"Halt! State your business beyond the city walls," the guards standing on the inner side of the town's walls called out to Illyan, who came closer.

"Greetings, sir. My name is Kaoran, and I am the institute’s physician. I am going out for some time to forage for herbs," Illyan stated calmly as he flashed the badge that confirmed his identity.

The guard looked at the badge and then back at Kaoran before stepping aside.

"Hmm. I heard that there is a new doctor in town. Good for us. It looks like God is watching over us and has noticed our misery," the guard lamented before waving his hand.

"Alright. I won’t keep you here anymore. Just be careful and don’t die out there, alright? That would be a catastrophe."

Illyan nodded at the guard as he passed through the side doors meant for individuals like him.

As he was going through the wall’s gateway, he saw the moist and damp stones it was made of. There was moss growing in some parts, and the smell wasn’t great.

If someone really attacked, the walls would fall in no time.

However, he didn’t have time to ponder this as he quickly came out from the other side, where he nodded at the other guards, who were different from the last time.

At first, he went straight on the road until he got far away, and then he headed right into the dense forest on the side.

The moment he did so, he inhaled the scent of the woods and relaxed his body.

His aura slowly receded as he employed the [Nature Breath Method], making him less noticeable to the eyes of others.

Illyan didn’t notice anyone following him, but it was better to do it. Even if there wasn’t anyone, he still improved his proficiency in doing so.

Once he felt his presence was as shallow as it could get, he started to run deeper into the forest.

He was evading trees and bushes while jumping over depressions in the ground.

When the ground was inaccessible, he climbed a tree and jumped from tree to tree. He sometimes even swung himself on the branches just like monkeys would.

However, while he was running like this, he ran his spiritual perception at full capacity, feeling the plants around him. Whenever he noticed the herb he needed, he immediately jumped down to carefully collect it.

He even prepared a special satchel for them.

"This Ice Droplet Root is exactly what I need," Illyan nodded in satisfaction before he once again went on his way.

After several hours of running around, he was so far from the town that he didn’t need to fear meeting someone accidentally.

His body was also so pumped up that his veins were visible on his arms and neck as he felt the blood flowing inside of him. It felt deafening.

The reason why he was so willful in running around was not only to travel fast but also to train the [Way of the Body] that was turning rusty after no use for so long. The town was truly suffocating him.

Once he was satisfied with stretching himself, he found a big rocky crag and climbed on it to watch the surroundings.

He had a certain goal in going out.

He was lucky as he immediately saw what he needed. Without wasting time, he ran in the direction of what he saw.

Soon after, his ears trembled as the sound of flowing water reached him. He hastened his tempo, running through trees until he finally reached the clearing with the river.

The weather was already warm enough that the water didn’t freeze.

Once he found the river, he went next to it against the flow. He looked inside the clear water and saw fish swimming inside.

The sounds of birds chirping also calmed his mind as he emptied his thoughts.

His meditation suddenly reached as much efficiency as it would have if he sat still. Normally, there would be high inefficiency because of the movements and the thoughts concerning them, but now Illyan felt as if he was floating in the clouds.

Without even realizing it, Illyan arrived at the end of the river. There, water was flowing from the cracked rock several meters high above the ground. He found a small waterfall among the rocky environment.

Illyan’s mouth curled up as he took a small shovel from his bag.

"It is time to begin…"

……..

The animals inside the forest were disturbed as loud noises resounded within it.

Birds flew away while other animals ran away.

Meanwhile, Illyan didn’t care as he found flat ground next to the waterfall and started digging the dirt. It took him time, but with his relentless digging, he soon made a hole over a meter deep and wide.

Once he was satisfied, he went towards the river and crouched down at the riverbank.

There, he collected the clay into a small container that he had in his bag and mixed it with water. After that, he coated the insides of the pit with it.

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He repeated this thousands of times until he covered the entire pit with clay with the thickness of his palm.

Afterward, he started collecting big rocks and stones and began covering the clay in the pit with them. At first, he made the bottom, then he covered the walls. He sealed the holes between them with smaller rocks and more clay.

Once he was done, he jumped out and started collecting firewood. When he had enough, he set up a fire around the pit.

To distribute the heat equally, he made eight fireplaces.

At first, he made them small so the heat wasn’t overwhelming, but as time passed, he added more and more firewood to the fires.

This entire construct took him over half a day to make.

Now he had to maintain the fires for who knows how long.

But he was patient.

What he was doing was essential for him.

And that was…

A bathtub!

There was no way for him to buy bathtubs inside the town as they were quite expensive. Not to mention that the water to fill the bathtub would cost him an arm and a leg.

Especially at the frequency that Illyan planned to bathe.

He covered the pit with clay and rocks to prevent water leakage, but he knew that if the clay didn’t dry out, the man-made bathtub was useless.

Unfortunately, even if the weather got warmer, it would still take weeks or possibly even months for the clay to dry out by itself.

So he set up the fires to keep the surroundings warm. He couldn’t make the fires too big or too close to the pit as the thermal shock would crack the clay, so it was kind of tiring for his mind.

However, once he got the knack for it, he always had some time before he needed to check the fires again, so he hunted some birds and cooked them on one of the fires with herbs he collected before.

Once he was done eating, he took one of the parchments he took from Armen.

On it, the Mind Strengthening Runes were pulsating with power.

