Green Lark Inn.

In the dim room, Rosen clearly felt Celest's hostility, though he was puzzled, he didn't dare to be careless.

He hurriedly jumped down from the bed and asked carefully: "Master, have I done something wrong?"

Celest seemed to be immersed in some kind of emotion, Rosen's voice woke him up.

The cold light in his eyes quickly receded, but his face still retained the undiminished coldness, like an icicle floating in icy water, shocking to behold.

"No, you did nothing wrong, you did very well, far beyond my imagination!"

As he spoke, a hint of undisguisable jealousy flashed through Celest's eyes.

He didn't expect that a shepherd boy who grew up in a remote mountain village, with no foundation in magic at all, was able to enter a deep meditative trance on his first try at learning.

Back when he was at the Golden Dawn Academy, it took him a full six months to accomplish this, and even now, twenty years later, he couldn't be sure of entering a deep meditative state at will.

When his mind was troubled, even shallow meditation was hard to achieve.

Some are born superior while others inferior, how vexing!

Jealousy gnawed at Celest's heart like a venomous snake, filling him with immense irritation.

The more he looked at Rosen, the more this irritation grew, almost making him want to curse the boy on the spot with a malicious hex to make his heart explode and die.

But reason barely restrained the impulse.

"Rosen, you have already perfectly mastered meditative trance. But to further learn magical knowledge, you must earn more money."

"Yes, Master."

Rosen was as respectful as ever, but deep down he felt a chill.

In his previous life of over forty years, his experience and insight naturally far exceeded that of a 14-year-old boy. He saw through Celest's thoughts at a glance.

'He's already a low-level mage, yet he's jealous of me, a beginner, even almost wanting to kill me. His mind is narrower than the eye of a needle.'

When dealing with this kind of person, especially when in an absolutely disadvantaged position, one had to be extremely careful, not stimulating the other's self-esteem in the slightest.

He thought to himself: 'I'd better play the fool.'

On the other side, Celest of course didn't know Rosen's thoughts. He took out a book from his jacket.

"Here's the book Painting Techniques for you, and these paints and canvases too, all for you. Study them carefully and quickly master oil painting skills."

Having said that, seeing Rosen silent, he immediately felt displeased: "Why so quiet?"

"Master, I can't read," the boy's voice was like a mosquito, his face flushed red, seemingly very ashamed.

Celest frowned, lightly tapped his own forehead: "Oh, of course a wild child like you growing up in the mountains wouldn't know how to read."

His face showed five parts chagrin, five parts impatience. After pondering for a moment, he said very reluctantly: "Let's do this - I'll read the book aloud to you. Wherever you don't understand, just ask me, got it?"

Rosen was delighted, and quickly nodded: "Yes, Master."

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

By now it was 7 pm, the sky was already pitch dark. Celest lit the oil lamp on the table, laid Painting Techniques flat on the table, and started reading sentence by sentence.

Rosen listened attentively, eyes fixed tightly on the words on the pages.

After reading a few sentences, Celest asked: "Do you understand?"

Rosen was about to say he understood, but remembering what had happened earlier, changed to shaking his head in puzzlement: "Master, I don't really understand the term 'mix uniformly' in the third sentence."

Celest scornfully cursed: "What an idiot!"

Having cursed, he restrained his temper and carefully explained it. After all, this concerned his future income.

For the time that followed, Celest read while explaining in detail, and Rosen played the role of a clumsy little kid, clumsily learning, until late into the night before they finished reading through the entire Painting Techniques.

'Phew...'

Celest let out a long breath, exhaustion showing on his gaunt face: "That's it for today, I've lectured you on the introductory oil painting skills. Starting tomorrow, you practice with real objects, strive to master the craft as soon as possible."

"Yes, I'll remember."

Celest lay down on the wooden bed in one move, then pointed to the corner of the room: "I'm going to rest, you sleep on the floor over there. No noise while sleeping, understand?!"

