He squinted, staring intently at the rock.

  A humanoid shape flickered in and out of view. If he shook his head, it vanished; it only remained visible when he funneled his concentration into a single point.

  "A kobold's lifespan is barely twenty years. You likely cannot fathom how long a single year is. All you need to know is that you are already a kobold in your teens. In the time you have left, even a genius among humans would not have enough years to become an Official Wizard. I can help you, ugly little kobold."

  "The Language Comprehension spell from your initiation legacy should allow you to better understand my words."

  The voice droned on in Tars's mind. The sensation was profoundly unsettling; even when uttering sentences that should have been rousing or grand, the speaker betrayed not a single ripple of emotion.

  Tars ignored the rhetoric. He stilled his mind, drawing upon the same focus he used during meditation. A figure reclining on its side, clad in silver-gray robes, came into sharp focus.

  A person. A real human being. Not a humanoid monster.

  He pushed his concentration further. His gaze drifted upward, taking in a smooth chin, then a missing arm, and finally a head where at least a third of the cranium was gone. The sole remaining eye stared wide and unblinking at him. Had the man been whole, he would have appeared as a handsome youth who took great pride in his grooming.

  Tars instinctively stepped back. "You're... alive?"

  He couldn't describe his current state of mind—fear tangled with a gnawing curiosity. This stranger's arm was missing from the shoulder down, as if a sharp longsword or axe had cleaved diagonally through him from the crown of his head, shearing away vital organs in one clean, surgical stroke.

  "You truly have mastered Common. You really are unlike other kobolds. Do not retreat further; do not waste our time. Once you leave this place, you will forget everything concerning me. Who knows how long it would be before you returned? There might not even be a next time."

  Despite his horrific appearance, the man continued to shove words into Tars's mind. Tars stopped, noting that the man's mouth didn't move and his posture remained unnaturally rigid. This half-person was likely completely paralyzed.

  "Have we met before?" Tars asked casually.

  "Patience, kobold. Once you become a true wizard apprentice, you should be able to remember me," the half-man replied, still projecting those emotionless, faux-lyrical tones. "Your progress surprises me; you can already look at me for this long."

  Tars shook his head, relaxing his focus. The figure blurred back into a vague silhouette.

  "Curious little kobold, here is a gift—a reward for your progress. It should contain what you require."

  A small pouch appeared out of thin air, arching through the darkness toward him. Tars caught it, feeling a jolt of recognition; the object resonated with his mental power. This was no ordinary cloth bag.

  "I have wiped the previous imprint. You can barely use it, though you lack fine control; for now, you can only dump everything out at once. When you become an apprentice and learn the Arcane Mark, you can brand it. Then, it will become your exclusive storage pouch."

  "Thank you, sir." Tars looked sincere. After a brief hesitation, he bowed to the phantom figure. He didn't dare refuse.

  "Your Common is quite good. I thought that even if a kobold understood the words, they would struggle to shift their manner of speaking so quickly," the half-man said slowly. "You are a unique specimen. Consider this a reward for the small bit of entertainment you've provided me."

  Tars gave a simple-minded grin and stayed silent. He knew a kobold's smile was hideous, but what else could he do besides play the fool? He remained highly skeptical about whether he had actually met this man before.

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  The stranger had claimed the bag held what he "required." That meant the man knew exactly what he was after. Assuming the stranger was telling the truth—giving him the black book, watching him survive, and now gifting him a bag of supplies—it felt like a silent contract. There were no legendary oaths, yet Tars could already feel an invisible chain tightening around him.

  "Ugly little kobold, I hope you continue to surprise me. Based on your mental strength just now, you have mastered at least three runes. That is impressive. At your current pace, you have enough time left to master a Zero-Ring spell and become an apprentice."

  "Intriguing. Perhaps you will be the world's first kobold wizard..."

  As the man spoke, his figure began to fade. Tars kept his head low, maintaining a humble posture. He didn't dare say too much, instinctively avoiding appearing too clever, yet afraid to act too stupid. He didn't remember the last visit, so he didn't know how they had interacted. However, he trusted himself; even if they had talked, he wouldn't have stepped out of line.