He stared at them and tried to feel all of their intricacies, but the more he did, the more they blurred.

Once he couldn’t bear watching it, he turned to the notes written at the edges of the parchment.

‘This is a poor replica of the real Mind Strengthening Runes and was made by one of the inscriptionists of The Black Obsidian. But it should be enough to push oneself over the 30th point of the Mind Unit to open up your Seat of Consciousness and reach the Magister level of the Arcanist’s profession. To achieve that, you must be able to visualize all of the runes in your mind in the diagram of eight suns…’

After reading all of that and most of Arwen's diary, Illyan realized that there were three most prominent professions on the continent that Magisters could become.

Those professions were Mage, Wizard, and Arcanist.

Three similar but at the same time different professions that had a specialized approach to the study of magic.

As the notes of Mind Strengthening Runes hinted, Arcanists’ main power source was their mind.

They used their minds to move mana around or shape reality with its strength alone. They focused on their intent to do something and were easily able to make abstract magic.

Their center of power was inside their head where the Seat of Consciousness lay.

Once they collected enough knowledge, which would enlighten their minds and allow them to practice Arcane Magic, they would be especially dangerous.

But the profession of Mages was much simpler.

Their main characteristic was…

Talent.

Most of the Mages had extreme talent in the mana and could manipulate it just through their will alone. They also used their affinities for certain elements to their advantage, becoming walking disasters.

Though, because of that, they also needed inhuman focus and the ability to visualize as they needed to keep the mana under their control at all times.

Thanks to that, however, they were limited only by their imagination and the quality and quantity of their mana collected inside the Mana Nexus.

The last profession was at first glance the combination of both in the eyes of ignorant people, but they couldn’t be more wrong.

Wizards used mana in the same way as mages. But they didn’t need as much talent.

They collected knowledge like Arcanists, but they didn’t use it directly as a power source like Mind Power did.

They used their intelligence and memorization to calculate a more efficient way to do magic.

Instead of feeling the mana like Mages did, they used the logic behind the magic to manipulate it.

Even their source of power, which was the Magic Circuit carved inside and out of their entire body, was focused on being the most efficient.

The creation of magic mediums was the result of that.

The most typical mediums for them were Vocal Chants, Hand Incantations, Magic Circles, Wands, and Runes.

Of course, whenever they wanted to learn or create new magic, they always had to adjust their mediums, which was extremely difficult to do in a short time.

Because of that, Wizards were known to prepare the most out of the three professions. They were the most rational and calculating of them.

That also gave them an edge in battles. The mediums could become traps hidden from the eyes or could be accumulated in the form of magic scrolls.

These written models of spells could then be passed on to other people to learn.

That’s how the sub-profession of Spellcaster came to be. These were people who learned simple spells that Wizards made despite not being able to create them themselves.

There were many other professions and sub-professions out there, but these three were the basic foundation for most Magisters.

‘So that’s how it is, huh. Ezekiel seemed to focus mainly on the Mage profession as his attacks were straightforward and not so smooth. On the other hand, Aziro seemed to be more dependent on his Mind Power while using some spells.’

Illyan pondered while sitting next to the fireplaces.

‘Wouldn’t that make him a Spellcaster too?’

It was then that Illyan realized that most people would probably dabble in more professions to combine them to create the best results.

Only a few would choose purely one profession.

Even the basic way to progress to Magister was to create your Mana Nexus, Mana Circuit, and a minimal amount of Mind Power.

It was then a personal choice which of the three one would focus on.

But for the current Illyan, this question was not important.

He couldn’t even be considered a Novice Magician.

For now, he had to take things slowly, step by step.

‘I need to strengthen my mind first. Since my mana affinity is bad, I should help myself with Mind Power. Not only that, but this should allow me to think more quickly as the mind itself will get stronger…’

Illyan nodded to himself as he once again started to stare at the runes.

However, doubt crept into his heart.

‘I wonder why everyone on this continent uses only mana. Is it because the Bakur Legacy was from a different continent? But even so…’

"Ugh!" As his thoughts were wandering, the runes turned even more blurry while his mind trembled.

He even saw the silver breeze flowing past him. The more his mind was unstable, the clearer connection he had to Zephyr.

Fortunately, his mind soon stopped hurting.

That gave Illyan an idea.

The more he stared at the runes, the stronger his mind was becoming. But the progress had to be reset to a certain extent every time he had to rest his mind from staring.

But if he ignored the pain…

Arwen’s notes described that some people would lose their mind and go insane.

But Illyan should be able to recover.

In fact, Illyan’s mind was once cracked before it recovered.

And that was when he once visited the Spirit World.

He always thought that it was his spirit that entered the world, but that was false.

Kaoran had once revealed it to him. Spirits weren’t that easy to separate from the body.

It was only his astral body that visited the Spirit World. His Astral Body was just a brittle condensation of his mind. Normally, people wouldn’t be able to do this, but thanks to Bakur’s tribe's extreme training and fights, people’s willpower grew, making their minds denser too.

Together with the drug from the Bakur Legacy, they were able to condense an Astral Body for a limited time.

But that wasn’t important now.

What was important was that since his Astral Body could recover, then his mind should too.

‘I guess it is time to exploit my regeneration…’

Illyan smirked as he opened his eyes wide at the pulsating parchment.