Arcane Lord

"How do you sell ink? How much is it?"

"Ink costs 10 gold coins a bottle, a standard ink bottle." However, it seemed that Xia Duo didn't have much money in his hand. The apprentice lowered his voice and added, "If you are tight on money, I can sell you one." A bottle of my homemade ink only costs 1 gold coin.”

"..."

Xia Duo didn't expect that the people at the Material Request Office would bring private goods, but he did not have much money on hand. If he couldn't buy ink, it would be useless even if he bought parchment, so he had no choice but to buy private goods. .

"Okay, I need another 6 pieces of parchment, and the parchment needs to be brand new."

"Know!"

Xia Duo took out 22 silver coins from the inner pocket of the mage's robe and lined them up on the counter. Except for leaving 5 silver coins for emergencies, Xia Duo exchanged all the money for learning tools.

A man has no confidence if he doesn't have money. Xia Duo hopes that this kind of life can end as soon as possible.

He stood in front of the counter and checked the parchment paper and ink he bought. After confirming that the parchment paper was brand new, Xia Duo put it away, but the ink was a little bit...

A wooden vial, the ink inside was so light that you could see the bottom. Xia Duo even doubted whether it could leave traces on the parchment.

If the apprentice hadn't demonstrated it to Xia Duo on the spot, Xia Duo would never have bought this low-quality ink. It was too light and could only leave traces.

But right now this is all I can afford.

…

After leaving the material application office, you can either go to the library to borrow books and sort out dictionaries, or go to Dean to copy them.

On the elevator, Xia Duo chose to go to the dormitory floor without any hesitation, because borrowing books from the library also costs money, and now he could save as much as he could.

"Dean, are you there?"

"Xia Duo, you-" Dean opened the door with messy hair, a ferocious look on his face, and bloodshot eyes, "I thought you wouldn't come today!"

"I would like to borrow your half copy of the "Holy Proverbs of the Lord of Radiance", is that okay?"

"Okay, come in."

Dean returned to the room. Shado saw several notebooks and some scattered parchments spread out on the desk in the room. Dean seemed to be calculating something just now, but judging from his state just now, , obviously it didn’t go well.

"You just copy it here, I'll read other books first." Dean put away the things on the desk randomly and said to Shado.

Xia Duo wanted to refuse, but Dean's expression said "I want to watch", which made it impossible for people to refuse. Xia Duo guessed that Dean was worried about seeing the contents of the first half of the notebook.

…

Shado can already speak the common language of Nese (basic communication), but now he just needs to add more words and the corresponding texts for all the words.

Xia Duo noticed it when he was reading "The Sacred Proverbs of the Lord of Glory" with Dean. Now after purposeful identification and analysis, Xia Duo discovered——

Nese script is composed of 26 basic letters, and after deliberately selecting similar ones and asking Dean once, Shado determined that Nese script is a phonetic script, very similar to English on Earth.

Then the problem becomes much simpler.

As long as all the words are sorted in order, coupled with phonetic symbols and meanings, wouldn't a dictionary be made?

"The Holy Proverbs of the Lord of Glory" covers quite a lot of content. As long as you sort out the words that appear in it, it will be a simple but practical dictionary. You can look it up at any time when you encounter words you don't know. If you can't look it up, , that is, the dictionary needs to be expanded.

Although Xia Duo wanted to get it right in one step, he only had 6 pieces of parchment now, which was not necessarily enough to sort out all the words. He could only start from the first letter and sort out as many as he could.

…

The writing of Nese was completely unfamiliar to Xia Duo, and the use of the quill pen was not smooth, but Xia Duo overcame these difficulties one by one, and nothing could stop his thirst for knowledge.

In this way, time passed little by little as Dean's eyes changed from confusion and doubt to enlightenment and admiration.

Xia Duo did not use the Chinese language he was most familiar with when commenting on the words Nese. Instead, he used pinyin and phonetic symbols. It looked like a personal secret text used by mages to record secrets, which was quite mysterious.

At least Dean was fooled. He was not even an official apprentice at the moment, so how could he have access to the knowledge of the secret text.

Half of the "Sacred Proverbs of the Lord of Glory" has been read over and over again by Sha Duo. He has sorted out all the words starting with the first and second Nese letters in this half of the book, and also added the phonetic symbols, meaning.

Looking at it this way, it wouldn't take much time to compile a simple dictionary. Xia Duo was looking forward to the scene when he took the dictionary to the library to borrow it.

Just when he was about to seize the time to sort out other words, the light in Dean's dormitory suddenly dimmed, as if he suddenly turned from day to night. Although he could still vaguely see his five fingers, he couldn't continue writing.

Xia Duo felt that the darkness this night was much thicker than the low-quality ink he bought.

"Dean, does the Mage Tower behave like this every day?"

"Well, the light in the mage tower also comes from the outside world. When the Lord of Glory returns to his divine kingdom, the inside of the mage tower will no longer provide lighting. But I heard that if you have the authority to energy pool like the mage, there will be no day and night. limited."

After saying this, Xia Duo understood that the Emotional Mage Tower used solar energy, but the energy reserves were not open to apprentices. If they wanted to get more study time, they could only light candles at night.

No wonder candles and matches are distributed to apprentices.

But since the lights were "out" and Dean had no intention of lighting a candle for him, Xia Duo could only say goodbye and leave. Because it was only the first day, Xia Duo didn't realize how tight the apprentice's time was.

…

Dormitory 02163, Xia Duo just opened the door from the inside, and seven or eight apprentices from outside crowded in, and at the same time they shouted:

"Dean, it's your turn today, why haven't you lit the candles yet?"

Xia Duo didn't leave for the time being, wanting to see what was going on. Dean was a little embarrassed for a moment. Fortunately, the light was very dark and he couldn't see it. Regardless of whether Xia Duo was still there, he took out the match from the inner pocket of the mage's robe. Lighted his own candle.

The apprentices who had just come in burned Dean's candle one by one, and then left with their own candles.

"Um - Xia Duo, it's not cost-effective to use one match a day, so I made an appointment with a few people to share it. Do you want to continue copying?"

Although he said that, Dean was stuck at the door and had no intention of letting Sha Duo in again.

"No need, I'm going back. I don't know what chores I will have tomorrow."

Xia Duo also found it a bit funny, but when he thought about it carefully, these apprentices struggling at the bottom might be his true reflection in the future. When he thought about it, he felt that his idea just now was really funny.

Returning to his dormitory in the dark, Xia Duo also began to gradually adapt to life in the Mage Tower.