  Perhaps he should be happy. As a kobold, he certainly had reason to be. The half-understood path of the wizard could continue. In the fragments of the initiation legacy, he recalled that becoming an Official Wizard meant a sublimation of one's life form and a massive extension of lifespan.

  For a kobold, lifespan was a death knot. Magic was the antidote, but it was just out of reach, and the fate of his short-lived race felt as heavy as his own scrawny arms. He knew he would return here. The invisible chain had him bound.

  The half-man's figure vanished completely without ever telling Tars what he wanted in return. This lack of a price made Tars feel as though his fur were falling out from sheer anxiety. In his tension, several tufts of loose fur actually drifted off his back; had he shaken himself, he would have been caught in a small flurry of hair.

  He gripped the pouch and took two steps back. No voice stopped him. It seemed he was free to go.

  The joy of obtaining spell knowledge didn't make his pace any faster. He hadn't expected things to go this way; he had set out intending to scavenge "trash." He had hoped the person who lost the book might have lost other things, and he had planned to expand his search radius for more manuals.

  On the return journey, he remained cautious, identifying his marks while listening for movement. He was still just a weak kobold whose greatest weapon was a wooden staff. As for the "Black Book Head-Crushing Method," he wasn't sure it would work on subterranean beasts.

  Halfway back, the journey became faster now that the path was known. Suddenly, he heard a sob. At first, he didn't believe it, but listening closely, it was definitely crying.

  He froze, double-checking his route. That was not a kobold cry. He had never heard such a sound in the tribe. It sounded like a human—like a heartbroken child whose toy had been stolen—but with a slight, underlying hum.

  He tip-toed back to the previous intersection. He wasn't lost, but he decided to break his own rule and take a detour to avoid that sobbing sound, which made the hair on the back of his neck stand straight up. He was confident he could bypass that section and find his way back to his nest.

  For the rest of the trek, his nerves were taut. Horror stories he had read in his past life—about crying sounds that followed people—echoed in his mind. Fortunately, nothing followed him. Moving quietly and quickly, he finally reached his safe nest, hungry and exhausted.

  Aiskin was waiting there.

  "Aiskin?" He was genuinely relieved to see a familiar face after such a bizarre ordeal.

  "Brother Tars, you went exploring again? It's dangerous. If you get lost, you'll starve..." Aiskin clearly remembered the stories he had told her.

  "Look, I brought grub meat this time. I ran back so fast I didn't even stop to eat the last piece." He showed her a scrap of meat.

  Listening to Aiskin's clunky, grating kobold tongue, he suddenly wished he had a spell that could instantly teach someone Catacomb Common. Of course, he'd only use it on her; he had no interest in changing other kobolds.

  Kobolds, despite the name, had no soft fur and were the furthest thing from cute. They were irritable yet cowardly, social yet disloyal. One moment they'd pounce like mad dogs, the next they'd scatter in a panic. Most were hunched, with wrinkled skin and sparse hair, looking like a cross between a biting old man and a bald, dog-faced rat. Their only virtues were their resistance to hunger and their decent night vision.

  Aiskin looked stronger than before. Food must be plentiful in the tribe lately; perhaps the Holy Lord Gray-Long-Neck wasn't too exploitative.

  "Did Gray-Long-Neck forbid catching the grubs?" he asked casually.

  "There is no Holy Lord Gray-Long-Neck anymore. We follow Holy Lord Black-Claw now. He has beautiful long black fur, he is stronger, wiser, and has big, powerful claws..." Aiskin said.

  That was a fast turnover, Tars thought. Every change of "Master" was a crisis for the tribe. One had to learn the new master's habits, a process that usually cost lives. A change in masters meant the tribe had just suffered a crushing defeat, and the death of an old master always involved a massacre of the clans.

  However, kobolds thought differently. Some believed that the more casualties they suffered, the more "powerful" the incoming master must be. The best masters, by consensus, were the strong ones who slept for long periods. You just had to provide enough food whenever they woke up. If you were unlucky and got a stupid, gluttonous, and cruel master, the tribe would be bled dry. In lean times, injured or "useless" kobolds like Tars would be rounded up and offered as the master's next meal.

  But now, with grubs everywhere, things might be different.