"Yes, Master."

'Pfft...'

Celest extinguished the oil lamp, the room falling into complete darkness.

Rosen tiptoed to the corner of the room and lay down fully dressed on the floor.

The wooden floor was dirty and hard, but fortunately this was on the second floor, and downstairs was the inn's lobby, where the fireplace warmed the ceiling, incidentally heating the boards a little too.

Still very cold, but barely tolerable.

Tightening his fur coat, Rosen closed his eyes, concentrated, summoned up the desktop, opened his Adventure Log, and started replaying the first half of the night's reading.

In the video, Rosen listened to the audio while checking the otherworldly text in the book, and began learning this world's written script.

An illiterate couldn't become a mage.

Just as he was studying attentively, he suddenly heard an extremely loud swooshing sound from outside, with the window pane banging loudly from the gust. Right after, the town's dogs started barking wildly.

Rosen was startled, looking towards the window. Through the low-quality green glass, he saw grayish white light coming in, as if it was dawn.

But he clearly remembered Celest taking out his pocket watch to check the time earlier, it was only 1 am!

Celest was also woken up, scrambling up from the bed, he bent over and walked to the window, only exposing his eyes above the sill, carefully peering outside.

'WHOOSH!'

Another penetrating sound slammed in, directly shattering the glass and leaving both their ears ringing, nearly deafened.

The entire inn, even the whole town was woken up, with exclamations constantly coming in from outside the room.

It took Rosen a good while before he felt his hearing come back. He asked in shock: "Master, what on earth happened?"

Celest didn't respond, the pale light outside reflecting on his gaunt face, completely exposing his frightened expression.

Clearly this matter also far exceeded his abilities.

Just then, Rosen saw in the sky outside the low-hanging ashen clouds, a faint enormous black shadow flickering past at unbelievable speed.

In one moment the shadow was approaching White Horse Town's airspace, the next it was already madly racing northwest.

Like a low-flying supersonic fighter jet!

The scene also resembled a giant ink wash painting on the sky as canvas, full of black and white tones.

As the black shadow receded, the grayish light in the clouds also quickly dimmed, until the night was restored to darkness once more.

The frigid winter night fell silent again, the bizarre occurrence seemingly just a nightmare.

But the broken window glass, the ongoing voices outside, kept proving the nightmare's real existence.

For the longest time, Rosen came back to his senses, and carefully asked: "Master, what was that?"

Celest had regained his calm, though his haggard cheeks still showed lingering fright.

"An Ash Bird, fallen offspring of the Nightmare King, the undying Phoenix. Fortunately it just passed by. Otherwise its corrupting fire could have instantly reduced White Horse Town to ashes, and the lives burned by the corrupting fire would be reborn as sleepless undead."

Rosen was even more horrified: "If it intended harm, could anyone stop it?"

Celest snorted disdainfully: "No one could stop it, only the gods could. But there's no need to worry excessively, a thousand years ago the Gold God and supreme beings made a non-aggression pact, the Third Golden Rule."

"The pact decrees the Gold Land will forever remain free from harassment by supreme beings, violators to face divine retribution. So unless that Ash Bird went insane, it won't attack White Horse Town."

"Oh~"

This answer gave Rosen tremendous psychological comfort. After all, no one liked living in a turbulent, perilous mess.

Celest pointed at the shattered window: "Block the window with bear fur, clean up the broken glass, then go back to sleep."

"Yes, Master."

After a flurry of activity, Rosen lay back down on the cold hard floor, but his mind was in turmoil for a long time, thoughts rolling one after another.

'Are humans the pet dogs of the gods?'

'Without the gods' protection, how would mortals face the real world?'

'What kind of existence is this Gold God who laid down the Golden Rules?'

No answers forthcoming, Celest surely wouldn't and didn't dare reply to such impious questions. So the answers could only be sought by himself.

Rosen focused his mind and began learning the otherworldly script again.