overcame his fear. When his consciousness tentatively approached that point of light, that seed seemed to sense his gaze as well, and then pulsed gently.
Brilliant radiance flowed out like a clear spring, bringing with it an extraordinary power.
The name of that power was mana.
Zelier had awakened his own Source Seed.
By the time Zelier’s consciousness returned to reality, his heart was pounding uncontrollably, and his breathing had grown rapid.
For a child of a farming family, seven years old meant you were no longer a little child who only knew how to play with mud.
You had to learn to tell whether crops were good or bad. You had to learn, under your father’s scolding, to shoulder a half-man-tall hoe with shoulders that were still thin and undeveloped.
Zelier’s life should have been filled with soil and sweat, and he should have grown, step by step, into a dark-skinned, silent farmer just like his father.
But he realized that he might still be able to walk another, entirely different road.
The name of that road was mage.
For the next nine years, Zelier’s life was divided into two parts.
One part was still the son of a poor peasant laboring in the fields. The other was a seeker who harbored a tremendous dream.
Zelier began to use every bit of spare time he had to teach himself.
He would run to town and rack his brains to gather any information related to magic. When bards carrying lutes came to the village, Zelier would pester them to tell him stories about mages.
He also used the savings he had accumulated over several years to buy a tattered scroll that recorded the structure of a spell formula. After constant meditation and cultivation, he finally mastered Fireball.
That year, Zelier was sixteen. The flame that sprang from his palm excited him beyond words.
But it was also that year that the king raised taxes. The common people suffered, and life became unbearable. Zelier’s parents, who had toiled their entire lives, finally could no longer bear the burden and passed away one after the other.
After burying his parents, he sat by the ridge of the field, leaning against that old locust tree, and stared blankly for a very long time.
Zelier could have chosen to inherit the farmland into which his parents had poured their hearts and blood, and continued being a farmer.
But in the end, he decided to take the little savings he had left and set out on the path of an adventurer, free of all restraints.
People, after all, always had to try living in a different way.
Seeing Zelier lower his eyes in thought, Gray thought his words had touched a sore spot, so he nudged Zelier with his elbow.
“Don’t take it to heart. I was just saying it casually. If you don’t have money, you can save it up slowly. From the way you cast magic just now, I’d say you’ve got plenty of talent. You’ll succeed.”
“Thanks.”
Zelier smiled kindly and said no more, simply continuing to grip the flap of hide and work with Gray.
Skinning and cleaning took a great deal of time. The few of them busied themselves for more than half the night before they were finally done.
As for the wolf carcasses, they were thrown into a nearby pit and left to rot.
Fortunately, this pack of wild wolves had been the local overlords. All carnivorous beasts kept their distance out of fear of them, so even though the stench of blood in the camp was thick, it did not attract any other predators.
Because Marcus and Gray had contributed the most during the battle, the task of keeping watch afterward was handed to Valles.
The night passed without incident.
When Zelier opened his eyes again, crisp birdsong was already sounding outside the tent, and thin strands of sunlight spilled in through the gaps in the curtain.
Dawn had come.
“Ah…”
Zelier rubbed his eyes and sat up.
The bedding beside him was already empty. Gray and Marcus’s voices drifted faintly in from outside.
He had not slept very well.
Because it had been the first day since his transmigration, all sorts of tangled dreams had woven together, leaving Zelier uneasy.
He still needed time to slowly accept it…
Zelier scratched his messy hair and subconsciously checked his panel.
Strength: 65
Agility: 60
Constitution: 68
Spirit: 71
Intelligence: 66
Perception: 30
Charisma: 45
Luck: 41
Aside from the four points of Spirit added last night, none of his other attributes had changed.
Beneath Spell Formula Heavenly Evolution, the analysis progress of Grand Creation still remained at 0%.
Seeing this, Zelier could not help but frown.
Grand Creation—what kind of magic was it, exactly?
Forget it… When the time came, he would go to the official organization of mages, the Mages’ Guild, and ask.
After all, the original owner’s memories did not contain a deep understanding of magic. There were many things waiting for him to slowly uncover.
Zelier lifted the curtain, and the cool, gentle morning breeze brushed against his face.
The air in the forest was exceptionally fresh, mixed with the fragrant scent of plants, making his spirits lift.
After washing up briefly, Zelier caught the black bread Gray tossed over, then dipped it in hot soup and ate.
The bread was quite hard. Only after being softened in soup could it barely be swallowed; if he bit into it dry, he probably would not even be able to chew it.
And in terms of taste, it could not compare at all to the baked pastries in his memories from his previous life. It barely had any sweetness.
It was good enough just to fill the stomach.
According to Marcus’s arrangements, the team was supposed to leave Graywood Forest today and return to the Adventurers’ Association in Blackstone Town to turn in the wild wolf subjugation mission.